Update: Our Lady of Kibeho

EWTN’s Sunday Night:Live with Fr. Groeschel featured  – Our Lady Appears in Rwanda.  Guest: Immaculee Illibagiza

Recently, I wrote about Immaculee , her book, Left to Tell and about the Apparitions of Our Lady of Kibeho that preceded and  predicted the Rwandan genocide nine years before it occurred. The images of the apparition were  graphic and terrorizing as was the genocide.

In Left to Tell, Immaculee Ilibagiza tells her story of her experience of the Rwandan genocide. In 1981, many years prior to the Rwandan events( to which the world turned a blind eye,) Our Lady made them known through a series of apparitions (approved by the Church) to seven children, Alphonse, Anathalie, Marie Claire, Agnes, Stephanie and Vestine and Emanuel, a young pagan, known as ‘Sagastasha’ at the time of the revelations.

The Shrine of Our  Lady of Kibeho has been given Church approval. Sean Bloomfield writes:

Although Rwanda was graced by a divine visitation during the eighties, the nineties brought quite the opposite: a gruesome genocide in which a million men, women and children were brutally killed, often by friends and neighbors, in only 100 days. The message of Kibeho, however, is intrinsically tied to this tragic event.

It was not until after the war that the Catholic Church made a definitive ruling about the apparitions. Only three of the seven alleged visionaries gained Church approval:

  • Alphonsine Murmureka
  • Nathalie Mukamazimpaka
  • Marie Claire MukangangoThese seers were the first three young people to report experiencing apparitions of the Virgin Mary, who called herself Nyina wa Jambo, which translates to Mother of the Word.
  • Lenten Reading Plan – Mar 30

    crucificionicon12Day29Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan 3/30/09

    St. Athanasius: Life of Anthony:81-94

    Day 29 Lite Version

    St. Athanasius: Life of Anthony:67-73

    Compilation of Lenten readings

    Printer-Friendly Version of Outline: Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan PDF

    Jesus Takes Revenge

    In today’s reading, Jer 11:18-20, Jeremiah wants revenge.  He sees himself as a trusting lamb led to slaughter; although he knew he was in danger, he did not realize that his enemies were hatching plots against him.  Jeremiah wants vengeance and he wants to be there to witness it in spades.

    “Let me witness the vengeance you take on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause!”

    In today’s homily, Monsignor, asks, “How does Jesus take vengeance on His enemies?”  Monsignor answers,  “He dies for them!”

    Christians imitate Jesus. Scripture directs us in dealing with our enemies:

    “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
    But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,” Matthew 5:43-44
    If your enemy be hungry, give him food to eat, if he be thirsty, give him to drink;
    For live coals you will heap on his head, and the LORD will vindicate you. Proverbs 25:22

    We are all in the same boat, we are all sinners, enemies of  God, so long as we persist in Sin.  Jesus, for his part, dies for us. He has prayed for his enemies, “Father, forgive them!” He has fed them, “Take and eat!” He has satisfied their thirst, “Take and drink!”

    Jesus appeals to the heart of men.  We can turn away.  We can experience, with Jesus, rejection.  In all these circumstances Jesus says pray.  That prayer is powerful, whether it is prayer of praise, worship, thanksgiving, adoration, or petition.

    If we could only see it with Heaven’s eyes as John did as he records in the Book of Revelation:

    “And when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” Rev 5:8

    “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they stand before God’s throne and worship him day and night in his temple.”Rev 7:14

    What is this washing of their robes, if it is not the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  If it were referring to Baptism, they would not be doing the washing, whereas in Reconciliation we have an active role.

    Jesus wants what’s best for each of us. He wants enemies (sinners) to feel the hot coals of  prayer heaped upon them.  To see ourselves as Jesus sees us when we sin can be distressing. Such a moment, though wrenching, is a moment of grace. Jesus desires a response of the heart that sends the sick and sorrowful to show themselves to the priest for healing and forgiveness.

    Our revenge is to be like our Christ. Our revenge is to die to ourselves with our Christ.  Our revenge is to see the enemies of Christ come forth from the confessional with tears of joy and thanksgiving in all humility; no longer enemies but as brothers.

    What will it take? Prayer.  All are called, moment by moment, while we live, “Repent and believe the Good News!” Mk 1:15

    Lenten Reading Plan – Mar 28

    crucificionicon12Day28Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan 3/28/09

    St. Athanasius: Life of Anthony:71-80

    Day 28 Lite Version

    St. Athanasius: Life of Anthony:59-66

    Compilation of Lenten readings

    Printer-Friendly Version of Outline: Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan PDF

    Dark Days Ahead

    The Lenten readings are growing darker as Jesus approaches His hour

    In Wisdom 2, we read:

    The wicked said among themselves,
    thinking not aright…
    “Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;
    he sets himself against our doings,
    Reproaches us for transgressions of the law
    and charges us with violations of our training.
    He professes to have knowledge of God
    and styles himself a child of the LORD.

    The Gospel of John, too, sounds an ominous note:

    “Jesus moved about within Galilee; he did not wish to travel in Judea, because the Jews were trying to kill him. But the Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near…But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, he himself also went up, not openly but as it were in secret.” John 7:1,10

    Why did things have to go this way.  Why the rejection?  Why the Cross?  And while we’re questioning; why do they sour for us?

    Today, Fr. Michael, faced with these questions, asked one of his own (I’m paraphrasing.) Who made us judge and jury?  Who confirmed us in our righteousness; which is, if honest, our self-righteousness?”

    The Gospel of Light treads a path through every darkness and Darkness, itself.  Without the stuff of darkness, weakness, war, tragedy and desperate dilemma, we  go unchallenged, self-satisfied.  We pursue our dreams and go willy-nilly, perhaps, even, to our own dissolution, seeing only the darkness around us, and none within.  What we don’t like of Gospel or Church, we ignore or eliminate from our daily lives. “Let us condemn him to a shameful death.”

    Until the unthinkable forces itself upon us and our decisions, we are content not to think but to ride the fence. The problems remain out there with “them.”  If we do take a stand and speak the Gospel truth, we find what Jesus found: rejection and betrayal, even from within our families, the cruelest blow.  It might not be explicit.  It may be that no one has time to visit.  Perhaps, the grand-kids are withheld and holidays less joyful.  How doesn’t matter so much as that it happens. We are left on our Cross.

    What to do?  Look first to yourself.  Question your ways and your motives.  Repent, is the Gospel word for it.  Then pray and wait.  Wait upon God; first of all with praise and adoration, thanksgiving, and finally with petition.  Place all the rest, loves ones and world, in the Tabernacle with the Lamb who was Slain and still lives.  Then go on; “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” This is the Way until the end of the world and the coming of the Day.

    From the Office of Readings – for Friday of fourth week of Lent from Easter Letter of Athanasias:

    How fine a thing it is to move from festival to festival, from prayer to prayer, from holy day to holy day. The time is now at hand when we enter on a new beginning: the proclamation of the blessed Passover, in which the Lord was sacrificed.

    Question Your Dreams

    There are people I know and some I love who love and live by the “Follow your passion,” “Live your dream” “Make your heart sing” banality that doesn’t exactly float my boat. I love to stop and smell the roses so long as you don’t stay stopped!  I like to know where I’m going and why. Some people are happy with promises of HOPE and CHANGE period! …..No, how? No, why? No, at what cost?

    Sometimes the catchy slog is just sop. It may be time to “Follow the crowd…and go the other way!”

    The Anchoress came up with this from American Digest.  It’s well worth watching all the way to the end, believe me.  Mike Rowe of “DIRTY JOBS” fame knows more than manure and sewage.

    He says somewhere in this piece, “We’ve declared war on work” and we accepted as fact things that need to be challenged.  The mainstream media, tv boards room decisions and slants , inane sit-coms have indoctrinated us so heaven is hype and a latte or iphone = heaven.  Just watch Mike and listen up a bit (no place for the squeamish.)