On Prayer

   I have a very dear friend who is very ill. She is in constant pain and has been since November. She has seen several specialists and has had many tests. She is awaiting word for a new specialist as to what is causing her pain. Yes, I hope you will pray for her. Please pray that she and any other people who are ill will be freed from discouragement. For many suffer that also with the pain. It is when the pain continues, the tests show no answers, a new doctor must be seen. Over time discouragement sets in. Of course, this is understandable. It is an emotion. My friend has great faith and trust in God. But people who are ill over a long period of time do become discouraged. So this time I encourage you to pray for the sick who endure discouragement that it will be lifted from them.

Mirjana Answers Questions of Pilgrims

The following questions were asked of Mirjana outside her home after her talk on June 19, 2006.

Q: The weeping Jesus (behind St. James Church), has Our Lady said anything about the knee?

A: No

Q: Do you feel the weight of the secrets?

A: What would you say, looking at me? (Laughter) This is what Our Lady said:”Do not think about the secrets. Pray, because the one who feels me as a Mother and God as a Father, that person has no fear of anything."  Our Lady says that only those who have not yet come to know the love of God have fear. But we as human beings always talk about the future – what, when, where will happen. But who among us present here can say for sure that we will be alive tomorrow?  Our Lady has been teaching us that we should be ready this very moment to come before God. And in the future God’s Will will be done, and our task is to be ready for that.  And I would really like to tell you not to bother yourself with the secrets, but you should worry about your soul, because Our Lady does not want our faith out of fear. She wants our faith out of our heart.  And that is why... pray in order to get to know the love of God, and then you will not be afraid of anything.

Q: What does Mirjana believe Our Lady means when She talks about the “signs of the times” in the April 2 (2006)

and March 18 (2006) messages? [also June 2, 2007]

A: I’m so happy and glad you asked that question because those messages are telling me a lot. Our Lady is addressing every single person individually. And now I’d really like to recommend you to take those messages from your guide in English and go to a quiet place where you will be alone to pray, and to try to understand through prayer what God is telling you through those words - because your “signs of the times” could be completely different from mine.  That is why I am not authorized or have the right to tell you the way I understand.  You have to understand that through your own prayer on your own.  It is definitely important because Our Lady mentioned it on March 18 and April 2 as well.

Note: In her talk before the questions were asked, Mirjana said, “When Our Lady gives me a message Our Lady does not explain that message to me. Same as everybody else, I have to pray so that through this prayer I can realize what God wants to tell me.” 

Miraculous Escape - Pilgrims Survive Bus Crash

   By all accounts it was indeed a miracle that no one was killed on the bus carrying 34 American pilgrims from Sarajevo to Medjugorje.

   The accident happened just 12 miles into the journey when another vehicle jack-knifed and forced the driver of the pilgrim bus to take evasive action.  But he was unable to halt the vehicle and stop it sliding through a safety barrier and down forty feet into a shallow river of water.

   After the crash 20 people were hospitalized, including two children traumatized by the incident. The most serious casualty was Andy Meier, on pilgrimage with his wife and three children.  Andy was later flown to Rome and then airlifted back home to Wisconsin, paralyzed with a broken back.

   His wife Elizabeth attributes her husband’s survival to prayer. “I really am grateful for people praying for him and everybody on that bus because without prayer I don’t think he’d be here right now and I don’t think he would be home today.”

   Fr. Rick Wendell, the priest leading the pilgrims was also hurt and suffered a broken wrist.  Fr. Rick was sitting in the front seat of the bus and saw the jack-knifed trailer coming right at them. “The trailer part came all the way over until it was almost touching the guard rail on our side, so we had no place to go. And then impact – our driver had nothing he could do.  And when it hit, everything went dark and then there was a second large crunch.

   “Under the circumstances, that we are all alive, we can’t call it anything else than miraculous.  It was a very serious accident, and people who witnessed it couldn’t believe that people didn’t die,” said the 42 year-old priest ordained just a little over a year ago.

   “I think we will heal; these injuries for the most part are physical and can heal, but we need the prayers in that process,” added Fr. Rick.

   The Medjugorje Franciscan priests, Fr. Svet and Fr. Ljubo ministered to the injured in the hospital.

Ransomed From Darkness

By June Klins

   “Ignorance is bliss,” the saying goes. One person who will tell you that is not true is Moira Noonan, a former Religious Science minister, psychic counselor and therapist, who was ransomed from darkness to the true Light of Jesus Christ through His Mother.

   Moira Noonan spoke at the Medjugorje Conference at Notre Dame on May27, 2007. She began her talk with the St. Michael prayer, a prayer she says frequently. She witnessed her conversion story and warned of the dangers of the New Age movement. According to www.beliefnet.com, New Age is “an umbrella term for a wide range of personal and individual beliefs and practices influenced primarily by Eastern religions, paganism, and spiritism.”  Moira Noonan describes New Age as “a display of power rather than a call to love. People are motivated by the prospect of having their wishes fulfilled, rather than by a sense of surrender to God’s Will.” Several times in her talk, she referred to the “holy trinity” of New Age as “me, myself and I.”  God is seen as an impersonal life force rather than a personal God with whom we have a relationship.

   Moira was brought up in California as a Catholic, but abandoned her faith at age 15. When she went away to boarding school, a teacher there introduced her to Eastern religions, reincarnation and transcendental meditation. Years later she would be lured into the world of spiritism after a car accident left her in chronic pain. Her insurance company sent her to a pain clinic where they took away all pain killers and gave her a series of messages that were anti-Christian. The messages condemned any acceptance of suffering as redemptive. She called it “professional brainwashing.”  She says, “My insurance company paid for me to get into the occult.”  The pain clinic encouraged  the patients to join “New Thought” churches such as such as Unity and Religious Science, Christian Science and Unitarian. Moira fell prey to all their ideas and, after 4 years of “seminary,” became a minister in the church of Religious Science. She became certified in hypnotherapy, and developed expertise in past-life regression, astrology, the Course in Miracles, Reiki, channeling, crystals, clairvoyance and other occult practices. Moira did not realize at the time that “through this kind of thinking, demon spirits inflate the ego, sometimes to the point that we believe we are creator gods.” This kind of thinking breaks the First Commandment, and soon all the others. She also did not realize that spirit guides, demon spirits can give you signs, wonders and miracles, but these signs are an encouragement for PRIDE. Although she did not elaborate in her talk about the darkness she wrestled with during these years, she did write about it in her book, Ransomed From Darkness. .

   One day Moira was reading a magazine called “New Age Journal” and there was an article in there by a leader in the New Age movement who went to Medjugorje. She said that Our Lady was a “goddess” and that She was coming to Earth to see the “Earth goddess.”  As soon as Moira read that, she knew this was wrong. (She credited the nuns from second grade with the shred of Catholicism she had left.) She prayed a simple prayer, “Mother Mary, I know You’re not a goddess. I know this article is not true, but if You are coming to Earth in any way, shape or form, I’d really like to meet You.” 

   Little by little, Our Lady answered that prayer. One evening at a table tipping session (where they would call on spirits to move objects around) Moira felt a presence of something beautiful and angelic. She wondered about it, and an interior voice answered, “I am the Queen of Peace.”

   In July, 1991, “Life” Magazine wrote about the miracles of Medjugorje. Soon after Moira read the magazine, she turned on the TV and it just happened that Joan Rivers was interviewing two priests and author Michael Brown about Medjugorje. Joan Rivers was holding a rosary that had turned gold.

   By this point Moira was really intrigued and wanted to know more. Her babysitter’s mother, who was Catholic, led her to a Catholic bookstore, where she and another spiritism minister walked in on a talk about Medjugorje. After the talk, a Bible class began, but Moira and her friend thought they knew everything about the Bible, so they left and went to the beach. Her friend pulled out her crystal pendulum, which is something New Agers carry to channel spirit guides for spiritual direction. Although Moira did not know at the time, she now proclaims, “Of course, it’s demonic – false locutions, counterfeit gifts, not from the Holy Spirit.”  Her friend could not get the pendulum  to work, so she asked Moira to do it. As Moira went to reach for it, there was an invisible wall between her hand and the pendulum, and she could not touch it. And at the same moment she could see a beautiful white rosary over her hand, and she heard a very sweet interior voice say, “Pray the Rosary for your prayers to be answered.”  She told her friend, “I’m not allowed to touch that pendulum or any pendulum ever again.”  They wondered about where to get a rosary, so they went back to the Catholic bookstore. A lady at the bookstore gave Moira a copy of the “Pieta” prayer book, where there is an explanation of how to pray the Rosary. This same lady told Moira about a priest in Scottsdale, Arizona who took groups of pilgrims to Medjugorje.

   Before long, Moira enticed a vanload of people to go to Sedona, Arizona  to the site of  the “UFO’s”  (CNN called this place the “New age Capital of the World”) and planned to stop at the church in Scottsdale in the same trip. Moira arrived as Mass was going on. It was her first Mass in almost 30 years and everything seemed so foreign to her. She stood up, while everyone else was sitting, and prayed, “Lord Jesus, if this priest is from You, give me a sign right now or I’m leaving and I’m never coming back.” Immediately, right above the priest’s head, she saw the face of Jesus, with His crown of thorns, blood dripping down, similar to how He looked in “The Passion of the Christ.” She heard an interior voice speak with authority, “This is my son. He is my disciple. Sit down. You are home.”  At Communion time, as she sat in the pew, all the sins of her past life flashed through her head like a movie. At the same time God’s grace came through and she remembered one of the great gifts Jesus gave to the Church - the sacrament of Confession! After Mass she went to look for the priest and found him in the parking lot. She began her first confession in 30 years right there in the parking lot!  After 25 minutes, Father asked her to return the next day to finish. The next day he told her to go back to California and get a spiritual director at the Benedictine monastery. The priest she got was from India and knew all about how she had been transformed by the Eastern religions. He took her through 3 years of healing of memories. Since that time many people have come to the faith or come back to the faith through her, including an Oriental Medicine doctor who practiced Tibetan Buddhism!

   Several years later Moira finally made the trip to Medjugorje. She waited 6 hours in line to go to confession there, and then spent 2 more hours in the confessional. The priest told her that he wanted to see her in his office the next day. He told her he was approved by Pope John Paul II as an exorcist and asked her if she would be willing to have an exorcism. She agreed. It took 16 hours for the exorcism. She was finally ransomed completely from darkness !

   Moira ended her talk with the Hail Mary “in honor of Our Lady who cries for Her lost children.”  The spirit of New Age seeks the ruin of souls. Let us pray for people who are involved in these practices. As Moira says, they are actually looking for the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit, but are looking in the wrong places. She adds that Christians need to be vigilant. Ignorance is NOT bliss.

Editor’s note: Moira is the author of Ransomed From Darkness: The New Age, Christian Faith, and the Battle for Souls. She is available to speak for your group or parish. You can contact her through her website, www.spiritbattleforsouls.org.

Father Jozo is Saddened!

By Sister Emmanuel

   During a retreat for English speaking pilgrims held in April, Father Jozo brought up a sore point that concerns many pilgrims.  He observed that “spiritual tourism” is taking over the lives of the pilgrims while they are in Medjugorje.  Rare are the pilgrims truly encouraged to live the messages of Our Lady.  Giving an example of fasting, he added that sometimes pilgrims listen to Vicka speak in the morning, they hear the message about fasting from her mouth, but the same day they eat bountiful meals offered by the hotel - even on Wednesday or Friday; or they go to a restaurant. This is serious!

   Some of the pansions are not family homes of the parish giving testimony (as the Gospa asked them to do), but rather they are three or four star hotels, where most of the employees are not involved in the spiritual event of Medjugorje.  

   Father Jozo concluded by inviting the pilgrims to take the invitation of the Gospa seriously, and to be witnesses of Her messages, living the 5 points, starting in the pansions.  "Demand that the pansions respect the requests of the Gospa!" He said.  

   The leaders of the groups carry a heavy responsibility, because the spiritual fruits the pilgrims will take from their stay depends largely on how the messages are presented to them.  In February, for example, the leader of a group offered that his pilgrims fast on bread and water twice during their stay – Wednesday and Friday.  He had informed the pansion – owned by a devout Catholic family – that on these two days, the pilgrims would eat only breakfast (a substantial saving for the pilgrims!). The fruits were more than convincing! 

   The Gospa knows very well that each of us has at least one heavy burden to entrust to Her, and that we beg Her to help us. In Medjugorje, She gives us again and again the sure means to conquer evil.   Why discard it in the very spot where She gives it to us? What do we do with Her maternal advice? Who has ever regretted to live the messages to their fullness?   Would our Mother ever let us down on Her promises?   

   Last March 25th, She told us again:  "I desire to inspire you to continue to live fasting with an open heart. By fasting and renunciation, little children, you will be strong in faith. In God you will find peace through daily prayer…"

                                                                                               Children of Medjugorje, www.childrenofmedjugorje.com

Fasting Trivia

Prayer and Fasting for Life

By June Klins

   Recently a lady at my church told me that she was praying for her husband’s safety on a job he was on out of town. She said she had originally planned to fast for this intention too, but decided not to because she said it seemed like “making a bargain with God – bribing God.”  I did not get a chance to respond to her because she walked away right then. I thought about how she must never have read Our Lady’s messages about how powerful fasting can be. Our Lady said, “If you pray and fast, you will obtain everything you ask for” (10/29/83), and She even said that fasting can stop wars and suspend the laws of nature (7/21/82). Our Lady does not speak on Her own. Everything She speaks is really a message from God. So He WANTS us to fast for an intention. 

   I was also surprised at this lady’s comment, knowing that she reads the Bible consistently.  There are many instances in the Bible where people fasted and prayed and their petition was granted. So, after Mass that day I prayed to the Holy Spirit to find a story where I could show this lady an example.

    I opened the Bible to the 15th chapter of 2 Maccabbees. “ Ughhhh,”  I thought.  I don’t enjoy reading about all those battles in the books of Maccabees. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this chapter was different (or maybe my attitude was). Among other things, it talked about trust in God: “He urged his men not to fear the enemy, but mindful of the help they had received from Heaven in the past, to expect that now, too, victory would be given them by the Almighty” (2Mac 15:8).  There was also a reference to the value of reading the Scriptures: “By encouraging them with words from the law and the prophets, and by reminding them of the battles they had already won, he filled them with fresh enthusiasm” (2Mac 15:9). There was even a reference to the intercession of the saints for the people on earth (2 Mac 15:11-16) !  I especially liked the line which says, “Maccabeus, contemplating the hosts before him, their elaborate equipment, and the fierceness of their elephants, stretched out his hands toward heaven and called upon the LORD who works miracles; for he knew that it is not through arms but through the LORD'S decision that victory is won by those who deserve it” ( 2Mac 15:22). There is also mention of prayer with the heart: “Fighting with their hands and praying to God with their hearts, they laid low at least thirty-five thousand, and rejoiced greatly over this manifestation of God's power” (2Mac 15:27). So it seems the battle was won by using the same weapons Our Lady tells us to use – prayer with the heart and reading Scriptures (for encouragement), as well as trust and intercession. But what about fasting?  I flipped back a page to see if they had fasted previous to this and accidentally turned 2 pages back to chapter 13 and found my answer: “When they had all joined in doing this, and had implored the merciful LORD continuously with weeping and fasting and prostrations for three days, Judas encouraged them and told them to stand ready” (2Mac 13: 12). Prayer with the heart, fasting, trust, Bible reading, intercession.  A formula for VICTORY.

   The next day, I received a letter from Fr. Andrew Apostoli, CFR, along with a pamphlet about a movement called the Cenacles for Life. Fr. Andrew says, “The goal of this movement is to encourage the formation of cenacles (simple prayer groups) to help end this culture of death. The intention of the Cenacles of Life is to petition Our Lord through His Blessed Mother for the end of abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, cloning and assisted suicide.”  Just two days before, I attended a conference where Fr. John Corapi was the main speaker. Father Corapi stated, “Immorality is the biggest threat to national security there is.”  He mentioned the sins against life numerous times during his five talks. He said that there will be no security in this country till we are straight with God, and that the moral demise of a nation always precedes the demise of that nation. 

    Fr. Apostoli, in his letter, recommends that each Cenacle meet once a week to pray two Rosaries as well as to observe one day of fasting each week for this intention.  The colorful pamphlet includes meditations and pictures of all 20 Mysteries of the Rosary and also has a “Prayer of Offering” that the Cenacles are asked to pray. The front page of the pamphlet says, “A cenacle is a prayer group that prays the way the Blessed Mother and the Apostles prayed in the upper room, awaiting the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Start a Cenacle of Life in your parish, joining true believers throughout the United States and around the world in a new, tremendous and united prayer effort to defeat the culture of death. As Pope John Paul II wrote in the Gospel of Life, ‘A great prayer for life is urgently needed.’ “ 

   Our Lady has said on numerous occasions that prayer groups are powerful. If you are not already in a prayer group, this might be the time to start one at your parish. And if you are in a prayer group already, you could take this as one of your intentions and maybe even start a second prayer group for this intention.   By “God-incidence” (visionary Vicka says there are no coincidences), the same day that Fr. Apostoli’s letter came, the first reading at Mass was about how after a series of questioning by Abraham, the Lord reveals that He will save the city if there are at least 10 righteous people there (Gen 18:16-33).  There are more than ten of us who read this newsletter and more than one city to save….

Editor’s note: It is suggested in the flyer that the Cenacles meet in churches. The website for information is www.CenaclesofLife.org.

A Baby Cannot Lie

The following witness was given by pilgrimage leader Bernadette Burke of Pittsburgh, PA on April 27, 2007, at the Marian Prayer Group meeting in Ambridge, PA.  Bernadette had just returned from a pilgrimage to Medjugorje.

   We were in Marija’s chapel. Her sister Ruzka takes care of the grounds when Marija is not there, and this is the first time we ever heard this witness.

   Ruzka told us about the first days of the apparitions. She lived about 25 miles from Medjugorje at that time. She worked at a factory, and people were coming to her and saying, “Your sister is seeing the Blessed Mother back in Medjugorje. You better find out about that.” She said, “What are you talking about?”  They said, “We heard about your sister – she’s sees the Blessed Mother every day.”  She said, “I haven’t seen my sister. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t have a phone.” (They didn’t have phones back then in 1981 to call back and forth.) So this went on for 3 days and she couldn’t take it any longer. She said usually she’s an outgoing, friendly person, but this got to her, all these people talking about her, about her sister, like her sister was a little “cuckoo.”  And so she said that was it. She went home and said to her husband, “We have to go to Medjugorje to see my sister Marija. Something’s going on there. Everybody’s saying she’s seeing the Blessed Mother. Now I don’t know if my sister is crazy or what. I have to get there.”

   So when Ruzka arrived she saw her sister and her sister looked fine, and she said, “Marija, are you seeing the Blessed Mother every day?”  Marija said, “Yes, She’ll be here pretty soon. The visionaries will all be in the other room and we’ll be praying. Come with us.”  Ruzka had 4 little children, the youngest was around 15-18 months, and so Ruzka had to hold the child. But naturally, at that age, they aren’t going to stay with you – they want to wander. The little one went to the visionaries, in front of the visionaries, and started putting her hands up. What was she touching?  Ruzka could not understand; she thought she was disturbing the apparition, so she was trying to get the little girl to come back. Then she figured she was making more commotion than the baby, so she let her go. Later Ruzka found out from Marija what was going on. Marija said that the baby wanted the Blessed Mother to pick her up, and the Blessed Mother smiled and put Her hand on the baby! (Usually the visionaries see nothing but Our Lady. Marija was given this grace to see the baby for the benefit of Ruzka and all those who will read this story.)

   Ruzka was so happy because she said, “Marija, now I know you’re not crazy. Why would my little one do that if there wasn’t someone there?” And so she was crying with tears. She knew her sister wasn’t crazy. Then Ruzka and her husband went that evening to Mass, and while they were gone, this little one, she took Grandmom  and Grandpap into the next room. She went in and looked at the place where she saw the Blessed Mother. She went back in and was playing with her things and minutes later back into the room. She said,”No.”  She kept going in that room all night, and finally when Ruzka and her husband came home, the grandparents said, “I’m so glad you’re home. All we did all night was take that baby in and out of that room. Then she’d go in there and say, ‘No.’ ”   They said, “I don’t know what she’s looking for.”

   “She’s looking for the Lady.”

Editor’s note: Sister Emmanuel recounted this story also and adds that a priest from Split observed the encounter during the apparition. He had come to Medjugorje to prove that the apparitions were a fake, but at that moment became, not only a believer, but a great defender of Medjugorje. In tears he kept saying, “A child cannot lie.”

“Early and often did the LORD, the God of their fathers, send His messengers to them, for He had COMPASSION on His people and His dwelling place. But they MOCKED the MESSENGERS of God, DESPISED HIS WARNINGS, and SCOFFED AT HIS PROPHETS, until the anger of the LORD against his people was so inflamed that there was no remedy.” (2 Chronicles 36:15-16)  Our Lady tells us to read the Bible. To see what happened, see 2 Chronicles 36: 17-20. Don’t let history repeat itself. Listen to Our Lady!

Because of lack of interest, I will not be leading a pilgrimage to Medjugorje in August as planned. I'm sorry that I will not be able to take your petitions. However, you can send your petitions directly to Medjugorje by email at molitvene.nakane@medjugorje.hr . All petitions will be presented to Our Lady by Vicka or Ivan during one of their apparitions. Your petitions will not be read by anyone. Only Our Lady will know their content.     June Klins

Thank you to Diana Stillwell, Helen Bell , Bernard Gallagher and Andy Gibb for their pictures. Thank you to Joann Loutitt and Victoria Kaduck for making us more prayer cloths.