The following article appeared on Manila Bulletin.com regarding miracles associated with the Blessed Mother with her title of Nuestra Señora del Santissimo Rosario:
Centuries after the Virgin Mary appeared before a farmer with an infant in her left arm and a rosary in her right hand in the town of Manaoag, local and foreign tourists continued to flock to the Shrine of Our Lady of Most Holy Rosary in Pangasinan, one of the most visited shrines in the country and in Asia.
Every second week of April, during the celebration of the feast of Manaoag, devotees arrive in droves to the area to venerate the Blessed Mother under the title of Nuestra Señora del Santissimo Rosario, whose image was brought to the Philippines from Spain by the Acapulco. The image was canonically crowned in 1926.
This year’s pilgrimage started last April 15 and will last until May, and continues the tradition of faith, miracles and healing since the 1500s.
The tradition of the Manaoag originated from the story of a man who heard a mysterious voice of a lady calling him. When he turned around, he saw a lady dressed in white standing atop a cloud covering the treetop. The man in the story fell on his knees at the vision. The name of Manaoag stemmed from the word “Taoag” is the local term which means “call.” Thus, Manaoag means “She calls.”
Many devotees have claimed to be witnesses to the Manaoag’s miracles. It is said that the jewels attached to the image of the Blessed Virgin of Manaoag were donated by people whose sicknesses were healed. Some of the stories also pointed to the Virgin Mother as their savior from calamities and invasion by other tribes.
Modern day devotees believe that the water from the well near the church possesses healing powers, most of them bringing water containers during their visits to drink or use it for bathing.
Others believe that simply touching the Virgin’s image’s mantle can cure them of their illnesses and uplift them from their troubles. Lining up for hours, they light candles to pray, recite the Holy Rosary, and thank the Holy Mother for blessings.
During the pilgrimage period, masses and novenas are held daily from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. in honor of the Blessed Mother. Roughly half a million pilgrims arrive annually.
In 2008, the late Pope John Paul II who is known as the “Marian Pope” and the “Pope of the Rosary” for his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary said that the practice of the Rosary is that it represents a most effective means of fostering among the faithful that commitment to the contemplation of the Christian mystery.”
“As we pray the Rosary, we contemplate on the mysteries of our redemption. We recall Christ’s life here on earth and reflect on His love for human beings,” he said.
A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife,
Solomon the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asa,
Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,
Jehoram the father of Uzziah,
Uzziah the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah,
and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
After the exile to Babylon:
Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
Zerubbabel the father of Abiud,
Abiud the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
Azor the father of Zadok,
Zadok the father of Akim,
Akim the father of Eliud,
Eliud the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary,
of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.
The beautiful minature stained glass window can be seen inside of Saint Jude's Church, located on 40 Maxim Drive in Hopatcong, NJ, USA.
The following story of Kent Bryant is from CBN.com. In the video interview, Kent Bryant says that his life was transformed from "a divine encounter with God."
CBN.com - “With all the success, women and money, it still wasn’t enough. The void was there.”
Kent Bryant worked as a scout for one of the hottest record labels in New York City. But this wasn’t his first career choice. At age 12, he was already 6'3" tall. His dream was to become a superstar in the NBA.
“It was the thrill of a lifetime to play basketball and to have that great competition.”
By his senior year, he became high school All-American, which guaranteed a full ride at a number of division one universities. He decided on San Diego State.
“Having the ability to shoot the basketball and to drive to the basket were my specialties. They used to call me ‘K-Swish.’ I used to drop it in that net at all times.”
But instead of focusing on basketball and his grades, Kent turned his attention to other pursuits. By the time he graduated from college, he’d become a drug dealer.
“My friends called me ‘the pharmacist’. I really knew how to dice it up and serve it up well.”
Kent lost his shot at the NBA and with it his dream of super stardom. The thousands of dollars a week he was making as a dealer did little to fill a growing emptiness inside. So he started using the drugs he sold.
“Drugs kept me numb. Drinking and smoking and sniffing cocaine. Living a crazy lifestyle and blacking out. Meeting a girl at a club or at a bar and going home with her...”
One day, Kent was introduced to Sean “P. Diddy” Combs who was in the beginning stages of starting Bad Boy Records. Kent joined the company as a scout to develop and promote new music artists. Working with Diddy brought a new kind of high.
“Music industry, Bad Boy Entertainment was fast paced. A lot was coming at you all the time. A lot of success. A lot of fame. Working with artists such as the Notorious B.I.G., Faith Evans, Craig Mack. The list goes on and on. You can throw a party, have your artists come, charge at the door and make up to $30,000 $40,000 on a given night.”
Kent’s tenacity and ability to develop new talent earned him the name “Topp Dwagg”. He loved the lavish lifestyle that came with the title, but one morning after an all night party, he came face to face with how bankrupt his life had become.
“This suicidal thought came to me. Here you are everything that you felt that you desired with drugs, money, women, notoriety, but yet there was still this emptiness. I grab this rail. I’m looking over, and I’m ready to jump. Then I heard a voice say, ‘I have a plan for you. I have work for you. No, you don’t want to do that,’ and it was as if hands were pushing me back from the rail.”
Less than a month later, Kent became seriously ill. In two days, he lost 22 pounds.
“The destructive lifestyle that I led, sleeping with so many different women and having unprotected sex... I thought I had the AIDS virus. I thought I was dying.”
At the hospital, Kent discovered that he didn’t have AIDS, but a bad case of food poisoning. While recovering at home, his friend Steve paid him a visit.
Steve recalls, “I told him that I got saved. He really didn’t understand what saved meant. He thought maybe I had some beef on the street. Then I explained to him that Jesus saved me from my sins. I gave my heart to the Lord, and I’m going to church now.”
Kent says, “He had a Bible in his hand. He opened the Bible up, and he read John 3:16 to me. He started reading other scriptures. Steve, the same guy I used to do drugs with and run with in the music industry, is talking to me about Jesus.”
Steve says, “I was like, ‘Kent, God is real and He loves us. He wants you to know Him.’ I told him that God had me praying for him and he started to listen.”
Kent quit his job at Bad Boy Records and began to read the Bible. He says, “Here is a thug, a dude from the music industry and a drug addict, and I left all of that behind. I’m reading the Bible now, staying up all night reading book after book, studying and looking up words.”
Then one Sunday, Kent went to church and surrendered his life to God.
“I went straight to the altar, and I remember getting ready. These two brothers approached me, and they laid their hands on me. They started to pray, but I started to pray for myself. I lifted my hands. I said, ‘God, if You can take away this lust within me, I will give You my life.’ I had a divine encounter with God right there. The Holy Spirit filled me, took away my sin, my shame, my guilt, everything that I was struggling with, forgave me of everything that I did. It was as if God Himself embraced me. I was different, and I was changed right there in a moment.
“Nine and a half years later, [I am] happily married and God has so kept me. I can tell you this. The Lord is so awesome. I’ve never cheated on my wife. Never. From the lifestyle that I led, that is the most powerful part of my testimony to me.”
Today, Kent is in full-time ministry. He travels around the country with Urban Impact sharing his testimony and holding basketball clinics for at risk youth.
“Jesus has a plan for our lives no matter what rock you crawled out from up under, no matter what lifestyle that you were in, how much sin you committed. God is big enough and strong enough to forgive you and to show you His plan for your life.”
O Saint Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God, I place in you all my interests and desires.
O Saint Joseph, assist me by your powerful intercession and obtain for me from your Divine Son all spiritual blessings through Jesus Christ, Our Lord; so that having engaged here below your heavenly power, I may offer my thanksgiving and homage to the most loving of Fathers.
O Saint Joseph, I never weary contemplating you and Jesus asleep in your arms; I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press Him in my name and kiss His fine head for me, and ask Him to return the Kiss when I draw my dying breath. Amen
O Saint Joseph, hear my prayers and obtain my petitions. O Saint Joseph, pray for us. (Mention your intention)
The following information regarding the St. Joseph Prayer is published in The Pieta Prayer Book by the Miraculous Lady of the Roses, Hickory Corners, Michigan:
The prayer was found in the 50th year of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the 1500's it was sent by the Pope to Emperor Charles when he was going into battle. It is said that whoever shall read this prayer or take it with them, shall never die a sudden death or be drowned, nor shall poison take effect on them; neither shall they fall into the hands of the enemy, or shall be burned in any fire or shall be overpowered in battle.
Make this prayer known everywhere.
Imprimatur Most Rev. George W. Ahr Bishop of Trenton
The above intercessory prayer to St. Joseph can be found on Catholic Websites. For additional prayers, please visit the following link: Devotional Prayers
The statue of St. Joseph holding the infant Jesus can be seen outside of St. Mary's Church, located on Myers Avenue in Denville, NJ, USA.
The following excerpt and photograph is from The Washington Post regarding Tomás José Fernández, an artist who said he had a vision from Our Lord about creating a cross which now stands in Purcellville, VA.
The Washington Post - The Piedmont's most visible celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus, "Crux Gloria," stands aside Route 7, the Harry Byrd Highway in Purcellville. Tomás José Fernández sculpted the 33-foot-high steel "Glorious Cross" in 1990. Within the cross is the shape of Jesus; it almost appears to have been cut out by scissors. The ethereal body frames trees, the Blue Ridge and the sky.
By dusk, the outline of Jesus is delicately lighted. At dawn, the glow is extinguished.
Recently, I asked Fernández, 55, about the history of "Crux Gloria." In a letter, he wrote: "In 1988, I was awakened from a sound sleep when an overwhelming presence of light came into my room. Immediately, I was aware that it was the Lord. I acknowledged His presence by saying, 'Oh Lord, it's you. . . .'
"He began to show me something within this ray of light that had entered my room. Then He asked me to make a special cross, for he explained, 'My Cross is a Cross of Light. Get up and draw it down.' I complied instantly, and, as I did, I felt God withdraw."
Fernández awoke at first light and translated the vision, first to a drawing and then to a three-foot-high steel model. A few months later, at his church, the small 1921 brick St. Francis de Sales Church on Main Street in Purcellville, he showed the model to parishioners and said, "Let's put the cross up before we put the building up," referring to a new church being planned.
Fernández said any resistance to the project ended when, while he was still talking and looking at the model, he noticed his audience looking the other way. Late afternoon sunlight, streaming through a window, had projected a shadow of the cut-out Jesus on the wall.
Ted Welti, a Leesburg structural engineer, computed engineering specifications, and Fernández bought the steel at the old Union Iron shop in Herndon. With assists from cranes, sandblasters and heavy equipment, welders at the shop attached two steel sections into one 17,000-pound cross. Fernández recalls the total cost, including his labor, as $12,000.
On Nov. 21, 1990, on the Feast Day of Christ the King, the last Sunday of the liturgical year, a derrick raised the cross, anchored by welds and seven feet of steel encased in a massive block of concrete. The new St. Francis de Sales Church opened nearby in June 1992.
Fernández has since sculpted other crosses and spiritual statuary for several Virginia, North Carolina and D.C. churches and Christian retreats, including St. John the Apostle Catholic Church in Leesburg, St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Ashburn, Peace Lutheran in Annandale and Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown.
Fernández, a full-time professional sculptor in metal, said he is always seeking a "spontaneous spiritual expression of the Holy Spirit" before starting a project.
The photograph and following news story regarding the exposition of the Holy Shroud of Turin is posted on Catholic Online:
Vatican Information Service
The Shroud of Turin is believed by millions of Christians to be the burial cloth which wrapped the body of Jesus Christ following His death. The pure linen cloth in a fishbone weave measures 4.37 metres by 1.11 metres. It contains the full frontal and dorsal imprints of a supine man and has carmine-colour stains corresponding to blood.
VATICAN CITY (VIS) - On 10 April, the exposition of the Holy Shroud of Turin will open in the cathedral of that Italian city. One of the highlights of the exposition, which is due to end on 23 May, will be the visit of Benedict XVI, who will celebrate Mass in the city's Piazza San Carlo on 2 May.
The Shroud of Turin is believed by millions of Christians to be the burial cloth which wrapped the body of Jesus Christ following His death. The pure linen cloth in a fishbone weave measures 4.37 metres by 1.11 metres. It contains the full frontal and dorsal imprints of a supine man and has carmine-colour stains corresponding to blood.
It is marked with a double series of dark spots caused by burns it suffered in a fire in the sixteenth century, while the water use to douse the flames has left broad symmetrical rings, clearly visible. Less visible are transverse marks corresponding to creases in the linen which, before its final voyage to Turin in 1578, had been preserved in a reliquary in forty-eight folds.
The man in the image is 180 centimetres tall and has long hair, a beard and moustache. The eyes are closed, the hands and forearms crossed, and the body bears signs of torture.
During the period of the exposition, daily Mass will be celebrated in the cathedral in front of the Shroud at 7 a.m., followed by Lauds. The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed in the penitentiary of Palazzo Chiablese throughout the day. The chapel will be reserved for silent prayer and Eucharistic worship.
Priests will be available in the penitentiary to hear confessions and administer the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The exposition route to view the Shroud will be open from the end of Mass up to 8 p.m. (reservations are required). It will also be possible to enter the cathedral by the main door, but then the Shroud will only be visible from a distance.
The nave will be reserved for prayers and silent reflection. In the evening, depending on the calendar, the cathedral may be open for special ceremonies or religious cultural events.
The website provides texts and information concerning all aspects of the organization of the exposition.
