Over the last four years I have not spoken out, either by cowardice or sloth, often enough about the false devotion to our Lady under the title “Lady of Medjugorje”

Over the last four years I have not spoken out, either by cowardice or sloth, often enough about the false devotion to our Lady under the title “Lady of Medjugorje”. There is no such person. I went once to visit a man, who was dying and as he was dying I gave him the Last Sacraments and then he asked me to bless his room. He had religious pictures around his room and there was a picture of this “thing”, which is called “Lady of Medjugorje.” It is not the Blessed Virgin Mary. I told the man I wouldn’t bless the room until he did something with that image.

The next day I arrived to bless the room and he had glued a picture of his dog over the other image. I said, “Well, that is very fitting.”

If you have statues or pictures of this image and you do not wish to discard them, bring them to me and I will see that they are destroyed. You know for a fact that I am not against statues. (Father turns and points to the statues around the Altar.) I think we can safely say that.

When I was assigned to my first parish as a young priest, just a half mile down the road there was a woman that said Our Lady was appearing on the bark of her tree. I never went down to see it until we were ordered to go by the bishop, Bishop Thomas Tschoepe. I went once and that was it; of course everyone else had to pay admission. In the background you could hear, “cha-ching cha-ching.”

I am telling you this because if you have any kind of devotion, book, statue, or anything connected with Our Lady of Medjugorje, she doesn’t exist. The bishop of that place has written about it extensively, the Bishop of Mostar, and so I am telling you as your Pastor to cease and desist if you have any of that. Perhaps you have done this through misguidance or perhaps I haven’t mentioned it enough. It has been very rare that I have done it, but I thought how fitting on this Feast Day, Feast of Mary the Mother of God, that True Devotion to Mary should only be promoted.

Please do not give me stories about how your rosary was silver and then turned to gold or even how so many miracles have happened by going and visiting there. Sure, God can write straight with a crooked line. Miracles happened at Auschwitz during World War II, but we don’t promote Auschwitz to be proliferated around the world.

Again, all of this is based on the fact that, as your Pastor…and I am only speaking to you, my parishioners, as your pastor I have to promote True Devotion to Mary and these false apparitions for my parishioners can lead you astray like that man, who was getting ready for death. I didn’t want him turning to a false apparition and being led astray.

To listen to the above sermon see below:



Feast of Mary, Mother of God and an Announcement

PLEASE LISTEN TO THE ANNOUNCEMENT AFTER THE PRAYER TO SAINT MICHAEL...The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, #495 Called in the Gospels "the Mother of Jesus," Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as "the mother of my Lord." In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father's eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly "Mother of God".




LISTEN

For those who have never read True Devotion to Mary by Saint Louis de Montfort, you can access it online free.

http://www.semperficatholic.com/





Editing Medjugorje Messages

Spirit Daily, Michael Brown’s Medjugorje web site posted a message board conversation where Medjugorje followers were arguing over the different English translations of the messages. It came to light that some alterations were made by the Medjugorje parish priests. Folks were upset.

http://www.medjugorje-online.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6293

By the time I had a chance to read the above, Michael Brown removed it and the message board. One follower claimed to be in contact with a Medjugorje insider, someone very close to the visionaries. This Insider told him or her that the last Medjugorje message really contained a phrase that said "Time is running out," while the official message said something totally different. Also, it claimed that Our Lady said "Thank you for responding to my call," three times, instead of once. There was also something about Our Lady being with us "a little longer," to comfort us through the holidays? None of these were in the published message. The poster said the Parish edited it. People got a little upset. Some attributed the huge difference to the difficulty in translating the message to English. Others remarked that, though translation is difficult, it was shocking that the original message and the published one were so "starkly" different, as one poster put it.

Then there was some back and forth discussion about contacting the visionaries and asking them to post on the board. One poster said that they would not be allowed to do so. The "time is running out" phrase spurred some discussion of the coming "great sign." One poster said she was planning to use the Sign as proof of God's existence to convert her Atheist friends. (It's sad that people are doing this. God will not prove His existence. If he did, there would be no faith).

The topic is back online, closed to responses this time. It's linked here:

http://www.medjugorje-online.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6293

Editing is not new. See: http://www.unitypublishing.com/newswire/compose.html

Emails:

Happy new year to you and to your loved ones!

Hi Rick, I have read your latest newsletter and believe is very good. On the last paragraph where you mentioned about the editing of the Medjugorje messages I can tell you that it is true. I have browse around through that site and you are right, they had a mess by having posted a different translation of the message you’ve mentioned.

Not only but if you go on that very site you will find that the administrator has deleted the version of the message given to him by his friend and changed it with the version from the parish. He explains that in the web site as well. But before changing the versions he had stated that his own version was the original one from the seer and that the parish had edited theirs but later he decided to keep the one from the parish rather than his version. (?) I wonder how many versions of those thousands of messages have had been edited to suit the Catholic eye of theologians?

They go to the extremes that one has posted a thread trying to fix the mess that this had created by giving a vague explanation of it in that site.

As I have been browsing these issue, another issue caught my eye in the same Medjugorje online forum site. A thread was made with a question regarding Vicka the seer having an interview on the internet which is said that she was told by the supposed apparition of Mary that unborn babies who are killed by abortion become angels in heaven. The issue got heated and a few intercepted this heresy and wrote against it. This made the administrator come into the thread and leave a disturbing argument. He agreed with what the seer was saying and he also noted that he did not know about the issue. Rather than confirming the teachings of the Church he let this one pass. But, there were more threads after his, and one of them really confronted this heresy by stating that it was absurd to accept the idea that the aborted babies became angels in heaven. A person also mentioned that issues like this are the issues that give ammunition to anti-Medjugorjeans to attack followers.

All of the sudden, the entire thread got deleted from the forum. (?) The administrator made a choice to delete it ,and I don’t really know why, but I think that it was the last comment in the above paragraph that made him/her do it, otherwise he would had done it before that comment because if it were to defend the Church from heresies such as that one, he would had deleted it or correct the heresy after the first post and he did not. In fact, he agreed with it.

It is amazing how many innocent people who go to that site are being indoctrinated the wrong way just to keep Medjugorje alive. This particular site hates Unity Publishing. They attack the authority of the bishops and especially Bishop Peric’s. It is filled with people who don’t like to question the truth ,so that they don’t find the real truth about Medjugorje. The site does not welcome people who speak the truth.

Best regards,

http://www.medjugorje.ws/en/articles/video/vicka-her-story/?page=11



Since believers so often claim the miracles and the conversions because of Medjugorje, I think the following answer is an EXCELLENT one! :>)

A Parish priest gives a sermon on the false devotion to Mary, so, talking about Medjugorje, he says:

"Please do not give me stories about how your rosary was silver and then turned to gold or even how so many miracles have happened by going and visiting there. Sure, God can write straight with a crooked line. Miracles happened at Auschwitz during World War II, but we don’t promote Auschwitz to be proliferated around the world."

We have to remember that one:>)

Hi, Rick,

Great article. You've inspired me to read True Devotion after I get done with St. Louis' The Secret of the Rosary.

In regards to the whole Medjuorje thing about aborted babies becoming angels.......I agree, its complete nonsense. Our Lady, I don't think, would EVER say something as ridiculous as that.



Wow - great stuff! I wish our Pastor would set the record straight like that. There is so much bad information floating around down here about Medjugorje (and Garabandal). Some of the most devout, holy people I know are caught up in it all.

And I just recently talked to a woman who told me about Luisa P. and the Divine Will. She is very convinced that it is all real and she has read many of the "volumes". I had never heard of it before, but it sounded strange to me, so I looked it up on your site and got the facts. Thank you. This poor woman is now suffering from severe depression.

Off the subject, I have a question for you. I have a rosary which I really treasure that my friend brought me from Fatima when she went there on pilgrimage. I have been saying the rosary just about every day for almost a year (?) now, and a few months ago through the grace of God, I got a very good understanding of how powerful a weapon the rosary is.