@Spirit Daily
The Croatian priest we wrote about last spring who bears the stigmata and has been the subject of intense interest in his homeland has arrived in the U.S., where he has been sent for rest and quiet study. Father Zlatko Sudac from Vrbnik on the Adriatic island of Krk -- fast becoming one of the best-known modern mystics -- is currently studying English in New York City. His bishop has directed him to keep a low profile, although he will be allowed to give several retreats during the next year, according to a priest who is staying with him.
We're not going to get into the details of where he is. He needs his rest, and must remain obedient to the bishop of Krk. But let us report that those who have attended his retreats uniformly describe him as a special, holy man whose age belies a deep spirituality. Moreover, he seems gifted with an array of supernatural gifts, including healing, bilocation, the ability to read souls, heavenly singing, and a perfect stigmatic cross that has formed on his forehead.
"When he was home, he did not get a minute of peace," says the priest who is accompanying him, explaining why Father Sudac is now on something of a "vacation" and adhering to the directives of his bishop, who must clear all public appearances and is strictly limiting them.
Father Sudac is scheduled to appear November 9-10 in Chicago write here for information] and possibly a couple other locations, including the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington in October, although the latter appearance has not yet been confirmed.
As always with any new mystic we urge caution (as well as fasting and prayer) in the discernment process. But thus far the fruits appear good, and in Catholic circles it is certainly a fascinating development. Not since Venezuelan seer and stigmatist Maria Esperanza swept onto the scene in the 1990s has a mystic so immediately captured the imagination.
Only 30, the priest is already inspiring the kind of awe reserved for people like Padre Pio, the great Italian mystic.
"He is the most extraordinary person I ever met," says Nadia Zogbi of Cleveland.
"He has the gift of knowledge. I saw this myself. We heard some other stories, like how he began to levitate during a seminar and had to grab onto a chair. We heard he would be walking with friends and begin to levitate."
These are obviously extraordinary and nearly incredible claims. But they do bear many historical precedents. The levitation brings to mind historical saints such as Saint Joseph of Cupertino. More important is the sense of calm wisdom that surrounds him and his deep teachings on Christianity. "He is a very holy priest," adds Lucy Willitts of Bermuda, who like Nadia spent several days in retreat with the priest last summer. "He has given 100 percent to God. We didn't see any levitation and his wrists and foreheads were covered but there is a clarity about him. There is a lot of fasting." Sister Marie Michael Miller of
Elmira, New York, who has also met him, called it "a truly awesome experience, the most wonderful retreat that I've ever made. I felt to be as Christ-like a person as I ever met."
It's said Father Sudac has eyes that bring to mind Jesus and doesn't like to wear anything but white. "I was overwhelmed by his incredible humility," adds Nadia, while others mention a feeling of joy. "I don't think I've ever been so touched in my life," says Roberta Brus of Cody, Wyoming. "I felt like I was actually in the presence of Jesus a little bit."
Again we urge discernment and will keep you posted on this developing story, which has the potential for inspiration -- showing us how to let Jesus live through us, to transform into His will. As a young priest Father Sudac had served in the Yugoslavian military (where, after a bout of religious skepticism, he started prayer groups) and his conversion is traced to attendance of a seminar given by a well-known charismatic priest, Emilio Tardiff, in Slovenia. At the
time Father Sudac had a girlfriend and was ready for marriage but returned from the seminar with a call to the priesthood, according to his translator, Ann Vucic, who described his background to Spirit Daily last spring. She explained that the
priest had begun singing and speaking in "tongues," and was astonished one day to learn that a mysterious song which had come to him and that he had been singing in tongues was also in the movie Schindler's List -- a Semitic song about
the heavenly homeland, the "golden Jerusalem," that Jews had sung on the way to German gas chambers.
It was the onset of a mystical torrent. On June 29, 1998, Sudac was ordained as a diocesan priest. The cross on his forehead appeared a year later -- in fact the Friday after the May 1999 beatification of Padre Pio, who had likewise borne the stigmata. It began at a friend's home on a Friday. According to Vucic an evaluation at the Gemelli Clinic in Rome (where the Pope has been treated) turned up inexplicable evidence that the edge of the stigmata on his forehead slices through cells without killing them -- something unknown to medical experts, who she says explained that a penetration of a cell is usually deadly to that
cell. Those attending his seminars say they were told an attempt to remove the forehead wound failed; the cross reappeared. The other wounds materialized on the feast of St. Francis -- the first known stigmatist -- while Father Sudac was studying at a convent in Italy, where he found the wounds after dozing off in a chapel.
"That day he had been in such a state that he couldn't find the chapel," relates Vucic. "He opened every door and couldn't find it. Finally he found it, opened the tabernacle, took the monstrance in his hands, and dozed off, and when he woke up
he was bloody."
The hand wounds are in the wrists (where many believe Christ's wounds were actually located), and the cross on his forehead brings to mind a similarly positioned mark on the
Shroud of Turin. Father Sudac uses ace bandages to hide the wounds, except on Fridays, when blood from the forehead soaks the bandage, which his superiors allow him to remove, according to the translator. He is currently assigned to
Mali Losinj in the northern Adriatic. Vucic says Father Sudac had been taken to the famous apparition site of Medjugorje in neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina as a child and then two other times before onset of the head wound. He is said to ask
people to go to Medjugorje before his retreats in Croatia.
His voice is described as extraordinary when he is singing in Hebrew. Likewise, he has extraordinary abilities at artwork, including stained glass, it's reported.
