Category Archives: Catholic Church

In studying the messages given to the seers at Garabandal and Medjugorje, I noticed a great similarity between the two concerning permanent signs that Mary has promised will appear over the sites of the apparitions.

Garabandal, Spain (1960s): A great miracle will appear above Garabandal. The sick will be cured. Unbelievers will be converted. It will be able to be filmed, photographed and televised. Afterwards, a permanent sign will remain at Garabandal in memory of the miracle and as visible proof of our Blessed Mother’s love for all humanity. It will be a thing never before seen upon the earth. It will be able to be photographed but not touched.

Medjugore, then Yugoslavia/now Bosnia and Herzegovina (1980s): A great sign will appear on the Hill of Apparitions in Medjugorje as evidence of the apparitions and as a call to faith and great conversion. This sign will be visible and permanent, the last call for those who have not yet converted. Even non-believers will be unable to deny it.

One night, well over a year ago, I woke from a dream about the McDonald’s golden M appearing in the sky, its two long legs touching down at Garabandal and Medjugorje. It struck me that this made sense. The similarity between the two prophesies does suggest they are parts of a single sign. A golden M of light would be something that could be seen and photographed, but not touched.

The idea intrigued me and the dream wouldn’t leave me alone, so I opened up Google Earth and looked at the two apparition sites. I already knew they were both small, mountain villages, but I was positively gobsmacked to find they are situated on the SAME LATITUDE!  What are the chances?!

Garabandal = Latitude 43.2008° N
Medjugore = Latitude 43.2000° N

Each degree of latitude is approximately 69 miles wide.
69 x .0008 = 0.0552 mile = 291.456 feet.
A football field is 300 feet long.

Supposing my dream has any cosmic meaning, the next obvious question is where the middle of the M would point.

Garabandal = Longitude 4.4219° W
Medjugorje = Longitude 17.6800° E.

The midpoint longitude is at 6.62905° E.
(I had Mama Buzz check all my maths on this. Twice.)

Funny thing … there is yet another small mountain village at that latitude and longitude. It’s called Ramatuelle, France.

Ramatuelle is on the French Riviera, but it’s up on a cliff and hasn’t got a lot in the way of history or glamor, so it isn’t one of the hot spots for vacays. There are only two buildings with any historical interest – an old prison and a 16th century church dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption.  Oddly, for such an out of the way spot, I found a whole web page devoted to detailed photos of the altarpiece in the church.

But wait. It gets even weirder and more wonderful. We’ve been given enough hints about the actual date of the Garabandal miracle to expect it to occur on Holy Thursday, April 13, 2017. On the Hebrew calendar, this day will be Nisan 17, 5777. Look again at the Hebrew year. 5777.  5 is Mary’s number.  777 is the sign of the Trinity.  Now check out what is at the top of the altarpiece.

Sources:

• http://www.garabandal.com/the-prophecies/prophecy-the-world-wide-warning
• http://www.medjugorjeusa.org/aboutmedjugorjesecrets2008.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Sebasti%C3%A1n_de_Garabandal
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medjugorje
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramatuelle
• http://www.divine-name.info/worldwide/france/ramatuelle.htm
• http://www.virgendegarabandal.com/conferencia_jose_luisENGLISH.htm
• http://aronbengilad.blogspot.com/2012/08/garabandal-miracle-april-13-2017.html
• http://romanchristendom.blogspot.com/2013/04/13-april-2017-forthcoming-miracle-at.html
• http://www.cgsf.org/dbeattie/calendar/?hebrew=5777
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altarpiece
  http://www.medjugorjeusa.org/lightphotos.htm

The Catholic Catechism says no.

Many years ago, I looked into this stuff very closely. I obtained copies of both the MacGregor and Origen books (mentioned in the article linked below), plus another that recorded what each Ecumenical Council did and another about early heresies in the Christian church.  The article linked below summarizes nicely what I found.  In short:

• Origen did not teach reincarnation as New Agers teach it. What he did teach that they claim was suppressed for political reasons was the idea that souls might be created in Heaven and thus pre-exist their bodies.
• This very specific teaching is what the Council at Constantinople condemned, not for political reasons, but because the Bishops concluded it was not consistent with the teachings of Jesus.

According to Catholic doctrine, we are created uniquely once and only once, as material-spiritual hybrids, each with a unique body-soul combo that belong together forever. At death, the soul leaves the body and goes to Hell, Heaven, or the mudroom of Heaven we call Purgatory, where souls dwell as amputated spirits until the End Time when Jesus taught that everyone who has died will be resurrected into their original unique, but now perfected bodies, and that the bodies of everyone who is still alive will be changed instantly from mortal to immortal.

I had a Christianizing New Age friend who tried to convince me once that Jesus’ Resurrection was proof of reincarnation. But the soul of Jesus was not reborn into a different, mortal, baby body. He rose from the dead into the same body that Mary bore and raised, but which was now perfected and immortal.  Far from being evidence of reincarnation, Jesus’ Resurrection is proof of His promise that we will be given perfected bodies at the end of time.

The article linked below includes some very interesting excerpts from early church documents on reincarnation. I particularly like this one, just cuz it’s so snarky LOL:

“[I]f one should search carefully, he will find that their doctrine is of necessity brought down to this. They tell us that one of their sages said that he, being one and the same person, was born a man, and afterward assumed the form of a woman, and flew about with the birds, and grew as a bush, and obtained the life of an aquatic creature—and he who said these things of himself did not, so far as I can judge, go far from the truth, for such doctrines as this—of saying that one should pass through many changes—are really fitting for the chatter of frogs or jackdaws or the stupidity of fishes or the insensibility of trees”  (The Making of Man by Gregory of Nyssa 28:3. A.D. 379).

Reincarnation at Catholic and Proud – September 28, 2014
http://catholicsay.com/reincarnation/

Source:
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a11.htm

In layman’s terms, Mary got her glorified body early.

There has never been any defined doctrine about whether or not Mary died first. I had a pastor who believed she would have wanted to die, because her Son had done so. But one of the seers at Medjugorje asked her about it and she said she did not die.

I like the idea that she did not die, because when Jesus returns on the clouds, the dead in Christ will rise first and receive their glorified bodies, just as Jesus patterned for us with his glorious Resurrection.

After the Resurrection of the Dead, the elect who are alive will receive their glorified bodies directly, without dying first. I like the idea that Mary did not die, but rather that her Assumption was our pattern for the Rapture.

It seems like somebody must have seen the event, so it puzzled me how nobody seems to have known if she’d died or not. Then I remembered that folks in the Holy Land often slept on the roof in summer, because it was cooler up there. If the household was sleeping on the roof when Mary was taken up, this would’ve provided one or more witness to her leave-taking without anyone having any way of knowing if she’d died in her sleep first or not.

It’s true that the New Testament does not explicitly say it happened, but it offers us much evidence of Mary’s close union with Jesus’ entire life and ministry. Also, I think it stands to reason that God would not have wanted decay to touch the body that had nurtured the Son of God. Plus, the earliest ancient record of a belief in Mary’s Assumption dates to the second century, which makes it not too long after John wrote the Book of Revelation. Another powerful bit of evidence is that Medieval Catholics were relic crazy, but there is no tomb of Mary or bits of Mary’s bones or anything of that sort.

In an address he gave in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI said that meditating on the “the luminous sign of Our Lady taken up into Heaven” helps us understand that Earth is not our homeland and strengthens us when we’re going through hard times.

Source:
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/the-assumption-of-mary-12-things-to-know-and-share1/