May 5, 2024

By a Friend of Medjugorje

 

Following is a story of something which happened at Caritas, 20 years ago this weekend. It is a testimony of how far Our Lady will go to save a soul.

 

May 1-5, 2004, Medjugorje visionary Marija was at Caritas of Birmingham for a public prayer event.

 

We had originally scheduled with Marija to come a few days later, May 5-9. But Marija found out after we publicly announced the event, that her son was going to receive his first Holy Communion the week of the 5-9. The dates had to be changed to May 1-5, 2004, and everyone on the mail list had to be notified of the new dates.

 

The fear was that people would miss the changed dates and miss Our Lady’s apparitions. Everything was left in God’s hands to bring the souls who needed Our Lady’s love most.

 

The announcement about the May 2004 apparitions was made with the words:

 

“If your heart is in need of a specialist,
make an appointment for May 1-5.”

 

“Mary, Queen of May… we pray to Thee… we come to Thee… to crown Thee with the consecration of our lives to Thy Son and Thee!”

 

Our Lady told Marija during the April 30, 2004, apparition in the Bedroom, that the apparition of May 1 would be in the Bedroom, and on May 2, the apparition would be in the Field.

 

Our Lady specifically said, during the apparition in the Bedroom on April 30, 2004:

 

“I will appear here (in the Bedroom) tomorrow in the morning, and I will appear the day after tomorrow in the Field in the evening near the tree.”

 

On May 1, 2004, the apparition was in the morning, in the Bedroom. Our Lady blessed everyone in the Bedroom and extended Her blessing to those in the Field. Later in the afternoon, people gathered in the Field and the statue of Our Lady was crowned in the Field.

 

During the night of May 1, a storm came through.

 

The following day, May 2, when everyone was all out in the Field, praying the Rosary in preparation for Our Lady’s apparition, Marija noticed that Our Lady’s crown was missing. It has been blown away during the previous night’s storm.

 

She turned me and said that we need to get another crown made for Our Lady. I told a few of the Caritas Community members to take some of the flowers that were around the statue and make Our Lady a new crown.

 

Three to four Community members worked throughout the Rosary to make a new crown for Our Lady, and we re-crowned Our Lady right before Marija’s apparition of May 2, 2004.

 

Unknown to us, in the crowd of pilgrims, there was a couple who came with their 21-year-old son. Their son was in great need of conversion.

 

The couple said that their son saw us making Our Lady a new crown. But what struck him, was that out of all the flowers placed at Our Lady’s feet, from the thousands of pilgrims present, we were using his flowers to make Our Lady’s new crown.

 

His parents told us that their son had done many terrible things in his life (he was only 21). When he saw his vase of flowers used to make Our Lady’s crown, when any of the other flowers could have been used, it really meant a lot to him. He made a decision to go to confession before he left. He spotted a young priest and decided that this specific priest would hear his confession before he left to go back home.

 

The evening of the last day of the five days, May 5, 2004, the 21-year-old son came to us at the Tabernacle of Our Lady’s Messages and asked where this specific priest was, because he had to go to confession. We searched for the priest, but we had trouble finding him. The priest was eventually found.

 

It turned out that right before the priest came up to the Tabernacle, some of our baby pigs got out. The priest decided to help a few of the Caritas Community members round up the baby pigs and put them back. The priest came up to hear the young man’s confession, but he realized that one of his hands smelled really bad from pushing the baby pigs back in their pen.

 

The young man was so insistent about going to confession that Father did not stop to wash his hands.

 

After hearing the young man’s confession, the priest stuck out his smelly hand and told the young man, “Smell my hand. Do you know what this smell is? It’s pig manure. That’s what your soul smells like right now.”

 

The young man started crying and saying, “I know. I know.”

 

The priest then stuck out his other hand, which did not smell of pig. The priest told him, “Now smell this hand. This is what your soul is about to smell like once I give you absolution.”

 

It was a powerful image for the young man who was able to open his heart and seek complete reconciliation with God.

 

The priest told us that with this young man’s confession, God had not only caught a big fish, but a whale.

 

The priest told us that he had heard only one confession that he could compare to this 21-year-old’s, and it was from a man that had been in prison since he was 14 years old. That man had not been to confession since he was put in prison, and when Father heard his confession, he was 68 years old.

 

More touching was what the priest said happened afterwards.

 

The priest told us that as he watched the young man leave, after getting absolution, he saw the young man leap into the air, such was the young man’s joy in being free of sin. It is the type of confession that makes an entire life’s work of a priest worth it.

 

When looking at all the possibilities beforehand that came together for this one instance:

 

• The dates of the event being changed from May 5-9 to May 1-5, leaving it to God for people not to miss the apparitions
• The announcement itself calling people whose “heart is in need of a specialist,” and to “crown Thee (Our Lady) with our lives…”
• The crown put on Our Lady’s statue and then the storm which blew off Our Lady’s crown during the night
• The Community members making a new crown for Our Lady with this young man’s flowers, out of all the flowers which could have been used
• The young man singling out the one priest he wanted to go hear his confession
• The priest helping to get the baby pigs back in, just before hearing this young man’s confession

 

And lastly, Our Lady Herself, announcing on April 30, that Her apparition two days later, on May 2, would be in the Field, near the Tree.

 

Why was Our Lady so specific that Her apparition on May 2, 2004, should be in the Field?

 

Because only Our Lady had knowledge that She would arrange a storm to blow off Her own crown the evening of May 1, only to re-crown Herself with this young man’s conversion on May 2, through his flowers placed at Her feet.

 

All of these events coming together, Our Lady created a beautiful mosaic of Her doings, covering this one conversion with Her fingerprints. One can only imagine what Our Lady is doing now on our behalf, our nation’s behalf, on behalf of our families, our Church and the world.

 

Our Lady said on April 25, 2024:

 

“…You, little children, be prayer and my extended hands of love for all those who are in darkness and seek the light of our God…”

 

Stay focused and at your work for Our Lady. Even if it means that one of your hands gets covered in pig manure, just like the priest, it may be that She has need of your smelly hand to extend to others for their salvation.

In the love of Our Lady working on our behalf,