Virgin Mary appearing to Chaldean Woman in Southeastern Michigan, part 2

(this blog has grown up and is now a full website.  Please go instead to www.wtness.org.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This is a follow-up to the posting of January 20, 2013, titled “Virgin Mary appearing to Chaldean Woman in Southeastern Michigan”.  I was invited to visit the home of the woman by one of the priests supporting her.  The priest gave a Mass at this woman’s home on Wednesday, March 6, 2013.  There were about 30 people present, all seated on the family’s furniture and folding chairs.  The priest stood in front of the several religion icons that were weeping oil while giving Mass.  It was a very worshipful event.  There were no curiosity seekers, indicating that every person was individually invited.

The visionary is a Chaldean woman that I would guess is in her 40’s, and she was very humble, peaceful and welcoming to all.  I was astonished to find out that just recently she had been in the hospital and was still weak from that experience, but still wanted to open her house to involve others in this miraculous series of events.   

The visionary has two sons, and I met them both.  One is a football player at a local high school, and the other is in middle school. This woman is married to a man who owns a small business.  Their names are withheld to protect them from curiosity seekers and mass media.

The visionary has been undergoing several types of suffering, and she is doing so willingly.  She has had unusual and recurring medical problems, lack of support from her extended family, pressure from the local clergy to give up some of the icons, loss of privacy.  The Virgin has asked her to share in Her suffering and in the suffering of Her Son.  Here are some interactions recorded between the two of them.

Visionary:  “I hear the people criticizing me and the visitors wanting oil . Please stop the oozing of the oil so that the people will stop visiting my small house.”

The Blessed Virgin Mary answered her: “ This is a wound from among the wounds of my Son which He gives you, to bear and to share with me in my sufferings.”

The Visionary was kneeling before the Icon. She was praying and complaining about her financial difficulties and the people’s gossip, who were accusing her with attempting to attract attention and make money.

The Blessed Virgin Mary spoke to her: “ Share with me in my sufferings , as ..."

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)

Bill Schaef

Royal Oak, MI

Virgin Mary appearing to Chaldean Woman in Southeastern Michigan

(this blog has grown up and is now a full website.  Please go instead to www.wtness.org.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, this title has the sound of a bad tabloid article, doesn’t it?  But today I spoke to a man named William who has been in her house and believes this is true.  William told me at a retreat at the Manresa Retreat Center in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan that he saw oil oozing from a crucifix, a painting of the Suffering Christ, a painting of the Virgin Mother, and from other Christian artifacts in this woman’s home.  It is this phenomenon

See the oil oozing from the far left of the painting.

Tray beneath picture is full of oil

that first draws people's interest to this story, so I'll say a bit about that, before talking about the Virgin Mary's words. The source of the oil has no scientific explanation.  For example, the painting is on a thin canvas, there are no hoses or tubes attached to it, and the reverse side of the painting is completely dry.  Over the course of the past four years (since Aug. 2008), over three hundred and fifty pounds of oil has emerged from these and other artifacts in this house.

While the oil is a very puzzling (and convincing) physical phenomenon, when I hear of something like this that is real (and I’m strongly leaning in this direction based on having met William and knowing the priest who informed him, and seen the video… link below), I don’t get caught up in the physical miracle.  When God makes things like this happen, it’s not stand-alone.  It is done to help people believe in some sort of message.  

Some of the jars of oil collected in three years.
Other oil has been given away to visitors.

In this case, the message is being spoken by an apparition of the Virgin Mary.  She is heard audibly by the Chaldean woman. 

 

(Read the rest of the story at Wtness.org)

What's the point of all those Padre Pio miracles?

This posting is about Padre Pio, the 20^th century Italian monk who by all accounts had a very close-knit and active relationship with Jesus.  His life was marked by willing personal sacrifice and hundreds of miracles. Some of the things that happened are so unusual that his biography reads like fiction.  But according to hundreds of witnesses and recorded statements from people whose lives were converted by interaction with Padre Pio, these things really happened (I’ll mention some later in this article).    

If you believe what was reported about Padre Pio, there are a couple of ways to react to such a story.    

1. “How curious!  How fascinating!  This is a great conversation piece.  When I’m done with this story, I’ll search for other oddball stories, like how a restaurant just set the world record for making the world’s largest cheeseburger.”
2. “There must be a reason these things happened.  There must be something God wants us to learn from Padre Pio’s life, and I want to find out what that is… (right after I finish my cheeseburger… I got a hankering for one).

I finished my own large cheeseburger, so I decided to really think about the ‘meaning’ behind his life.

Let me first catch you up on who this Padre Pio is, and why he’s attracted attention for years.

A rare photo of the stigmata on Padre Pio's hand.

• Lived in Italy from 1887 – 1968.  (Alive while I was alive, which makes him more credible than some middle-ages dude... there are photos and videos after all).
• From an early age behaved well, loved God, followed the rules, kind to others.
• At the age of five, began to have spiritual ecstasies and apparitions, including visions of the Blessed Mother Mary.  But he didn’t report them to others until years later “Because I thought they were ordinary and happened to everybody.”...

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)

Source:  Padre Pio, Man of Hope by Renzo Allegri, Published by Servant Publications, 2000.
Two (of many) websites about Padre Pio:  Biography of Padre Pio.  A few Miracles of Padre Pio.  

The Blessed Mary comforted man with cancer

In 1979, we began to suspect that my father might have cancer. Doctors ordered an operation to confirm the diagnosis. The night before surgery, my father told our family that while he was praying that morning, the Blessed Mother came to him and told him "Don't worry - everything will be alright."  I assumed my father was just suffering confusion caused by the powerful medication.

After the surgery, doctors informed us that my father did have cancer. He would have three to six months to live. Chemotherapy was suggested but my father decided against this.

It is now eleven years later and he is still with us. With no trace of cancer.  I have to believe that the Blessed Mother really did bring assurance of God's healing to my father...


(Read the rest at Wtness.org)   

George Goike

The Blessed Mary is currently appearing in Medjugorje


This may be the hardest to believe of all the entries so far placed here. But if it's true, and I believe it is, it has the greatest meaning to us all.

The Blessed Mother of Jesus, Mary, is allegedly appearing regularly to six very normal but faith-filled people in this small village in the former Yugoslavia, and has since 1981.  This is the longest continuous time period by far that Mary has visited the earth.  Because it is not yet Christ's time to return, she is serving as His messenger. She is doing the will of her Son Jesus - God, and is not speaking on her own.

In 2007, 26 years after the first apparitions,
 the believing crowds get no smaller.



Some of the first words said by Mary: "I have come here, because there are many devout people here."  These people maintained their faith in Jesus despite living in a communist country, where the official position was that there is no religion.

The core of her message is this:  Tell all of humanity to convert back to God.  This can be done through prayer, fasting, and penance. She wants all people, even people of different religions, to live at peace with each other, since the people of all religions are accepted by her Son.

To give credibility that this is really happening, healings have taken place in Medjugorje.  Professional psychologists have studied the seers, all who were teenagers when the apparitions started, and determined that they are all looking at and responding to the same image at the same time, even though they do not look at each other to cue each other.  When any of them converses with the Blessed Mother, their mouths move but onlookers hear nothing.  The seers report speaking in a normal voice and hearing Mary with their ears, but onlookers hear nothing. 

When asked why others cannot see or hear her, she responded with the same words used by her Son two millenia earlier: "Blessed are they who have not seen and believe..."

Source:  Medjugorje, The Message by Wayne Weible.  Wayne was the owner of three newspapers and a Lutheran who had quit going to church altogether when he heard this story and decided to dedicate his life to writing about it.

I'll write more about this in the future.