By Michael H. Brown

“I bless you with the blessing of the Blessed Mother and may the power of the Holy Spirit come upon you.”

It’s a strong blessing. It has worked miracles — many of them, some hard to believe, according to what a Catholic evangelist named Thomas Rutkoski of Evans City, Pennsylvania, now deceased, once said.

One can feel the anointing: I bless you with the blessing….

“Interestingly enough, each person who receives this blessing can then pass it on,” claimed Rutkoski. “It becomes more powerful the more often it is used.” He says he was given it by the Blessed Mother and that it has led to numerous healings.

We’re writing about Tom, a former television photojournalist who came back to the Church in the 1980s, because he was an example of active faith. Tom traveled the U.S. and often witnessed whatever signs and wonders he has witnessed because he exercises his faith — as opposed to simply talking about it.

This is a crucial point in a modern-day Church that has lapsed into what might be called “dry” faith. Dry faith is one that seems to function on the notion that miracles stopped 2,000 years ago — that in the modern, intellectualized world, there is no room for the kinds of things declared in the time of Jesus (and before Him, throughout the Old Testament).

There are merits to “dry” faith: it functions on the sheer decision that God exists and Jesus is the Savior. In many ways, this is laudable. But it begs the question: if Jesus said upon His Ascension that He was sending the Holy Spirit—and if He told His followers to do as He did (that the miracles He worked we can also work, if we have faith in Him)—why is the new intellectual faction of the Church disregarding precisely this aspect?

Rutkoski did not. He was a devoted man who had seen his share of controversies but beneath it exhibited an iron-clad faith more reminiscent of the disciples than what we observe in many realms of Catholicism. That’s because Rutkoski really believed that the events recorded in the Book of Acts can still happen — and to read his book, Miracles and How to Work Them, they still do. He seemed to be surrounded by the kinds of signs that Jesus promised — and we submit them for your discernment. Thomas resigned his position at KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh in the spring of 1991 to run a full-time ministry called Gospa Missions. For ten years he did so with no salary.

His key, it seemed, was wholly and unrelentingly offering himself as an open vessel. He allowed the Blessed Mother to work through him — thus the blessing. With it those he touched often shivered or squirmed or rested in the spirit, later claiming improvements in health or conversions. Can a layman bless? This is an interesting question. Do we not bless our food when we say Grace and bless our homes with Holy Water? Did not psalmists bless each other and even God Himself?

We’re not speaking about formal anointings, which should be administered solely by clergy, but about prayer for each other. One priest testified at his own reluctance the first time he saw Rutkoski, but then the powerful effect it had on him personally. Rutkoski asserts that the prayer has improved or even cured conditions from Down’s syndrome to cancer.

“I bless you with the blessing of the Blessed Mother and may the power of the Holy Spirit come upon you.” 

Something potent does come from that. Rutkoski related it to Medjugorje, which he had visited dozens of times — a special blessing he conveys as an admittedly imperfect vessel. There are those who experience deliverance when he lays his hands on them (as Jesus told His disciples to do). We couldn’t possibly document each case. But there were too many to discount offhandedly.

On one occasion, when rain was predicted to wash out a planned retreat, Rutkoski vowed to the weatherman at the station that “the power of God” would halt the rain.

The meteorologist laughed (the prediction was that it was going to rain hard all day), and indeed, when Rutkoski peered out that morning, it was raining hard.

“I looked up into the sky and spoke to God,” he recalled. “‘Hey, God, You said if I wanted to move a mountain, I could, if I had enough faith. So I ask You, with the faith You taught me to have, please stop this rain, part these skies and bring the sun out. There are six hundred people coming here to pray and they will not come if it is raining. Oh, and if You are going to do this, You will also need to bring a lot of wind because the road is all mud now and people will not be able to drive on the road to get to this farm.

“That moment the rain ceased, the clouds rolled back, and the sun came out,” he says. “And then the wind began to blow. In one hour the road was dry and people from all around the tri-state area came to the farm, to pray. They all had the same words on their lips: ‘How could it be raining everywhere but here?'”

Perhaps most interesting was an image that appeared as a cloud over his farm on August 5, 1991 (the day the Virgin of Medjugorje says is her actual birthday). “It was in response to a request I made of the Lord,” wrote Rutkoski. “‘If this is really You, Lord, working in my life, I would like a sign in the sky that I can photograph.’ I was asking for a confirmation because I wanted to give my whole life to Jesus. I believe with all my heart that the sign I requested did appear in the sky as a cloud and the cloud contained the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, the shape of a cross, and the Blessed Mother.”

By the time it transmits over a computer screen, the photo [top left] may not do the image justice. Blown up, it seems like a clear silhouette of Mary. We receive many such photos, and have to believe that at least some of them are granted as signal grace. One does not define one’s faith on such phenomena — nor go constantly seeking after signs — but neither are we to quickly reject them (as do those with dry faith). There is a purpose. God does not do anything frivolously. Besides, others also saw the image — and most remarkably, the cloud formation has reappeared in the sky at places where Rutkoski had travelled to talk. In 1996, before one of Tom’s talks on Long Island, a priest named Father Peter Abue from Nigeria was shocked to see an identical cloud formation as he journeyed to the church. It was also seen by a couple after a talk Tom gave in Graniteville, Vermont. The woman wasn’t Catholic then but is now.

“This image has followed me around the world as I go evangelizing,” recalled Rutkoski. “People tell me, from time to time, about a very definite cloud shape that appeared over their towns before, during, or after my visit. I believe it is, in some way, proof that what was being said through me was the truth.” The message: go to Mass every day, say 15 decades of the Rosary, fast on a weekly basis (twice if possible, especially on Wednesdays and Fridays), go to Confession each month, have conversion of the heart, and lastly, “live in peace.”

“This message will not only change your life, but others around you,” he said.

I bless you with the blessing of the Blessed Mother and may the power of the Holy Spirit come upon you.

Try it. It works. It works miracles, said Tom, now in Heaven.

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