Volume 13 #2 Featured Article.

Our Lady of America, the Immaculate virgin!

Our Lady of America Appears

It was on the eve of the feast of the North American martyrs, September 24,
1956 (pre-Vatican II), that Our Lady appeared to Sr. Mildred Mary (Ephrem)
Neuzil. Our Lady came first as Our Lady of Lourdes, that place where she had
identified herself to Bernadette as "I am the Immaculate Conception."

Our Lady promised that greater miracles than those granted at Lourdes and
Fatima would be granted here in America, the United States in particular, if
we do as she desires. (Diary, Pg. 9)

Our Lady went on to thank her children in America for the honor they have
shown her under her unique privilege of the Immaculate Conception as they
worked to complete the Basilica of the National Shrine in our Nation's
capital. We recall, it was August 15, 1913, when Bishop Thomas J. Shahan,
Rector of Washington's Catholic University, met with Pope Pius X for
approval to erect this National Shrine to Our Lady under the title of her
Immaculate Conception. His Holiness was so enthusiastic about this plan that
he personally wrote the first check for $400.00 toward its construction.
(Diary, pg. 10)

The Message of Our Lady of America

Later that day, again during a Holy Hour, Our Lady came a third time in
connection with the feast of the North American martyrs, and again she
repeated the call to her children in America to dedicate their lives to her
Purity:

My child, I entrust you with this message that you must make known to my
children in America. I wish it to be the country dedicated to my purity. The
wonders I will work will be the wonders of the soul. They must have faith
and believe firmly in my love for them. I desire that they be the children
of my Pure Heart. I desire, through my children in America, to further the
cause of faith and purity among peoples and nations. Let them come with
confidence and simplicity, and I, their Mother, will teach them to become
pure like to my Heart that their own hearts may be more pleasing to the
Heart of my Son. (Diary, Pg. 11)

Sister declared that Our Lady called herself Our Lady of America in response
to the love and desire that reached out for this special title in the hearts
of her children in America. This title is a sign of Our Lady's pleasure in
the devotion of her children of America towards her, and this visit is a
response to the longing, conscious or unconscious, in the hearts of her
children in America. (Diary, Pg. 11)

Our Lady's Desire for Our National Shrine

On October 5, 1956, Sr. Mildred writes how she suddenly felt urged to write
a prayer to Our Lady, Patroness of our land. Although she did not hear any
words, the thoughts came into her mind with such profundity, she could not
stop until the magnificent Prayer to the Immaculate Conception was finished.
(see Diary, Pg.47)

A few days later, on October 13, 1956, Our Lady again appeared as Our Lady
of America, but instead of a lily in her hand, she held, with both hands, a
small replica of the finished Shrine of the Immacuate Conception.

This is my shrine, my daughter. I am very pleased with it. Tell my children
I thank them. Let them finish it quickly and make it a place of pilgrimage.
It will be a place of wonders. I promise this. I will bless all those who,
either by prayers, labor, or material aid, help to erect this shrine.
(Diary, Pg. 14)

According to Sister Mildred, Our Lady often emphasized her desire that the
Shrine in Washington, D.C., be made a place of special pilgrimage and that
she be honored there under this image and this title - "Our Lady of America,
the Immaculate Virgin."

Strong warnings were repeated by Our Lady throughout 1957 and 1958, and
there-after, indicating that the hour grows late and Sister must tell the
Bishops of the United States of Our Lady's desires and how she wishes them
to be carried out. Our Lady bids Sister to pray and do penance that this may
come to pass.

In April of 1957, Our Lady spoke: Unless my children reform their lives,
they will suffer great persecution. If man himself will not take upon
himself the penance necessary to atone for his sins and those of others, God
in His justice will have to send upon him the punishment necessary to atone
for his transgressions. (Pg 17)

In August, Mary says:

What am I to do, child of my heart, when my children turn from me? The
false peace of this world lures them and in the end will destroy them. They
think they have done enough in consecrating themselves to my Immaculate
Heart. It is not enough. That which I ask for and is most important many
have not given me. What I ask, have asked, and will continue to ask is
reformation of life. There must be sanctification from within. I will work
my miracles of grace only in those who ask for them and empty their souls of
the love and attachment to sin and all that is displeasing to my Son. Souls
who cling to sin cannot have their hands free to receive the treasures of
grace that I hold out to them. (Diary, pg. 19)

Sister Mildred Mary (Ephrem) Neuzil, the Messenger

Who is this nun who brought to America a message still so little known and
yet, of such profound import to America, to the United States?

Sister Mildred was born in Brooklyn, New York on August 2, 1916, just three
years after Bishop Shahan's plan for the National Shrine was put into
effect, and be-fore World War I had ended. In 1929, she entered an active
community, the Sisters of the Precious Blood, and on August 15, 1933, was
professed as a religious, taking the name Sister Mary Ephrem. Sister was
professed twenty years to the day that Bishop Shahan had received papal
approval for the construction of the National Shrine.

In those days, nuns changed their names as a sign of a new calling, much as
a wife takes the name of her husband in the marriage covenant. It would be
after Vatican II, with its emphasis on the importance of Baptism in the life
of the Christian, that Sister would return to the use of her baptismal name,
Mildred Mary.

Just five years after her profession, in 1938, Sister began to have mystical
experiences, spiritual locutions. She thought little of them, presuming all
religious have them. With their increase over the next ten years, she
decided to bring them to her confessor who warned her of a possible
over-active imagination. As these visits took on the nature of a specific
program of devotion to Mary which Sister was asked to propagate, she then
turned to her bishop, Paul F. Leibold, a holy and highly respected man, as
Our Lady had directed. Bishop Leibold, later Archbishop of the Cincinnati,
Ohio archdiocese, would be her spiritual director from 1940 to 1972 when he
died an untimely death due to an aneurysm. Archbishop Leibold had become so
convinced of the authenticity of this message that he approved Sister's
Diary and placed his imprimatur on the sketch of the medal Our Lady had
asked Sister to have struck, a medal that would bear the image of Our Lady
of America on the front and the symbol of the Christian Family and the
Blessed Trinity on the back.

From 1938 until she died, January 10, Jubilee year 2000, Sister continued to
have these spiritual locutions and visions. She records in her Diary her
conversations with Our Lord Who called Himself a Beggar for love and
lamented the lack of Faith in the world. Already in the 1940's, Our Lord had
made known to her that her mission was to converge toward the sanctification
of the family. He declared that He is not loved in our homes and that the
Blessed Trinity refuses to dwell therein. He urged parents to teach their
children spiritual values, and children, to honor their parents. Prior to
the visits of Our Lady in 1956, Sister also encountered the Angel of Peace
who bid her accept the palm of victory, along with the cross, the sword by
which to conquer self, the world and the devil. Later, she would learn that
the Angel of Peace was really St. Michael. The archangel Gabriel, too, would
come a year later to comfort her, saying Our Lord was pleased with her
efforts to do good and that she must go to His Mother to learn great purity
of heart. (Pgs. 4-9) And so it was that these two angels, so well known in
Scripture for victory in spiritual battle and the announcing of God's call,
presented Sister with this enormous spiritual mission that would demand her
"yes" to untold suffering, a configuration to Jesus' own Passion, in order
to bring its redeeming grace to the world, especially to America, so badly
in need of spiritual reform. These archangels would prepare Sister and
usher in the official visits of Our Lady of America.

St. Joseph, too, as Our Lady foretold, appeared on the eve of his feast,
March 18, 1958, and later, on March 30. At these times he declared himself
the protector of the Pope, the Church and the home. He revealed God's desire
to honor him, too long hidden and unknown, as the Virgin-Father standing in
for God the Father over the divine-humanity, a privilege so sublime none can
exceed it, save Mary, his holy Spouse. He proclaimed his singular grace,
freedom from the stain of original sin the moment after his conception, in
humble deference to Mary's even greater unique privilege, freedom from the
stain of original sin at the very moment of her conception. He identifies
his role in the plan of salvation and his share in the passion, with Jesus
and Mary. He asks that we honor him on the First Wednesday of the month,
a-long with Jesus on the First Friday and Mary on the First Saturday, and
asks that we meditate on the Joyful mysteries of the rosary in memory of his
life on earth with Jesus and Mary. (Pgs. 26-32)

It is true, my daughter, that immediately after my conception, I was,
through the future merits of Jesus and because of my exceptional role of
future Virgin-Father, cleansed from the original stain on my soul. This is
my unique privilege among men.  I surpassed the holiness of the highest angel
in the angelic choir. My heart suffered with the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Mine was a silent suffering, for it was my special vocation to hide and
shield, as long as God willed, the Virgin Mother and Son from the malice and
hatred of men. The most painful of my sorrows was that I knew beforehand of
their passions, yet would not be there to console them. Their future
suffering was ever present to me and became my daily cross. I became, in
union with my holy spouse, co-redemptor of the human race. Through
compassion for the sufferings of Jesus and Mary I co-operated, as no other,
in the salvation of the world. (Pg. 13)

Warning and Grace, Especially for America

My beloved daughter, what I am about to tell you concerns in a particular
way my children in America. Unless they do penance by mortification and
self-denial and thus reform their lives, God will visit them with
punishments hitherto unknown to them. (Pg. 21)

Our Lady calls on America to be a nation dedicated to her purity and to lead
the world, by her special mandate, to true peace, to a reform of life so
necessary to avoid the chastisement sin threatens upon us. She calls for the
renewal of the family and of religious life, giving strong exhortations to
parents for spiritual leadership with their children and equally strong
exhortations to priests and religious to live their consecrated lives in
prayer and penance for sin, leading the faithful toward holiness by the
example of their own lives. She calls on the young to be pure and to take a
strong leadership role in renewing the earth, to become "Torch-bearers of
the Queen." She asks that we contemplate the divine-humanity of her Son and
live in intimate communion with God, Who calls us to be "tabernacles in the
flesh" for the Indwelling Holy Trinity.

Mary's Unfulfilled Desire

Forty-five years have now passed since Our Lady first appeared to Sister
Mildred and still, many have not heard the message, nor have experienced
inner conversion, and we still have not honored Our Lady of America in our
National Shrine according to her requests.

She (Our Lady) also requested a statue made according to this likeness and
placed, after being solemnly carried in procession, in the Shrine of the
Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. She wishes to be honored there in
a special way as Our Lady of America, the Immaculate Virgin. ( Pg. 14)

Repeatedly, Our Lady asks her children in America to listen to her
pleadings. Repeatedly, she expresses her trust in her loyal sons, the
bishops, to champion her cause and fulfill her request.

My daughter, will my children in America listen to my pleadings and console
my Immaculate Heart? Will my loyal sons carry out my desires and thus help
me bring the peace of Christ once again to mankind? (Pg. 15)

Our Lady's Statue Travels the Country and the World

A 300 pound statue of Our Lady of America has been traveling the country and
many parts of the world. In 1993, this statue was carried by the
"Torchbearers of the Queen" Youth Group from Colfax, California, to World
Youth Day in Denver, Colorado. The statue has since traveled to World Youth
Days in the Philippines and France, Peace Masses, U.S. Marian Conferences
and Pro-Life Walks. In 1994, this statue was present at The Year of the
Family National Rosary Congress in the Basilica of the National Shrine of
the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. It has been at Youth 2000
Eucharistic Retreats and World Youth Day 2000 in Rome. It will be carried
again in World Youth Day 2001 in Toronto, Canada, where His Holiness is
planning to attend.

What is Being Done to Honor Our Lady's Requests?

How can You Help?

In April and May of this year, packets of information were sent to the
Cardinals and Bishops of the US Bishops Conference, placing the message of
Our Lady of America in the hands of her beloved sons, as Our Lady had
requested to Sister. (Any bishop who may have been missed or did not receive
his package, can obtain one by calling Sister Joseph Therese Fuller,
Director, Our Lady of America Center, PO Box 445, Fostoria, OH 44830) A
newsletter is being published by the Center to explore the message in more
depth and to bring the message to every home in America. Information has
been posted on Michael Brown's web site, www.spiritdaily.com and at Signs of
the Times Apostolate website at www.sign.org.

Our Lady of America will soon have its own web site. Diaries, medals,
prayer leaflets or frameable pictures for the home, are available from Signs
and Wonders for our times, call us at 703-327-2277.

Let us note that most major nations have a Basilica dedicated to Mary under
the title of their country. Many likewise have a chapel dedicated to Our
Lady under the title of their country or a major apparition in our National
Shrine in Washington, D.C. There is no "Our Lady of America" there.
Therefore, we are urging people to send petitions to Our Bishops asking them
to place Our Lady of America's statue in our National Shrine and to honor
her under the title she requested back in 1956, "Our Lady of America, the
Immaculate Virgin." The petition attached can be reproduced. Send a copy to
your local bishop and the originals to the Our Lady of America Center, as
stated on the petition. Copies will be forwarded to the appropriate bishop
on the national level.

Financial help is also needed to bring this message to the people of
America, allowing everyone the chance to be blessed by its grace. If you can
help with tax-deductible donations, please send them to Sister at the
Center. (address listed above)

Our Lady's Promise to Her Devoted Ones

Our Lady has promised that her statue in the National Shrine would be a
safeguard for our country, and her picture or statue honored in the home, a
safeguard for the family. She also promised that the medal would be a
safeguard against evil for those who wear it with great faith and devotion.
Let us honor her then, as she asks, in our homes, our nation and our hearts!

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