Above is pictured the International Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima

My Call to Medjugorje

By Dot Galloway Ryan

   The visionaries tell us we don’t go to Medjugorje by accident.  We go by invitation from the Blessed Mother.  She must have needed me there for a reason, as She wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.

   I first heard of Medjugorje in the early 90s from a friend who had been there.  At the time, my husband and I were non-Catholics, so I didn’t pay too much attention. We converted to the Faith in spring of 1999.  In March 2001, my husband passed away, and my faith was put into question as I asked God over and over again, “Why?” Four months later, I found myself in Medjugorje.  I had awakened one morning wanting to go to Medjugorje;  the call was very powerful.  I called my three daughters and offered to pay their way if they would go with me.  Needless to say, when they found out where it was, they thought their mother had just gone off the deep end.  “No one in their right mind travels to Bosnia,” I was told.  After telling them, “I’m going, and no one is going to stop me,” my youngest agreed to accompany me on a journey that would change my life.

   Many miracles happened while I was in Medjugorje.  To begin with, I smelled a powerful scent of roses several times on Apparition Hill.  I felt this was Our Lady’s way of letting me know She was wrapping Her arms around me and comforting me.  The peace I felt while there is indescribable.  One time I heard nothing but silence all around me, even though people were talking and praying out loud.  I couldn’t hear a thing but felt such a great sense of comfort.

   We climbed Cross Mountain.  My daughter went up and down without any problem, which I thought was a miracle, as she had had many knee problems due to playing soccer in high school. Many people were going up barefoot, and many were handicapped, but Our Lady helped everyone make it to the top and back down again. 

   I came home with a faith so deep, and an incredible urge to learn more about my Faith.  I could not stop reading and learning about the teachings of the Church, the saints, and most of all, I found myself in a wonderful relationship with Blessed Virgin Mary.  Instead of crying myself to sleep and asking why I should go on with my days, I would say a Rosary and feel the warmth of Our Lady there with me.

   I have returned two more times, each time with a deeper faith.  The second time I went with another daughter and watched as she was slain in the Spirit at a healing Mass that she dedicated to her son.  A miracle happened….when she got home and took her son to the doctor the following week, his heart condition had gotten remarkably better.  It even caused the doctor to say, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but whatever you are doing, keep doing it.”  I also found out that the Blessed Virgin had enrolled me in Her school of “patience”.  We had some people in our group who were handicapped, and I learned to slow down quite a bit.

   The miracles continue to happen as a result of going to Medjugorje. As well as witnessing the Miracle of the Sun, in which the sun dances and spins, sending out wonderful colors,  I was once again blessed with an opportunity to find companionship in my present marriage to Jim, whom I met at Hospice.  Jim was a fallen-away Catholic who hadn’t been to church in over 30 years. He told me not to expect him to go to church each Sunday, but that he respected the fact I wanted to.  I was leaving to visit family in England, and while on the plane said a Rosary.  I asked the Virgin to give me a special gift – for Jim to return to the Church, and to give me some sort of sign.  Two days after being in England, he called me and said “I have a gift for you.” He went on to tell me he had contacted the priest and had an appointment to meet with him in the next few days.  He said, “I don’t know what made me make this decision, but I have decided to return to the Church.”  He now goes every Sunday, even when he’s away on business trips.  Also, my enrollment in “Mary’s School of Patience” was to prepare me for my new life with Jim.  He is ‘handicapped’.

   If you’ve been invited by the Blessed Mother to visit this little piece of Heaven on earth, answer ‘yes’ to Her call. You won’t regret it.

Mary’s Gardens

By Mary Ann Kemper

    Gardens are peaceful ways to contemplate the grace that God works in nature. A piece of our soul might imagine what the Garden of Eden looked like before the fall of man. The biblical ‘enclosed garden’ reference in Song of Songs 4:12-16  came to be associated with the Virginity of Mary in medieval times. The faithful were most inclined to visualize the Gospel through plants and nature rather than the written word because very few people were literate. Just as St. Patrick described the Holy Trinity using the imagery of the three-petaled shamrock to the pre-Christian Irish, teachers of the faith contemplated events and imagery of the Gospel with flowers. Different flowers came to be likened to events and images of the Gospel.

    There are more than one hundred different flowers that we know were associated with the Holy trinity, the life, virtues and attributes of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. For many centuries, writers and saints made reference to Our Lady with flowers in their written works but, in time, actual gardens were cultivated on the grounds of churches that contained the flowers that were most closely associated with Her virtues.  These became known as Mary Gardens. It was cultural to liken the attributes of flowers to the Virgin Mary’s clothing, Her habits in raising the Christ Child, and Her virtues. The color, shape, number of petals, and structure of different flowers and time of their blooming became associated with Our Lord, Our Lady and the events of the Gospel. These were ways for the faithful to lift their hearts and minds to God in contemplation of the mysteries of our faith through flowers and gardens.

   A Medieval Mary Garden may have included these flowers whose symbolism is described in parentheses: Lily (Purity),

Rose (Charity), Pansy (Holy Trinity), Periwinkle ( blue color recalls Mary, full of grace), Violet (Humility), Daisy (Jesus, Flower of Mary), Strawberry (bearing flowers and fruit concurrently, just as Mary was Ever-Virgin and Mother at the same time), Monkshood (Our Lady’s slipper), Thistle-down (Graceful movements of Mary), Forget Me Nots (Eyes of Mary), and Morning Glory (Mary’s Mantle).

The Universal Living Rosary Association

By June Klins

   I had been putting off joining the Universal Rosary Association for a long time. At first, it was because I try to pray all the Mysteries of the Rosary every day as Our Lady requests, and I did not think I could add another decade and really pray it with my heart. Later, I found out, through the website of the Association, that the decade could be included in the Rosaries I already pray.  That was easy enough, but, I still did not sign up.  There was no excuse; I just procrastinated.

   In December of 2009, several people called me to let me know that my picture was in the Winter 2009 issue of “Dedicated Decades,” the magazine of the Living Rosary Association.  How embarrassed  I was that my picture was in their magazine, and I was not even a member. Could Our Lady have made it any more clear that She wanted me to join the Living Rosary Association?  “OK, Blessed Mother, I will do it. I promise!”   Right then and there, I decided that would be one of my gifts to Baby Jesus last Christmas.  I am not normally such a procrastinator, but, for some reason, I did not actually join until the week after Christmas.

   On January 12, a priest came to my classroom in the Catholic school where we both teach, and asked me to help promote a Healing Mass he was having on Feb. 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes ( the World Day of the Sick). Father has a devotion to St. Philomena and said that he would be blessing people with St. Philomena oil after the Mass. When I got home that day and opened my mail, lo and behold, there was the packet from the Living Rosary Association with my assigned decade to pray, and a card with St. Philomena’s picture! (St. Philomena is the patroness of the Association.)  And, when I looked at the date that my decade would begin it was February 11 – the same day as the Healing Mass!!! 

Wow!  How God worked my procrastination to His purposes really awed me!

   As February 11 approached, I looked forward to “officially” being a part of the Living Rosary as I prayed my decade, the  Presentation.  I learned that the Universal Living Rosary Association was founded in France in 1826 by Venerable Pauline Marie Jaricot,  to save the Church in France.  It was formally approved and indulgenced by Pope Gregory XVI, and accorded official canonical status on January 27, 1832. Venerable Pauline said, "The aim of the Living Rosary is to ask God, through the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary, for the conservation of the Faith in Catholic countries, the conversion of sinners, the strengthening of the just, and the exaltation of the Holy Church.”

   There is no charge to join the Universal Living Rosary. They will send you a special decade to say each day as long as you live. While you are reciting yours, other persons are praying the other decades. In fact, 11,684,561 (as of 4/7/10)  faithful servants, including thousands of priests and religious, are joined worldwide through the Living Rosary and united with Mary in prayer, one decade at a time, to hasten the Triumph of Her Immaculate Heart, and in honor of St. Philomena, the patroness.

The Woman I Love

By Servant of God Archbishop Fulton Sheen

    I think one of the major defects in world religions has been the absence of the feminine. The absence becomes more striking in a study of Christian sects where so little attention is paid to the Mother of Christ. It would be strange to visit a friend's home and yet never hear him speak of his mother. (...)

   True, in the course of history, there have been exaggerations in devotion to Mary, but it was not the Church that made Her important; it was Christ Himself. The Church has never adored Mary, because only God may be adored. But She, of all creatures, was closest to God. Without Her as the key, it is difficult to discover the treasures in the vault of Faith. God, Who made the sun, also made the moon. The moon does not take away from the brilliance of the sun. The moon would be only a burned-out cinder floating in the immensity of space, were it not for the sun. All its light is reflected from that glowing furnace. In like manner, Mary reflects her Divine Son, without whom She is nothing. On dark nights, we are thankful for the moon; when we see it shining, we know there must be a sun.

   So, in this dark night of the world, when men turned their backs on Him who is the Light of the World, we look to Mary to guide our feet while we await the sunrise.

                                                                         Excerpt from  Treasure in Clay - The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen                                       

Message to Mirjana on April 2, 2010 (Good Friday)   :

   "Dear children; Today I bless you in a special way and I pray for you to return to the right way to my Son –  your Savior, your Redeemer –  to Him who gave you eternal life.  Reflect on everything human, on everything that does not permit you to set out after my Son – on transience, imperfection and limitation –  and then think of my Son, of His Divine infiniteness. By your surrender and prayer, ennoble your body and perfect your soul. Be ready, my children. Thank you."

   According to Mirjana, Our Lady blessed all the people and religious articles present. Mirjana saw a large gold Cross behind Our Lady as she was leaving.

Two Famous Apparitions May Be Links to Recent 'Upsurge' of Christianity in Russia

The following was taken from the popular website www.spiritdaily.com on January 30, 2010:

   On the apparition beat, there is always Medjugorje, which seems more the topic of discussion now that one of the world's most eminent cardinals, Christoph Schönborn, of Austria, has visited and issued a strong endorsement.

   Two other archbishops followed suit with positive statements about this place that, since 1981, has been visited by more than 30,000 priests, hundreds of bishops (75 were officially logged by the parish by 1995), more than a dozen archbishops, and at least half a dozen cardinals. The number of cardinals is not fully known, for several have gone there incognito, including Cardinal Jaime Lachica Sin of the Philippines (whom we saw there) and according to witnesses, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, who twice was reported in the village when he was prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees alleged apparitions.

   In 1991, during a conference in Vienna, which is Cardinal Schönborn's archdiocese, Cardinal Ratzinger, who is now Benedict XVI, had commented that, despite the opposition of the local bishop, the issue was open and the Vatican desired "that this place, which has become a place of prayer and faith, remain and come to be even more in the most interior unity with the entire Church" (Gebetsaktion, 1992, #22, page four).

   Those words were almost exactly echoed by Cardinal Schönborn (a former student and close friend of the Pope) last month, when, after visiting the apparition, he advocated (in a conversation with his archdiocesan press office) "an integration of the 'Medjugorje phenomenon' into the normal pastoral work of the Church." (After his visit to Medjugorje, he had a long-planned meeting with the pontiff.)

   Whatever the final judgment of the Church (which we will strictly obey), the renewed interest brings with it the links between Medjugorje, Fatima (in Portugal), and Russia -- where recent news has indicated a surge of Christianity. 

   The question: if Medjugorje is eventually approved, will it be seen as continuing where Fatima left off? Is there a connection between the two places? Have they overlapped?

   While Fatima ended with Russia, Medjugorje, it seems, began with it -- even though at the time of their first apparitions, the Yugoslavian seers had not heard of the Portuguese apparitions (Yugoslavia was Communist).

   The 1917 prophecies or "secrets" from Fatima had said that if the requests of the Blessed Mother were heeded, there would be a period of peace and Russia would be "converted" instead of spreading its errors. If not, there would be war, "the good will be martyred" and "various nations will be annihilated." Mary foresaw persecution (of the "Church and Holy Father") and called for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.

   Out of ten sentences in the main part of the first two Fatima secrets, fully five pertained to Russia -- half of the message. Russia was mentioned three times by name. The famous third secret of Fatima, when it was released much later, meanwhile, showed an angel ready to torch the world, as might happen through a fiery nuclear exchange.

   As it turns out, Russia was well on its way toward doing what the secrets warned -- annihilating nations, and certainly spreading the errors of Communism  -- when, on March 25, 1984, Pope John Paul II (who was shot three years before on a Fatima anniversary day) consecrated the world ,and implicitly Russia, to the Immaculate Heart, as requested 67 years before -- a move that was followed by the shocking, miraculous fall of Communism and a period of tranquility between the superpowers.

   The link to Medjugorje?

   On August 1, 1989, John Paul II told Most Reverend Pavol Hnilica, of Slovakia, one of the bishops who had been to Medjugorje, and served as an advisor to the Pope on Communist nations, that Medjugorje was "the fulfillment and continuation of Fatima" -- surprisingly strong words leaving no doubt about that particular pontiff's discernment.

   Meanwhile, when Archbishop Angelo Kim, president of the Korean Episcopal Conference, visited John Paul II -- thanking the Pope for freeing Poland from Communism -- the pontiff, according to the Korean Weekly's November 11, 1990, issue, replied, "No, not me, but by the works of the Blessed Virgin, according to her affirmations at Fatima and Medjugorje" [see Medjugorje and the Church by Denis Nolan].

   Two years after, in August of 1991, the Blessed Mother allegedly addressed the issue at Medjugorje when, in another message, She said rather mysteriously, "I invite you to renunciation for nine days so that, with your help, everything I wanted to realize through the secrets I began at Fatima may be fulfilled."

   That missive turned out to be the same month that Soviet hardliners attempted to regain power in an attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, even with tanks in Moscow.    The coup failed, and the Soviet Union dismantled soon after. Gorbachev, it is now known, had been presented a synopsis of the Medjugorje messages by Ambassador Alfred Kingon of the U.S., who also briefed President Ronald Reagan on the apparitions after visiting (even though Kingon himself was Jewish).

   So tied-in seemed the two apparitions, that on March 25, 1994, Bishop Hnilica chose Medjugorje to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the world's and Russia's consecration.

   Perhaps most telling -- and little known -- is that Mary reputedly had further remarked at Medjugorje (going back again to 1981) that "the Russian people will be the people who will glorify God the most. The West has made civilization progress, but without God, as if they were their own creators" -- hearkening to the prediction in the first two Fatima secrets.

   During the past several weeks, a flurry of reports have come out of Russia that may be relevant. On January 6, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev attended midnight Mass services celebrating the Russian Orthodox Christmas in grand splendor in the traditional Vigil liturgy in Saint Christ the Savior Cathedral in the presence of four thousand people. Days later, it was reported that the Russian government will spend $100 million to fix Christian churches -- many destroyed during the horror of Communism.

   Medvedev's predecessor and close associate, Vladimir Putin (who many believe is still in charge of Russia), wears a Cross. Both Putin and Medvedev frequently attend church, have been witnessed kissing icons of the Virgin Mary, and seek political and moral counsel from the Russian Orthodox clergy (in stark contrast to the comportment of American leaders).

   Meanwhile, also in January, photographs have circulated of Soviet cosmonauts in the space station with four Christian icons, the Gospels, and a relic of the "true" Cross. In one photo, the relic is floating in weightlessness.

   The conversion of Russia, as prophesied?  Not yet.

   Weekly church attendance in Russia is rising -- described as a "resurgence" -- and already higher than places like France and England, but still abysmal (by one reckoning, at two percent, versus between 25 and 44 percent in the U.S.).

Many more churches need to be rebuilt, after all but total obliteration under the Communists.

   Are we in a "period of peace" foreseen at Fatima?

   Tensions between the superpowers all but vanished after the consecration. Still, that peace could easily end, as could moves toward Christianity. But there are interesting trends afoot. Who knows the final outcome?

Did St. Michael Appear at Fatima in the 12^th Century?

   Since St. Michael is the patron saint of our newsletter this year, we thought it would be interesting to share the following excerpt  from the Summer, 2001 issue of “The Queen of Peace” newspaper.

   In the year 1147, St. Michael reportedly appeared during the taking of the castle of Santarem from the Moors in Portugal by Alfonsus Henriques and the Christians. The victory was won on May 8, 1147, the anniversary of St. Michael’s most  famous apparition in a cave at Monte Gargano in Apulia, Italy  in the year 490, and laid the way for a series of reported  supernatural events in Portugal. On the same day St. Michael appeared at Santarem, a second battle began in Lisbon that led to the liberation from the Moors on October 25, 1147. During this siege, a miracle of the sun is documented to have occurred. This miracle is credited by the historian A. Fernando Castilho to have occurred on October 13^th ( the same date, 770 years later that the great miracle of the sun occurred at the last apparition of the Virgin Mary at Fatima).

   One hundred years later, in the year 1247, the second most famous Eucharistic miracle in Catholic Church history occurred at Santarem.  More and more miracles continued to be reported during the period, as a string of leadership in Portugal moved to firmly solidify the nation under the protection of St. Michael and the Virgin Mary,

Virtual Walk around Medjugorje

Medjugorje