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Medjugorje, September 12, 2024
Feast of the Holy Name of Mary
Dear friends, praise be to Jesus and Mary!
1. On August 25th, 2024, the visionary, Marija, received the following monthly message:
“Dear children! Today, my prayer with you is for peace. Good and evil are fighting and want to prevail in the world and in the hearts of people. You be people of hope and prayer and of great trust in God the Creator to Whom everything is possible. Little children, may peace prevail in you and around you. I am blessing you with my motherly blessing that you, little children, may be joy for all those whom you meet. Thank you for having responded to my call.” |
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| 2. The incredible story of an anti-Catholic French man
Roland is a retired flight attendant with Air-France. When he shares his testimony, he cannot help but weep. Love is what melts his heart. He attended a protestant church from the age of 7. There were no ornaments or statues to look at, so he would sit in front of a Bible verse that was on the wall, which fascinated him: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). He tells us:
“I had internalized that Catholicism should be rejected. To me, they were the sons of the great prostitute of Babylon, as we were taught at the time – the ultimate horror – they worshipped plaster statues.
Once during a stopover, I went to the city of Lyon (France) and walked into the famous Basilica of Fourvière. I thought to myself, “Oh dear, this temple of Babylon! Candles and statues everywhere!” However, there was a very beautiful statue of the Virgin Mary, the statue of Our Lady of Fourvière. And so, I said to her quite sternly, “Madam, I do not know you. But you know that my daughter is very sick, it is her ear, and she will probably need surgery. She is 5 years old. So, here’s the thing: you are Jewish, and with Jews we can make deals. You heal my daughter, and I promise to give my life to your Son, it’s a two-way street. Are you OK with that?” |
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| And then I lit a candle. I did not know the Hail Mary, but next to me there was a cute little old lady with her mantilla on her head and her little lace gloves… She was saying the Hail Mary, and I repeated after her – Hail Mary, full of grace. That was the first Hail Mary I had said in my life, which happened to be on September 8th, 1990 (Nativity of Mary in the Church).
I approached the altar, got on my knees, and I said to Jesus: “I just did a deal with your mother. And I was a bit rough with her, verbally, I told her that if she healed my daughter, I would give you my whole life. Well, I’m not going to wait for her to do it, because I don’t know if she will, but I’m still going to give you my life.”
I went back home after my flight to Lyon, and when my wife opened the door, she said, “I have something very important to tell you.” And I said, “Me too.” |
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| It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. When I made this deal with the Virgin Mary, the clock at Fourvière struck 3 times. It was 3 p.m. At that moment, my wife was on the couch with our daughter. She had a high fever, 40°C (104°F), and she was supposed to have an operation. My wife put her hand on our daughter’s head, and she asked the Lord, “Can you do something for her”? And our daughter was healed instantly. To this day, she has never again had a problem with her ear. And my wife immediately thanked the Lord. A small alarm clock on our fireplace showed the time: it was 3pm.
A nun had come to see us a few days earlier, and she told us: “I know a village where the Blessed Mother is said to appear.” We had to thank her! So, there we were on our way to Medjugorje.
I covered my ears. Between the airport and Medjugorje, I could hear those Babylonian Catholics singing to Mary in the bus: “Queen of the universe”, they sang, and I said to myself: who on earth are these blasphemers, shut up for God’s sake!! Mary is not the queen of the universe! There is only one King, and that is God and his Son. In short, I was thinking like a good protestant…
Because I did not want to mingle with all those Catholics, I sat on the last row in the church in Medjugorje, all the way to the left. I was quite happy to be there, all alone. And then I don’t know what happened, suddenly I burst into tears. It must have been 6:30 in the morning. And I cried, and cried, and cried…
He told me all my sins! Suddenly I saw a man dressed in a robe. I had never in all my life seen a man in a cassock. This man came up to me and asked in Italian “Confessione”? I did not know what that word meant. But because he had seen me in a fit of tears, I was ashamed, so I nodded yes. Later on, I found out his name, it was Father Slavko Barbaric, a Franciscan in the parish of Medjugorje.
He took me to a confessional and I understood him to say in Italian: “Do not tell me your sins, I will tell them to you”. What? Really?! How could you know that, man? And now he tells me all my sins in chronological order up to the day I was sitting in front of him. What on earth was he doing? Was he reading my mind? But that’s impossible!
And then he said to me, “Va bene?” and that also I understood, so I said yes. And he asked me: “assoluzione” (absolution)? And I thought, what the dickens does THAT word mean? So, I nodded yes, my eyes still full of tears.
And suddenly, after the absolution, things started happening. The confessional was filled with the fragrance of flowers, something between roses and lilies. Apparently, this is what they call myrrh, but I had never smelled that in my life. Being a flight attendant with Air-France on the Los Angeles flight (14 hours long), my sinuses were burned out, and I never recovered my sense of smell. |
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| I did not see her. While I was smelling these extraordinary fragrances despite my burned-out sinuses, I saw that father Slavko was looking very carefully over my right shoulder. I thought, “What the dickens is this guy looking at?” And so, slightly, very slightly so as not to seem rude, I turned my head to the right. Then I quickly twisted my head to the left, I did not want to see what was happening behind me. Brothers and sisters, I did not see her, but I saw everything that emanated from the Blessed Mother. That reverberation, that illumination, in short that light above my right shoulder… If I had been less deceitful and more courageous, I too would have looked carefully. Today, I regret this, I blame myself. My heart was throbbing. “No, it can’t be… this is the Virgin Mary?! No, no, no, not the Virgin Mary, no, not her! That is impossible! What am I going to say to all my Protestant brothers when I get home? What am I going to say to them?
Roland the deacon. I met Roland in Medjugorje in 1990, some 34 years ago. He was the one who reminded me recently, after a mass in French where, as a deacon of the Catholic Church, he gave the homily. He had trouble holding back his tears when he pointed his finger to the place where he was sitting, 34 years earlier, at the back of the church, so as not to mix with those “Catholic worshippers of plaster statues”! That was where father Slavko had come to him, without suspecting for a second what was going to follow, for himself and for Roland. |
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