The Spirit of Medjugorje Online

THE 25TH DAY OF EACH MONTH, THE BLESSED VIRGIN GIVES A MESSAGE TO THE VISIONARY MARIJA, THAT IS TO BE GIVEN TO THE WORLD.

"Dear children! Also today I call you to prayer. Sin is pulling you towards worldly things and I have come to lead you towards holiness and the things of God, but you are struggling and spending your energies in the battle with the good and the evil that are in you. Therefore, little children, pray, pray, pray until prayer becomes a joy for you and your life will become a simple walk towards God. Thank you for having responded to my call."

The painting pictured above is the work of Fr. Zlatko Sudac, a Croatian priest with many spiritual gifts, including the stigmata. This painting hangs in the dining room at Ivan’s brother’s house

Climb Every Mountain

Lessons from Mt. Knzevac

Note: In the spring of 2008, Tom [Rutkoski] was scheduled to be the spiritual director of a Medjugorje pilgrimage for a group of men from Alberta, Canada. As often happens, God had other plans. Tom's doctors decided that was the best time for him to undergo the stem cell transplant he'd been preparing for. So he was unable to go. In his place, he sent the following letter, to be read to the group at the top of Mt. Krizevac.

Dear Brothers-in-Christ,

The first time I went to Medjugorje it was the fall of 1987. Within my first few hours there I found myself climbing a mountain called Krizevac [Cross Mountain]. It has now become one of the great highlights of my life. This mountain, today with massive bronze Stations of the Cross traversing its rocky face, seems to call one to commitment. It is not an easy climb. Most everyone who undertakes the challenge of gaining the summit for the first time is unskilled and unprepared for what lies ahead, yet the desire to reach the top allows them to endure the difficulties. Who could deny the difficulty of Our Lord's journey? Does He not correlate the ascent toward Heaven to climbing a mountain? Here in Medjugorje a person loses his breath in the struggle to achieve the pinnacle of Krizevac. The wounds that may be sustained from a simple slip or a trip during the climb are truly symbolic of what lies ahead in the broader scheme of things.

From the top of this mountain, it is as if the whole world lay at your feet – that you can just reach down and touch ...anywhere. This, too, is symbolic of where we have to go in spreading the good news. What it is not is just another place, as in a vacation site. It's not something that, once you are back home, you will search for the exact words to convey its beauty. It's more than that. It takes a commitment to climb the mountain and it takes a commitment to go home and live the journey. What Krizevac represents is the rest of your life, as the Mother of God calls us to relive the life, death and resurrection of Her Son every day. Many have come to the place called Medjugorje, and just as many hear the message of our Heavenly Mother, but few actually make the commitment to live Her message in its entirety.

The message is simple and I have repeated it in nearly every presentation I have given: daily Mass, fifteen decades of the Rosary every day, fasting on bread and water on Wednesdays and Fridays, Confession once a month and conversion of the heart each day.

Its simplicity may be one of the reasons that this request seems to be so soundly ignored. There's no mystery or intrigue or prophetic cataclysms to capture the imagination. For many who have climbed it, the accomplishment of making it to the top of Mt. Krizevac may be the single most significant effort that they've put forth in their personal effort to please Our Lord. Of the close to one hundred times that I have climbed this mountain, I can honestly say each and every ascent was difficult. I believe these climbs were preparing me for the difficult times in my life that were to come. Now those difficult times are upon me. This very week I was supposed to be with you here in Medjugorje once again, speaking to you on the top of this mountain and trying to help you in some small way to make spiritual sense out of your journey.

You know that I had to cancel my commitment to be with you in person to share some of my many experiences here because I have a different mountain in front of me. It is the mountain of the terminal disease multiple myeloma. Still, here I am in spirit, speaking to you on that mountain and knowing you will learn from Our Lady, as I did.

This is my second bout with this gift from God and I know I have this cancer only to make me stronger. For when I am weak, I have to depend solely on the mercy of God and, in doing so, I am made strong in my faith.

When I was first told by the doctors that I was terminally ill, I proclaimed, with a big smile on my face, "Thanks be to God." If it were not for this place called Medjugorje and the mountain called Krizevac, I would not have been prepared to respond in the manner I did.

If I did not live the message of Medjugorje, I do not believe that I would have been able to peacefully prepare myself for the journey home. But now, before I receive one of the most drastic treatments one can receive for cancer, before I possibly meet my demise, I have been given time to receive the last rites, to go to Confession and tell God how sorry I am for my miserable attempt at life. I'm able to thank God for granting me the chance to correct the first half of my life and become a prodigal son. It is all called grace, and how many people simply reject God's grace.

The very fact that our Mother has been appearing in Medjugorje for over 26 years shows just how much God loves us and how much grace He is willing to dispense to change our lives. How is it, then, that there are those who find themselves in the same situation I am in and they are not capitalizing on their opportunities? For, you see, it was Medjugorje that made me understand that every ache and pain, every difficult time and every impossible situation in which we find ourselves is yet more grace made available to us. Accepting this grace allows us to address others we encounter who are facing these situations and tell them of the glory of God.

It is to your gain to thank God for the difficult climb of Krizevac and each and every difficult time that will come in the future. The world needs a few Catholics who suffer with smiles on their faces. The world needs a few Catholics who can see the good that suffering can bring and how wonderful God is to allow us some small, temporary suffering here on earth that might make up for the many misdeeds we have done. Indeed, God is good.

So if there is one message that I would want to deliver to fifty pious men on a mountain in Bosnia, or to the whole world, before I die, it is this:

I thank God for the Catholic Church, the one true Church.

I thank God for His sacraments, for His Body and Blood, without which I could never find salvation, and for the encouragement of all the saints.

I thank Him for my first visit in 1987 and for all my visits to Medjugorje since then and for every climb up Mt. Krizevac.

I thank Him for all the mountains in my life and if, by the grace of God, I am permitted to continue on past these treatments for cancer, that I will not miss one opportunity in telling every person I meet about the mercy of our God.

If each one of us would take seriously our vocation as a Christian soldier and climb God's mountains joyfully and live to tell of our close personal relationship with Jesus Christ, our Savior, maybe then the whole world would become Catholic. That is a goal worth striving for. That is a message worth delivering.

As I write this, today is April 25. Our Lady's message of this day – “Dear Children: Also today, I call all of you to grow in God's love as a flower which feels the warm rays of spring. In this way, also, you, little children, grow in God's love and carry it to all those who are far from God. Seek God's will and do good to those whom God has put on our way, and be light and joy. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

Your brother in Christ,

Thomas Rutkoski

Founder and CEO Gospa Missions & Abode for Children

Used with permission, Gospa Missions newsletter, September 2012

Editor’s note: Tom passed away on June 7, 2011. His conversion story is in our book, I Have Come to Tell the World that God Exists.

Let’s Do Something Beautiful for God

By June Klins

One Sunday in January, one of our subscribers gave me an envelope that sounded like it had some loose change in it, which seemed odd to me. When I opened the envelope I found a check made out to “The Spirit of Medjugorje” and another one made out to “The Spirit of Adoration.” Also in the envelope was a note card with a quote from Mother Teresa that said, “Let’s do something beautiful for God,” along with $333.33 in cash. The note said, “June, it was laid on my heart to give you this exact amount of money ($333.33)…I trust it will be revealed to you why and how it is to be used.”

Awesome as He is, God knows that I like a good mystery and that, as a retired math teacher, am very attuned to numbers. So, I took the envelope with me to the Adoration chapel for several days and prayed about it. It was not long before it came to me that the $333.33 was to be used to have Masses said for Our Lady’s intentions. This idea was inspired from a homily given by a priest at my parish the first week of January. Father said that his Marian order allows him to have one “free” Mass per month, and he always offers the Mass for Our Lady’s intentions. He then suggested that it would be a good New Year’s resolution for each of us to have a Mass said this year for Our Lady’s intentions. As I reflected on his words, and the fact that the number 3 can denote the Trinity – Whom we meet in a very special way during Mass – it seemed like a good plan. Our Lady has asked for us to pray for Her intentions many times, and there is no higher form of prayer than the Mass. I left the chapel feeling excited about it. When I signed out, the clock read 11:11. Duplicate numbers jump out at me, and I wondered if this was a confirmation. On the way home, the temperature sign at a business near my home read 33 degrees. It seemed to be another confirmation.

I continued to pray. Within a week, I received a check for $222 to help Fr. Fredrick in Uganda. I wondered if this odd amount could be another confirmation.

Two days later, I went to visit my friend and took my bag of saints with me so she could pick her saint for the year (as described in the January issue). In the bag are over a hundred little slips of paper with the names of saints on them. When my friend asked me to mix up all the saints’ names, I felt something odd in the bag. I pulled out a little card which said, “Psalm 33:22” on it. I could not believe it! I had no idea where that came from or how it got in my bag of saints. I related to my friend about the $333.33, the $222 and the idea about the Masses, and she agreed this was another confirmation.

The following day, I planned to request the Masses, and then it came to me that if I added the $222 to it, which was going to Fr. Fredrick anyway, that would make $555.33, which would allow for 111 Masses. I was really getting excited because 111 has been a significant number to me since January 11 (1/11), 1998. That was when my healing (of a strange condition that left me in chronic pain) began through Our Lady of Medjugorje. As I suspected, Fr. Fredrick was honored to be able to celebrate the 111 Masses for Our Lady’s intentions.

Soon it came to me during Adoration to expand upon this idea and invite everyone to have Masses said for Our Lady’s intentions. There is no better gift that we could give to Our Lady. Perhaps we could present them to Her as a spiritual bouquet for the 33^rd anniversary of the apparitions on June 25, 2014. Why the 33^rd anniversary? Besides the fact that the number 33 kept surfacing, the number 33 is often associated with Jesus because this is the number of years He spent on earth. Our Lady gave the Medjugorje locutionist, Jelena, the “Jesus Rosary” which is made up of 33 Our Father’s. (See below.) I can only imagine that if Our Lady had a favorite number it would be 33! It seems that the number 33 was significant to the village of Medjugorje also, since they constructed the Cross on Mt. Krizevac in 1933, to commemorate the 1900^th anniversary of Jesus’ death on the Cross. And according to Draga Vidovic, author of Salvation of Mankind, there was a tradition in Medjugorje of offering 33 Holy Masses for the deceased immediately after funerals.

On September 25, 1991, Our Lady said, “… dear children, help my Immaculate Heart to triumph in the sinful world. I beseech all of you to offer prayers and sacrifices for my intentions so I can present them to God for what is most necessary. Forget your desires, dear children, and pray for what God desires, and not for what you desire. Thank you for having responded to my call."

A friend of mine suggested that it would be nice to present Our Lady with a thousand Masses for the 33^rd anniversary. I was aiming higher – if every person who ever went to Medjugorje and every person who follows Our Lady’s messages would have just one Mass said for Our Lady’s intentions, think of how many that would be! That would certainly help Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart to triumph as She said in the message above.

Can you help to spread this idea? The Masses can be said wherever you want. Some local parishes are begging for Mass intentions. Or you can have the Masses said by a missionary priest. The stipend for Masses said by missionary priests is usually only $5. That helps them, Our Lady, and also ourselves, as we act in charity. It is a win-win-win situation.

My thought is to keep a tally of the number of Masses offered for Our Lady’s intentions on our website ( http://www.spiritofmedjugorje.org/masses.htm ) and update it monthly as an encouragement and a reminder to continue to have the Masses said. Of course, it is not necessary to do this because Our Lady will know, but if you want, you can contact me when you have a Mass offered for Our Lady’s intentions. The initial goal was for the 33^rd anniversary, but why stop there? We could continue this indefinitely….

Let’s do something beautiful for God!

Editor’s note: To report Masses, email info@spiritofmedjugorje.org.

"Dear children! With great joy in my heart I thank you for all the prayers that, in these days, you offered for my intentions. Know, little children, that you will not regret it, neither you nor your children. God will reward you with great graces and you will merit eternal life…” (message of the 25^th anniversary, June 25, 2006).

The Jesus Rosary

By Cathy Nolan

Our Lady began a prayer group of young people in Medjugorje in 1983. This prayer group was led by Our Lady herself, through the little locutionists, Jelena and Mirijana. On “Fruit of Medjugorje,” Episode 7, Franjo Zubac shares his experience of the prayer group! Here is an excerpt from his sharing:

“In the village of Medjugorje we accepted the messages, we accepted the visionaries. In great numbers we came to Mass, under the Communist regime, under the threatening of the Communist regime. I would come from my family's home to church, and I would be stopped three times by the police, and my car and my name written three times [on their lists] and then I was able to get to the church. Of course they would fine me for a little thing missing from the car or my license...so that was the beginning – very hard, very harsh.

“ But in that environment, two little girls [Jelena and Mirjana], age of 10, received a gift. First they heard a voice of an angel, who told them they would soon hear Our Lady. Then Our Lady came to them in 20 days. And Our Lady said to them, "I would like to form a prayer group of young people here in the parish of Medjugorje."

“Our Lady laid down the conditions. Four years that we commit ourselves to Our Lady's school of prayer. For four years we would not get married or go away, but we committed to pray three or four hours a day, including reading Holy Scripture, going to Holy Mass. Our vocation was to let Our Lady teach us how to pray.

“She gave us the ‘Jesus Rosary’ with eight mysteries. I remember clearly the first day I brought the Jesus Rosary home on a piece of paper (a lady in the prayer group printed it out for us). So now we not only had to pray the three mysteries, Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries, but we also had to pray the Jesus Rosary!

“I came home to my family, with my sister. My mother was very devout – very, very devout, a very prayerful person -- and I was trying to show off to my mother. I said, ‘Have you ever heard of the Jesus Rosary?’ And she looked at me and she said, ‘Jesus Rosary?’ And I said, ‘Yes, Jesus Rosary, have you ever heard?’ And she said, ‘Yes I did!’ I said, ‘Don't tell me you heard of it!’ She said, ‘Yes I did! As a girl of twelve I prayed it during Lent.’ I said, ‘What did you pray? Don't tell me you know it!’ And she said, ‘We prayed for the 33 years that Jesus spent on this earth, 33 Our Fathers and seven Glory Bes on the end.’ So I counted the eight mysteries on the paper and I found exactly 33 Our Fathers. And then seven Glory Bes. We began with the Apostles Creed! But Our Lady turned it into eight mysteries.

“The first mystery, we contemplate how Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and we will pray for peace – peace as Our Lady wants it – first in our heart, then in our family, our community and then peace in our world.

“Second mystery, Jesus shared and gave everything He had with others, and we will pray for the Holy Pope and bishops.

“The third mystery we will contemplate how Jesus followed His Father's will, day by day, and we will pray for all priests and religious orders.

“The fourth mystery, how Jesus knew He would suffer, but He continued with the Father's will. And we will pray for our families, each member of our families. You see how it goes from peace in the world, Holy Pope and bishops, priests and religious orders, families.

“Now fifth mystery we will contemplate how Jesus gave up His life and let Himself be crucified on the cross and died for us. We will pray for our neighbors. Now who is our neighbor? And Our Lady emphasized, you have to pray for your enemies, to pray for them with love and out of love – not only for your friends but for your enemies too. They are your neighbors too.

“Sixth one, we contemplate on how Jesus resurrected on the third day as He said, and we will pray that the Resurrection will light up the darkness all around us.

“The seventh one, we contemplate how Jesus lived the Father's will on this earth until He ascended into Heaven, and we will pray for God's will in our life.

“Eighth mystery, we will contemplate how Jesus sent the Holy Spirit down upon the Apostles and Mary, and we will say the seven Glory Be’s. So six mysteries get five Our Fathers, the seventh gets three Our Fathers, and the eighth is the seven Glory Be's.” (Fruit of Medjugorje, Episode 7, Franjo Zubac)

If you watch Franjo speak on this episode, you can see how completely immersed he is in this prayer, the Jesus Rosary. He knows it deep in his heart. He has been praying it all these years, nearly 30 years now. You can see the gentle and powerful effect of prayer in his peaceful face!

The Jesus Rosary As Our Lady taught Jelena

Pray the Apostles Creed

Mystery:
Contemplate the birth of Jesus
(speak about the birth of Jesus)
Intention: pray for peace.
5 Our Fathers
Exclamation: O Jesus, be strength and protection for us.
Mystery:
Contemplate - Jesus helped and gave all to the poor
Intention: Let us pray for the Holy Father and for the Bishops
5 Our Fathers
O Jesus, be strength and protection for us.
Mystery:
Contemplate - Jesus trusted in his Father completely and carried out his will
Intention: pray for priests and for all those who serve God in a particular way
5 Our Fathers
O Jesus, be strength and protection for us.
Mystery:
Contemplate - Jesus knew he had to give up his life for us and he did so without regrets because he loved us.
Intention: pray for families.
5 Our Fathers
O Jesus, be strength and protection for us.
Mystery:
Contemplate - Jesus made his life into a sacrifice for us
Intention: Pray so that we, too, may be capable of offering our life for our neighbor.
5 Our Fathers
O Jesus, be strength and protection for us.
Mystery:
Contemplate - the victory of Jesus over Satan. He is arisen
Intention: let us pray that all sins may be eliminated so that Jesus may relive in our hearts.
5 Our Fathers
O Jesus, be strength and protection for us.
Mystery:
Contemplate - The ascension of Jesus into Heaven
Intention: let us pray that the will of God may triumph, so that his will may be done
5 Our Fathers
O Jesus, be strength and protection for us.

After this, contemplate how Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit.
Intention: pray so that the Holy Spirit may descend upon us.
7 Glory Be's

www.marytv.tv

Interview with Ivan

The following is an excerpt from an interview by Mimi Kelly with visionary Ivan Dragicevic in November of 2011.

Mimi: The best way to evangelize is through our prayer, our example…how?

Ivan: Our Lady recommends going to Adoration of Jesus. In Adoration, you meet Jesus; and when you meet Jesus, Jesus tells you everything you need. After you start Adoration for Jesus, everything else is easier. First comes family prayer, then Adoration will be much easier. It is important to start Adoration in the family.

Mimi: What did you see in Heaven?

Ivan: In 1984, Our Lady told me I was going to see Heaven. She came to me to say She would take me to Heaven. It was on a Thursday. On Friday, Our Lady talked with me a few minutes. I am kneeling down, I get up, and Our Lady stays on my left side. Our Lady takes my left hand. I take three steps, and Heaven opens. I go another three steps and am standing on a small hill. The hill is similar to the Blue Cross hill in Medjugorje. I see Heaven down. I am seeing people walking, smiling, dressed in long robes of red, blue, gold. People ask me how the people look. They are singing with a distant song. It is very hard to describe. People ask me how old the people are, maybe 30-35 years old – praying, singing, with so many angels. I heard distant songs, angels singing, very difficult to describe. Remember the Gospel speaking: "Eyes have not seen, ear has not heard..." This is why Our Lady is coming all these 30 years, as a guide for us, reserving for all of us a place in Heaven.

Mimi: Has Our Lady given you anything to write down for later publication?

Ivan: I am working for a long time on my book. The book is half finished. I need more time. So many papers stay on my table. The last couple of years I have been so busy with traveling and speaking in churches. Our Lady gives me privately things especially for priests, young people, family, and children. I give examples from my family and some examples from myself.

Mimi: How can we find joy with the state of our world today?

Ivan: Joy, joy, joy can only be in Jesus. Nobody can give joy except Jesus. Reading the Bible, you will see joy. That is what Our Lady is asking, to read the Bible. Our Lady asks for Confession to cleanse ourselves of sin. When the Holy Spirit and grace comes in your heart, there is a river of love. A river of joy then becomes your heart. Remove all negative and you will be open for the Holy Spirit.

The Medjugorje Star, Vol. 25, No. 6

Mother, Why Do I Have To Suffer So Much?

By Father Angelus M. Shaughnessy, O.F.M. Capuchin

We are born in the pain of another and we die in our own; and in between birth and death, doesn't it sometimes seem like one aggravation after another? I know once you reach 80 it's mostly maintenance: trying to keep it together and so often wondering where you put it. The memory goes.

What is the key to all good mental health (sanity) and all good spiritual health (sanctity)? Where do we learn to cope with the hurts of life? The short suffering in preparation for the long suffering?

Yes, by all means get the help you need from the medical profession. Don't overdose though. But, even after you have taken all your prescriptions, there may well be a big chunk of pain that persists. How do you deal with that?

Focus on the Crucified! He will teach you to tolerate the pain (with or without the morphine drip), to accept the pain, maybe even to embrace the pain. The immediate goal is to accept the pain, yes even to embrace it, uniting it to His suffering on the cross; not that He will necessarily take the suffering away; but that He will be present to us in our suffering. "Offer it up!" is the truly Christian way to cope with all our hurts.

Our God wants our love; but He cannot get our love until He gets our attention; and, isn't that what suffering is all about: our God trying to get our attention?

If anybody ever pretends to have the equation or the formula to explain suffering completely, don't believe them. We are mystery. God is mystery; and all the interaction between ourselves and our God is terribly mysterious.

He whispers to us in our pleasures; He shouts to us in our pain. Suffering is the divine megaphone to arouse a dull and drowsy world. I wish it did not have to be that way; but since the fall of Adam and Eve, the only way back to the Father is the way Jesus went; and His way is still the way of the Cross.

The Christian Mother Newsletter, Archconfraternity of Christian Mothers, Spring 2010

The “Gimmes”

By June Klins

One morning last month, something drew me to notice a scarf a woman was wearing. Suddenly I flashed back to a time I am not proud of – before Medjugorje – when I was given a similar scarf for a gift. I did not receive the scarf graciously and gave it away. A friend of mine used to say, “Reject the gift – reject the giver.” I now felt so much remorse at how the person who gave me the scarf must have been hurt. Then it came to me how much I must have hurt Jesus and Mary all those years when They had even better gifts to give me and I did not respond. I felt terrible.

Oh how the Holy Spirit was at work! In the homily at the Mass I attended about a half hour later, the priest talked about this very thing. He said that when some people come back from Communion, they don’t accept the many graces Jesus has for them. Father said, “It is possible to leave Mass with less grace than when you came in.” Yikes! He repeated that for emphasis. Father then suggested that after Communion is the best time to have the “gimmes” – “Gimme (give me) all the graces I need to be a good spouse, a good parent, a good son or daughter, etc.” Father said the best thing to ask for is the grace to become holy, to become a saint. If you are holy, he continued, you will not need to ask for anything else, because, as a result, you will become a good spouse, parent, etc. We should ask for, accept and be grateful for all the graces Jesus has for us.

Divine Mercy Sunday is on April 7 this year. What an awesome gift Jesus has for us if we choose to accept it. Jesus told St. Faustina, “The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion [on Divine Mercy Sunday] shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day all the divine floodgates through which graces flow are opened.” It is the best gift ever!

The question always come up about whether you have to go to Confession on Divine Mercy Sunday, and the answer is no. According to http://thedivinemercy.org, “To receive those special graces — ‘the complete forgiveness of sins and punishment’ ... in other words, a complete renewal of baptismal grace in our hearts — all we need to do is to receive Holy Communion in a state of grace on Divine Mercy Sunday, with trust in Our Lord's great mercy.”

How easy this can be, but how many people accept this most awesome of gifts?

“Jesus, gimme all the graces you have for me. I want to be a saint!”

Message to Mirjana on February 2, 2013
"Dear children, love is bringing me to you – the love which I desire to teach you also – real love; the love which my Son showed you when He died on the Cross out of love for you; the love which is always ready to forgive and to ask for forgiveness. How great is your love? My motherly heart is sorrowful as it searches for love in your hearts. You are not ready to submit your will to God's will out of love. You cannot help me to have those who have not come to know God's love to come to know it, because you do not have real love. Consecrate your hearts to me and I will lead you. I will teach you to forgive, to love your enemies and to live according to my Son. Do not be afraid for yourselves. In afflictions my Son does not forget those who love. I will be beside you. I will implore the Heavenly Father for the light of eternal truth and love to illuminate you. Pray for your shepherds so that through your fasting and prayer they can lead you in love.

IT AD JOSEPH – GO TO JOSEPH!

By Susan Tassone

Why should we be devoted to St. Joseph? He is the foster father of our Judge and Savior. His power is more dreadful to the devil. He died in the presence and care of Jesus and Mary. St. Joseph will obtain for us that same blessed privilege at our passage from this life to eternity!

There is a particular tribute made to Joseph to honor him and to place ourselves under the protection of his cloak!

It is called the Holy Cloak Novena in Honor of St. Joseph.

You are recommended to say these prayers on thirty consecutive days, in memory of the thirty years St. Joseph lived with Jesus. The graces obtained from God through the intercession of St. Joseph are too numerous to be counted. St. Teresa said: “Whoever does not believe should try it and be convinced.” I can attest to that!

To receive help from St. Joseph even more quickly, it is encouraged that these prayers include the promise of an offering in honor of the saint, supporting the Pious Union in the Name of St. Joseph.

Also strongly recommended is to offer up a Holy Mass in honor of the Holy Souls. As we dry the tears of the poor and suffering souls, St. Joseph will surely dry our own tears with the same care.

The Holy Cloak novena is the cloak of his protection, and he will spread his cloak of compassion over us to shield us from all dangers. As St. Joseph is the patron of a “Happy Death” (which means dying the state of grace), St. Joseph repays us generously if we come to the rescue of the Suffering Souls.

This beautiful powerful novena includes praying for the holy souls in every petition to St. Joseph. It is one of the most touching novenas I have ever prayed. I asked for help including challenging petitions as a cigar-smoking neighbor, to children who have not been baptized, and a college student dropping out of school. All were miraculously answered. Do you need a conversion in your family, are your children away from the church, do you need employment, and yes, do you want to sell your home? Go to Joseph!

Become a member of the Pious Union of St. Joseph. Their mission is to pray for the sick and dying. When you pray for the dying you get the grace of a happy death! For a donation of $5 or more you receive the Holy Cloak Novena Booklet and are enrolled in the Pious Union of St. Joseph. You can also request a rare and beautiful Medal of St. Joseph. Visit their website at: www.pusj.org. They also offer Gregorian Masses for $160.

This powerful novena is one of my daily ongoing prayers. It gives great hope and joy to me and to the suffering souls! Remember, it is your faith and perseverance that counts! Truly a win-win!

Editor’s note: Susan Tassone is best-selling author of numerous Purgatory books and a regular guest on EWTN. Her latest book Prayers, Promises and Devotions for the Holy Souls in Purgatory was released September, 2012, and has been on the best sellers list ever since. Visit her website at: susantassone.com. You can join her on pilgrimage to the Pious Union of St. Joseph and the Solanus Casey Center on April 29-May 1st. Visit www.medj1.com for details!