Image taken from site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blessed_Virgin_Mary#Marian_titles Image copied from web site: The Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the 20th Century. The three children at Fatima and the link: Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary - Fatima Link to site about Lourdes: http://www.catholic.org/mary/lourdes1.html (back to front page) Link to information about Mary’s appearance in Egypt: Messages from Heaven - the Apparitions of the Virgin Mary - Zeitun, Egypt This photo was copied from the web site. (back to front page) The Fifteen Promises of the Rosary 1. I will send you grace from God to help build good character and spirit. 2. I promise to give you special protection against evil. 3. I will destroy vice and decrease hate in the world. 4. I will spread virtue and good works around the world. You will receive mercy from God. 5. I will protect your soul from perishing. 6. I will prevent misfortune and make you worthy of eternal life. 7. I will help you find and join a church community. 8. I will give you light from God. 9. I will deliver you or another soul from purgatory. 10. I will give you glory from heaven. 11. I will answer your prayers. “What you ask of me shall be given to you.” 12. I will give you what you sincerely need. 13. The entire celestial court will help you at the hour of death. 14. You will be my sister or brother in Christ. 15. Your fate will move towards heaven. Drawing I did during meeting My sketch of The Mother of God painting Link to my short story page: A World Full of Miracles A short list of titles for Mary Queen of love, Queen of mercy, Queen of peace, Queen of angels, Queen of patriarchs and prophets, Queen of apostles and martyrs, Queen of confessors and virgins, Queen of all saints, Queen conceived without original sin, Queen assumed into heaven, Queen of all the earth, Queen of heaven, Queen of the universe,
Icon image from site: OCA - Icons of the Mother of God
OUR MOTHER IN HEAVEN: A Book about Mary for Non-Catholics
LINKS TO CHAPTERS 1 2 3 4 5 6 Back to my Home Page
INTRODUCTION
We Catholics hold Mary in such reverence, that when I mentioned one day that I knew a joke about Mary to a small group, they were at first shocked. “A joke about Mary?”
As a young girl I heard the joke and it has stayed with me ever since because it exemplifies one of Mary’s most endearing traits—Heavenly Mother.
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One day the Lord walked past the pearly gates of heaven and saw there wasn't a line of people waiting. He nodded at St. Peter.
“Last time I came by, there was a long line of people. Keep up the good work.”
Peter shook his head. “It's not my doing, Lord. I tend to be most careful.”
“Oh?” Jesus said. “But you are the gate keeper.”
Peter looked embarrassed and said, “Yes, but….”
The lord stood waiting with a puzzled frown.
“Ah, ah…” Peter hesitated, then came right out with it. “It's your mother, Lord.”
“My mother?”
“Yes. She has been sneaking people in through the back gate.”
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To me this little joke illustrates the perfect motherhood of Mary. She loves us so much; she will bend the rules to get us into heaven. This is typical of most mothers. We love our children no matter what they do. We might dislike the act, but love the child. A son or daughter, though grown, can still fill a mother with worry, agony or pleasure.
Mary, as our ideal mother in heaven, embodies all the endearing traits of motherhood as the most perfectly attuned, devoted and most tender Mother we could imagine. This is the main reason why I wrote this book—I want everyone to know her as I do.
I often pray to Mary as I pray to God and Jesus. I assume the reader already understands the debt we owe the Universal God for our creation and Jesus Christ for his death and resurrection, but may not know enough about Mary, Jesus’ mother. This book will concentrate on Mary because, like Jesus, she has never left us. I hope to explain what this means to those of you who are not Catholic and also how Mary's words always reflect through her son, and how her every action implies the Godhead behind her words. When I write about Mary, I am also writing a reflection of God.
It was an odd quirk of circumstances that caused Mary to be taken out of many churches in the first place. Martin Luther loved Mary too. He broke from the Catholic church for a number of reasons; the most prominent was his love for Mary. He hated to see Mary’s image mistreated or corrupted. In 1523 A. D., Martin Luther said, “I desire that the cult of Mary be totally abandoned solely because of the abuse which arise[s] from it.”
He was upset by the church’s promise of cheap salvation, the main reason the deep chasm developed between the Catholic and Protestant churches. Many people don’t know it, but since the 1400's the Catholic Church has also struggled to understand Mary’s place in the earthly or perceived hierarchy of heaven.
It is my opinion that most of these disputes and questions about the placement of Mary are based on human folly, our own human ideas of caste, worthiness, and hierarchy that may not even exist in heaven. Think of the ladder that we assume places God, Mary, saints, and angels on tiers rising up into the clouds from lower earth into the highest heaven. This view is worldly and most likely came from our notions of kingship in earthly cultures, perhaps a necessity for primitive cultures.
If we take that same ladder and turn it sideways we will have a closer idea of what heaven is truly like.[1] Though there are layers or dimensions we can’t see or know about set around earth, the people I have seen out in the universe on paradise worlds seem to constantly work, play, and think enclosed within God's loving arms. Our immaturity prevented people in the earlier ages, and even today, from understanding the concept of this kind of oneness that exists in heaven, a oneness of mind that implies that if you talk to Jesus or Mary or a saint, (saints are those ordinary people who's lives were so good they now sit on the sideways ladder) you are talking to God. If Jesus or Mary speaks to a person on earth, their words speak for God. There is no difference of opinion because every heavenly being is on the same page.
Even if we could understand this easily today, and we can't, we would still insist on the hierarchies and levels because it seems to be our nature. What is important to realize is that when I write about Mary's attributes, I am also writing about God and Jesus because all in heaven share in the same unity.
Recently, I read that there is still a dispute going on about Mary’s immortality. I know personally that Mary is immortal because she has appeared to me from a blazing glow of light in my own living room. I also know that both Mary and Jesus are overseers for earth because Jesus has explained this to me. They each step into earth space to remind people of heaven and our need for salvation. They love, work, and care for us all the time. We mere humans can hardly imagine such a love, a love with the ability to oversee the lives of 6 billion people. With such ability to love, is it any wonder that so many Catholics and other people honor Mary as a Queen in Heaven, a queen who stands above earth next to God and Jesus?
The power of both Jesus and Mary seems able to punch through into our earth space from heaven. We all know that Jesus is God's son and therefore powerful, but who is this Mary who also holds such power? That is what this book will attempt to explain—how or why Mary, often holding the infant Jesus in her arms, is willing to penetrate the darkest illusions of earth to show herself as Our Heavenly Mother and Queen of Heaven.
CHAPTER ONE (Back to first page)
Imagine a large boarding house completely filled with a dark gray fog. Even when someone flips the switch to turn on the dim light, the gloom lingers filling every nook and cranny of the house. All of us are enclosed in the house and know nothing beyond; the boarding house is everything to us.
Then suddenly at one wall, a small nugget of the fog parts the darkness. To those who take note, the tiny light shows an image of a mother holding a infant. As more people notice, the image grows larger and finally penetrates the fog of gloom for many. As more and more people in the boarding house look in that direction, the image glows even brighter and becomes more focused. Eventually the image fades away and some people are left perplexed by what it meant, others put off the image as if it never happened, but many treasure it as an insight from heaven.
This scene is like what happens when Mary steps from heaven onto earth. We are the people who live in the dark filled boarding house. The fog is the illusion like background music that constantly surrounds and penetrates everything on earth. We did not imagine such light could lie just beyond the walls until Mary appeared to us. Her appearance has proven we live our lives in a murky illusion of shadow and darkness.
In great brilliant splendor, she shines forth, often holding an infant in her arms. We assume it is Mary holding her son Jesus, but it could be any mother with child because such a group stands for the universal symbol of motherhood. Each one of us somehow fits into the umbrella of this image, each one of us is either a mother or son or daughter. The symbol of such a basic concept impinges on everyone and proves that the message Mary's image brings into our earth space belongs to everyone, irregardless of religion or creed or culture.
Can you imagine the effort it must have taken Mary to thrust past the shadows and illusions that surround us to penetrate into the dark boarding house from beyond? Certainly, there are deliberate barriers that hide heaven’s light from our view. Barriers like blinders that keep us enclosed, surrounded, and content in our illusion as if we were the people in Plato’s cave.[2] Yet, hard as it may be, Mary has punched her way through the cave wall to get her image to us. She fills the whole room of the boarding house with light, even though many people try to ignore the light and her presence.
I have often thought that with so much effort and energy put out on Heaven’s part, Mary must carry a momentous message or warning to us. This has often proven true. Mary has tried to give us warning before each of the great wars, WWI and WWII. If we had listened to her warnings, we might have averted those wars. She has also appeared when their wasn’t dire consequences ahead, perhaps to remind us of God's existence, to show us of the great light that exists on the other side of the wall, or to ask us to pray.
Mary obliviously knows something more important then we do about prayer. She must know how prayer effects humanity and why we need to fill our space with words of worship and caring. Does she see an aura surround our souls when we pray?
Recently, during a personal appearance to me, Mary said, “All prayers are needed. Even those spoken in haste or without great feeling.”
I assumed from her words that prayer, any kind of prayer helps fight the shadow that threatens us, the shadow that keep us from seeing or knowing heaven. Mary comes directly from God, so it makes sense that she would know what prayer does for us. She steps from a place we know nothing of, with great effort, just to tell us to pray? Does our bodily health and fitness, or our soul's vitality depend on the words we send up to heaven, like a vitamin pill we don’t yet understand?
When the people in our imagined boarding house finally take notice of Mary’s image, it suddenly brightens and the glow increases in proportion to their interest. This is because faith and belief increases the light’s ability to penetrate deeper. Somehow faith, that same faith that Jesus told us can move mountains, brings the energy of God closer to earth. Even though such faith remains invisible to our eyes, our emotions or inner eye can understand what our eyes refuse to see.
Mary must know that every bit of prayer brings the dream of God and a world of love closer to our reality, that each prayer must lift the fog a little. The more we pray, the more God’s energy can feed the world, and the higher the fog is lifted from our minds.
Yet, even with the power of heaven, Mary is unable to hold the light energy in place forever. Even heaven can't keep the light shinning constantly for us so must need to send the beam out intermittently, light house style when we get too close to the rocks below. Darkness covers the rocks like a heavy cloak but a swift wind from heaven can shift its shadow. If such is God’s plan, a vast gathering of prayerful souls will one day throw off the cloak from this mountain we call earth. Until that time, Mary continues to appear to us at various places around the globe to give us a tantalizing glimpse of what heaven may be like just beyond our shore.
CHAPTER TWO (Back to first page)
The most reliable or officially accepted appearances we have for Mary are at Lourdes in 1858 and Fatima in 1917, both happened almost a hundred years ago.[3] Both the Lourdes and Fatima appearances have had thousands of sudden miraculous healings, but they both seemed to have another purpose, as well. Both gave us dire warnings of things to come if we didn’t pray. France was in great turmoil at the time of Mary’s appearance at Lourdes, and Portugal was verging on totalitarianism. All of Europe was in the midst of WWI. During her appearances, Mary warned of worst things to come if we didn’t pray. We didn't. WWII began in 1938 two months after a strange light lit up the European skies for two nights. Mary had predicted such a light during her appearance at Fatima.
She also showed the three children what hell looked like, writhing forms on fire with flames shooting up everywhere. A horrible image to show children, but I am sure it was as meant as a preview of what our world would look like if we allowed WWII and the bomb to be built that might lead us into a nuclear war. Mary's dire warning was an attempt to turn us away from such a dangerous path.
According to the children at Fatima, Mary said that it was God who would send ills to mankind because of his displeasure, but I believe the young children got the message wrong as to who to blame. Remember Mary’s appearance was a hundred years ago, and humans were still very primitive. She could hardly describe the sequence of events that were to happen to children so long ago, events even adults would not have understood. One year after Mary spoke, the 1918 Asian Flu Epidemic that began in Europe killed many millions of people around the world. Could a person from heaven speak about such an unseen bug as a flu virus, a virus that no one could imagine back in 1918 or explain that something so small could cause a world epidemic?
It was probably too late for prayer to save us from the flu epidemic, but if we had prayed more rosaries, could we have avoided WWII?
Mary answered me in the affirmative.
“Yes,” She said to me, “Many more people might have been saved.”
Perhaps we'd still have had a world war, but a lighter war, with less damage to lives and cities. All of heaven can’t change our direction if we are determined; we have free will, but it can try to propel us towards greener pastures.
More recently, I believe this was Mary’s purpose in appearing in Egypt in 1968. I think Mary meant to reassure the Moslem people that she was their mother too. From her lofty perspective of heaven, Mary could see severe danger creeping towards humanity once more. She saw how the conflict and turmoil that would engulf the Middle East. Mary’s effort to teach and warn us pushed the cave walls to their utmost. Her multiple and lasting appearances went on for three whole years in Zeitun, Egypt where she was seen by more than a million people. Her holy image of mother and infant was seen with doves of light that lasted for a few minutes to as long as nine hours at a time was broadcast on Egyptian television and photographed by professional photographers. It graces the pages of many books, yet was ignored by most of the world outside Egypt's boarders. During the sightings, Mary healed many people.
Moslems who saw the apparitions chanted from the Koran, “Mary, God has chosen thee. And purified thee; He has chosen thee, Above all women.”[4]
At these appearances, Mary didn’t speak a word, but didn't need to. If a picture was worth a thousand words, in this case, it was worth a million. Her presence spoke of such comfort and hope it must have strengthened the faith of all who saw her standing, night after night, above the roof of St. Mary’s Coptic Church.
At about the same time that she appeared in Egypt, Mary also appeared to Sister Agnes Sasagawa, in Akita, Japan in 1969 and spoke to her a number of times from a glowing statue that cried real tears. Mary spoke to Sister Agnes in modern terms about our secular age which, in my opinion gives her statements great weight. I know from my own experience that Mary speaks in modern terms to help our understanding.
A few of the things Mary said to Sister Agnes:
“Even in a secular institute, prayer is necessary. Already souls who wish to pray are on the way to being gathered together. Without attaching too much attention to the form, be faithful and fervent in prayer to console the Master.” [5]
She also told Sister Agnes that the Catholic church would be infiltrated by the devil. Mary warned her that Cardinals and bishops would oppose one another.
We aren’t privy to what goes on behind closed doors of the Vatican, but what we read in today’s newspapers is enough. Yet, even as close a time as 1969, now seems quaint with innocence compared to post Sept 11, 2001 and the many problems found lurking behind closed doors in the church. Thankfully, the Catholic church is healing itself well and should come out ahead once again, as it has done so many times through history.
Mary has also spoken to me. She has explained to me that she doesn’t only step out of heaven when there is dire trouble ahead but also during happier times to encourage us in prayer. Heaven can cause statues to cry or bleed to remind us of heaven’s potency and vast power, but it is our souls that are of most concern to those in heaven. As Mary said to Lucy so many years ago, “Too many souls are not going to heaven.”
So even in our modern world, Mary asks us, as she has throughout history, to pray the rosary. She has explained to me how it works, how such a prayer as the Hail Mary can light a person up from the inside, feed their soul, and inch them towards change. The Hail Mary has always been an important prayer because it comes directly from the bible, as does the Lords Prayer.
No one can say exactly when the rosary began as a collection of prayers on beads although St. Dominic of the 12^th Century is usually credited with the rosary as we know it today. Beads have always been used around the world for prayers. By AD 1000 beads were used in Europe to count Paternosters, (Lord’s Prayer).
I haven’t been able to find out when Mary first called herself the Lady of the Rosary, but the rose because of its unique beauty and delicacy has always been attributed to Mary. A set of beads were found in the tomb of St. Rosalia in AD 1160. Many Mary legends began in the 12^th century and the first part of the Hail Mary was in general use for devotion by 1897. We Catholics have been saying it ever since.
I found a number of interesting stories and facts about the rosary in a small book from the 1700's written by St Louis De Montfort called, The Secret of the Rosary. He relates many tales from St. Dominic, Alan de la Riche, and St. Francis of Assisi. One tale states that during the middle ages, three friars watched as a brother friar while alone in his cell was surrounded with a heavenly light from Our Lady and two angels. Beautiful roses floated from his mouth at each Hail Mary. The angels took each rose and placed it in a crown on Mary's head. [6]
According to St. Louis de Montfort, the word rosary means "Crown of Roses" which is why every time we say a rosary we contribute to a heavenly rose to a crown for Jesus and Mary. Mary has told us that the rosary is a potent weapon against evil, and of course, evil rises and falls from one century to another by different degrees. Our modern world seems to abound with such dark forces.
Mary spoke to me of our need for prayer in today's modern world and said, you need prayer “Just as much as they did in the middle ages.” She added that if we come to her in the Cathedral of Light, a mental church that any person can enter during meditation, she will give each of us a single rose from her rose garden built from prayers.
The rosary is so important to Mary that as one story from the book implies, we don’t even need to say it, but just carry it around to receive Mary's blessings. Here is the story about Alphonsus, King of Leon who never said the rosary but carried one on his person all the time as an example for his servants to see.
One day, the king was so seriously ill, he was given up for dead. While dying, he found himself in a vision before the judgment seat of our Lord. Many devils accused him of his sins and the balance scale was weighing far down on one side against him. He was destined for hell until our Lady appeared. She began to fill the other side of the scale with the rosaries he always carried along with the rosaries that had been said because of his example. The scale with the rosaries pushed the balance scale down on the other side in his favor.
Mary said to him, “As a reward for the honor you paid me in wearing my rosary, I have obtained a great grace for you my son. Your life will be spared for a few more years, see that you spend them wisely and do penance.”
When the king woke up, he cried out, "Blessed be the rosary of the Most Holy Virgin Mary.” He regained his health and said the rosary every day thereafter. [7]
Jesus told St. Dominic once that the rosary is the highest form of prayer because it gives honor to the pain he suffered and his mother’s broken heart. Mary told St. Dominic, “Those who explain who I am will have ever lasting life.”
Throughout the two thousand years since Jesus died on the cross, Mary has appeared many times and given us certain promises if we say the rosary. Any one of the promises is beyond worth and measure for the simple effort of saying a fifteen minute rosary. The fifteen promises are at the side.
CHAPTER THREE (back to first page)
Every soul needs food from God and Mary gives us that food when we pray to her. For a number of years, many Catholics stopped saying the rosary. Many people said that the rosary as a form of prayer was too repetitious and therefore meaningless. This can be true of any prayer repeated over and over. I thought of this one day as I was about to say the rosary. I wondered why I should continue.
Mary appeared to me right then, not in a blazing light as has happened sometimes, but as an awesome, majestic presence in my mind.
I asked her. “Why do you want us to say the rosary?”
She answered, “I will show you.”
As I said each Hail Mary, Mary directed my mind towards viewing a different, individual. During each prayer, the person in my view seemed to glow from within. I understood immediately that Mary was feeding the person's soul with energy from God. All this from a few simple words in the New Testament:
Hail Mary full of grace,
The Lord is with you,
Blessed art thou among women,
Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
(Catholics add a short prayer)
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death
Amen
When Mary sends blessings into any person, they may feel, act, or make better decisions than they would have otherwise. Perhaps:
§ The boy who is about to swear, may not.
§ The women who complains, feels more at ease.
§ The man about to hit his child, may stop.
§ The girl about to run away, might think it over.
§ A man about to break into a store, may think twice about it.
§ Someone with great worry might feel better at ease.
§ Another person may recover from illness.
I know first hand about the light from Mary because she has appeared to me personally, usually holding a bouquet of roses. The last time was at the first meeting of the Legion of Mary. I believe the purpose of this appearance was to assure me that I should persevere even though I had doubts. Even when Mary doesn't appear visually, I can often feel her presence at my side. She has asked me to continue to work on this book. Her wish gives it more value and purpose. I believe that Mary needs yours and my prayers to help counter darkness on earth. Mary is often portrayed as the New Eve who stands with her foot upon the serpent.
Our faith in Mary and belief that she will overcome the serpent will expand our hearts and minds into greater belief and grow more faith in the world. The more people who believe in heaven, the easier it is for the people of heaven to penetrate our earth space with their help. Think of faith as an invisible bond that connects us with heaven, like the bond between mother and child. As the bond strengthens, we grow stronger and pull heaven's light closer.
Jesus used the power from this same lighted dimension we call heaven. Remember John's gospel where Jesus tells us that those who "Walk in the light" enjoy fellowship with God while those who "Walk in darkness" have no fellowship with God. This is the light he was speaking of, this is the light that Jesus used in the world and the same light Mary sends into us with the simple prayer of the rosary.
CHAPTER FOUR (Back to first page)
Mary has been given so many attributes through the years it is hard to know which ones to concentrate on for this little book, but one evening while sitting and listening during a Legion of Mary meeting, I began to draw Mary with my ink pen on simple notebook paper. My first instinct was to draw Mary as sorrowful. This is how the first painters saw her too, as The Mother of Sorrows, which is one of Mary’s many attributes.
The first icons, those beautiful paintings of Byzantine art, always portrayed Mary in sorrow. Written records are scarce from that time in history, so we only have the great art to hint at how the first Christians felt about Mary. One of the earliest paintings, The Black Madonna, was rumored to have been painted by St. Luke, the apostle. One of the saddest icons I have found is The Mother of God, 13^th century. Mary seems almost crying in this painting.[8] Other sad paintings are The Virgin Mary, 14^th century, and the Nativity of Christ, 15^th century. [9]
A few years ago, while working in nursing homes as a nurse assistant, I wrote a true story about tears staining a statue that stood in the court yard of the nursing home, (a link to my short story page is at the side). I knew the tear stains were probably caused by rain smearing old paint, but neglect for the people in the Nursing Home was tremendous. At the time, I understood that Mary was crying for the people inside. I could feel the sorrow emanate from her.
This attribute of a sorrowful Mary is one that touches my heart most deeply as it also must have touched the early artists. I suspect that Mary knew all through her son’s life that she would suffer with him. Then when Jesus actually made the decision to go through with the fate he chose, to allow the Roman soldiers to take him, to die horribly at their hands, her heart must have almost burst with the pent up fear as well as actual pain of his act. His death was so agonizing that his mother must have died a thousand times with him and the pain may have stayed with her intensely with her until the day she was eventually lifted up to heaven.
As reported in the New Testament, Jesus told us, “I am within you.” When we feed someone or give them something to drink, we are actually giving to Jesus. Certainly, Jesus still feels humanity’s hunger and thirst today, and such inner feelings must remain true of Mary’s feelings for us, her children. Throughout history and still today, we probably cause her great worry and woe because of our human follies, constant mishaps, and hate against one another. Though she now lives in a place where there is no agony or suffering, like Jesus who never abandoned us, Jesus who said, "I will not leave you orphans" (John 14:18), neither has his mother abandoned us.
CHAPTER FIVE (back to first page)
Interestingly, some of the most relevant information we have about Mary comes from Mary, herself and the words she spoke during the two sightings from Lourdes and Fatima.
At Lourdes, the local priest refused to believe young Bernadette when she told him of the beautiful lady who appeared to her in the grotto. Bernadette was an impoverished and sickly child with a only basic religious education. The priest assumed, as did her parents, that she was making up stories until the last visit. This is the visit where the lady told Bernadette who she was. The lady said, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
We can imagine back in 1858 how young Bernadette stuttered as she tried to get the words out for the priest. Yet, it was these words that finally convinced him. It had become an official dictate of the church only four years earlier. News traveled slowly in those days into the small villages of the world, so the priest must have reasoned, what could this young girl know of such a label? Her parents probably didn’t even know about such a title for Mary. But her appearance has proven true and few Catholics today doubt the miracle from Lourdes. Large numbers of people including Catholics and non-Catholics travel long distances to bathe in the holy water that flows from the spring.
The concept of the Immaculate Conception means that Mary was born pure. There was never the stain of original sin on her soul. This is considered necessary because she bore Jesus Christ in her womb for nine months and gave birth to him.
The legend of Mary’s purity began right after Jesus death, but our evidence of the idea of the Immaculate Conception goes as far back as 750 AD. The Feast of St. Ann, (Mary’s mother) is still very important to Eastern Orthodox Christians. Throughout history, because Mary bore Jesus within her womb, she has been considered Queenly and Holy.
I find it exciting to know that these words were actually spoken by Mary. It gives them an ultimate validity that they wouldn’t otherwise have. If Mary herself says she was born pure, dare any of us disagree?
Certainly I won’t. Could it be this purity that gives Mary the forceful energy and power to cut through the darkness here on earth? Mary, the new Eve who could not be tempted, the Eve who now oversees all of earth along with Jesus. No other personage from heaven seems so able to push past earth’s curtain of fog and darkness to show us heaven with such frequency and determination. There is much we don’t know, but I do know that along with Jesus, Mary oversees all of earth, perhaps other planets and suns as well. One saint, St. Edmar called her Mistress and Empress of the whole Universe. Many of us agree.
CHAPTER SIX (back to first page)
Officially, Catholics consider Mary as a kind of super saint, unofficially, many of us grant her an abundance of honorific titles.
In the east, they go even further. There Mary is often considered to be a female God or a deity with the status of God or at least a Goddess. Mary’s appearance in India long ago is a good example of why. Five hundred years ago, near Vailankanni, India, Mary appeared with the infant Jesus in her arms and asked a young boy for milk for her baby. The baby drank it all. The boy worried on the way home about his empty bowl and what his mother would say, but when the boy got home and showed his mother, the pot overflowed with milk.
A similar appearance occurred nearby on the southern coast. A young boy saw a glowing light with a lady in it. She asked for milk and then gave the boy a message for a catholic man who lived nearby. The boy did and the man built a small chapel at the spot. Later, when Portuguese sailors were saved from a mighty storm while praying to Mary, they promised to build a large church in her honor.
Today the church has grown into a large, white basilica with beautiful decorations and statues devoted to Mary, whom they have titled, "The Lady of Good Health." Half a million devotees come to visit the church each day during the feast that is held once a year between August 30 and September 8. People walk from two hundred miles away carrying floats dedicated to Mary to get to the church. Millions have been healed of illness with the holy water from the church's fountain, which is why it is often referred to as The Second Lourdes.
I agree with the Eastern view and consider Mary to be a goddess, a heavenly being who has great power in heaven. Jesus has always held his mother in great reverence, and she him. Often she has asked us during a appearance to pray that her son will continue to "stay his hand." It is no wonder why Jesus would get angry with us. We most often deserve his wrath. Perhaps Mary has spoken up for us many times.
I don't know if Jesus truly gets angry with us but I do know that Jesus has been teaching me about the universe and encouraging my writing on the internet in an effort to reform us, to give us an extra chance at change. Mary has taught me as well, and also traveled with me in the universe. I was astounded to read of another traveler in The Secret of the Rosary. The book reports the story of a young girl who Mary took on a trip to heaven one day. No one could find the girl for a long while. When she came back, she told of going with the Lady she had been saying the rosary to and while there, she hold a baby boy in her arms. She was also given delicious things to eat.[10]
With my own experience to lean on, I don't have any problem believing this story though to most people it borders on myth. One evening, both Jesus and Mary took me far beyond the stars to stand at the edge of a place they called, The Source. I saw everything imaginable tumble out as if from a waterfall. This was God’s essence flowing out into the universe, a fount of all life and matter.
I believe that both Jesus and Mary are trying to put us on a new path, a path that will eventually bring us out of the darkness, remake our world into one of kindness and hope, perhaps a new age that will carry us out into the universe.
I agree that we should not be allowed to infect that universe with our selfishness and greed, either we reform ourselves or we will die out as a species. Eventually, it will come to such a choice. If we think about what Jesus went through for us two thousand years ago to save us from such a horrible fate, a doomed civilization on earth, we should beg to reverse direction, beg to serve earth not harm it, and beg for mercy for ourselves. We should pray more and talk to Jesus and Mary. Tell Jesus that his sacrifice wasn't in vain and tell Mary that we love her. But empty talk won’t work. Jesus can see us and knows better than we do what truly gets hidden behind thick walls. We can't fool heaven; we can only comply with its decrees, or not. I believe that if we would just try harder, perhaps manage to say one rosary a day, Mary, our Mother in Heaven, will continue to sneak us in through the back door.
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[1] Jesus has taken me to paradise worlds that are close to heavenly and I saw first hand the oneness and togetherness of the people who lived there.

[2] Allegory of the cave, Plato’s Republic, Book 7 (514a, 520a) Plato used a cave as an example of what pure forms are as compared to what we see. He asked, what if a person who lived in a cave all their life was suddenly free to see the real sun? How could they come back and relate their story? Who would believe them? The Republic.

[3] Links to both sites are at side of this writing.

[4] link to web page for Egypt at side of this writing.

[5] The word "Master" probably has a different conation in Japan than here in America.

[6] St. Louis De Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, Bay Shore Publication, New York, (1954) page 26.

[7] The Secret of the Rosary, page 29.

[8] I include a drawing of the painting and not the photo itself because of copyright restraints.

[9] Nigel Cawthorne, The Art of the Icon, Octopus Publishing Group, (New York 1997-2006), pp 46-55.

[10] link to rosary book page?