A Medjugorje Gathering – Snapshots of the final 2 days from the Five Days of Prayer
Christmas in the Field, December 11, 2010
What was it like to be there, in Bethlehem, on that first Christmas morning? Caritas’ Christmas in the Field is the nearest to the experience of “being there” as most people have ever come. Pictures can’t express the beauty and holiness of this night, but rather tends to minimize the experience. It can’t recreate the cold, smoke, candlelight, music, smells, smiles, prayer and peace felt in the heart. However, the best way to capture the wonder, we have found, is in the faces of the modern-day shepherds who were present in the Field this night of December 11, 2010, and who experienced, in their hearts, through the beauty that surrounded them, deep adoration of their Savior who came “wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”
December 12, 2010—Patriotic Rosary
The Caritas Community and pilgrims of the Five Days of Prayer gathered for prayer the morning of December 12. As is the custom of the Community at the end of their Morning Prayer, a message from Our Lady’s Medjugorje message book, Words from Heaven, was randomly chosen. This morning’s message was as follows:
December 1, 1983
Everyone in the room was amazed at these words because the temperature had dropped in the night to the low teens and wind chill down to 6 degrees fahrenheit. Everyone would be heading outside shortly to pray the Patriotic Rosary in the Field. Others had already been to the Field at 5 AM that morning. The community does not let adverse weather stop them from going out for 5 AM prayer in the Field where Our Lady has appeared. Rain, sleet, wind, lightning and thunder storms—whatever the conditions, the heads of the households in the community meet outside for prayer. And during the five days of prayer, many pilgrims joined us each morning.
However, the above message was recalled later on in the day when at Rosary time snowflakes began falling in every increasing numbers—a beautiful sight in Our Lady’s valley of mountains and evergreens. It is rare to have snow fall in the Birmingham area, even when it is predicted by weather reports. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Our Lady had given a little prophesy with the message picked that morning. Though cold in the open Field, it was a blessing to everyone to see the snow falling, knowing that Our Lady was “thanking” everyone for coming in spite of the bad weather, to pray to Jesus, who was lying in the manger from the night of Christmas in the Field.
This was also a beautiful promise on the day of the Patriotic Rosary—the consecration of our nation to God, and the end of the Five Days of Prayer, as we honored Our Lady on Her feast day, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of our nation.
