This is the day...the Lord has made....

It is a familiar song to many... "this is the day, the Lord has made"... let us rejoice and be glad it in. This is a very special day for me, on this day in 1992, the Lord performed a "public miracle" for his people. Here is what happened....



In 1987 my mom died and I was heart broken to say the very least, I was in so much pain, that I decided to go to church. I did not go into a church to pray, I went into a church to complain to God and tell him how mean he was to have done such an awful and cruel thing as to take my mother away from me, when I needed her so much. I remember this day well I went to this church and I yelled and yelled at God, really ripped into him. You name the word I said it, mostly four letter words... that is when I could speak through the tears that were falling. I remember the pain in my chest for truly my heart was breaking at the thought I would never see my mom again, never hear her voice, never be able to tell her face to face I love you... Just thinking now about those times is hard...

I found at the end of this session in church, (my ripping into God, session), made me feel better. The Next day the pain and sadness started again for me so I went back to the same church I was in the day before and "ripped into God", once again.... This time I stayed a little longer then the day before and my anger though great was not as intense, a strange peace seemed to want to enter into my heart. Yet at this time I did not want this peace ,I wanted to live in my sorrow and pain, this was the address of my residence now. It was a dark place to dwell, a place of loss and despair. Nothing in the world looked the same, I would look at others and think do you not know the world has changed forever, these thoughts only made me more angry with this "God", that I never knew, yet heard about throughout my life. ... Here I will be frank and honest in an attempt to help others who are struggling with God...



At this time I thought of the Virgin Mary and I even "ripped into her"... with the following, you are his mother, you could have raised him better as not to hurt people, don't you know that he hurts people and they do not understand why?



End the second day of complaining in church... the next day repeated itself in church, as did the next day, and the next, until it was weeks... each time something was happening to me. The darkness and sadness within started to dissipate. Like early morning fog or mist it just started to lift. I still went to this church everyday, but I found I was no longer ranting and raving against God, I was just sitting there quietly, no thought... just sitting there. Soon I started to take notice of others in this church and I would watch them. Some would pull out rosary beads, some would read from prayer books, some just sit there. These people became very fascinating to me, I did not know how to pray the rosary, I did not have any prayer books at this time, nor was I so inclined at this time to pray to a God that took my mother. So I just sat there and watched these people, I do remember thinking what are they getting out of their efforts here. Soon I found myself staying longer and longer at this church, even staying and watching Masses being said.

Then I started to stay after the Masses, when every one had left the church to go home I stayed, and just sat there, I do not know why or even how I did this, (I am hyper so to say and cannot sit still for long, I have to be doing something, yet I found myself sitting now for hours at a time within this church)... Just sitting there, nothing happening, no one there just "me"... I started to look around the church, noticed the stained glass windows, they depicted events within the rosary, events in the life of Jesus Christ. I then started to think to myself who was this guy, who was this woman. He was just one single man, yet how he changed history, human history as well as the belief system of so many.



These thoughts of who was/is this guy became so strong within me I started to "investigate", I did so through the least complicated way, or at least this was my thought, I would do so through his mother. Being a mother, myself, I knew who really knows a child, a mother. So I thought this "guy" is to big to know on my own, let me try to find out through his mother. So I purchased books, about who the Virgin Mary was and I purchased a book on how to say the rosary. I also purchased rosary beads and started to say the rosary. No big deal saying the rosary in the beginning, kind of boring actually, yet I was driven to continued to pray. I also thought of her a lot. To be honest I thought to myself on a human level, okay I just lost my mother so I am doing a transference here, I am placing my human need for a mother on this woman called the Virgin Mary to fill the void left by the death of my mother. I do think on a psychological level this was true and I actually think that is what is suppose to be done with her. We need to approach God as I did then, with the Virgin Mary on a psychological level as well as a spiritual level. For it is within the "man", that is the residence the ego and therein is the "free will" given us and God is all about free will, hoping we will choose him and always choose love.



It is not that I never had "extraordinary experiences" in the past prior to the death of my mom, I did many events happen. I chalked these extraordinary events throughout life as just being, "flukes", "strange coincidences", no real value or meaning to them. Examples would be, having a near death experience at age 18, I was in a car accident, arrived at the ER no blood pressure and in a coma, I did see a dead relative and he spoke to me. I having health professionals in my family chalked this event up to my brain firing off synapses, deciding if it was to live or die.

Then there was the "outside voice" I was awoken from a deep sleep prior to my mom's death, by someone calling my name, I got up looked to see if someone was in the house, no one there. I tried to fall asleep again and once again someone called my name, it terrified me I stayed up the rest of the night... this I chalked up to just having a stressful day and my mind was working overtime... there were many , many other events that have happened in the past that I have written about... Then my mother had a massive stroke, and she was kept "alive" by machines of all sorts, for nine days. Her mother and her brother both died of strokes and she would tell me if this ever happened to her, do not allow anyone to keep her alive artificially, she did not want to live like that, that she wanted to be allowed to die. When this did happen to my mom, I could not tell a doctor to "unplug her", yet there was a family member who happens to be a medical doctor who did tell the hospital this. Since it was a Catholic Hospital, there was an "Ethics Committee" that decided what was to be done next, and what was decided was to try and "wean" my mom off her ventilator to see if she could reestablish breathing on her own. I knew the day before when this was going to happen. On that day I did think of the Virgin Mary, I do not know why but I did, and on this day I went into my mother's hospital room, as I did everyday since she was admitted. This time though I brought with me a dozen white roses and placed them on the night stand beside my mom's bed and I said to the Virgin Mary, "these roses are for you and my mom, if she is going to die, please allow me have some kind of memory of the both of you"...

I left the hospital that evening knowing the next day could be the last my mother has on this earth... I must have been in shock for although I knew this it was surreal to think about.

The next day after taking my kids to school and my checking in on my father (who at the time was in another hospital seriously ill) ... I just stood in my home and thought here I am one parent in a hospital clinically dead, yet kept alive and the other parent in another hospital with an unknown disease at risk of death as well... Then the phone rang, it was the hospital my mother had died, when they tried to wean her off the ventilator she past away. As fate would have it I could not find anyone else in the family. So I told the hospital to hold my mom's body in her room I would be right there I needed to see her, so they did.



I do not remember the drive to the hospital, I just remember standing outside the door of my mom's hospital room, it was closed and I knew behind that door lay my mother no longer alive. I opened the door and there she was, she just looked asleep. The tears started, I went up to her and held her hand, it was warm and I thought they made a mistake her hand is warm she cannot be dead., then I touched her leg and it was cold. At that moment the veil of sorrow fell, the curtain closed upon the life that I knew with her. Never before was I without her, she was always there, how can this be. Then I looked at the night stand where the night before I had left the dozen white roses and I saw they they were perfectly dried, not fresh looking anymore but as if someone had taken them and preserved them forever... much like one perseveres flowers from a special event in life, so you can have them forever as a memory of this event that you never want to forget. I thought, here is my mom and I will never forget her and who ever did that with the roses I will never forget them either, (from that day forward, when I see white roses, I know my two moms are there)... The Virgin Mary granted the request I asked the day before, "if my mother was to die, let me remember both of you in a special way, she did so with the roses but also with the day my mom died on, she died on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes... This may seem strange to some, Our Lady of Lourdes, in France is suppose to be the place where people are healed, and on this day when my mother died, it was just that, a place of healing. For the ultimate healing for us all is death, we may be cured along the way in this life of one illness or another, but we will all one day die and this is our ultimate healing. At that moment we are healed of our separation from God, we are brought home and at home we will never again be afflicted with any disease or illness, so this is the ultimate healing.

Back to my time in church, after my mom's death, even when someone is "prepared" for a death, the event shakes you to the core. The thoughts of regret and angry boil to the surface, it is a matter that is so final and out of your control you cannot help but be at a loss on many levels. You search, you look for the whys and they are never to be found within human reason, as to why we are born, why we die, what is the point. This level of stress within is normal, is to be expected; where one places it is a matter of grace. I have learned with grace and the knowledge of a higher power (God) you can get through anything, things that human reason does not allow you to get through are gotten through in faith.

My time in Church after the death of my mother became a focal point of my day to day existence, I started to look forward to this time in prayer in church as a means of relief. The time in prayer became longer and longer. I found the longer time I prayed the "more time" I had, a paradox to say the least. I became more productive in that, which I needed to do in the world, things "went" better for me. As if some "invisible" force was thanking me on some level, saying "I will not be outdone, your efforts in prayer are not unnoticed, and I will not be outdone"...

Then the "light phenomena" started I would "see" light around the Tabernacle in church. At first it glowed Golden a rich gold. Then at Mass, when I would stay I would see the hands of the priest, glow white when he was consecrating the host. When a priest read from the Bible they would look "golden" to me, for lack of better words they had an aura around them of gold.

Then when I said the rosary, the mysteries became like a movie to me, I would "see" the mysteries and sometimes I was "there" watching them. Then I started to see the Virgin Mary as well... at this point I contacted a priest and someone in the family who was a psychiatrist, both did not feel that this was a mental disorder but something that they could not explain, I was advised by the priest to keep journals of these events which I did and still have, dating back to 1990.

The months past until people started to "notice" that I was spending a lot of time in prayer and they would start to ask me to pray for them, soon people started to ask to pray with me. Then a prayer group started, every morning after Mass a group of people would pray with me. We would pray 15 decades of the rosary every day in addition to the Divine Mercy Chaplet, this was done for nearly a year. Until one day a woman brought into the church a statue of the Virgin Mary, and Our Lady of Fatima Statue, I asked her to place the statue near the Tabernacle in an effort to keep the focus of prayer on Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. In a further effort to keep every ones attention on the Tabernacle, I asked that Jesus truly present in the Eucharist extend his hand and bless the statue.... then that miracle happened... and today is the anniversary of this miracle done in 1992... this miracle was written about in newspapers, was on TV stations and on the radio... I remember being in the grocery store one day and seeing the "miracle" on the cover of a Weekly World News type of paper, said papers usually reserved for the rich and famous was now featuring this event, on the cover was also Princess Diana, it was a surreal moment for me. The entire event was and is. This event was also written about in two books.... with this I will end the writing of this posting not saying what happened preferring to let you, know that God is real he hears your prayer, he cares and loves you.... And on this day I say thank you, Jesus for showing me that you are really here, and I thank you for hearing my prayer...