There is hardly a single person in the world who has not heard of the Virgin Mary. From the first days after her dormition to this day, the Blessed Virgin Mary helps Christians. According to the Holy Scriptures, the Mother of God, appearing to the apostles on the third day after Her Dormition, told them: “Rejoice, I will be with you all the days.”
It is noted that the appearances of the Mother of God most often coincide with some future catastrophes, wars and other large-scale disasters.
The Virgin Mary supposedly warns people of danger. Most often She appears in the form of a light female silhouette, as if woven from a haze. According to church scriptures, Jesus crucified on the cross entrusted His Mother to the care of John the Evangelist, his beloved disciple, and all humanity to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
There is an opinion that the Mother of God does not appear to everyone, but only to those who deeply believe and listen to her advice. Of course, this Divine miracle, like all other miracles, is subject to criticism and disbelief by skeptics. But be that as it may, there are known cases when Divine help contributed to the salvation of people.
SENORA GUADELUPE
In Latin America, the most revered shrine is the miraculous image of the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe. She is considered the patroness of both Americas and is called: “Our Lady Guadalupe.” It all started in December 1531, when 17-year-old Indian Juan Diego, walking to morning mass past Tepeyac Hill, heard someone singing from above.
Climbing the hill, the young man saw a young woman who looked more like his fellow tribesmen than a Spanish woman. The woman seemed to be inside a shining cloud. She introduced herself as the Mother of God. For four days in a row, the Mother of God appeared to Juan Diego, turning to the young man with a request that a church be built on this hill, where everyone could honor her Son, Jesus Christ.
However, the priests decided that the young man was simply fantasizing, because the Indians, as the Spaniards then believed, had no soul, which means that the Virgin Mary could not appear to them.
Then the Virgin Mary ordered the Indian to collect flowers on a rocky hill. The young man obeyed meekly, even though he knew very well that nothing grew there. And suddenly he saw a rose bush growing right on the stone. “Here is My sign,” said the Virgin Mary. “Take these roses, wrap them in your cloak and take them to the bishop.” This time he will believe you."
When Juan Diego unrolled his cloak in front of the bishop, everyone present fell to their knees: the image of the Blessed Virgin was imprinted on the fabric of the cloak. After this, six million Indians converted to Christianity. Thus the baptism of Latin America took place.
History and meaning of the image
There is no single theory about how the holy face came to Rus'. It is only known that it appeared here only in the 17th century.
The main versions of the appearance are as follows:
- “Blessed Heaven,” according to legend, was brought to Moscow from the Principality of Lithuania as a dowry for Princess Sofia Vitovtovna. She married the Russian Prince Vasily I (Dmitrievich) and the image became a kind of blessing for this marriage. And the original name is taken from the inscription on the inner part of the radiance around the Virgin on the board itself: “What shall we call Thee, O Blessed One? Heaven, as if you have risen as the Sun of Truth”;
- According to another version, the icon still arrived from the Principality of Lithuania, but as a dowry for Princess Sophia Fominichna, who became the wife of Tsar John III;
- A number of theologians have a completely different opinion, who believe that the origin of the icon is Western, as evidenced by the peculiar iconography. They say that it could only have been written in Byzantium, Constantinople. What’s interesting is that such a theory may not contradict others, because the Lithuanian rulers could have bought it from Byzantium.
Interesting! Because of the inscription on the icon, it previously bore the name “What Shall We Call You,” but after the reform of Patriarch Nikon, only the official name “Gracious Heaven” remained, which is also part of this inscription.
Icon of Our Lady of Gracious Heaven. 2nd half of the 18th - early 19th centuries
"I AM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPT"
The small city of Lourdes, located in southwestern France, became widely famous in 1858 thanks to the 14-year-old girl Bernadette Soubirous. It was she who was honored to witness as many as 18 (!) apparitions of the Virgin Mary. In the cold February of 1858, Bernadette and other children were collecting branches for kindling in the grove.
To get to the deposits of branches, they had to ford a stream. When Bernadette came out to the other side, she heard a noise similar to the sound of the wind, and near the grotto that opened to her gaze she saw a lady in a white dress, at whose feet yellow roses were scattered. Surprisingly, no one else saw anything.
This time the girl did not dare talk to the stranger; she decided that it was the ghost of a recently deceased village resident. Despite her fear, she was drawn to the grotto, and she came there again and again. Now the girl understood that the Virgin Mary was appearing before her, asking her to pray for sinners. During one of her apparitions, the Mother of God gave Bernadette an instruction: “Go to the priests and say: I want a chapel to be built here.”
But the priests took the stories as empty fiction, and the girl as completely crazy. Only her confessor asked to know the woman’s name. And Our Lady answered: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” When the girl conveyed these words to him, the priest was amazed to the core.
Bernadette could not know that shortly before the events described, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And the ministers themselves had previously used the expression “Sinless Conception.” And this meant that the girl really communicates with the Virgin Mary.
The Mother of God also showed Bernadette a miraculous source, to which millions of people subsequently began to flock. In the first year alone, five officially certified healings took place at this source. Bernadette later became a nun under the name Maria Bernarda and died at the age of 35. Already in 1933 she was canonized by the Catholic Church.
Before recognizing her as a saint, representatives of the Catholic Church opened the grave three times. Witnesses to the exhumation were not only priests, but also doctors and other respected members of society. And each time they were all convinced: the body of Bernadette Soubirous was not touched by decomposition. A temple was built at the site of the appearance of the Virgin Mary, and Lourdes is now visited by about five million pilgrims every year.
FATIMA MIRACLE
Perhaps the most significant and famous series of apparitions of the Mother of God began in May 1917 in the Portuguese city of Fatima.
First, the Virgin Mary appeared to three children: Lucie, Jacinta and Francisco, who were playing in a field not far from their house. She asked if they were ready to become the chosen ones of the Lord in order to atone for the insults and blasphemies inflicted on the Mother of God. They enthusiastically agreed.
When leaving, she ordered the children to pray daily for peace and the salvation of sinners and ordered them to come to the meeting place on the thirteenth day of each month. The boys told their parents about everything, and they, in turn, told their neighbors. And already on the 13th of the next month, about 60 people accompanied the children.
It must be said that no one saw the appearance of the Mother of God except these three guys, nevertheless, every month there were more and more people on the field.
Pilgrims began to flock to Fatima from all over the world. Two days before October 13, all the roads leading to the city were clogged with carts and pedestrians. Waiting for the appearance of the Virgin Mary, people, and there were about 70 thousand of them, slept on the ground, despite the cold October rain that had been falling for three days.
Everyone was soaked to the skin. At noon, everyone present knelt down, despite the mud and puddles. Lucia, seeing the Mother of God, exclaimed: “Here she is!”, and everyone saw how the children were enveloped in a light white cloud. It rose up three times and fell again on the children.
Then eyewitnesses said that the rain suddenly stopped, the sun came out, but its appearance was strange: a disk surrounded by a shining crown, which you could look at without squinting.
In front of everyone’s eyes, the sun first spun like a huge fiery wheel, scattering multi-colored bright flashes in all directions, then it seemed to separate from the sky and began to spiral downwards, radiating heat. This sun dance lasted at least ten minutes and was visible many kilometers from Fatima.
When it was all over, people were surprised to find that their clothes were suddenly dry. This was the last appearance of the Mother of God to children.
The Virgin Mary left them three predictions, the last of which was revealed only recently. The first and second were made public by permission of Pope Pius XII in 1942. One spoke of an impending war that would claim millions of lives (apparently, the Second World War was meant). The second prophecy concerned Russia, which must devote its heart to the Virgin Mary so that peace and tranquility will replace the chaos in the country.
But the third message remained a sealed secret for a long time. Only in 2000 did Pope John Paul II lift the veil: it concerned an attempt on his life. Indeed, in 1981, John Paul II was shot by a Turkish terrorist.
But that's not all: presumably, the third message also contains information about the further tragic fate of the Catholic Church. It seems that church hierarchs prefer to hide it so as not to cause unrest among believers.
The Virgin Mary appeared to Father Gabriel and told him to take the icon from the sea
The monks wanted to take the icon, but as soon as they tried to get closer to it, it moved away from them. Then the monks gathered in the monastery and began to ask God to give them this icon. The Most Holy Mother of God heard their prayers. One of the ascetics named Gabriel was honored with the appearance of the Mother of God.
The Virgin Mary appeared to him and told him: “...Tell the abbot and all the brothers that I will give you this icon so that it will protect you. You will enter the sea, walk on the waves, and thus everyone will see My favor towards your monastery...”
It was Father Gabriel of Svyatogorets who was able to take the icon of the Iveron Mother of God from the sea. Photo: 3.bp.blogspot.com
That's exactly what happened. Father Gabriel took the icon from the sea and brought it to the monastery. The icon was first placed in the altar of the main church, but the next day the icon disappeared. Nobody could find her.
After searching everything, the icon was found above the monastery gates. The brethren of the monastery decided to return the icon back, but this was repeated several times. The next night there was another appearance of the Mother of God to Father Gabriel.
The Queen of Heaven told him:
“Tell the brothers not to bother me anymore. I came here not for you to keep Me, but to keep you. All of you who live virtuously on this Mountain, have faith in the mercy of My Son. As long as My icon is in your monastery, His grace and mercy will always overshadow you.”
the Virgin Mary
After which the icon was left in its place.
ON THE ROAD OF WAR
Immediately after the invasion of Hitler’s troops into the territory of the USSR, Patriarch Alexander III of Antioch took seclusion and retired to the dungeon in which the icon of the Mother of God was kept. Without food, water or sleep, he prayed for help for Russia.
Three days later, the Virgin Mary appeared to him and said: “Temples, monasteries, theological academies and seminaries should be opened throughout the country. Priests must be returned from the fronts and released from prisons. They must start serving. There is no way to surrender Leningrad! Let them take out the miraculous icon of the Kazan Mother of God and carry it in a religious procession around the city, then not a single enemy will set foot on its holy land. A prayer service must be performed in front of the Kazan Icon in Moscow, then it must arrive in Stalingrad. The Kazan icon must go with the troops to the borders of Russia.”
Surprisingly, Stalin heeded these words. He promised Metropolitans Alexy and Sergius all assistance. The Icon of the Kazan Mother of God was taken out of the Vladimir Cathedral, it was carried in a religious procession around Leningrad, and the city survived.
According to some reports, the plane, controlled by Stalin’s personal pilot, flew around the defended Moscow with the miraculous Kazan image on board. Few people know that the Battle of Stalingrad began with a prayer service. Then the icon stood among our troops on the right bank of the Volga, and the Germans were unable to cross the river, no matter how hard they tried.
Help of the Mother of God
A simple girl, Maria, was one of the first women on the planet who gave her heart to God from childhood. Remaining a virgin, she was constantly in prayer, devoting her life to Jesus, the Savior of all people.
A world in which fornication, civil marriages, and same-sex relationships have become the norm and are even protected by law will never understand the sacrificial feat of the practically little girl Mary, because she was only 14 years old at the time of her marriage. Not everyone can accommodate this (Matthew 19:1)
Blessed Virgin Mary
Having become the earthly Mother of Jesus, after His Ascension, the Virgin Mary continued to serve the love of Her Son, showing the followers of the King of Kings an example of such character qualities:
- humility;
- self-control;
- responsiveness;
- sacrifice;
- patience;
- unshakable faith.
The help of the Mother of God was granted both to the surviving apostles and to ordinary people who lived during the difficult time of Christian persecution. According to eyewitnesses, the miracles of the Most Holy Theotokos continue today, just as they have for 2000 years.
Icons of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
- "The Tsaritsa"
- "Zhirovitskaya"
- "Iverskaya"
PHENOMENON IN CHERNOBYL
The rector of St. Elias Church Nikolai Yakushin says: “On a rainy spring evening in the sky over Chernobyl, many townspeople saw a female silhouette descending from the rain clouds in an extraordinary radiance. For a certain time, the rain completely subsided and there was an extraordinary silence. Witnesses of the phenomenon realized with fear that something especially important was happening concerning the city itself.
From the unclear silhouette, an image similar to the image of the Virgin Mary in the form of Oranta gradually became clearly visible.
The townspeople saw in the hands of the Mother of God a bunch of dry grass, which she dropped; the grass fell and scattered across the wet ground. In May, when everything everywhere begins to turn green, bloom and bloom, dried grass is practically not found.
And here on the ground there were large quantities of dry stems of grass called Chernobyl. At one time, the radiance moved to the St. Elias Church, and the Holy Virgin blessed God’s temple with both hands. The vision left as suddenly as it appeared.”
Then the appearance of the Virgin Mary was interpreted in its own way: supposedly the Mother of God blessed the temple, and dry grass most likely meant a lean year. Only 20 years later the meaning of the miraculous appearance of the Mother of God became clear. She warned of impending danger, because it was no coincidence that a bunch of dry grass, called Chernobyl, or wormwood, was dropped on the city of the same name.
“The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of this star is “wormwood,” and the third part of the waters became wormwood, and many of the people died from the waters, because they became bitter” (Revelation of St. John the Theologian 8:10-11).
The life of Saint Andrew describes the vision that opened to him: he was shown the beauties of paradise, but, not seeing the Mother of God anywhere, he asked his mysterious companion: “Where is She?” In response I heard: “She walks the earth and collects the tears of those who cry.” This is how the Blessed Virgin Mary walks to this hour and will always walk the earth, collecting the tears of the suffering.
One of the military men who took part in the assault on Konigsberg in 1944 said: “When the front commander arrived, there were priests with him with an icon of the Mother of God. After serving the prayer service, they calmly walked towards the front line. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the shooting from the German side stopped, and our troops began the assault.
The incredible happened: the Germans died in the thousands and thousands surrendered! The captured Germans later said in one voice: “Before the Russian assault began, Madonna appeared in the sky, which was visible to the entire German army. At this time, absolutely everyone’s weapon failed - they could not fire a single shot.”
Everyone remembers the tragedy in Budennovsk in 1995, when Basayev’s gang captured the staff and patients of the central city hospital. During those terrible days, local residents several times saw in the sky the image of a grieving woman, dressed in dark clothes and standing at a cross formed by clouds.
Apparitions of the Virgin Mary occurred both before the terrorist attack itself and after the militants left the city. Many are still convinced that some of the terrorists were demoralized by Her appearance and this was the decisive moment for the release of the hostages.
Around 1917, the monastery where the icon of the Mother of God was located was attacked by the Bulgarians
Let's look at a story that happened later. During the Bulgarian occupation, the monasteries were often raided by the Bulgarians. Once such an event happened around 1917. The monks prayed at the evening service.
The relics were taken to the center of the temple for veneration. At that moment, the Bulgarians came to the temple, they began to say that they also wanted to venerate the shrines. But this was their insidious plan; they grabbed the relics and ran away.
Iveron Icon of the Mother of God. Photo: hranitel.club
The next day they wanted to steal the icon of the Mother of God. One of the sergeants decided to take the icon, but then fell dead. During another attempt, the Bulgarians took the icon, but were only able to carry it to the exit from the temple.
The icon became so heavy that they could not even lift it. A stream of tears began to flow down the Mother of God's face. The Bulgarians saw this, got scared and fled.
