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.)
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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

Armada in the clouds going homeward tell Peter Hritiu that WWII was over

Aug. 14, 1945,    World War II

In the U.S. Navy

On board CVE 58   Aircraft carrier Corregidor           

Operating from Pearl Harbor.

It was evening.  Operations for pilot training had ceased for the day.  The weather was fair, the water was calm and the sky heavy with the mountains and puff of billowy clouds.  I was on the flight deck enjoying the quiet and having yet another look at what nature had to offer.  At first glance at the sea, there were no seagulls, no dolphins, nothing to see in the water.  My eyes lifted to the sky.  All of heaven was filled with clouds as far as the eye could see and they seemed to rest heavy on the horizon along the entire view from left to right.  It was pleasant providing shade and quieting the glare from the water.  The wind was quiet and the clouds floated easy, undisturbed, holding massive shapes.  Too many to count or describe except for their colors:  dark gray, light gray with patches of blue where the clouds allowed a peek at the sky.  

Suddenly, as though I was watching a movie, I saw silhouettes of ships in the clouds.  I saw a battleship, a cruiser, a destroyer, a troop ship, an aircraft carrier, and others.  A full armada going in the opposite direction of the enemy.

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)

Peter Hritiu

USN Sailor First Class

Written April 13, 2013

In first encounter with any church, Michigan teen has back and legs healed

Two years ago, in the middle of the EACH initiative (editor’s note:  see www.EACHtoday.com for explanation), I attended an evangelism training session at a local congregation.  It was a rather small crowd, and included 2 college kids that I had never met before.  Turns out that one of them had not been to church before, and had been invited by his friend.  The message that evening was about Jesus healing

the blind man, a powerful story from the Gospels.  Immediately afterwards, this college kid who had never attended before came forward to receive Christ, saying something to this effect: “I want to know that Man.”  After the pastor prayed with him, the kid...

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)

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Mo Thomas

Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, Michigan

Rose cremated with body of Father Jack Trese emerges from furnace virtually unscathed

(this blog has grown up and is now a full website.  Please go instead to www.wtness.org.)
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Less than a week after his death on Oct. 20, 2004, longtime pastor of St. Columban Church in Birmingham, Michigan, the beloved Father John (Jack) Trese, was cremated.  A rose was put onto his casket by parishioner Kevin Degen, and the button to start the process was pushed, with much grief, by Jack’s longtime friend, Sister Mary Fran Gilleran, IHM, president of the IHM congregation in Monroe, Michigan.  Also in attendance was Pat Lynch, president and co-founder of the Clawson, Michigan site of Lynch & Sons Funeral Home.  Pat saw the rose go on.

Pat Lynch, Funeral Director

Father Jack Trese

About three hours later, after the furnace had burned its contents for that time period at 1700 degrees Fahrenheit, Pat Lynch was in attendance for the removal of the ashes.  He said to me by phone on Oct. 13, 2012, “When I retrieved Jack’s ashes from the crematory, I saw the very same rose that had gone in.  It was virtually unscathed.  It’s never happened before that I’ve ever heard of.  My reaction?  It was unbelievable.  Remarkable.  Quite a beautiful thing.  I don’t recall who else was present at the time, but Sister Mary Fran was not one of them."

(Read the rest 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.  

Real Life Pentecost Experience

My wife Mary and I were visiting our friends Ken and Carol in their house on a Pentecost Sunday.  We went to socialize and we started the visit by breaking open the Bible and reading Acts 2, because that describes the original Pentecost day.

We read the following lines:

"And suddenly there came from the sky
a noise like a strong driving wind,
and it filled the entire house in which they were.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit"

 Then a freaky and wonderful thing happened.  We all heard the wind pick up strength and start blowing suddenly against the house and trees around us...


(Read the rest at Wtness.org) 

Bill Griffin
Royal Oak, Michigan

God seemed to provide visual approval to an outdoor gathering of 20,000 people in Detroit

A throng of Christians walking from Comerica Park down Woodward Avenue to the Spirit of Detroit Statue

On April 16 2011, I was one of approx. 20,000 people who came to Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers, for a first-time prayer walk by the multi-church outreach organization in Detroit called E.A.C.H.  (Everyone a Chance to Hear).  That number alone is enough to make you pause and think about the sheer number of Christians who came to show support to this new Christian service movement in Detroit.  But it was more impressive when that number turned out in the rain.  Most were equipped with rain ponchos or umbrellas, because it was raining when we got there, and the forecast said it was supposed to rain all morning. 

In fact, one of the men who made that prediction was local TV weatherman Chuck Gaidica.  As the event started, the rain stopped, and Chuck said in a beaming voice, (paraphrased here) “My colleagues and I predicted rain here in Detroit all morning.  The sudden dryness at that very moment in this very place could only be credited to God.”  The crowd cheered in agreement.  It seemed to be a thought most of us had had prior to Chuck saying so...  

 

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)

Good Friday Special Effect – Sunlight Vanished When Jesus Died

I still get happy chills when I think about this one.  It was about nine years ago.  My workplace didn’t offer Good Friday as a holiday, so I took a break from work in the middle of the day and was attending a church near my workplace.  I can’t remember the name of the church, but I do remember that perpendicular to the altar were two very tall and thin windows.  The window on the right was positioned in a way that the sunlight came in strongly and lit the wall to the left of the crucifix hanging immediately behind the altar.

 

As the service progressed, the story of Jesus’ crucifixion was being acted out in front of us by actors with scripts.  I was vaguely aware of the passing of time because the sunlight kept moving.  It slowly crept closer and closer to the crucifix on the wall, until finally, at about the time the readers said, “Above him there was an inscription: 'This is the King of the Jews'”, the sun had reached and was illuminating the crucifix.  The light was getting dimmer because the sun had moved into a position where only a small slice of light was able to make it through the window; the sun was at a sharp angle relative to the window. 

I began to wonder if we were going to see a miracle of timing.  Would the light go out just when…

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)

Bill Griffin
Royal Oak, Michigan

I felt arms around my body, but couldn’t see anyone…

I began seeing a woman who was in the middle of a divorce. When she became pregnant, I figured I was on the road to happiness with a wife and a family.  She on the other hand became threatened because she feared losing the two children she already had in her upcoming custody battle.  She said she wanted to have an abortion, and although I did express that I wasn’t real happy with that decision, I said that I would stand by her either way. 

The day of the abortion I became so sick to my stomach that I had to leave work.  I was honestly in so much pain on the inside that I sweated all day, my hands shook uncontrollably, and I couldn’t keep any food down.  I tried all day to ditch the feelings, but nothing worked.  At 11:30 at night I somehow made it into a church parking lot.  When I got to the front door, I startled the Pastor of the church, and he really startled me too because neither one of us expected to see the other.  The priest let me in.  He went into the office, and I went towards the sanctuary.

When I started down the hallway to the church, I lowered my eyes to the ground, and tried to say I was sorry, but I broke into tears – too much to speak, and I fell on the floor and cried.

 

Then I felt arms around my body.  I actually felt the pressure of someone holding me, but I couldn’t see anyone... 

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)  

Pete Eastman

Pete Eastman is not the writer’s real name. 

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

After 26 years, his belief in Medjugorje is still as strong

Just a quick note to say that I wrote an email to Wayne Weible, the man who wrote the book Medjugorje, The Message (see my post from Nov. 4).  I wanted to tell him I would like to tell a few more people about the amazing spiritual events happening there in the former Yugoslavia.  He wrote back ...

Thank you so much. I feel the same today as when it started.

My best wishes and God bless.
Wayne

This does not surprise me, given that Wayne, a casual Lutheran in the newspaper business who after hearing about the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1985 and having several personal encounters with the supernatural, decided to commit the remainder of his life to getting out the message about Medjugorje.  However, it does impress upon me that this must be absolutely captivating to him for him to be able to say that, now 26 years after he first encountered the Blessed Mother of Jesus himself. 

How many times have I, or others, after having encountered a small miracle and cherishing it for a few months, slipped slowly back into the real world of work, family, friends, chores, and entertainment?

What does this mean for the rest of us?  It means to me that her message of conversion back to her son Jesus must be something for us to keep at our side throughout every minute of our real world of work, family, friends, chores, and entertainment.  I think we must ask ourselves:  1.  Am I reflecting positively on God?   2.  Am I treating my neighbor as myself?

God saved his marriage, cured his depression

This true story is very hard for me to believe, because it was written and sent to me by Gerry, the very stable, very well respected leader of our church men's fellowship.  He's been at it for almost 20 years... every Saturday morning.  He's allowed a group of 20 men to set a new norm in their lives, and that's to live for Jesus.  I find it virtually impossible to think he had such difficulty earlier in his life.  But Jesus can do anything, even for people whose marriages are in trouble and who are considering suicide.

Even though I was raised by faithful Catholic parents and was friends with God through high school, something happened after that and I didn’t have time for Him, or church either.

My wife (Peg) and I were married in 1973 and 3 years into our marriage it was dying. It wasn’t my wife’s fault, I just couldn’t get any enthusiasm … I wasn’t “in love”.  I wanted to stop the marriage before we had any children to hurt …there was enough pain as it was.

My sister invited us to go on a marriage encounter … little did we know that it was for good marriages to be made better. I remember telling my wife peg that if this didn’t take, we would look for a lawyer … enough was enough.

That’s how we went into the weekend, God came into our marriage somehow (because I certainly didn’t ask him) and he healed our marriage – we went around to my parents and brothers and sisters houses and told them on Sunday how much in love we were and how we were going to stay married.

3 years later when our first daughter was born we had a decision to make.  We had agreed to be consistent with our daughter in all things - and the Church and Mass were boring – there was nothing there for us.

Father Duane Stenzel

After trial & error to find some meaning in the Church, I ended up going to a place called Duns Scotus and listening to Fr. Duane Stenzel. He talked about how much Jesus wanted me to have a relationship with him through his son, Jesus with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Both Peg & I were changed in our hearts and the Mass & sacraments exploded with the real presence of Jesus.

God still wasn’t finished with me yet – not by a long shot. I had been suffering from depression episodes that would come out of nowhere … like the floor dropping out from beneath me, I would find myself in a dungeon-type room … no doors … no escape … no hope. There were frightening moments that the thought of ending my life might be the best solution.

On one occasion while we listened to Fr. Duane talk about the healing presence of Jesus, he had us shut our eyes and listen to the scriptures read … and he read: "The spirit of the lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the lord's favor."

Suddenly I saw a vision of a room with a person huddled in the corner with his knees pulled up tight to his chest. His flesh looked raw, like a severe burn victim ... And in his eyes was a look of sheer terror.

I opened my eyes and saw that everyone else was still listening with their eyes closed … so, I closed my eyes and immediately, I was back in that room, except now I was the person in the corner … and I could feel the terror and fear in me.

I noticed a light coming in the room through a door and as I clutched my knees even tighter. I saw a hand reach across my forearm and ever so gently, lift my arm off my knees.

I realized it was Jesus and that I was healed … of course it took me quite a while as I was weeping with joy.

Since that time, I have not had one episode of depression like I had been experiencing. Jesus came to get me in a place I didn’t think anyone could get to. Let alone would want to.  I didn’t earn His healing or presence – He just came.

Now I know the one who healed my marriage. Now I know the one who healed my depression. Now I know the real answer to that Catechism question … why did God make me? God made me to love me.

Can a Host bleed? (Yes)

St. Stephen Catholic Church,
where the miracle occurred

I just received this story from a Catholic friend Kiran K, with whom I worked.  It speaks strongly of Jesus being alive today, and alive in the Communion, so I had to share it.  Who says miracles no longer happen?  

On June 6, 2010 at St. Stephen's Catholic Church in New Boston, Michigan, Father John Hedges found a Host (the thin wheat wafer representing Jesus' body that is consumed during Communion) with a bite out of it and stuck to a hymnal.  If this were a bread store, the right response would have been to throw it in the trash. But since the consecrated (prayed over) Host represents the body of Christ, this was considered a desecration.  That is, a disrespecting of our Lord.   

Father John knew the right procedure to dispose of the Host, and so he placed it in a container of water so that it would shortly dissolve, and then it could be properly disposed of.  He placed it overnight in a gilded box called a tabernacle (a place of honor) and came back the next day to dispose of it.  What he found was not what he expected.  The host had not dissolved as physics says it should have.  Instead, it was whole, and it had a small amount of blood on it.  Blood! Significant in that Jesus shed his blood for us.   A little while later, the blood smear became a droplet.  A little while later it was full of blood.  This was indeed a miracle. This would be interpreted as follows:

• Jesus was sending a message.
• This Host is to be seen as a real portion of Jesus' body.
• He was grieved.

To make this more amazing, Father John reported that this was not the first time a descrated Host bled in his presence.  The first time he did not mention it to anybody because he thought it was solely for his own eyes.  This time he felt led to share it with the community at the Monday, June 7 Mass.


Father John Hedges


He spoke of the significance of the Host and prayed in reparation for the desecration that had occurred.  He asked all to go down on two knees instead of one at the end of Mass as a show of respect for the body of Jesus, and to leave in absolute silence, and everyone felt moved to do so.  Said a woman named Carol, who was there at the time, "I do not need to tell you how many of us were crying during the talk.  People's faces were RED."

My comments:  Think of this not as a material curiosity, but as one of those rare communications from Heaven.  Then read the story again.

Source:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2529665/posts