“THIS IS YOUR MOTHER”

“Mother!”  Since a long time ago, I have found myself silently calling out to a mother from a deepest part of my heart.  When I was burdened with difficult problems, feeling helpless and suffocating, and also when little troubles and worries kept me awake at night, I was calling out like this, unloading all my problems and concerns before the mother.

It was only quite some time later that I began realizing that this mother I had been calling even from my sub-consciousness was not the mother who gave birth to me physically but the Mother whom the Lord gave to the Apostle John and all of us prior to the critical moment of His death on the Cross, saying, “This is your mother.”

Our true and irreplaceable Mother!  Because all His children in the world needed help and care, as they cross the ocean of sins and death, at the most difficult time of His death agony, the Lord gave to John, representing all of us, a mother, and, to His Mother, gave all the children in the world as her sons and daughters so that she might become a real mother for all of us with a new Motherhood.

The Mother who brought the Only Son of God into this world with her Immaculate Heart!  It is truly a cause of our great amazement, gratitude, joy, and hope that she conceived the Lord, gave birth to Him, brought Him up, experienced poverty with Him, supported and accompanied Him during His public life, participated in His Passion, and, for two thousand years since her resurrection and assumption, has been together with the Lord and with us, enlightening for us the way to the Lord’s glorious kingdom and guiding and helping us on the way.  Even the Apostles were with the Lord on earth only for three years.  Then, how much more reliable our Mother is! 

I thank God for allowing me to realize that, even though the Mother is a creature, she is a new bud and flower in the Holy Trinity’s garden, the spouse of the Holy Spirit, and the surest shortcut to the Lord.  Who can teach and guide us better than the Mother who has been with the Lord for two thousand years? 

While I was on a retreat for a week in Japan, I first came across two books written by St. Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort, and consecrated myself to the Mother even without knowing well the meaning of consecration. 

The next year, Bernard from Switzerland, a volunteer worker at the same retreat house, sent a short fax to Fr. Raymond Spies in Korea introducing me to him.  Soon I visited Naju with Fr. Spies, and was also able to associate with many renowned priests in Japan.  Among them, Fr. Louis Derukoru sent me more than a total of about 200 books on the Blessed Mother.  I feel ashamed that I learned about Naju, where apparitions no less significant than at anywhere else in the world were occurring and many messages that formed a book were received, as late as June 14, 1994, nine long years after their beginning.             

I began reading the message book with some doubts at first, but soon became totally absorbed in it, spending a whole night to finish reading it.  Somewhat casually, I began listening to the audio recordings of Julia’s reading the messages, but soon became totally moved, shedding tears. 

Mother!  Your profound love enters our hearts by the power of grace, not through analysis, research, or scientific investigation.  As people lead their faith life, they often imagine what Heaven is like and develop their own ideas about it.  After a long time, these ideas, which are often self-centered and do not necessarily conform to reality, settle and harden in their minds.  Thus, even now, while hearing the Heavenly Mother’s words, many people cannot readily accept them, because, when they compare her words with their own hardened concepts of Heaven, they find big discrepancies.  Many people refuse to listen to the Mother’s words or find out about them, feeling offended by them from the beginning.  They remind us of the Pharisees two thousand years ago, who could not recognize Christ Who was standing before their eyes, because of their hardened prejudices. 

Gentle Mother!  Thank you for being with us even today, shedding warm tears in Naju, a small city in the southern part of this country, worrying about your children who are so immature and unfaithful.  I don’t know how to describe my gratitude to you for ceaselessly telling us to overcome the world and sins with love. 

Mother!  Thank you for choosing Julia, a little and simple soul, so approachable by anyone, as a channel of your love, life and words that you, together with the Lord, bestow upon this world. 

You chose her, who grew up in poverty and cruel mistreatment, but without losing her innocence, as an instrument for making your most sublime wishes known to others, because you loved all of us so much despite our poverty, weakness and unworthiness.  This is why your words sound so much kinder and more precious to us and your signs look so much more amazing to us. 

Now, I cannot help giving testimonies to a few of the marvelous, hard-to-believe things that have been occurring to me and those near me since the time I learned about the Blessed Mother of Naju. 

My mother, eighty-two years old, had been suffering a deep pain in her chest since her youth because of an accident.  This pain disappeared completely after Julia prayed for her.  I am so grateful for this, and know that my mother prays every morning with a candlelight lit. 

One of my grandsons, a seventh grader, had a severe case of atopic eczema for years.  He even had to be hospitalized for one month.  Soon after I asked Julia to pray for him, I was shocked to see that Julia suddenly had the same disease, with an itchy, inflamed rash all over her neck and shoulders.  When I came back to Seoul, I found my grandson completely healed.  However, his father, a doctor, still does not accept this as a miraculous cure.              

Mother!  It seems that human knowledge sometimes makes one become closed to the workings of the supernatural graces from you. 

Mother!  You are in my heart and around me.  How can I possibly put down the rosary from my hands?  How can I possibly neglect the early morning Masses?  How can I make known to others what I feel in my heart? 

For the past ten years, you have been confirming your presence in Naju, a small, insignificant city in the southwestern corner of the peninsula, which has been traditionally most neglected among the regions in Korea.  You shed tears and bloody tears of love for the past 700 days for us, who are miserable like dust.  You squeezed your whole body to give us the fragrant oil for 700 consecutive days.  On November 24, 1994, you called the Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to Naju and sent down the Eucharist two times during his visit.  All those who witnessed these miracles in the Chapel received Communion from the hands of the Archbishop, who was the representative of the Pope. 

Mother!  You called me also to that place and let me witness everything that occurred that day from a close distance.  The Eucharist that came down looked unusually white and bright!  I wished that this Eucharist could be preserved for many years, but instead was able to participate in consuming a small piece.  I do not know how to thank you enough for this. 

The more love I receive and feel, the more pain I also feel for not being able to share it with more people.  Especially when the love that I pass on to others is ignored, scorned at, and sometimes comes back to me as hatred, I seem to understand a little about why you have been shedding tears and tears of blood.  

Mother, who is spotlessly beautiful and immaculately pure!  How improper, presumptuous, and dangerous it is when we, who are so lowly, become “adults”!  I wish to conclude my testimony by quoting your message on February 28, 1993:

“Become children.  Know clearly that Satan leads you to judge with your own ideas and behave as adults, feeling confident and sure, and, thus, makes you fall into a trap.  You must gain Heaven by totally offering yourselves up with a child’s heart.”

“Let’s tear down our old houses!  Let’s get out of the graves!  The Lord is coming!”  Mother! I will scream like this ceaselessly — to myself who always hesitates before the Lord Who is the way, the truth, and the life, and to everyone else who is like me!

Justus Il-Kyu Park
Tokyo, Japan
June 15, 1995