Explaining the Faith - Important Marian Apparitions You've Never Heard Of

actually just the ring well thank you everybody for joining us live here at the national shrine of the divine mercy in stockbridge we're honored to have you with us we're very grateful uh even a few of us a few people made it we have a group from new hampshire here a group from new york somebody from brooklyn as well or albany area so we got a few people to get through the weather and praise be to god that you are here for the first saturday talk we're going to continue with miriam apparitions and as you saw on the slide these are a few i'm going to cover today that are the lesser-known marian apparitions but yet they're very important so i've always said i'm excited to go back to seminary that was my funnest time of my life and i wanted to say you know what if i could do anything i want to go back to seminary taking you with us and we're going to talk about a couple really powerful apparitions today let us begin with a prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen heavenly father we ask you send the holy spirit down upon us to open our minds and hearts to receive the grace you wish to bestow the grace to lead us to eternal life and that grace that will be given also through the hands of our blessed mother and we ask all this through christ our lord amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen okay so welcome everybody we're going to have you turn down your cell phones but you can join us if you're here at the shrine we've got a nice group of people in the back here as well can you can join us on our youtube channel which is called divine mercy or our facebook page which is divine mercy official and you can watch the slides i'm going to be showing and we're going to show a couple short video clips that go with the talks we're talking about today now if you have ever well put it this way i think every catholic at one time or another has heard of our lady guadalupe but do you know that there are some that are so similar to it that are from that area but nobody's ever heard of them let's look at our next slide if brother kenmark can put up and this is we're going to start today with our lady of chromato you're like what she's the patroness of venezuela we really need this today if you understand what's going on in venezuela if anybody thinks that the type of government that you have or the changes that are going on in our leaderships and governments don't matter look what is going on in venezuela we need to pray to our lady and this patroness here's an important story all right we know that we have the miraculous image of our leader guadalupe but the question is has our lady left us another miraculous image of herself besides guadalupe in the same south america area all right it's tiny this is the tiniest of all the images our lady left you know we think of the images she did with the big tilma or the statues this image is this big the image that our lady left it's tiny but it's powerful and the symbols are have been verified at that time in the culture of the 17th century venezuela it's been totally authenticated what happened all right in 1591 the portuguese began to come into the area of venezuela and the indian tribe that was there in the area uh fled north into the jungle there in venezuela now a venezuelan chief the tribe chief was chosen by mary to evangelize the chromato indians but you've never even heard of them and it ended up with him being a modern day jonah or actually another juan diego and this is something we've never heard of and we really need to understand this today to help these people in venezuela right now so basically he he desperately tried to escape from this mission just like juan diego did just like jonah did they tried to say no lord you can't use me but ultimately he fulfilled it what happened all right she appeared to the ruler of the cremato indians and his wife in 1651 so now this is a couple decades after the portuguese had moved in they were living in the forest they had fled and she told him in his own language go to the white men and ask them to pour water onto your head so that you can go to heaven wow if you ever want confirmation of baptism huh pour water onto your head they have them do it the priests so that you can go to heaven i mean why wouldn't we want to do this why would we not want our children baptized this is the important message here so the virgin asked him and his whole tribe to be baptized but just like so many people today so many of us the chief started to learn about the catholic faith started looking into it and some of his other members did too but then he started to worry about what it would be looking like his image his reputation sound familiar how many people in hollywood today are afraid afraid to even mention their christian so they skip the sacraments they give up their the church and so basically he was worried about whether converting would affect his leadership role all right so he stopped short he quit he didn't get baptized and he other of his indians not to get baptized either now some still did right but many followed him this is the power of a leader and this is why it's important if you're a leader to lead the people the right way all right so our lady then appeared to him again on her birthday september 8 1652 but and she came to him in his own hut first time was in the forest second time was in the hut and again he ignored her all right so now the blessed mother though she's not to be deterred even though she was met with deaf ears she disappeared and she left in the chief's hand a teeny tiny little image this big let's take a look brother mark is going to show up on the screen that's the image you can actually get it on a metal isn't that one of the most beautiful metals you've ever seen it's gorgeous i'm going to try to get one of those myself that's an amazing a beautiful medal and she left this image of herself holding the child jesus in her lap now he still didn't follow her direction we're stubborn sometimes but he never forgot that she said have that water poured on your head so you could go to heaven he never forgot that so anyway a little bit later they were going through the forest and he was bitten by a poisonous snake and the snake dug his fangs and punctured into the skin as a very venomous snake and his companions knew that he was going to die he only had hours to live that once you get to that point with these venomous snakes that's it and so it seemed death was imminent so remembering mary's promise that if he got baptized he would go to heaven he started urgently asking to get baptized this is sometimes why god allows us right to go through trial and tribulation because only when we get shook up do we sometimes respond so anyway the news of this apparition this beautiful lady who had appeared started to spread and so he got baptized and got better and so he cured he would live through this and people are shocked you know the natives know these snakes and they're like whoa something's going on here so anyway the devotion grew the rest of the cremato indians were baptized after the chief himself got baptized and embraced the faith so then a church was built in honor of our lady of chromato in the nearby town there in the 1700s now let's go to our next slide brother mark's going to show and that a beautiful shrine now later in the 1980 a shrine was built at this exact location of the 1652 apparition i mean if you ever get a chance to go to some of these places it's almost surreal that you could be standing in the same place so both churches have been elevated to be basilicas and there's a large statue of our lady cremato as well as the original relic the little tiny image of her is in that shrine so if you ever get to go there now the relic the blessed virgin left with the chief is very authentic all right the image was analyzed just like our lady guadalupe's image on the tilma the cactus and all the miracles that the that the image is not actually seeped into the fibers but rest hovers above it the cactus fiber should have disintegrated in 50 years but it's it's it's almost 500 years old this image is similar all right the relic that was left the image was thoroughly analyzed and basically the indian symbols that were found in the image let's look at brother mark put it on your screen that's the actual image that you can see on your screen right now i don't know if the people here have their phones but if not this video will remain online and so basically um they were founded that the symbols in this image were authentic the style of the crowns that jesus and mary had are authentic to the culture and time period of those people in the 17th century all right how the image itself was created though just like guadalupe is a complete mystery it's believed to be miraculous because the picture doesn't actually absorb any ink it's actually hovers microns above it this is amazing so while it the picture appears to be drawn when you look at it the paper that it's on does not absorb the ink you can't explain this so our lady of kermato was declared patronus of venezuela by pius xii in 1949 and she is remembered get this she's remembered on three big days of the year you can't get three bigger days for memories right september 8th that's our lady's birthday february 2nd which is the presentation and also surprisingly september 11th even before the attacks in new york they were honoring her on september 11th so let us turn to our lady let's watch a quick video now of this apparition uh it's not long let's take a look and this tells you a little bit of our lady of kramato imagine seeing the blessed virgin mary and attacking her with the arrival of the spaniards in venezuela in 1591 the koromoto indians left their village in fear then in 1651 the chief of the koromoto indians and his wife experienced an incredible vision while at the river floating above the water was a beautiful young woman with an equally beautiful child in her arms in a gentle voice she said to them leave the forest with your people and go to the white men in order to receive the water on your heads so you will be able to enter heaven impressed the chief brought his people into the spanish village and they were taught the catholic religion but the chief and his people didn't like the new way of life and soon returned to their village once again the lady appeared this time in the chief's hut but the chief attempted to throw her out and threatened to use weapons on her he even attempted to grab hold of her but as he reached out she vanished suddenly a card appeared in his hand depicting our lady and the baby jesus from that point on the chief and his people were at once converted to the catholic faith [Music] on october 7th 1944 pope pius xii declared our lady of kawamoto patroness of venezuela [Music] all right so please pray for venezuela our lady of karmato pray for us and those people next let's look at an incredible one that touches my heart closely and that is if brother mark could show the thing our lady of lavon this is the patroness of vietnam and this story is incredible and i learned about her when i went to seminary and i'm taking you back to seminary with me because i went to seminary with a whole group of vietnamese nuns from the our ladies or early lovers of the holy cross and so they're from tengwa in the north and from saigon in the south amazing nuns and we're going to tell you this story right now our lady of la vang okay it goes back to 1798. now this shrine our lady of la vang is considered vietnam's national shrine now it's only locally approved which means we can follow it it's not formally approved fully because it haven't hasn't had the full process done yet but it is locally approved and so we wanted to talk about it today now the holy father when he went there encouraged devotion to our lady of la vang in vietnam now the shrine is very complex and it's it's in central vietnam in an area that's not yet fully developed and it's located in what's called kai levang which is uh the forest which means trees of lavang now it's in the archdiocese of way spelled h-u-e now some of you veterans out there might recognize that name it was the bloodiest battle in marine corps history uh or in vietnam i should say the bloodiest battle of vietnam for the marine corps it was an urban battle uh my dad who was over in southeast asia was not at way he was more in danang but he talks about it and and how many brave men lost their lives and i think this is why our lady appeared there to give hope of what was future to come in in in communism and these battles and the battle away spelled h-u-e was the bloodiest battle of vietnam people don't know that and so this is where it is it's in that archdiocese now what happened late in the 18th century remember that means 1700s not 1800s 18th centuries 1798 they had an edict by the emperor and the emperor basically banned catholicism and all of a sudden that began a period of persecutions and catholics fled to the forest just like cremato because they were being persecuted they fled they fled into the forest and many became ill so this is vietnam 1798. so while hiding in the jungle the people would gather every night at the foot of a large tree to pray the rosary can you imagine these people are living in the jungle escaping persecution all they had to do was denounce their faith and they wouldn't have to go through that talk about an example and and we're worried about people's uh calling us uh names because we're catholic today these people were willing to live in the forest many were getting sick and so they would gather every night at a tree to pray the rosary now let's take a look at our next slide all right then one night in apparition of the blessed virgin mary she came dressed in traditional vietnamese clothes holding like she usually does jesus an infant jesus in her arms and she had two angels with her two angels and they appeared to him or to them in the branches of a tree very similar fatimah others right so mary assured them that the persecution would end and she showed them an herb a little leaf to treat their diseases called lavang and so basically she comforted them and told them to boil these leaves from the trees for medicine to cure their ills these levong and so the name is from the type of fern when you hear levine people think that's a city it's actually was originally the fern which used to grow a lot in that region and which cured the people so now this was 1798 now in a few years later in 1802 so four years later the christians were able to return partially to their villages and this story of the apparition of our lady started to spread so as it did many people went to pray at that site by 1820 a chapel was built god blessed the vietnamese uh christians next to china i think they're the bravest people in the world they could easily i mean easily give up their faith just not to be persecuted yet so many of them are hanging in there all right from 1820 to 1885 then there was another wave of persecution that decimated these christian catholics and so with more more vietnamese christians now being martyred now you may remember if you're with us during the year and you go to daily mass you might recognize that we have a feast on november 24th called the vietnamese martyrs we honor 117 martyrs of vietnam that were killed for their faith that's from this this is what the story is from so basically this was going on in the mid-1800s now in 1885 then the chapel and artie of in honor of our lady of lavang was then destroyed by some fanatics sounds similar to today yeah so then a new chapel god bless the perseverance of these vietnamese catholics and so a new chapel was built in 1886 and then 1901 and soon it they outgrew it too many people were coming all right so the pilgrims would come to le vang and in 1923 a new and even bigger church was erected he said god bless them and so john the 23rd made it a basilica in 1961 but if any of you know what happened later in the 60s my dad was one of them the battle of vietnam the war in vietnam of communist north and the south democratic south trying to hold on to their freedom so this war of what the north tried to reunify the south and bring them all under communist rule broke out in vietnam and the communists were were trying to assume the south back in so they left the shrine to basically ruin so the shrine is basically neglected uh the communist authorities they basically wanted to stop all devotion and any restoration efforts so here are these poor people they've been tremendously persecuted they finally have a home in the shrine now communism moves in and basically lets it fall into disrepair well we got through the vietnam war yes there were some uh losses there the u.s pulled out communism in a degree to take over but they couldn't stomp out catholicism couldn't do it couldn't do it so in 1998 john paul ii on the 200th anniversary because remember this was 1798 so in 1998 john paul ii said the sanctuary should be rebuilt now to date behind the remains of the old sanctuary from the 1800s a new sanctuary is being built it's gigantic it's a sacred building that they say will be on par with the miriam shrines of lords fatima and chestahova and even one i talked about a couple weeks ago in india valancani this again shows the perseverance of the vietnamese people in the chapel there is or excuse me at the shrine they have chapels they have a way of the cross with a giant dedication to the 117 vietnamese martyrs and on it is the slogan i am ready to fight and die for my homeland but do not ask me to renounce my catholic faith these are the minority in vietnam they're just a few percentage of the population now let's look at brother mark's going to show the next slide there's a statue of the virgin and the child dressed in traditional vietnamese clothes now stands at the concrete as a concrete sculpture in the form of a group of trees right and so you can see this it's really really powerful and i don't know if i skipped a slide or not but the next one i want to show is the nuns so if brother mark can show these are the nuns that i went to seminary with this is just some of them aren't they awesome these are the the most awesome little vietnamese nuns always had a smile always were laughing always full of joy they're from the lovers of the holy cross i went to seminary with them part of the reason i loved seminary was just the joy they would always laugh they would always be upbeat and in the midst of their families being persecuted they never lost faith hope joy amazing example i just love those those those nuns and so anyway the the the cult of our lady of la vang and remember cult doesn't mean demonic cult means a devotion in the original language cultures the cult use of our lady of levane is widespread now among catholics and not just catholics check this out our lady of lavon has spread in vietnam to buddhists and protestants who pray to the blessed virgin mary for special graces will she maybe be a key to bringing us together buddhists protestants they're praying there to the blessed virgin mary for special graces what a great great story so this history of levang is intertwined with the whole history of vietnam and what happened when the french came in um in diane bien phu and then they they got kicked out but they brought the catholic faith so all although that we said that they've not formally gone through the process of recognition it's traditionally recognized locally recognized and truly important let's take a look at the next slide many parishes in the world have are named our lady of lavang and and actually if you go to washington dc where i was as a seminarian you can go into the basilica of the national uh the national basilica of the immaculate conception this is washington dc and they have a beautiful shrine to our lady of lavang there's a picture of it there's a picture of it this is right in washington dc and so i used to go there after i got to know the sisters and i would pray pray for the vietnamese there i encourage you to do the same so basically this is a powerful devotion you know in fact in august if we have any missourians with us in carthage missouri every year up to a hundred thousand people gather for one of the largest pilgrims pilgrimages in the united states it's been happening since 1978 1978's a big year john paul was elected the ban on divine mercy was lifted three popes served in the year 1978 and so they gather together for our lady of levange and one of the biggest pilgrimages in the united states ever of any kind this is important stuff and so they celebrate her on the assumption what day is the assumption august 15th up to 5 million people go to mass in honor of our lady of levang although still you will hear it denied in vietnam there's no real tourism of it there's real denial of it it still thrives even though the communists try to squash it you can't you know small little steps right let's pray for them all right real quick let's watch a quick video uh on our lady of levang vietnam 1785 catholic persecution is underway a community of catholics flee to the rough mountainous jungles in central vietnam to save themselves they cling to their faith while suffering from illness starvation and more they would often gather together and pray the rosary under a banyan tree then one day in 1789 a lady dressed in traditional vietnamese garb holding a small child and accompanied by angels appear in their midst she offers words of love and encouragement to the persecuted faithful she tells them to pick a certain plant to cure them of illness the catholics were greatly heartened by the message devotion to our lady of levong spread when persecution lessened and devotion continued when persecution slared up again in vietnam lasting through the late 1800s eventually a shrine is built and eventually a church is consecrated in 1901 at the site of the apparition all right so pray for those in vietnam now our final and last apparition today is one again you've probably not heard of our lady of lahan and as brother mark show it it's spelled l-i-c-h-e-n yes that's in poland and there's a very interesting tie here to the marian fathers and so if you are a marian helper if you're not a marion helper please become one it doesn't cost anything it's it takes but a second to sign up it's a lot of grace and we'll show you how to do at the end of this talk but if you're a marion helper you're connected to this our lady of lehan in poland that's the image that brother mark just showed now the image of our lady of lehan dates back to the second half of the 18th century so you can see this is where we're doing our time frame we've been walking you through these miriam apparitions and we'll continue going up to the modern day every first saturday so please join us but anyway it's not known who painted it kind of like the traditions of anonymous writings so the painting underwent several restorations but our lady's face never changed like some of the attire or some of the crown or the veil changed never her face her face never changed it stood intact now the shrine of lehen is located in southwest poland and it is within traveling distance of yaz nagora which is our lady of chestahova the black madonna she has a little scar on her face we'll talk about that one coming up not today and it's one of poland's most important pilgrimage and apparition sites and we mirians are tied to it how all right the history of this is from starts in 1813 when there was a big war that took place there was a battle going on in germany and polish soldiers were fighting under napoleon surprisingly all right so they were fighting under his armies and tomasz was seriously wounded all right and so if brother mark can go back to the first slide that we just showed our lady of lihan with the guy laying there wounded you could see that's him see that that's a polish soldier laying on the ground and um and he began to invoke our lady begging her not to let him die in a foreign land see him laying there he's basically invoking her he's in germany don't let me die here i'm polish and so mary appeared wearing a crown a crown and a dress and a golden mantle all right and she was holding a white eagle now does anybody know what white eagle is that's a symbol of poland the white eagle on the flag all right and so this matched the symbol of poland and she comforted that soldier and promised that he would recover and return to poland now she asked him this is this is the most unique request i've ever heard mary ask i mean well i guess juan diego would be but she asked this soldier to go find a picture of her in the woods in poland that's all he was given can you imagine i mean if somebody said father chris find me something in your office my own office i probably couldn't find it it's a disaster and here she is telling him to go back to poland and look in the woods i want you to find a picture in my likeness and make it known throughout poland poland is a chosen special people i think along with the filipinos and so this soldier healed and returned to his home which was ironically near lehigh now let's look at our next slide he wandered about the countryside searching for this miraculous image you can see it on your screen that's the miraculous image that he was looking for now guess what in 1836 he finally found it in lagata at first he put it in his own house all right he put it in his own house and then he hung it up on an old pine tree in a nearby forest right pushkar glablinska grablinska and so basically he finds it he spends his life looking for it he finds it takes it back into the forest so as i'm studying this at first i'm like well why did he do that and then it made sense so in 1850 then so what 14 years later the blessed virgin revealed herself to a shepherd sound familiar makalov a sikkaka makalov sakaka who was basically pasturing his cattle near where the image was in the forest and she gave a message our lady summoned listen to this this is this is the same message our lady gives everywhere fatima at uh at quebeco and at all these different places she gives this message conversion turn back to our lord stop offending him break with greed and licentiousness pray the rosary participate in mass don't give up practicing your faith she asked priests to celebrate the liturgy worthily sadly this was almost 200 years ago just think what about today finally she requested that her image be moved to a more fitting place a little better than sitting on a pine tree in the forest and so she promised that those who would pray before it would escape the plague because the plague was still there kind of sound familiar to today with corona right and furthermore the holy virgin predicted the foundation of the sanctuary and the monastery in liehen guess who sanctuary that is the marian fathers the marians of the immaculate conception and she predicted the shrine guess who runs the shrine at lehen the marians of the immaculate conception it was entrusted to the marian fathers don't ask me why mary keeps entrusting these things to us we're just a ragtag group we're not like the powerful dominicans or franciscans or the jesuits but god has brought you into our marian family for a purpose maybe he wants you to be part of this brag tag army just like the ragtag army that won the american revolution despite facing the biggest army in the world in britain and we're facing the biggest army in the world called secularism and and cultural relativism it's convinced it's going to bring down faith and and worship in the in this world no and so basically she wanted her glory to be made known there macaula then the this little shepherd um started to spread our lady's message but he was persecuted and then imprisoned by the russians again sound familiar this is the persecution we are facing all over the world as christians the middle east uh especially all over the world at first people didn't believe this guy but then two years later mary's prophecy came true and a cholera epidemic broke out and they remembered this little shepherd warning them what did mary say at fatima if you don't convert and turn back to god a great war will break out mary keeps giving us every single warning we could ever want and we don't listen and she keeps coming and doing this so finally the people came they flocked to this image the holy image of mary and began to pray the rosary for the sick and dying so this started to build then a special episcopal what does that mean bishop committee examined the apparition and at the request of the parish priest the committee decided to move the portrait to the parish church in lehen okay so it was out in the forest now it gets moved into the church in liehan now this took place in 1852 and it remained until 1939 as the war world war ii broke out they have recorded over 3 000 prayers being answered 3 000 this is more than lords 3 000 answered prayers documented in healings so during world war ii both the church and the rectory were confiscated and used by the nazis fortunately they hid the image miraculously just like the image of divine mercy it was hidden in vilnius and saved from the germans so basically the image was hidden from the communists then in 1949 the parish of lehan was given to the marians of the immaculate conception an honor to be part of that they started restoring the sanctuary and the damage that happened from the war and it took until 1967 when cardinal vashinsky who was then the primate of poland crowned the miraculous image of our lady of lehen in the presence of a hundred and fifty thousand lay people 150 000 amazing that's how strong their faith is in poland there are many bishops hundreds of priests and religious that were all there the number of pilgrims has been increasing ever since this is our marian trine i had the honor of going there now let's take a look at our next slide this is brother mark have you ever seen a more incredible church father that's disgusting how dare a church look that ambiance and beautiful and that expensive no it was all from donations specifically given to build that church and secondly we are supposed to give god our best jesus and judas is the one that said that money could have been given to the poor jesus is the one said you always have the poor with us you first give to god then we take care of the poor we first give to god so this is not sacrilege this is the beauty sacred beauty of god and so thanks to these pilgrims of generosity many from the united states many polish they built this shrine our lady of lehand it was finished in the early 2000s and the the 2000th anniversary of the birth of our lord it was dedicated so john paul ii consecrated this largest church in poland the largest church in poland in 1999. here's another one last picture the shrine is modeled after saint peter's basilica in the vatican it's the second largest church in all of europe look at the inside picture there's our last last slide before we come to the video it's the inside church it's beautiful so we marian fathers we're the shrine custodians and we hope that this will be the permanent home of the image of our lady of liehen renowned for many graces so let's finish with a quick video then we'll begin with the devotion to first saturday so here's the video on our lady of lihan [Music] uh me so isn't that an amazing house of worship for our lord if you ever get a chance to get to poland go to our lady of lehan and say hi to the marian fathers well god bless all of you this wraps up our talk on the first saturday for the marian apparitions we will now with the help of brother alex brother ken and brother mark we're gonna end this video brother mark is going to stop this recording of the talk and in a few minutes we'll be back up to join us at 11 45 or a little after for the devotion of first saturday if you don't know what first saturday is and what our lady asked us to do that's okay you can start with us today we're going to walk you through exactly what to do as part of our lady's request to fulfill the first saturday devotions very important and i tell you what it has to do with russia and what's going on with russia right now in the ukraine we need this prayer of the first saturdays more than ever so praise be to god that he sent you here to be with us and you know what be with us in our marian family the last slide i wanted to show if you're not a marian helper already please join us at mic micprayers.org you can become a marian helper it doesn't cost anything takes about a moment and there's a lot of graces by decree of the holy see that you can get just like you were a marian and what a beautiful amount of grace you can get so until we see you next saturday stay with us in a few minutes as we come back up for the first saturday may almighty god bless you the father son and the holy spirit amen you

Channel: Divine Mercy

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Keywords: Divine Mercy, Mercy, Jesus, Christ, Marian, priest, grace, pray, prays, praying, chris alar, alar, fr. Chris, fr. alar, Catholic, Church, God, fr. chris alar, blessed virgin, Mary, blessing, worship, Salvation, Faustina, Prayer, Saints, miracle, Lavang, Cromoto, Cromotto, Lichen, Marian Shrine, Marian apparitions, Poland, Venezuela, Vietnam, Patroness

Id: aydTsDHzAbg

Length: 43min 35sec (2615 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 05 2022