Snatching Souls from Hell

By Ana Shawl

   Many of you have been trying to fast because Our Lady asks us to fast strictly on Wednesdays and Fridays – if you are not ill. A lot of you tried and asked for encouragement to try it again, and that's what Our Lady wants – to try our best.

  Today (July 11) Father Fleming was the main celebrant for Mass at St. James in Medjugorje. Father said he knows Our Lady asks us to fast, and he felt he needed one time to fast for an entire week. He told Jesus in his prayer, “OK, I have to have my coffee though.”  In his heart he knew he should just have water, but he said to himself and to Jesus, "Oh come on, all coffee is water really, just dripped over some beans, so that it is dirty water, so that's the same." He kept hearing in his heart, “No coffee,” and he said, "Yes coffee," and so he had his coffee. Then, came lunch time, and he said, “OK coffee again,” but he kept hearing that voice in him say, “NO COFFEE!”  So, he said, “OK, if I could just know that this fasting has saved someone, even if it saved just one soul from going to hell, then fine, I will do it.”

  So Father did fast that week, and he said it was so powerful when he received the Eucharist, and that week, that's all that he had.

   Later on, he met a lady who had been having an affair for 30 years with a married man. She told Father that she happened to turn on the TV one day to Mother Angelica on EWTN. Mother Angelica, as she did sometimes, turned and looked right at the camera and said, "And all you women out there having affairs with married men, well, you're all going to hell!”  

   This lady fell to her knees at that time, and cried for what she did. After he heard this, Father thought, “Wow, maybe this might be the lady that I saved from going to hell by my fasting.”  He didn't know for sure, but he felt that perhaps this was God's way of letting him know that it was this lady.

. Now... in our lifetime we might not know who it is that we've saved with our prayers and our fasting, but you never know, maybe we will meet that person. Maybe God will let us know, and that will give us encouragement to do it more.  So, let us really try to fast for Our Lady's intentions and for the conversion of sinners and let's snatch back souls that might be throwing themselves into the hands of evil.

Editor’s note: Ana lives in DeKalb, IL, but spends summers in Medjugorje where she and her husband Steve lead pilgrimages. She heads the International Internet Prayer Group (IIPG) which is associated with Ivan’s prayer group in Medjugorje. To join, go to www.iipg.org.

 

Fasting Challenge

By June Klins

   One day at Mass a few months ago, the priest talked about penance and fasting. He said that one time, when he was young, he had to be on an all-liquid diet for three days. When he read the instructions for his diet, the last thing it said was, "Don't worry – you're not going to die." And obviously, he did not. 
   Father said we should adapt this attitude when denying ourselves food as an act of penance or when we are fasting. "Don't worry - you're not going to die."  Father said that when we deny ourselves, it is an act of love, and that we are telling Jesus we love Him more than we love food or television or whatever it is we are giving up. That reminded me of an article we published about 10 years ago when subscriber Shawn O’ Neill wrote about how he was tempted on fast day to eat, until his four year-old son said to him, "I love Jesus more than food." I always remembered that, and it has helped me on fast days.

   Last month we featured an article about nutritious fasting bread, and I was overjoyed at the response. I hope a lot of people visited our website to see the providential happening that prompted me to use that article last month.

   As I mentioned last month, I feel compelled in my heart to promote fasting right now. I feel so strongly about this that I am going to make an offer. If you struggle with fasting, but are willing to give it your best try, you can write to me and I will send you a FREE string of St. Therese sacrifice beads to help you. Our Lady will even cover the postage for you! [Please note  - because of limited quantities this is only available to the subscribers of our paper edition. If there are any left at the end of the month, then we will make them available to others.] 

   Let me explain. Sacrifice Beads (also known as "Good Deed Beads" or "St. Thérèse Beads) spring from a practice from the childhood of St. Therese of Lisieux. Therese’s older sister, Marie, gave her a set of beads on which to count the things she offered up to God.

   The most typical "chaplet" consists of a string of 10 beads, with a Crucifix at one end, symbolizing your taking up your Cross. They are kept in your pocket, secretly, and when you mentally offer up something to God, you slide one of the beads toward the Crucifix.  But you move a bead back toward the medal for each failing. This is a good way of examining your conscience throughout the day. To use them for fasting, you could push a bead for every time you are tempted to break the fast,but do not cave in. For those times when you do cave in, you move it back, and resolve to try harder. Maybe another way to use them for fasting would be to move the bead for every hour of success. (If successful every hour, you would have to start over, since you will probably be fasting for more than 10 hours.)

   Anita Cugini, who makes the sacrifice beads for us, made another suggestion for their use.  Anita makes them with an extra bead so you can double it as a one-decade rosary. Anita suggested that you could push one bead to the Crucifix for every successful day of fasting. If you do this three times with all the beads, you will have completed 33 days of fasting and this could be done to represent the 33 years Christ spent on earth and in thanksgiving for the 33 years Our Lady will have been coming to earth, come next June.  Hopefully by the end of the 33 times, you will realize it was not as hard as you thought, and will look forward to it each Wednesday and Friday!

  Remember to start slowly if you have never done it before. Go back and re-read Andy LaVallee’s testimony in our July 2013 issue.  He had many wonderful tips on fasting. An oversight on my part, however, was that I failed to include Andy’s phone number to order the bread, for those who do not have a computer. Mea Culpa! The number for Andy LaVallee’s fasting bread is 781-647-0034. To visit the website, go to http://livethefast.com/WP_LTF/.

 

How We Should Confess

The following is an excerpt from a talk by Fr. Slavko Barbaric on December 30, 1985.

   Our Lady has asked us to go regularly to Confession. Somebody asked me to say something on how we should confess. When confessing, many people say, “I have not stolen. I have not hurt anybody. I have been praying a little. I have been attending Mass. I am a Christian.”  All is in order. It is not right to steal. It is not right to hurt others. That is true, and if we have done so, we must confess it.  But this is rated as zero in Christian life.

   We are not Christians in order not to steal, not to hurt.  We are Christians in order to do something positive, to love, to bring peace. I will give you an example: We do not have legs in order not to fall, but have legs to enable us to walk. Naturally, we can fall, but we have the legs to go forward on. Similarly, we are Christians not to do no harm to others, but to act in a positive way to love, to bring peace.

   Therefore, it is not enough to say, “I did not steal, I did not swear.” We must question ourselves on our positive actions and realize whether we have been doing what we were supposed to; if we have in effect loved others; if we have brought peace, comfort; if we have been sharing with others.

 

 

Ivan’s Prayer Group

By June Klins

    Every summer, visionary Ivan Dragecevic moves his family back to Medjugorje from their Boston, Massachusetts home.  While in Medjugorje, Ivan meets with his prayer group on two evenings and usually has a second apparition during his prayer meeting. Sometimes pilgrims who are visiting Medjugorje are invited to those apparitions. The prayer group continues to meet when Ivan is not there, but, of course, there would be no apparition.

   While looking for something else in the archives of the IIPG (International Internet Prayer Group, Queen of Peace), the internet prayer group which is part of Ivan’s prayer group, I came across a question which was posed to Ivan in 2001 regarding his prayer group. Ivan was asked to share the format that his prayer group uses. I thought this might be helpful to people because sometimes people call me asking for a format for a Medjugorje prayer group. Ivan’s reply was:

   “I have a prayer group which I have been leading for eighteen years. We meet on Mondays and Fridays, and that group was spontaneously established at the initiative of my friends. Our goal at our prayer meetings is to pray for Our Lady’s intentions so that with our prayers we can help Our Lady in the establishing of Her plans. Throughout the last sixteen years, She has been leading us in a particular way, giving us Her messages. Through these messages, She leads us and our families into a spiritual growth.
   “Our program is to pray the Rosary, spontaneous prayers, meditations, conversation of the group together, reading of Holy Scripture, living and reflection on Our Lady’s messages, and singing. The whole program is based on prayer and that [is] the most important thing which we do.”

   Our Lady encourages us to become a member of a prayer group. On September 25, 2000, Our Lady said, “Renew prayer in your families and form prayer groups. In this way, you will experience joy in prayer and togetherness.  All those who pray and are members of prayer groups are open to God’s will in their hearts and joyfully witness God’s love.” And on June 25, 2004, She said, “Prayer groups are powerful, and through them I can see, little children, that the Holy Spirit is at work in the world.”

   One of the fruits of Medjugorje is the flourishing of thousands of Medjugorje prayer groups throughout the world. To read more about prayer groups, you can visit http://medjugorje.ie/prayer_groups_in_the__marian_prayer_movement.html

   On July 8, 2013, Our Lady gave the following message to Ivan’s prayer group and those who attended the apparition at the Blue Cross: "Dear children, as of today, in a special way, I desire to call you at this time in a special way to pray for my intentions. Pray, dear children, for my plans that I desire to realize. I need your prayers. I desire to realize them through you. Thank you, dear children, also today for responding to my call."

Dogma of Assumption Confirmed by Sun Miracle

By Bernard Gallagher

   The dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was declared by Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950 and states that “The Immaculate Mother of God, Mary ever Virgin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into the glory of Heaven.”

   In this declaration, no position is taken by the Church as to the question of whether Mary actually died. However, in one of Her very early messages given at Medjugorje, Our Lady gave this answer to one of the seers when asked if She went to Heaven before or after death: “I am the Mother of God and the Queen of Peace. I went to Heaven before death” (10/12/81).

   Five years ago, a previously unpublished document came to light which revealed Pope Pius XII had witnessed the “miracle of the sun” on four occasions, and he considered this experience as confirmation of his plan to declare the dogma of the Assumption. The information contained in this handwritten note by Pius XII went on public display for two months in the Vatican in November 2008. Reporting at the time for zenit.org Antonio, Gaspari wrote:

 According to his own testimony, the Pope who declared the dogma of the Assumption saw the “miracle of the sun” four times.

   This information is confirmed by a handwritten, unpublished note from Pope Pius XII, which is part of the Pius XII: The Man and the Pontificate display.

   A commissioner of the display and a Vatican reporter for the Italian daily Il Giornale, Andrea Tornielli, explained to ZENIT that the note was found in the Pacelli family archives. It describes the “miracle of the sun,” an episode that until today had only been affirmed by the indirect testimony of Cardinal Federico Tedeschini (1873-1959), who recounted in a homily that the Holy Father had seen the miracle.

   Pius XII wrote, “I have seen the ‘miracle of the sun,’ this is the pure truth.”

   The miracle of the sun is most known as the episode that occurred in Fatima, Portugal, on October 13, 1917. According to the Fatima visionaries, Mary had said there would be a miracle that day so that people would come to believe. Thousands had gathered at the site of the visions, and the sun “danced,” reportedly drying instantaneously the rain-soaked land and spectators.

   Pius XII’s note says that he saw the miracle in the year he was to proclaim the dogma of the Assumption, 1950, while he walked in the Vatican Gardens. He said he saw the phenomenon various times, considering it a confirmation of his plan to declare the dogma.

   The papal note says that at 4:00 P.M. on October 30, 1950, during his “habitual walk in the Vatican Gardens, reading and studying,” having arrived to the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, “Toward the top of the hill […] I was awestruck by a phenomenon that before now I had never seen.”

   “The sun, which was still quite high, looked like a pale, opaque sphere, entirely surrounded by a luminous circle,” he recounted. And one could look at the sun, “without the slightest bother. There was a very light little cloud in front of it.”

   The Holy Father’s note goes on to describe “the opaque sphere” that “moved outward slightly, either spinning, or moving from left to right and vice versa. But within the sphere, you could see marked movements with total clarity and without interruption."

   Pius XII said he saw the same phenomenon “the 31st of October and November 1, the day of the definition of the dogma of the Assumption, and then again November 8, and after that, no more.” The Pope acknowledged that on other days at about the same hour, he tried to see if the phenomenon would be repeated, “but in vain – I couldn't fix my gaze [on the sun] for even an instant; my eyes would be dazzled.”

   Pius XII spoke about the incident with a few cardinals and close collaborators, such that Sister Pascalina Lehnert, the nun in charge of the papal apartments, declared that “Pius XII was very convinced of the reality of the extraordinary phenomenon, which he had seen on four occasions.”

   As Pope, in 1940, Pius XII approved the Fatima apparitions, and in 1942, consecrated the entire world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

                                                                                                                                            http://crownofstars.blogspot.co.uk

 

 

 

 

Communita Cenacolo

by Louise Lotze

    When one is on pilgrimage in Medjugorje, the guides usually arrange a visit to the Communita Cenacolo where drug addicts and disillusioned young men and women are receiving a much needed source of hope to find true peace and joy in their lives. This Community was founded in Italy in 1983 by a dynamic and vibrant religious sister named Elvira Petrozzi.  Sister Elvira felt that God was calling her to serve the poor of the modern world: young men and women who live in desperation and hopelessness, convinced that life has no meaning or value.

. The program is not a therapeutic one, but rather, it is a “School of Life” based on Jesus Christ.  The Holy Eucharist is the heart of Communita Cenacolo. The young men and women also entrust themselves to Mary, Mother of God.

   The Community has more than 60 houses spread throughout the world:  France, Austria, Poland, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Dominican Republic, the U.S.A., Mexico, Ireland, England, and Malta. Ten are for women. In 1993, Bishop Robert Baker of Birmingham, AL, then pastor of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine in Florida, collaborated with Sr. Elvira, of Saluzzo, Italy, to bring Communita Cenacolo to the U.S.  There are now four homes here:  three in St. Augustine, FL, and one near Hanceville, AL. 

  To everyone they welcome, they propose a simple, disciplined, family style of life, based on the rediscovery of the essential gifts of prayer and work (ora et labora), true friendship, sacrifice, and faith in Jesus. The spirituality of the Community is profoundly Eucharistic (Eucharistic Adoration, the Liturgy of the Hours, the Rosary),  and includes work, deep sharing about one's own life in the light of the Word of God, recreation, and times of celebration.  Communita Cenacolo  believes that the Christian life in its simplicity and fullness is the true answer to every restlessness in the human heart; and that, in the living encounter with God's Mercy, man is reborn into hope and is freed from the chains that have enslaved him, thus rediscovering the joy of loving.

   There is no fee to enter or participate in Community. It accepts men ages 18 to 40 and women ages 18 to 30.

 Communita Cenacolo relies on Divine Providence for everything, including food, hygiene products, cleaning supplies, work tools, clothing and medical care.  

   Testimonies are a powerful way of witnessing to the action of the Holy Spirit within their lives.  My many visits to the Cenacolo in Medjugorje  provided opportunity  to hear some of them.  My first one was given by a former NBA player for the Detroit Pistons.  He was 37 at that time and related how he had lost his wife and family due to drugs and alcohol.  By the Mercy of God he found a source of hope in the Cenacolo and was grateful for this opportunity to rebuild his life.

   Communita Cenacolo has also expanded its mission to help and care for orphaned children in Third World countries.  There are mission houses in Mexico, Brazil, and Peru for children ranging in age from newborn to 17.  Some of these children are entrusted to the Community by their families, who are too poor to care for them. Others are homeless, abandoned, or abused.  The Missionary Sisters of the Resurrection care for these children along with young men and women who give themselves to the service of the poor.

    To find regional contacts in your specific geographical areas, go to www.hopereborn.org.  They will provide general information.  In the U.S.A.  the address is: Communita Cenacolo America, 1050 Tallyrand Ave., Jacksonville, FL  32206.  Phone:  (904) 471-8453.

Editor’s note:  Louise is from Ashtabula, OH. The official website for Cenacolo is www.comunitacenacolo.it.

                                                   

About Prayer

By St. Anthony of Padua

   Prayer is directing our affections towards God; it is a devout and friendly talk with Him. It is the tranquility of a mind illumined from above.

   Prayer is also a plea for temporal goods that are necessary for earthly life. But those who pray ask the Lord with a true Christian spirit to subordinate their own wills to His: only the Heavenly Father knows what one really needs in the temporal order.

   Finally, prayer is thanksgiving, that is, an acknowledgement of benefits received, and an offering of all our undertakings to God so that our prayer may be a lasting one.

   The Lord manifests Himself to those who pause while in peace and humility of heart. If you look into the murky and turbulent waters, you cannot see your own countenance. If you want the face of Christ to appear in your countenance, pause, collect your thoughts in silence, and shut the door of the soul to the noise of exterior things.

   The greetings of the angels and the blessings of the Good are not for those who live in public squares, that is, outside of themselves, agitated and distracted. The sweet “Ave” was addressed to the Virgin Mary when She was absorbed in prayer, in the privacy of Her house… God, in order to speak to the soul and fill it with knowledge of His love, leads it to the solitude, detaching it from preoccupations of earthly things. He speaks to the ears of those who are silent and makes them hear His secrets.

                                                                                                                                         ~ from the Sermons of St. Anthony

 

Vicka’s Return

   According to crownofstarsblogspot.com, on June 29, 2013, visionary Vicka made a welcome return to witnessing before pilgrims, when she attended a prayer meeting in Sestola, Italy. She had been absent for some months from giving testimony because of her serious issues with her back.

   Vicka received an apparition from Our Lady during the prayer gathering and explained afterwards that Our Lady came joyful. “Before She arrives I am given a signal; a light flashes three times. She always comes with the greeting ‘Praised be Jesus.’ But when Our Lady leaves, She disappears in the sign of the Cross, the sign of the sun, and the sign of the heart.”  In her book, Salvation of Mankind, Draga Vidovic wrote, “In the beginning, Our Lady explained the significance and meaning of those three symbols. The Cross is the symbol of our salvation, the heart is the symbol of God’s love for us, and the sun is the symbol of our faith. In the beginning, these symbols would appear and disappear at the same time as Our Lady, but lately, these symbols remain for a little while after Her. After a couple of moments, they simply disappear like the image on a screen.”

   Vicka, whose prayer mission is to pray for the sick, said that she recommended everyone present in a special way, especially the sick, and had asked Our Lady to give strength to all who are sick, so they can support and carry their crosses. As Our Lady prayed over all who were present and gave Her motherly blessing, She said: “I want you to be my outstretched hands. Go in the Peace of God.”

Pope Francis Consecrates the Vatican to St. Michael

   On July 5, 2013, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI joined Pope Francis for a ceremony in which the Holy Father blessed the new statue of St. Michael the Archangel in the Vatican Gardens, and consecrated the Vatican to St. Michael’s protection. The Pope said, “Michael – which means ‘Who is like God?’ –  is the champion of the primacy of God, of His transcendence and power. Michael struggles to restore divine justice and defends the People of God from His enemies, above all by the enemy par excellence, the devil. And St. Michael wins because in him, there is He –  God who acts. This sculpture reminds us then that evil is overcome, the accuser is unmasked, his head crushed, because salvation was accomplished once and for all in the blood of Christ …We are not alone on the journey or in the trials of life; we are accompanied and supported by the Angels of God, who offer, so to speak, their wings to help us overcome so many dangers, in order to fly high compared to those realities that can weigh down our lives or drag us down. In consecrating Vatican City State to St. Michael the Archangel, I ask him to defend us from the evil one and banish him."

 Editor’s note:  It is interesting that in our April issue, one of our subscribers had suggested that we pray the St. Michael prayer for the protection of Pope Francis!  We reiterate the words of Bl. Pope John Paul II in 1994, “I ask everyone not to forget it [the St. Michael prayer] and to recite it to obtain help in the battle against the forces of darkness and against the spirit of this world.”