MEDJUGORJE MIRACLES -- RITA KLAUS

[Rita Klaus’ story appears on numerous websites and features in a number of books, including Reinventing Medicine by Dr Larry Dossey, Medjugorje The Message by Wayne Weible and Rita’s own book Rita’s Story. She has appeared on numerous television shows including Oprah. Rita’s story doesn’t appear to be directly attributable to Medjugorje; however it seems that a friend travelled there and suggested Rita do the same. Financially, it was impossible, so she found another way to ask for help.  I have taken the following, quite detailed account from https://bolstablog.wordpress.com which in turn has been extracted from Rita’s Story]:

Three months ago, I had Multiple Sclerosis. I had had it for more than 25 years. I was first diagnosed as having it when I was 20 years old, and it was difficult to accept. Of course I went through all the channels of denying I had it; I just would not accept it. As it began to progress, I rationalized it was something else. It was ruining my life; I was depressed and very angry inside — and very hurt. Yet I wanted to do what God wanted me to do.

About five years ago, a friend asked me to come to a healing service, but I really wasn’t into the Charismatic Movement, so I tried to get out of going. But my friend wouldn’t take no for an answer, and my husband pointed out that I had tried everything else, so what could it hurt to go?

The service began with the praying of a rosary, so that wasn’t so bad. I was sitting in a pew towards the back of the church, and when the procession of priests started, I felt someone grab me from behind. At first I was totally embarrassed, because I had already made up my mind that I wasn’t going to volunteer to go to the front for special prayers or anything. Then something strange happened; I felt this wonderful peace come over me. It was as if all the unhappiness of the years of suffering through this disease suddenly disappeared.

Returning home that evening, I vowed to improve my spiritual life. Up to this point, I was very bitter towards the Catholic Church. Though I had continued to attend Mass, I was simply going through the motions. Now, I wanted to make up for that. I told my pastor what had happened and asked him to pray that I might continue to be at peace.

By the end of that year the paralysis was in both legs and my arms. This, of course, upset me because of my work as a teacher, and because of my husband and children, and the hardship it put on them. But I had a good parish. Neighbors drove me to school, my husband scrubbed floors, and the kids helped out where they could.

Meanwhile, my legs became severely deformed, and the bones began to bow. My right knee became completely displaced because of the spasticity of the leg; the knee-cap came off and slid over into the interior of the leg. Also, there was now no feeling left at all.

At this stage I was forced to go to a rehabilitation hospital. It was time to face up to the fact that I was handicapped — and to begin life in a wheelchair. My husband could accept the braces and the crutches, but he couldn’t stand the wheelchair. Yet it was something we would both have to face and to live with. We loved the outdoors and liked to go camping. This would really slow that down for us.

But there were some good things happening. Many people pitched in to help, and the state came in and installed thousands of dollars worth of equipment in the school where I was teaching and in my home.

As I said earlier, I had sent off for the book about the apparitions at Medjugorje. I was really impressed and told my husband about it, but he’s not Catholic — he’s Lutheran, so it didn’t have much effect on him. Anyway, we tried to improve our prayer life, and I personally set aside an extra hour each day for meditation.

Then, one night in June this year, as I lay in bed finishing my rosary, I heard a voice way, Why don’t you ask? I don’t know why, because I had never asked before to be healed. I had come to accept my handicap. But it just came to me as I lay there. So I asked with all my heart for her to ask her Son to heal me of whatever I needed to be healed. At that moment I felt a bubbly feeling go through me, and I don’t remember anything else as I fell asleep.

When I awoke the next morning, I didn’t think about the night before. I had a Scripture class I attended at a nearby college, and I prepared to go to that class. My husband helped me into our van which was equipped with hand controls for me, and he placed my wheelchair in the van as he always did. When I got to the college, there was always someone there to help me and get me to class.

I didn’t notice anything unusual right away. Suddenly, as I sat there studying with the rest of the class, I began to experience a feeling of warmth in my feet and legs and an intense itching. But there was no way this could be happening, as I had no feeling my feet and hadn’t for several years. Then I looked down at my feet and not only were they itching, but my toes were wiggling! I was totally dumbfounded!

I didn’t remember another thing in the class; in fact, I don’t even remember leaving the class and getting into my van. All I wanted to do at that time was get home and tell my family what was happening to me.

As I arrived at my house, I remembered that there was no one home. I had complained earlier that I had no strawberries and would they please go to the strawberry farm and pick some for me if they had time that morning. Evidently, they had gone and not returned in time to get me into the house. They did have the foresight to leave my crutches at the bottom of the three steps leading into our house. Occasionally, if I needed to get into the house, I could do it with the crutches. But it took a great deal of difficulty to do it.

Well, I sat there in the car for about 15 minutes, waiting. I was filled with disappointment because I wanted so much to tell them what was happening. Then, I had to go to the bathroom.  My handicap also included bladder and bowel dysfunction, and I had been in class all morning…so I had to get in and get in right away!

I stretched out of the car and got the crutches Ron had left for me within easy reach. I could not, however, lift my leg with the heavy braces on them. I stood there for a few minutes and then thought that if I could feel my feet — maybe I could also lift my leg. I tried it, and it went up the steps with no difficulty. My heart was pounding!

Once in the house, I went to my bedroom on the first floor and leaning against the bed to unlock my braces, I looked down at my legs. I thought they looked kind of funny; then I looked again and it hit me that my  right leg was completely straight! I had had two surgeries on it to attempt to straighten it, but neither had been successful. In fact, they had finally released the kneecap (surgically) to let it go with the rest of my knee, stating that was all they could do with it. A severe valgus deformity had resulted from the years of spasticity and muscle imbalance.

As I looked now, it was straight. The kneecap was where it was supposed to be. My legs were perfectly straight!

At that point, I completely flipped out and began screaming that my legs were straight. I kept saying, “Thank you Blessed Mother! Thank you Jesus!” But it still had not sunk in that I was healed. Shaking, I took off the braces and stood up on my legs, unassisted, for the first time in years. I looked down again; they were like anyone else’s legs! Finally it struck me that something very wonderful had happened.

I walked down the hallway…walked down the hallway, with my crutches under my arm. When I got to the base of the stairs, I thought: well, if I’m really healed, I can run up those stairs. So I dropped my crutches and did it — and then ran back down and up again. And I just kept shouting “Thank you!” over and over. I went a little hysterical, weeping and laughing at the same time…I was in shock. I felt like St. Paul when he was knocked off his horse. Finally, when I had sobered up a little, I decided to tell someone so I tried to call my pastor. But I kept dialing my own number! When I got through to him I said, “Father Bergman, I’m healed! I’m healed! I don’t have MS anymore!” and he answered, “Who is this?” I said, “This is Rita — I’m fine, you don’t understand, I’m healed!” Then after a moment of silence he said, “Rita, I want you to sit down, take some aspirin and call your doctor — promise me you’ll do that!”

I didn’t know what else to say, so I just hung up on him and called a good friend who also taught at St. Gregory’s. She recognized my voice, but by this time, I could hardly talk, and she thought something terrible had happened. She flew to the house, and that’s something because we live way out in the country. I remember I was standing in the middle of the living room floor, jumping up and down when she arrived; soon we were both jumping up and down as she realized what was happening.

My friend calmed me down some and said we needed to find my family so that we could tell them, so we left for the strawberry farm. Since we had to go by the rectory of the church, we decided to stop and show my pastor that I was healed. He was in the study, and when he saw me standing in front of him, it hit him what had happened. All Father Bergman could do was stare at me, and he kept saying, “Sit down, Rita, you haven’t used those muscles for a long time!” I told him I was fine and that I felt like I was 17 again!

We left there and headed for the farm, but when we arrived, my family had left, so we were off agin for the house. When we got there, my friend ran in to get Ron who came out, white as a sheet. He thought something must have happened, because my car was still there and the braces and crutches were in the house, and that an ambulance must have come and taken me to the hospital.

I jumped out of the car and ran to him. My oldest daughter just stood there in tears and completely dumbfounded and choked up. She’s twelve and my other two daughters are ten and seven. They had never known me any way other than handicapped.

It was…an indescribable scene. My oldest was crying, the middle one just stood there with her mouth open, and my little one said, “Oh, goody! Now we don’t have to do housework anymore!” She followed that with, “You look silly, Mom!”

After a while, we all calmed down and decided we better call my doctor. Would you believe, he was out playing golf! The next day, I went back to my Scripture class, but I didn’t know what to do about them. If I told them, the class would be totally disrupted so I decided to go in the wheelchair. That was the hardest thing ever — to have to sit there in that chair knowing I was well. Later, when I returned home we were finally able to contact my doctor. 

We told him what had happened, and he kept saying, “That can’t be! That can’t happen; it’s impossible!” He asked my husband if I was walking, and he said, “No, she’s running!” He asked us to come to the hospital right away.

When we got there, everyone on the staff was waiting. I had just been there a couple of weeks before that. They were stunned. My doctor thought it was a joke, saying I must be Rita’s twin sister. He then conducted a lot of neurological tests and found everything to be perfect. After exhaustive tests, all he could do was hug me and cry and ask me what did I do? I told him all I did was ask. How many times? Once, I answered him, but many people have been praying for me for years. He then asked did I use up all the prayers, or were there still some for him? It was wonderful.

Since this has happened to me, many things in my life have changed. I witness now to other MS patients, and to groups. And I pray a lot to God and His Holy Mother. I just ask you to pray that whatever I do, I do it well. thank you, and God bless you.

[The events described above apparently took place in 1986. The following is extracted from an e-mail from Rita’s daughter, Ellen Klaus Kovalsky dated 31 January 2009]:

…I can give you a quick update now. She’s (Rita’s) doing great, other than the typical stuff that comes with age. She and my dad now live in Florida. They have an RV, do a lot of traveling throughout the state and in between there and Pennsylvania, where they continue to spend their summers. They have two dogs whom they are VERY dedicated to! There’s not too much else to note on, but she continues to do well — no MS symptoms.

MEDJUGORJE MIRACLES -- DIANE BASILE

[Diana Basile’s story appears on various websites though mostly in Italian. This item appeared on www.medjugorje.ws and it is by Prof. Dr. Ljudevit Rupcic. It is only slightly edited by me]:

Mrs. Diana Basile, born October 5, 1940 in Platizza, Cosenza, Italy, suffered from multiple sclerosis, an otherwise incurable disease, from 1972 till May 23, 1984. In spite of the expert help of the professors and doctors at the clinic in Milan, she grew more and more sick. By her own desire she came to Medjugorje and was present during the apparition of Our Lady in a room connected to the church and was suddenly healed. All of that happened in such a quick and thorough way that on the following day the same woman walked barefoot 12 kilometres from the hotel in Ljubuski where she spent the night on the same Apparition Hill in order to thank Our Lady for the healing. Ever since then until today she has remained well. Upon her return to Milan, the doctors were astonished by her healing and immediately established a medical commission, which was again thoroughly to examine both the previous and present condition of the healed woman. They collected 143 documents and, in the end, 25 professors, head doctors, and other doctors wrote a special book about the disease and the healing in which they stated that Diana did indeed suffer from multiple sclerosis, that for many years she was unsuccessfully treated, but that now she is completely well and that this did not happen by any kind of therapy, nor by any kind of medicine. They, thereby indicated that the cause of the healing was from other  than a scientific source.

MEDJUGORJE MIRACLES -- LINDA CHRISTY

[Canadian Linda Christy’s story appears on various Internet sites. I extracted the following from www.visionsofjesuschrist.com. I have edited it considerably but not so as to change any of the pertinent facts]:

April 23, 2013 — Reported in SpiritDaily.com.  After 18 years on crutches, Linda Christy from Canada arrived in Medjugorje in a wheelchair. Doctors are unable to explain why she could leave it and walk on Apparition Hill, because her spine is still deformed and her other medical tests also look the same as before she was cured.

Medical science cannot explain how Linda left her wheelchair in June 2010 in Medjugorje after 18 years with a crippling spine injury. “I experienced a miracle. I arrived in a wheelchair, and now I walk, as you can see. The Blessed Virgin Mary healed me on Apparition Hill,” Linda tells Radio Medjugorje. Last year, on the second anniversary of her healing, she handed over her medical documents to Medjugorje’s parish office. They testify to a double miracle: not only did Linda start walking but also her physical-medical condition remains the same as before.

“I brought all the medical findings that confirmed my condition and there is no scientific explanation as to why I am walking. My spine is in such a bad shape that there are places where it is not even coherent at all, a lung has moved six centimetres and I still have all the spine diseases and deformities,” she says. “After the miracle happened, my spine is still in the same poor condition it was, and therefore there is no medical explanation as to why I can stand on my own and walk after I walked on crutches for 18 years and spent a year in a wheelchair.”

MEDJUGORJE MIRACLES -- ANIA GOLEDZINOWSKA

[Ania Goledzinowska’s story appears on numerous websites and in YouTube videos. She has also published an autobiography about her experiences. I have uplifted the following article from www.visionsofjesuschrist.com. It has been edited by me but not to change the story in any way]:

[September 12, 2012 — Reported in  SpiritDaily.com]. Before her conversion in Medjugorje, the Polish model Ania Goledzinowska lived a life of celebrity, substance abuse and hostility toward the Catholic Church. Eight years ago Ania woke up in the middle of the night in her Italian home to find a mysterious man standing by the side of her bed, shaking his head at her in disappointment. It was only years later when she moved to Medjugorje in 2011 and was given a book about Saint Padre Pio that she recognised the man’s face.

When she experienced the mysterious encounter, Ania was leading a far from virtuous life. Though a successful model, an actress in Italian sitcoms and a TV presenter she admits to struggling with substance abuse, lacking faith in God and even developing a strong resentment toward the Catholic Church. Saint Pio, she believes came to warn her to change her ways. The former model recalls the day when she finally identified him: “For years, I did not know who he was,” she told Brother Marcin Radomski in an interview she gave earlier this year in Lomza, Poland, “Even in my book I reported this incident but did not include the man’s name.” This is the first time this part of her story is being told in English.

“It was only five months ago in Medjugorje that somebody gave me a book about the life of Padre Pio and for the first time after eight years, I could give the name of the person who came to admonish me, to warn me that if I continued leading my life this way I would not go far.” She was very open about how far away she strayed from the Church in those years to the point of developing a hatred for all things Catholic.

“I was far from the Church. If I would get a chance, I would shoot all priests and nuns. Whenever I saw a church, I would cross to the other side of the street. I abused drugs. I drank.” Then one night a warning came. Even her dog, she recalls, sensed the presence of a stranger in the room, suggesting to her that this was no hallucination.

“A certain day, a certain night I woke up because my dog was barking. And by the side of my bed stood this man, older, with a beard, and he was looking at me, shaking his head. I thought that it was some kind of hallucination because of the alcohol or drugs — no, this is not possible, I thought. Then I turned on the light and this man was still standing by my bedside, shaking his head and my dog was still barking at him.”

Though Ania believes Saint Pio came to her with an important message, he did not need words to convey it. “He did not say anything but he was looking at me as if he wanted to say: ‘Ania, what are you doing?’” Ania made much news last year when the Catholic Herald published a popular interview with her. The interview centred around her life-changing conversion in Medjugorje and its consequences. She made the decision to leave the life of glamour and fame in high Italian society behind for a simple, peasant life of prayer and service in Medjugorje, where she has been living since 2011 with Pure Hearts, a Marian community of priests and nuns.

For the Polish model, this required ending a prominent relationship with her boyfriend Paolo Enrico Beretta, the nephew of the then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Lately, Ania has spent much time touring Poland as a Polish edition of her autobiography was recently released, translated by a priest.

Her book Ocalona z Piekta: Whznania bytej Modelki translates to Rescued from Hell: Confessions of a former model. A section in the book describes her encounter with the visitor who appeared to her in the middle of the night years ago to give her a helpful warning. Now readers may know that Ania has identified the mysterious visitor as Saint Pio of Pietrelcina.

MEDJUGORJE MIRACLES -- LUCIANO GIGLIONI

[The following article and testimony has been extracted from www.visionsofjesuschrist.com. It has only been slighted edited by me]:

[May 17, 2012 reported in SpiritDaily.com and medjugorjetoday.tv from iltirreno.gelocal.it] A former Italian bank manager says he saw the Virgin Mary in a sun spectacle in Medjugorje on April 27. Wearing a blue cloak, the Virgin stood forth in the sun at just about the time the daily apparition begins, Luciano Giglioni testifies. Along with a group of Italian pilgrims, Luciano, from Castel del Piano witnessed the 30 minute sun wonder. Luciano says he saw the Virgin Mary in the sun minutes before 5:40 pm when three Medjugorje visionaries have their daily apparition.

“When we went down Apparition Hill,” Luciano tells regional newspaper Il Tirreno Grosseto, “the sun had become so bright that its light took much of the sky. Then suddenly, it started to throb, turn on itself and then split into two. You could see the image of the Virgin Mary dressed in a blue cloak, and a purple cross.

“Some began to cry, some to pray, some were still walking as if nothing had happened. I realised I was crying. I  took off my glasses and watched the sun changing colour continuously for at least half an hour. Then everything went back to normal, with only the normal heaven and apparently normal people.”

Saying he will always have emotions tied to the event, Luciano has spent a while since April 27 trying to make sense of what happened. “Imagine my surprise when I  tried to rationalise the event. What had I seen? What did we see? How could I look at the sun without sunglasses all the time and not have any damage to my eyesight? I am only giving witness and this means I must stick to the facts of what I experienced on that day at about 17:30.”

MEDJUGORJE MIRACLES -- 'WEEPING' STATUE OF THE RISEN CHRIST

[Countless people have testified to the mysterious seepage of liquid dripping from the knee of the statue of the Risen Christ in Medjugorje. In fairness I should say that I have visited the statue myself and it was not leaking liquid at the time. This article, by Jakob Marschner, which I extracted from www.spiritofmedjugorje.org, is just one of them. I have only slightly edited it]:

With liquid dripping from one knee, the bronze sculpture of the Risen Christ has been a mystery in Medjugorje since 2001. While the nature of the liquid is itself mysterious, the mystery as such as just increased, for these days the unknown substance flows from both legs of the sculpture.

Almost 11 years after one of the knees of the Risen Christ sculpture in Medjugorje first started to shed a tear-like liquid, even returning pilgrims are surprised by the sculpture these days. Now the watery substance comes from both legs.

“Yes, it is true,” film-maker and Queen of Peace productions founder Sean Bloomfield reports. “Water is coming from both legs now. The new drip is actually just above the knee, on the lower thigh. The new drip is stronger than the older one.”  

“With all the people in Medjugorje now, having both knees dripping sure helps in the crowd flow!” he adds on the discussion board at MedjugorjeLive where another pilgrim just back from Medjugorje likewise tells of having witnessed the substance dripping from both sculpture legs.

The sculpture has shown to be unpredictable on previous occasions as well. Several times, the dripping has stopped for extended periods of time. One such occasion in 2010 coincided with Medjugorje receiving large amounts of rain, weakening a theory that the watery substance could be rain dripping out from inside the sculpture.

On another occasion, a large group of pilgrims witnessed how the substance was suddenly red and no longer clear. “My friend Drago,” reports a journalist of MedjugorjeUSA, “who lives in Medjugorje has informed me that this past week a man took a paper napkin and reached to take a drop of oil from the Risen Christ statue. When he looked at the napkin it is reported that the napkin was full of blood. A minimum of 50 people witnessed this. Some screamed in fear and some said, “It’s a miracle.”

Vatican experts have been rumoured to have analysed the substance, but neither Rome nor the parish of Medjugorje have ever confirmed such analysis to have taken place.

The statue is a replica of the 277 centimetre silver sculpture “The Resurrection,” sculpted by Andrej Adjic and presented to Pope John Paul II on the occasion of his 1996 visit to Slovenia.

MEDJUGORJE MIRACLES -- FERDINAND ROCCANTI

[The story of Ferdinand Roccanti appears on numerous websites and there are videos on YouTube but the following is an article by Michael H Brown which I extracted from www.visionsofjesuschrist.com and have only slighted edited it. The story is unlike the others in that there is no miracle cure, only what Ferdinand felt was a miraculous change in his outlook on life. As for the ‘conversations’ with Jesus and the Virgin Mary, I leave that to the reader to consider for themselves. Personally, I wonder if his testimony would stand up to the rigorous testing, cross-examination and probing which the Medjugorje visionaries have been subjected to. I understand that Ferdinand passed away in 2015]:

Reported in SpiritDaily.com online newspaper. His name is Ferdinand Roccanti. He used to be a multimillionaire. He used to be in trouble with the law. He is now an evangelist. It was in 1992 that he travelled for the first time to the apparition site of Medjugorje and there witnessed what he describes as a huge manifestation of the Virgin Mary.

Once a car dealer in New England and then Florida, where he amassed a small fortune of $USM5, Roccanti and his wife Barbara were going up Apparition Hill on September 12, where one of the seers, Ivan Dragicevic, was to receive a message. “Barbara had some candles and we climbed Apparition Hill,” he says, “and I knelt by this pile of rocks where they said Mother Mary first appeared — not to think that she was going to appear, but just because it seemed like the place to kneel — and at nine o’clock we started to pray. It was dark and I prayed this prayer, I don’t even know where it came from. ‘God, God of Abraham and Jacob and Isaac and Moses, do You know I’m here?’ “I had my head bowed and my hands folded together in prayer.

“I didn’t see this hand but I felt a hand come under my chin and lift my head up and the heavens opened and He sent His mother. When I saw the heavens opened up, it was daytime to my eyes. She was all white and as big as the heavens. I went to point my finger up and say, ‘Look!’ but my hand froze halfway and now I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t move my hand, I couldn’t talk and I couldn’t take my eyes off Her, so I touched my wife with my left hand and I could only whisper. When I touched her she looked and in a whisper I said, ‘Look up and tell me what you see’ and she said, ‘I see her!’ Mother Mary didn’t talk to either one of us, but there was something that happened deep in our hearts and souls that would change our lives forever. I really believe that once you see the Mother of God — I don’t know how someone could describe something so incredible.”

When Ferdinand told a priest, the priest later heard the exact same testimony from another pilgrim. Flying back, Ferdinand was sitting on the end of the fifth seat on the middle row of a plane when a woman, another pilgrim, came and sat on the arm of his seat as the flight attendant was wheeling a cart in the area, reached in her purse, pulled out a Pieta book and put it in front of his eyes, asking, “Have you seen Her?” The question was a shock. It had come out of the blue and was a confirmation to Ferdinand who says the Virgin he saw on Apparition Hill did look “a little bit” like the picture, “but She was as big as the heavens, enormous. And when She left there were these shooting stars. I thought everyone had to have seen it, but nobody did but Barbara and one other person. It was a white or light-blue sky like heaven’s light. And it was just Her face.” For Barbara, it was similar. “The sky was pitch dark, we could hardly find our way up the mountain, but when the vision appeared, I saw Her face and it looked all white and She was up in the sky and it was just huge and when I looked down and looked back She was still there,” Barbara recalls. “She was sort of transparent and all white and all bright. It was very clear.”

In 1993, Christ allegedly spoke, asking Ferdinand to be a victim soul. “There were three things Jesus said to me,” claims the former businessman. “My mom, my wife and my sister were there. He said, ‘Ferdinand, would you be blind for me?’ Immediately I closed my eyes really tight like a little kid and started crying. I couldn’t talk, I was choking. I thought no way, I’m not saying yes. Then He said, ‘Ferdinand, would you be in a wheelchair?’ I’m crying and choking and my poor mom, she thought I was going to die. And then He said, ‘Would you give away all your money?’

“Now my mind is racing. This is the worst news I’ve ever heard, so I cried more. I’m choking, crying. I could not say yes. Everyone laughs when I say it, but I wasn’t laughing. I was crying like a person who just lost his whole family. My mother was really upset. I was crying and choking. She thought I’d die. But Mother Mary came and said, ‘Take a tear and touch your mother’s arm.’ My mother became calm, and she had been really hysterical. I touched my sister and wife also and they became calm and relaxed like on a sunny day. Mother Mary said, ‘Little Ferdinand, I’m giving you my heart,’ and I felt this incredible infusion of power and I said, ‘Jesus, do with me what You want.’”

It was then that the former car dealer developed ailments that indeed temporarily took away his sight and sent him into a wheelchair. It was a neuromuscular disease called myasthenia gravis. He went blind on September 16, 1994, and a month later — on October 13, 1994 — experienced another vision, this time of Mary as Our Lady of Fatima. She also appeared to him during 1993 in St Peter’s and Paul’s Church in Chicago.

As for the money, by now this businessman who had once sold BMWs and Volvos had about $USM1.4 left and began to give this away “to whoever Mother Mary lead me to” — individuals, churches. He bought new cars for people. He kept only enough to pay a fine he owed over a financial transaction (which had sent him seeking refuge at Medjugorje to begin with), buy a small house, and pay legal fees. For a long period he and his wife travelled, living out of the trunk of their car. Today he relies on selling inspirational paintings. This was another miracle for a man who didn’t previously know how to paint.

Before a talk at St Michael’s College in Vermont, dozens of evil spirits attacked. Roccanti told Spirit Daily, “I was punched, threatened and bounced around the room,” he says. “I would spray them with Holy Water and you could hear it like a sizzle.” And in this too is a message. “Every time you pray a mystery of the Rosary, you hit the devil right between the eyes, and in these times that we’re living in, you need to hit him 15 times,” urges Ferdinand. “Because if you whack him in the forehead with those mysteries, by the end of the day he’s dazed and he can’t get you. But he’ll start again tomorrow if you don’t pray.”

Now a resident of Grange, Indiana, Roccanti feels the United States will suffer for the next four years. On September 11, while in church, he says Jesus spoke to him, repeating a sentence three times. “He said, ‘This is the beginning of the punishment against the killing of the innocent,’” recalls Ferdinand. “‘This is the beginning of the punishment against the killing of the innocent.’ He said it three times. Some people don’t want to hear it — you know, ‘God wouldn’t do this.’ And I say, well, the God who sent the serpents into the desert to kill the Israelites because they were disobedient is the same God.”

MEDJUGORJE MIRACLES -- CHAR VANCE

[The story and testimony of Char Vance can be found on numerous websites and video clips on YouTube. The following is an article written by Michael H. Brown which I uplifted from www.visionsof jesuschrist.com. It has only been slightly edited by me]:

Reported in SpritDaily.com online newspaper. When life seems to be closing in on us, in a world that so often seems upside-down, there is one way to exit, and that’s through humour.  A sure cure for our ills is found in laughter. Usually, we should be laughing at ourselves. And one thing that should make us smile is how silly it is to worry when we have God. In the light of His eternity and angels and watchfulness, there is nothing to fear but lack of prayer. We can even pray for a good sense of humour. Many of you have heard the experts talk about how laughter can help us recover from serious illnesses. That’s because humour is a spiritual release and when we release something on that level, it goes to our emotions and our bodies.

A great example of this — of healing and laughter — is Char Vance, the television producer and comedian from New Orleans who is often out there speaking at conferences and causing people to roll in the aisles. Char had been in the radio business when she suffered a horrendous accident. It was on Halloween night at a farm she owned back in the 1980s. She and a group were riding on a tractor-pulled wagon when suddenly they caught sight of the barn on fire. Char jumped off in the hope of running to the blaze but got caught underneath, injured so badly it looked like part of her leg would have to be amputated. The ankle was severely damaged.

Just crushed. No bone support at all. It looked like a lifelong handicap. At the time, Char was not a Catholic, but a friend got her to go to the apparition site of Medjugorje, much besmirched these days by the devil. And for good reason — this is a place of enormous conversion. Ask Char. Her recounting of her trip and her conversion to the Catholic faith — more importantly, to faith in Jesus — is a hilarious excursion into deep spirituality. Finally, it has been captured on videotape.

At Medjugorje, where Char hobbled in a huge, lumbering cast, the Louisiana woman climbed the holy highland of Mount Krizevac despite those who thought it was crazy and despite her own scepticism. “I wondered why (after Apparition Hill) they wanted us to go up the mountain,” she jokes. “I said, why do you have us climbing two hills, two mountains in one day? It’s not like we’re going to run out of fun things to do here.”  Here she was in a place with no TV, no hotels and no pools, drinking beer while everyone else was praying the Rosary in a way she saw as strange and obsessive. But Char went up the “hill.” As she walked a dirt road on the outskirts of the village, something said to her, “You know, it will be just your luck if something big happens up there and you’re gonna miss it.” That’s what had finally convinced her to go up. She and her companions caught a cab. When they got to the mountain, many others were doing the same.

“I didn’t know a lot of prayers,” says Char, “I knew ‘Now I lay me down to sleep’ and the Lord’s Prayer, but that’s the most wonderful thing you Catholics have — you have prayers for everything,” she jokes. “You know, you got department heads. You lost something, you got St Anthony. You got bad eyes you got St Lucy…” Heading up the mountain and praying at the fourth station of the cross, Char propped up her cast on a boulder and along came a monk — a very unusual monk. “He had on this white robe and the hood up and he’s carrying a tripod with nothing on it, no camera. And he’s looking directly at me,” says Char. “And coming to me. And he says, ‘You know, when I was in Germany, I had the good fortune of meeting Theresa Neumann.’ To me it was like saying, ‘I met John Jones.’ He said, ‘You know who that is, don’t you?’ I said, ‘No,’ and he said, ‘Well, she was a stigmatist.’” Got me again, said Char. “Don’t you know what a stigmatist is?” the man asked. Uh uh, replied Char.

He explained what a stigmatic was (someone who had received the wounds of Christ) and pulling out a Rosary told her that he had put it on her stigmatic wounds and that it had since healed people of many problems, including cancer. “Here I am with this big cast on the rock, and he says, ‘I would like your permission to put this on your head!’” It’s hard to convey how Char tells this story. Her inflections, her timing, her side comments are hilarious. The tape shows an audience in constant stitches. But she was telling a serious story. “When something like this happens, you think ‘somebody has tapped into your thoughts’ — and you better start thinking some holy pious thoughts QUICK!”

The mysterious stranger told Char to say seven Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glory Bes, and when she got to the top, the Creed. “When he left he would talk to others,” she recounts. “If they were French he would begin talking in French. If you were Spanish he would start speaking in Spanish. It was like he knew what you were before he got there.” At the seventh station, the comedian noticed the “monk” was kind of winded. Char offered him a canteen of water. “He smiled a smile that went all the way through me,” she says.

Medjugorje is famous for the reports of mysterious strangers — including monks or nuns in white. When Char got to the top, the seers were ready to have an apparition. Char didn’t want to see anything — afraid there would be hysteria and she would fall off the mountain! They were at the large cross there. “All of a sudden it gets quiet, quiet, quiet. All of a sudden, that cross lit up and it lit up best I can describe it like those old strobe lights quick and I see Jesus on the cross. I saw him like I have never seen a person before or since. He looked horrible — horrible — His nose was laying over and He had this enormous crown, not this little crown like you see. This thing was like a big bird’s nest. That quickly lit up again and I saw it again.” Vance wasn’t alone. Others in her group were astonished to witness the same thing. The mountain is known for a wide array of phenomena — although this particular type we had not previously encountered. It is the cross where the Blessed Mother says she prays each day.

A woman next to Char said, “Did you just see Christ on that cross?” Char felt “totally zapped.” She now knew without a doubt that God and the Blessed Mother existed. When she got back, she had to go to the doctor for X-rays. She went into the waiting room “…and all of a sudden the technician comes out with all these X-rays and he said (in a loud voice) ‘Charlene Vance, you’ve been healed, you’ve been healed!’” You should have seen the people in there with their People magazines!” she jokes.

But it was true: the nurse ran in too, and then the doctor arrived — gracing them with his “presence.” “When’s the last time you saw a doctor come into the waiting room?” she recalls with a roll of her eyes. “The nurse said, ‘Did you hear about…?’” The doctor said he had to take a look at it. It looked like there was bone growth. He asked Char to slowly try to see if she could move her toes. She could do more than that; she could rotate her whole ankle. She was with her mother. “I started dancing around and saying, ‘Ma, ma, I can walk, praise God I can walk!’ He runs out and brings out another doctor and they look at the X-rays and my mother says, ‘Doctor, doctor, what is it?’ and he says — direct quote — ‘There’s absolutely no correlation in her X-rays before she went and when she got back. There’s total bone growth everywhere.’”

“Jesus is the same as He was 2,000 years ago,” she tells those who see her. “Miracles do happen,” says Char. “Believe in miracles. Expect a miracle. Miracles do happen.” Char now helps produce videos for Focus International, headed by retired Archbishop Phillip Hannan. ”The real miracle,” she says, “was when God healed my head with the gift of faith. Miracles do happen, but they happen in God’s time and in His way.”

Char had some medals from Medjugorje and started walking all around and passing them out to the people in the waiting room. “Have a medal! Have a medal!” She walked out of that office and never needed crutches like they said she would and never received a day of therapy. And yes, Char became a Catholic six months to the day that she had climbed the mountain.

[Footnote: she also was to learn that Theresa Neumann, the stigmatic, had been born on Friday, April 8 which is Char’s birthday — in fact she too was born on a Friday — and was injured trying to put out a fire in a barn. It was her ankle that was injured, and the mystic was healed a year later].

MEDJUGORJE MIRACLES -- COLLEEN WILLARD

[Colleen Willard’s story appears on numerous websites and there are YouTube videos of her testimony. I have taken the following article from www.andamazinggrace.blogspot.com.au. It has only been slightly edited by me]:

When a woman from the western suburbs of Chicago named Colleen Willard, who apparently experienced a remarkable healing at the famous apparition site of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina went to her doctor in Chicago, a pulmonary specialist, she walked right up to the reception desk and said, “I’m Colleen Willard.”  Everyone in the office knew her by sight and said, “No, you’re not.” Shocked, she said, “Yes, I am!” They screamed, running through the office yelling, “Dr Duggan, Dr Duggan, come here!” Baffled by the excitement in his office he walked into the room quickly. He saw Colleen and, as if struck by lightning, his entire perspective on life changed. He said, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”

We first heard Colleen’s story in September from long-time Medjugorje resident Patrick Latta. Immediately we called Gail and Jack Boos and heard the following story from Gail:

“Colleen suffered from an inoperable brain tumour that affected her pituitary gland and all of her fine and gross motor skills. She had rickets, her thyroid had completely dried up to the size of a raisin, she had lupus, fibromyalgia and nine other painful and deadly illnesses. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota (top research clinic in the United States for spinal cord injuries and brain tumours) reminded Colleen often that just to be a alive was a miracle, even without the brain tumour. We first met Colleen when she asked us, despite her pain, if she could volunteer for our organisation, St Clare Helper of the Poor, Inc. She became one of our biggest fund raisers for refugees and the poor in Bosnia, utilising the telephone when her voice permitted.

“In the last stages of cancer, Colleen’s suffering became so extreme that prayer was her only recourse. She could no longer climb the stairs to her bedroom or prayer room, she could not go to the bathroom without assistance, and to only touch her skin caused unimaginable pain. Colleen’s husband, John continued to work while their 21-year-old son agreed to stay home and take care of Colleen. One day I shared with Colleen about our many trips to Medjugorje. Colleen felt inspired to go but she knew she couldn’t go in her present physical state. And with medical bills from Mayo Clinic piling up, her family simply did not have the money. Still, Colleen said, ‘I don’t want to go for a healing, I only want to go and experience Blessed Mother and this holy place.’ That was in April. In August, Colleen called us and said, ‘John and I are praying about going on this trip.’ I said, ‘Colleen, it would only be by the grace of God that you could make it across the ocean in your condition.’ And she said, ‘No, Gail, we’ve been praying with our hearts and I said to the Lord, ‘Lord, if you really want me to go, I need a confirmation. Let Fr Agniello call me tomorrow and I will know that I am supposed to go.’ The next morning at 9:00 Fr Agniello called and said, ‘Colleen, I don’t know why but I’m supposed to call you this morning.’ So she knew that she and John were meant to go. That was her confirmation.

“We were down to the last couple of weeks of getting everything ready to go to Medjugorje. John paid their fare and we were all to meet in Chicago. I told John that I thought it was really important that he take out a second insurance policy on Colleen because if she were to get really sick in Medjugorje, she might die and the cost to get her back home might be six or seven figures.

“Just a week before leaving, she was in the hospital. She was supposed to be on oxygen in order to survive. This was last year. She could hardly speak for more than several minutes at a time. ‘It wasn’t actually confirmed as cancer, because they could not even do a biopsy,’ Colleen said later. ‘It was an inoperable brain tumour that sat right in front of the hypothalamus gland next to the major blood vessel in the brain.’

“Getting onto the plane, Colleen and John were miraculously upgraded to business class. Colleen was given medication every two hours to control the pain. In Split airport, John and Jack took Colleen’s feet and lifted them one at a time, step by step onto the bus. But in all of her pain she was joyful, always smiling, always praising God that she had made it that far.

“The next morning, the visionary Vicka was speaking. Colleen was pushed in her wheelchair as far as she could go in order to get a glimpse of Vicka. But all of the people around were pushing her, leaning on her, mothers were bringing their children in and passing them over her head — I thought ‘I made a horrible mistake by bringing her up here. Please Lord forgive me. This is too much for her.’ Just then her head dropped and I thought Colleen had died because she had told me that she could die at any moment if the pituitary gland gave way or her head was hit too hard. Her husband was way in back so he pushed his way through the crowd, lifted her head back, put some morphine mixed with another medicine under her tongue and we waited. It took her quite some time to revive.

“When Vicka finished speaking she pushed her way through the crowd and approached Colleen. Her first words to her in English were ‘Praise God! Praise God!’ Vicka opened her arms, reached inside Colleen’s wheelchair and pulled her into her chest, hugging and kissing her, holding Colleen’s body. Then she put her left hand on Colleen’s head and as she went to put her right hand also, pilgrims literally pulled her hand away and stuffed prayer petitions, Rosaries and pictures into her hand. But Vicka, with her beautiful heavenly presence and her smile, continued to pray over Colleen and several of us saw this. It looked like a golden globe came from Vicka’s hand. Vicka had her hand on Colleen for a long time and Colleen kept saying, ‘My head is like coals! My head is burning! It’s like a spiral going through my body!’ When Vicka finished prayer over Colleen — about 10 minutes — she bent over and hugged Colleen again and kissed her again. Colleen was crying.

“So we got Colleen into a taxi and back to church and John rolled her to the very front. Jack and I stayed at the back. Later, Colleen shared with us that when the priest began to consecrate the host, she heard the Blessed Mother say, ‘My daughter, will you surrender to God the Father? Will you surrender to the Holy Spirit? Will you surrender to my Son, Jesus?’ and Colleen heard Blessed Mother say ‘Will you surrender now?’ and Colleen said, ‘Yes, I will surrender now, all for the glory of heaven, all for the glory of God.’ At that moment, her legs began to tingle.

“As Vicka prayed, Colleen was taken into a different realm. One observer said it looked like ‘a golden globe came from Vicka’s hand. Vicka had her hand on Colleen for a long time and Colleen kept saying, ‘My head is like coals! My head is burning! It’s like a spiral going through my body.’ She added, ‘There was total silence. I’ll tell you this — I’m not afraid of dying any more. There wasn’t even light. The moment she placed her hand on my head, all outside sound stopped, totally. I was so immersed in the presence of God, nothing else existed but Him and His presence.’

“It also occurred during Mass. Colleen feels that the Blessed Mother spoke to her. ‘God does not give you a disease and leave you abandoned’ is the way she summarises the lesson. And he brought that message all the way to Bosnia. ‘He was still there, the whole time, and it was right before the consecration at Mass that Our Lady had said this. And when I heard Her, never having heard Her before, as God is my witness, I heard Her as if it went through my entire self. And when She spoke, I couldn’t hear any other words that were being said. When the Eucharist was placed on my tongue, immediately at that point I was aware of heat leaving, and when the heat was leaving, the pain that I had 24 hours a day started to go. It was at that point, after Holy Communion, that my husband looked at me and never said a word. He saw on my face what was happening, and got down on his knees next to the wheelchair. I said John, please get me out of this wheelchair. It feels cumbersome. I can move my hands. I can move my arms. Look — there’s no pain!’ The the shock of observers, she was able to get out of the chair.

“It was a total shock. John was behind her pushing the empty wheelchair and there stood Colleen. she walked right out of church. We went to Viktor’s restaurant and people were running to her. They had heard of the healing and even seen it. She walked back to the pansion where she played with her husband, pushing him in the wheelchair. The next day she climbed Apparition Hill on her own. Then she made it to the sixth station on Krizevac, even though she had the strength to make it to the top — at the request of a priest — she prayed instead of continuing.

“Upon her return to the team of doctors in the United States who were looking after her health, Colleen was completely tested and all tests came back normal. She now has a working thyroid, the brain tumour has disappeared and all illnesses are eradicated from her body. But, Colleen and John wondered how they would explain her healing to the doctor at the Mayo Clinic. When she opened the door for her appointment, the doctor pushed his chair away from his desk, smiled at her and said, ‘So, you’ve been to Medjugorje. You are our third major inexplicable healing coming from there.’ The problem was solved. There was nothing to explain.

“Colleen’s healing has joined hundreds of others in St James parish records which closely resemble those from Lourdes. But Colleen’s story is far from being over. As she was courageously serving Jesus and the poor before her healing, offering up the terrible and continuous pain she endured, she now offers her health to answer Jesus’ call. The key words of Colleen’s life and of all the incredible blessings which are flowing from it, are indeed, ‘Yes, I surrender!’

“The healing process was at full throttle. God had intervened. Most of the ailments had disappeared. And now it is up to the experts at the parish and even at the Vatican to discern if this is a recognisable miracle — one of the hundreds reported at the apparition site. As for Colleen, her advice to the inform — remember that when we are sick, there are many blessings available.”