I Witnessed the Rosary
Miracle
by Stephen Wells
Dear Father
Gruner,
We are so deluged
with opinions, histories, expert evaluations, modifications, amendments,
deletions and additions that we mere mortals are tempted to imitate the ostrich
(bury our heads in the sand) and wait for it to all go away.
Unfortunately the
sands of time are fast running out and there may soon be no sand left for us to
bury our heads in!
I can understand
why there is opposition to your work, the Message of Fatima is dramatically
opposed to popular perceptions of the present day. We live in an age of
permissiveness, an era where there is no apparent penalty for non-performance
of our duty — in some cases our sworn duty. From a purely lay observation,
I felt at the time that the Vatican II Council made changes too sweeping, too
fast and at the wrong time in history — the removal of some of the
disciplines augmented the permissiveness of the age — e.g. fasting from
midnight until receiving of Holy Communion the next morning did at least lend
considerable weight to the solemnity of the occasion — more so than
today.
Do we really pray
any more fervently today in our own language than we did in Latin? At least
there was no room for individual interpretations as there is now.
More to the point
of your work, I am amazed at how many of our parishioners do not know why the
priest says the three Hail Mary’s (specifically for the conversion of
Russia) at the foot of the altar after Mass.
I will be very
frank with you — if it wasn’t for my experience with the British Army
in Austria at the end of the war, I may have had difficulty in accepting many
of your reports. Briefly, while serving in Austria in the Army of Occupation, I
observed a weekly procession (I think every Friday) reciting the Rosary while
visiting the shrines around the town. This went on all over Austria.
In the face of
this, the Russians, realizing that their doctrines would never take hold in
such an atmosphere, withdrew — and when they packed up and left, so did
we!
The Russian
withdrawal was particularly remarkable when you consider the strategic
importance of Austria — both Napoleon and Hitler held the view that "he
who holds Vienna, holds the key to Europe."
We need someone
like you to hold up the light of objective faith! And I will try to keep on
supporting you. I spent 26 years as a counselor with the Employment Service and
I know how hard it is to get people to see facts and face them.
Keep up the good
work.
God Bless.
Return to
Table of Contents
|