by Catherine Moran
The IPVS tour to my Ukrainian Eparchy/Youngstown, OH Diocese
August 1-21, 2024
Where ever the International (IPVS) travels graces and blessings flow abundantly both during and after the visitation. Be bold in what you ask for with faith and great trust in Our Lady’s power and love for her children. Just as Our Lord said in the gospels, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Lk 11:9-10) In my opinion this scripture quote also applies to Our Heavenly Mother. Christ told St. Gemma Galgani that He was the rag-picker of souls. He is forever picking souls from the filth of sin. Mary goes with Him lest, in his justice, He should turn away from anybody. Our Lady is our advocate but first and foremost Our Mother always interceding for children to obtain for them the graces they ask of her.
When the International Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima- the Weeping Madonna (IPVS) toured my diocese August 1-21, 2024, it was an explosion of graces and blessings. After scheduling the visitation of the IPVS, I prayed for full churches, as my own mother had prayed during past tours of the statue to our diocese, “Jesus, please do not disappoint your Mother.” He didn’t: the churches were full and packed, with long lines of people waiting to come to Our Lady asking for her help and intercession for their families and friends. One lady came out of the church and announced to the long line of people waiting to come and venerate the statue, “I waited 3 hours and it was worth it!” The people came for their physical, emotional and especially their spiritual needs. Everyone has a family member(s) or dear friends who no longer practice their faith. Everyone leaving the church would come and thank us for bringing IPVS, stating they needed it, they needed the graces, blessings and hope that filled their hearts. Many left with tears in their eyes, touched by the love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our heavenly Mother. No one who came left empty handed. They venerated the relics of Sts. Francisco and Jacinta, two of the seers who saw Our Lady in 1917.The people who came, sacrificed and waited in longs; because of their generosity in doing this, I knew Our Lady would not refuse their requests for she cannot be outdone in generosity.
Many people during this tour came from great distances because the IPVS was not coming to their area in the near future. The tour was in NE Ohio and people came from all over the state of OH, and PA, NY, MI, MO, KY, TN, WV, NC and AZ. When asked why they came, the response was, “for Our Lady, we made it a pilgrimage.”
People came up and told me they came to thank Our Lady for a healing they received when they last saw this famous image. One was a woman who came up to me with tears in her eyes and told me she was here to thank Our Lady for her husband’s healing of severe neuropathy. She told me she brought her husband to see the statue in 1986, the last time the statue was in the area for a month long tour. She told me his neuropathy was so severe that his pain was constant walking or sitting. He came up to the statue with a walker going very slowly. She told me at the foot of the statue all he said was, “O Mary.” After about a few minutes, she then said that he husband got up and walked without any help out of the church. She said his neuropathy was healed. He was never bothered with it again. He died 12 years later. Jokingly I said to her, “And it only took you 38 years to tell me about it.” There was another man, who also had come to venerate the statue in 1986. He came asking for a healing. He told us his chest was filled with cancer and he very little time to live. He told us a few days later he went to his doctor for a follow-up x-ray and was told the cancer had calcified and there was no sign of cancer in his body. Thirty-eight years later he came to give thanks to Our Lady for his healing.
People came and told us that they had been away from the church for many years and this was the first time back in church. In particular, a married couple told us they had not been in a church for 25 years. After coming and seeing the IPVS they told us they will definitely be coming to church and mass again.
There was a young, beautiful woman, mid-twenties whose story touched my heart. After praying in front of the statue, she came to the table and started talking to me. After a few minutes she started crying. I asked her did she want to talk. She then told me that she had been raped and was pregnant. She came looking for help from Our Lady about what to do. She said she had decided to have the baby and raise it Catholic and that she had found peace with what had happened to her. What a profound grace! It was at that moment that I felt all the work I did for this tour was for her. That Our Heavenly Mother came for this young woman.
Someone also came who four years ago, after having Covid, had lost their sense of taste and smell. She said she went up to the statue and while praying, the first thing she had smelled in four years was the scent of roses. She informed us that she now has her sense of taste and smell back again.
There were people and children that came with physical disabilities, with their canes, walkers and wheelchairs. It made me think of the miracle of sun, when it was finished how the blind could see, the deaf could hear and crippled got up and walked. Like those people in 1917, they were coming with great faith that Our Lady would help them. Not all are healed but they did not leave empty handed. Like Our Lady told Lucia, September 13, 1917 when asked why she did not heal all the people, she responded, “ she would cure some people and not others.” We cannot begin to understand God’s Will for us. What we need to understand is that it is our pains and sufferings, when offered up save not only our own soul, but the souls of many others, especially those who have no one to pray for them. This is something Our Lady asked of the 3 children on May 13, 1917, “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners.“This request was not just for the 3 children but for all of us. On suffering St. Padre Pio, the spiritual father of all members of Our Lady’s Blue Army, said, “The greater your sufferings, the greater God’s love for you” and “When we suffer, Jesus is closer to us.”
The purpose of the IPVS tour program is to bring and spread the Fatima message of prayer, penance and reparation, which is not only needed but necessary to bring about the era peace and the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as promised to us at Fatima by the Mother of God. This will happen when enough people join Our Lady’s Blue Army of prayer. If you are not yet a member of Our Lady’s Blue Army of prayer, then please go to bluearmy.com/join. You could be the last person to join that is needed to bring about the era of peace and the triumph of her Immaculate Heart.