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The
merciful miracle of Guadalupe: Divine Mercy!
Installment
Six
As we detailed in the last installment of this series, the phenomena
of our Blessed Mother's first appearance in the America's and the
manner in which she left a lasting remembrance at Guadalupe just
north of Mexico City, has had a lasting effect on every generation.
While Our Lady's original message, imparted through Blessed Juan
Diego to end human sacrifice and bring countless souls to her Divine
Son Jesus, was targeted toward the nation of Aztecs, the legacy and
devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe became paramount in the faith of
Latin America throughout the next four and a half centuries.
However, it wasn't until the 1990's that Our Lady not only emphasized that she
had come for all of the Western Hemisphere, requesting she be
referred to as Our Lady of the Americas depicted by the Image of Our
Lady of Guadalupe,
but also that sadly, her initial message on human sacrifice needed
again to be addressed because of the horrendous sin of abortion.
The
Blessed Mother requested, through a Washington locutionist near
Seattle Kenneth Staloch, that she desired her original Image of the
miraculous tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe be brought to every state
and province in the United States and Canada as a Missionary Image. Through this Our Lady
promised "Together,
my dear children, we will end the horrible evil of abortion. I will
help you stop all abortions...Through the miracle of my Image I want
to come among you and convert millions of your hearts to my Divine
Son." Ken contacted Father Walter Winrich, a
Maryknoll priest who was in Mexico and through the dedication of
attorney Dan Lynch from Vermont efforts were begun. Mexican
authorities and their ecclesiastical counterparts denied access to
the original tilma expressing concern for the safety of this
treasured icon and fear of a surge of resentment by the peoples who
would look unkindly toward the Image being removed from the Basilica
near Mexico City where she resides under glass high above the altar
and where millions of pilgrims trek annually to pray to the Virgin.
However the authorities graciously offered Fr. Winrich whatever
other reproduction he wished.
As we chronicled in the print edition of A CALL TO PEACE in December
1994, the Mother of God never demands something to be done, only
that we try to accomplish what she asks. So also in this case Our
Lady blessed the effort and assured Fr. Walter that this would
effect many, many conversions. True to her word the Missionary Image
has, with countless accounts of miraculous happenings and
transformations of heart, documented in Dan Lynch's book. Dan has,
for the last five years or so overseen the project of the traveling
image, taking it throughout the United States and Canada and around
the world on the celebrated 101 pilgrimage to Russia and China.
Our
Lady also asked that her Image be permanently placed in every parish
church and in as many homes as possible.. . . . . This
large Image is an exact replica of the original tilma for your
parish. Also available is a family size replica of the Tilma for you
to honor Our Lady in your home. . . . .
EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE
MERCIFUL MIRACLE
Our Lady also asked for one other thing to be done. That was an
unusual request imparted to Fr. Winrich in private revelation on
June 16th, 1991. That was to have a Son-a-gram taken of the original
Tilma. It seemed like an unusual request until he meditated on her
words and realized what greater proof of this on-going miracle and
confirmation of the Blessed Mother's promise to end abortion as well
as the fact that Mary was indeed pregnant with the Baby Jesus when
she appeared to Juan Diego on December 12, 465 years ago to bring a
halt to the human sacrifice being perpetuated by the ancient Aztecs.
He revealed Our Lady's request at the International Rosary Congress
in Washington, D.C. in 1991.
From that time on Fr. Walter had gone through all the necessary
channels to receive permission for such a procedure for consulting
with the Abbot of Guadalupe, Monsignor Guillermo Schulenburg Prado
who advised Fr. Winrich that in order to remove the protective glass
and secure a son-a-gram on the image, permission could only be
granted by the Holy Father. Thus, on November 12, 1994 Fr. Winrich
formally petitioned the Holy Father for permission to have an
ultra-sound performed on the original tilma. However, because of
numerous red-tape in protocol and the sensitivity of the Tilma,
which is still vividly intact today, officials feared such a
maneuver could be damaging to the tilma. They reasoned that the
portrait could be damaged. Because the image is made of a cactus
fiber, under normal time lines it should have, by all rights,
deteriorated in less than 50 years after Juan revealed the
miraculous image and the cascading roses to the Bishop as proof of
her appearance. Even though the Blessed Mother assured Fr. Winrich
that no harm would come to the tilma, Fr. Walter was obedient.
Again, as we asserted earlier in this article, all Our Lady asks is
that we try. This Fr. Winrich did. As a reward for this, when one
door closes another is opened. Our Lady accepted this decision. She
had asked originally that this procedure be performed three times at
three hour intervals on December 24th, with a fourth on December
25th. In 1995 this was performed in Denver, Colorado at these
requested times. Our Lady had promised this unusual
"Son-a-gram" would produce a special "Message from
the SON". The message was given through the original image that
Fr. Walter first carried from Mexico to British Honduras to see if
Our Lady would be received by the Bishop and the people as a
missionary to evangelize the world. The reception was overwhelming!
This was Fr. Walter's verification. He then returned to Mexico City
to secure a life-size image now known as The Missionary Image of Our
Lady of Guadalupe that he took to the First International Rosary
Conference at Washington, D.C. in June 1991. The original image has
always been with Fr. Walter and is now in a place of honor with Life
Foundation at Kettle River. It was also this same original image
which produced the successful and miraculous Son-a-gram taken in
Denver at Christmas of 1996.
DIVINE
MERCY IN THE SOUL AND IN THE WOMB
Everyone was expecting a picture of the child Jesus in the womb of
Our Blessed Mother. But man's perception of what God intends is not
always clear. The Almighty made it very clear, however, with the
gift of a merciful miracle that has great significance today. As
Life Foundation officially put it in a special communique to
MIR-A-CALL Center, "When the instrument passed over Our Lady's
womb in the image, Our Lord showed what He knows we need in this
present time in history, a great message He wishes for all. That
message is the out-pouring of Love from His Heart, with rays of
Divine Mercy. Yes, we received an image of Jesus, the Divine Mercy,
on the son-a-gram."
It was God's way of emphasizing even more emphatically the vital
importance of devotion to Divine Mercy which Jesus first asked of
Blessed Sister Faustina Kowalska in the decade of the thirties of
this century. Since that time this devotion has grown where today
both Our Lord and Our Lady have called for a true devotion to Divine
Mercy for the sake of the whole world. It is another manifestation
of the times and how God links one apparition to another, one
private revelation with another in His master quilt of salvation. It
should, then, come as no surprise that this Son-a-gram truly did
produce a special "Message from the SON" - another
merciful miracle from Our Lady of Guadalupe - the Virgin of the
Americas - Patron of the Unborn. After all, Our Lady promised. This
merciful miracle proves once again the Power and Wisdom of the
Almighty in sending His Own Mother to warn us and convert us to her
Divine Son. It should also confirm that Our Lady is truly
communicating with today's modern prophets and we are in the times
spoken of first in Joel and reiterated by Peter in Acts 2: 17-19,
"And it shall come to pass in the last days, says the Lord,
that I will pour forth My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and
your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams. And moreover upon my servants
and upon my handmaids in those days will I pour forth of My Spirit
and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the Heavens
above and signs on the earth beneath..." We have seen many
wonders and signs and this is the latest - this merciful miracle of
Guadalupe that confirms these words of Sacred Scripture, the power
of the Holy Spirit, and the need for Divine Mercy in this sinful
world.
The horrors of abortion, mounting through the years and piercing the
Sacred and Immaculate Hearts anew, continue and grow more
horrendous, evidenced by Bill Clinton's senseless vetoes of a bill
that would have curtailed abortions. His actions have been properly
condemned by the United States Bishops. What is there left? The
impact of Guadalupe had more effect on the Aztecs than it has on
this amoral society. Let us hope and pray this most recent merciful
miracle of Guadalupe will not only wake those who have been stupored
in sin, but those who are in a slothful slumber of indifference and
lukewarmness. It is only through prayer and our intensified efforts
to spread the messages of the Gospel and Our Lady, as well as
devotions such as Divine Mercy, that we can hope to end abortion
forever. No legislative lobbying will do it, only supernatural
intervention through the power of prayer. Our Lady has said as much
and has given us much. The message she imparted over four and a half
centuries ago is no different than today in these end times. How
much longer will God continue to grant His Infinite Mercy? We don't
know, but we do know when the Mercy ends, the Divine Justice will
begin. It's getting later than we think. God has spoken and repeated
everything over and over through His primary emissary to His
Children, the Blessed Mother. They've done all they can to wake us
up and bring us back into the Refuge of the Two Hearts. As the old
axiom goes, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make
him drink." Because of free will, the same holds true for man.
Jesus and Mary can lead us all to the fountain of Divine Mercy, but
they can't force us to drink and be nourished from that merciful
font. That's up to us. Wouldn't it be sad, however, to come this far
and not be refreshed in His everlasting graces?
In the next issue, we will resume the time-line of the Age of Marian
Apparitions as we pick up after Guadalupe and the ensuing
apparitions of the sixteenth century, the "Century of
Saints."
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