Message in Our Lady of America revelation paralleled Medjugorje and third secret of Fatima

  Spirit Daily

The messages granted through what have swiftly become known as the "Our Lady of America" revelations possess a profound and seemingly miraculous similarity with aspects of two far more famous apparitions: those at Fatima, Portugal, and Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

It was in the 1950s that seer Mildred Mary Neuzil, a nun in Indiana (and later Ohio) began recording what she described as "official" visits from the Virgin Mary -- who seemed concerned about the private lives of Americans as society was about to plummet into the Sixties. Her emphasis was on the hazards of materialism and the need for purity at a time when the sexual revolution was about to consume America -- which despite its size had never had an official apparition. 

The key messages were granted while Sister Neuzil was under the spiritual guidance of Archbishop Paul F. Leibold, who approved the messages, struck a medal based on Our Lady of America, and constructed a four-to-five-foot plaque -- moves that experts say constitute official Church recognition and "first-stage" approval.

We thus have the first words formally spoken by the Virgin on U.S. land, and they were strikingly powerful.

"It is the wish of my Son that fathers and mothers strive to imitate me and my chaste spouse in our holy life at Nazareth," said Our Lady of America. "We practiced the simple virtues of family life, Jesus our Son being the center of all our love and activity. The Holy Trinity dwelt with us in a manner far surpassing anything that can ever be imagined. 

"As in our little home no sin was to be found," continued Mary in 1954, " so it is the wish of the Heart of my Son and my Immaculate heart that sin should, as far as possible, be unheard of in the homes of our children."

The first visions occurred in what was then Kneipp Springs (now Sylvan Springs) in Rome City, Indiana, and requested that Americans honor the Blessed Mother "by the purity of their lives."

By 1961 -- as the U.S. entered a decade in which evil poured through society -- Mary warned Sister Mildred that the sins of mankind "cry to heaven for punishment." The world, Jesus had told Sister Mildred, was "dying." In this case Jesus Himself was said to have explained that He was holding back divine justice (in most apparitions Mary describes herself as holding back the arm of her Son). "My Father is angry," said Christ. "If My children will not listen to My Heart, which is a Voice of mercy and instruction, punishment will come swiftly and none shall be able to stay it."

As we have reported, the Virgin had come to America, said Mary, "as a last resort." She wanted America to spiritually lead the world. Besides the medal she wanted a statue installed at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

The hour, said Mary, "grows late." Christ's patience would not last too long. The "false peace of this world" was luring people and in the end would "destroy them." Men must turn to divine love and the divine will -- or suffer "the fires of untold punishment." In the great battle against evil -- a battle Sister Mildred believed, to her dying moments in 2000, that America would win -- those who fought for the Virgin were to be known, said the nun, as "Torchbearers of the Queen." She said in 1958 that the Virgin wanted an image of Our Lady of America in every home.

Those were the message granted a nihil obstat by Daniel Pilarcyzk, now the archbishop of Cincinnati, and an imprimatur by Archbishop Leibold, who served as Sister Neuzil's spiritual director. The messages that came after -- subsequent to the death of Archbishop Leibold in 1972 -- obviously did not come under his direction (at least not his earthly direction) and thus are not approved or authorized. Indeed, the messages granted an authorization were only those up to issuance of the imprimatur in 1963. We need to emphasize this: the Our Lady of America apparitions had met with the first stage of official approval -- the first such apparitions in America known to have done so -- but those messages and events that came after the death of Archbishop Leibold are not likewise approved.

But we are allowed to discern them for ourselves until a ruling is made and they are enthralling for their connection to Fatima and Medjugorje. Indeed, in April of 1981 -- just two months before the Virgin first appeared at Medjugorje -- Our Lady of America was warning about "the powers of evil" and also warning (as at Medjugorje) that peace was in a state of crisis and great hazards loomed. As in Ohio, the Virgin of Medjugorje warned that it was "the hour of the power of darkness," that the present hour was the hour of Satan, that "you can not imagine what is going to happen nor what the Eternal Father will send to earth" -- words almost identical to Our Lady of America -- and that a great struggle was about to "unfold."

"What happens to the world depends upon those who live in it," the Virgin allegedly told Sister Mildred. "There must be much more good than evil prevailing in order to prevent the holocaust that is so near approaching."

Sister Mildred never overemphasized chastisement (she was known as a very cheerful person) and on January 3, 1984, quoted the Virgin as saying: "My faithful ones, if my warnings are taken seriously and enough of my children strive constantly and faithfully to renew and reform themselves in their inward and outward lives, then there will be no nuclear war" [our emphasis].

This is fascinating because 1984 was the year that John Paul II consecrated the world to Mary's Immaculate Heart (as requested at Fatima) to subdue the threat of Russia. And according to Sister Lucia dos Santos, the sole surviving seer from Fatima, that consecration prevented a nuclear war from occurring in 1985.

Indeed, when the third secret of Fatima was released last June 26, it included the image of an angel set to torch the earth with a flaming sword, which many have interpreted as representing the threat of a nuclear disaster.

Moreover, Sister Mildred had quoted Our Lady of America as urging "penance, penance" -- and the third secret of Fatima contains the image of the angel pointing to the earth with his right hand and crying out in a loud voice: "Penance, Penance, Penance!"

[As in all revelation, we urge prayer and fasting before involvement with aspects, as in the case of latter messages, that have not yet been approved by a bishop])