Lourdes replicas and Lourdes Grottoes anywhere in the world

If you know of any Lourdes grottoes in any part of the world, please tell us about it here and give some details.  I will start; there is a beautiful one at Earlwood in Sydney, Australia  in the grounds of the parish church. I have a Lourdes shrine in my backyard. It is pictured  below.

Advertisement

Lourdes in Sydney!

Have you always dreamed of going to Lourdes, but alas you live in Sydney, Australia and can’t afford to go there?  Here is the next best thing. There is a beautiful Lourdes grotto in the grounds of the parish church at Earlwood in Sydney.

The Kookaburra in the old gum tree song legal case

I have no financial interest in this case.  Today I listened twice to the 70’s hit song, which the judge decided took part of the Kookaburra song, and which he then awarded part of the royalties to the owner of the Kookaburra song. For the life of me, I can’t see any part of the Kookaburra song in the other song.  I wonder how the judge can.

(Today the hit song was played twice on the radio on 2ch in Sydney.)

A wonderful conversion through the intercession of St. Philomena the Wonder Worker

This story comes from Sydney, Australia.  It is related by the mother of the boy, who is the recipient of the favour.

When one of our teenage sons began drinking heavily, smoking pot and being involved with a heavy metal rock band, my husband and I decided to give him over to the care of Saint Philomena, who we had heard was a patron saint of youth and a wonder worker.  We had heard her story and had been impressed by the many miracles which had been attributed to her intercession.

We prayed a novena and went to our first Mass in her honour.  As the Saturday night binges progressed to the whole weekend and then to week nights we decided to pray the novena continuously, imploring Saint Philomena desperately as our son’s condition continued to worsen. By this stage he would come home from work and prowl around restlessly until the phone rang and then he was out again. His pores oozed the sweet/stale smell of beer continuously.

Usually he was very gentle – even when he was drunk, but he became more agitated, blaming us for filling him with all the “God stuff” as he was growing up.  This occurred on the Saturday night of the August Mass in honour of Saint Philomena. The week that followed was very distressing.  He went off to work on the Friday at 5am as usual and I was surprised when he came home at 1.15 p.m. – his usual home time on Fridays, but lately he had gone straight to the pub and we were lucky to see him all weekend.  My son came out of his room and put a broken CD into the bin. I was again surprised and so had a look at the title of the CD. He had dozens of heavy metal CDs. It was named “Diabolos Music.” I said, as I had often said, that means Devil’s music and that it was dangerous.  Usually he would laugh if off, but this time he said “I know mum.”

He brought out the printed lyrics of the song and said that the words to this song kept going through his mind and that he felt that he was going mad, but that he was at peace now. I was almost too scared to ask him why? how?  when? I just asked if he had called on God and he said “Yes.”  At work that morning he had experienced an overwhelming sense of peace and love. A feeling of great burden had lifted off him.  He felt the presence of a woman.  He looked around but there was no one there.

My son still had the music filling his head – so I gave him a much better tape to listen to. When his mate rang that night, before he left, he asked us to pray for him and said that he would not be

late. After a couple of Rosaries and Divine Mercy Chaplets, we were disappointed as the night wore on, because our son did not turn up.  Finally around 2 to 3am he came in.  My husband hurried out and I started another Rosary – hoping that my husband wouldn’t ruin the obvious start that my son had made.  When my husband finally came back to bed a few hours later, he said that they had been talking and praying the Rosary together.

My son had waited back to make sure that his friends got home safely. He wanted to go and tell them about his experience. They were not interested and as he listened to them, all he would hear was “hate” in their talk. That morning August the 15^th was the feast of the Assumption.  He went to the Sacrament of Confession and afterwards he shed many tears.  Our eyes were also filled with tears of joy. He went to three of the four Masses that weekend and did so for many months after.

He has never drunk alcohol, smoked pot, nor has he listened to heavy metal rock music since that time.  He threw out all his CDs and heavy metal T-shirts.  His conversion was sudden. We felt that it was miraculous. He now has a great love for Jesus and Mary, for Saint Philomena, the Pope and for the Catholic Church.

Looking back now we can see the strong spiritual battle that was going on for him in those last few weeks.  He even said a couple of times that he was tempted to go and kill someone.  We continue to pray the novena to Saint Philomena for our son for his continuing conversion and thanksgiving and “with joy in our hearts, we will bless God who is admirable in His Saints.” Our son attended the World Youth Day in Rome.  (M.W.)

Editor’s note: This conversion took place in the late nineties and is still going strong today.

This is one of the many story in my book entitled: Help from Heaven (Answers to Prayer), which can be read free on-line by clicking here.

Please pop over and have a look.  I promise that you will not be dissappointed.

Help the Holy Souls in Purgatory and read inspiring testimonies of their  powerful intercession for their benefactors

and then teach this devotion to others, so that they will pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory as well.

The Sydney Opera House

Do lawmakers know that unborn babies are people?

Abortion is murder whether a politician believes it or not, just as my second name is Ann whether a person believes it or not. Being an abortionist is not a great doctoring job. Many abortionists are there because it is a good money making venture. Fortunately they are not beyond help. Father Pavone has helped many of them in their conversion process and the converted abortionists now help to fight against the ugly business that they were once involved in.

There was a case here in (Sydney) Australia, where a man kicked a pregnant woman in the stomach, causing her to lose the baby, (which is also his child). He went to jail for 10 years for killing the baby and I think that he is still there. This is a correct decision and I applaud it, but  it is in an Australian state where abortion is practiced, as it is practiced just about everywhere else. What a contradiction.  I am glad that I am not an unborn baby today. It is a dangerous time for them. Cases like that of the Sydney woman which highlight the contradictions in law regarding the unborn, at least give a faint glimmer of hope, that there will one day be some sanity and proper protection of the unborn. I have been told on another forum of similar contradictions in U.S. law. It also makes me wonder if some politicians actually know that the unborn are real people, but chose in the case of abortion to ignore what they clearly understood when it came to the case which is mentioned in this posting of the Sydney woman who was kicked in the stomach.  I also wonder what those who favour and push for abortion think about the Sydney woman’s case. It must be a thorn in their side.

Abortion is murder whether a politician believes it or not, just as my second name is Ann whether a person believes it or not. Being an abortionist is not a great doctoring job. Many abortionists are there because it is a good money making venture. Fortunately they are not beyond help. Father Pavone has helped many of them in their conversion process and the converted abortionists now help to fight against the ugly business that they were once involved in. There was a case here in (Sydney) Australia, where a man kicked a pregnant woman in the stomach, causing her to lose the baby, (which is also his child). He went to jail for 10 years for killing the baby and I think that he is still there. This is a correct decision and I applaud it, but  it is in an Australian state where abortion is practiced, as it is practiced just about everywhere else. What a contradiction.  I am glad that I am not an unborn baby today. It is a dangerous time for them. Cases like that of the Sydney woman which highlight the contradictions in law regarding the unborn, at least give a faint glimmer of hope, that there will one day be some sanity and proper protection of the unborn. I have been told on another forum of similar contradictions in U.S. law. It also makes me wonder if some politicians actually know that the unborn are real people, but chose in the case of abortion to ignore what they clearly understood when it came to the case which is mentioned in this posting of the Sydney woman who was kicked in the stomach.  I also wonder what those who favour and push for abortion think about the Sydney woman’s case. It must be a thorn in their side.

Parents go to jail for using homeopathy to teat their daughter’s eczema and for refusing other medical help when that was failing. (The child died).

On the news yesterday there was an item about a Sydney husband and wife who have just been sentenced to jail for several years each. What are they going to jail for?  Apparently they are going to jail for making a big mistake and for the husband’s stubborn refusal to obtain medical help for their daughter. Their baby daughter developed eczema and they treated the child with homeopathy. This was clearly failing, but the couple did not seek medical help. Eventually the child died. Doctors say that they could have saved the child. The judge told the mother has badly she had “failed” in her duty as a  mother. I think this means that she did not talk her husband out of his way of dealing with the child’s illness. We have abortions in our hospitals. That is murder of the unborn.  I do not see many abortionists going to jail.

Favours granted through the intercession of Saint Mary of the Cross (Mary MacKillop of Australia) Feast day August 8.

Prayers to find a good spouse

A lady in the USA asked for a petition to be placed at the shrine of Blessed Mary MacKillop in Australia.  One at the petitions was for her 28 year old daughter Lyn to find a good husband. A few days after the petition was placed at Blessed Mary Mackillop’s tomb, Lyn’s mother received a telephone call from a man that Lyn had dated eight years ago. Lyn and her former boyfriend went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, in France to pray there to discern God’s will for their lives.  They have since married. Another of the mother’s petitions to Blessed Mary MacKillop was also answered.  Her son decided to give up living with his girlfriend.  They started to attend Mass regularly and also began making preparations to marry.

Blessed Mary MacKillop “fixes” a microwave oven

I had arranged to go on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Blessed Mary MacKillop at North Sydney.  On the morning that I was due to go I discovered that my microwave oven had stopped working. When I went to the shrine I prayed for many important petitions.  I also mentioned to Blessed Mary, the little matter of my microwave oven. When I arrived home I tried my microwave oven again.  It was still not working.  After this I slammed the oven door very hard and the microwave started working!  It seems that the only thing that was wrong was that there was a fault in the closing mechanism of the door. The microwave oven was not fully closing. It only appeared to be fully closed.

These stories are in my book Help from heaven (Answers to prayer) which can be read free-online by pressing here.

Would you like to join a Living Rosary? Information here.

Dear Friends,
Once again I am in the process of filling up a Living Rosary Circle (group). This is the way that it works: Each Living Rosary Circle consists of twenty people, because there are twenty decades in the Rosary.

Each person in the Circle says one decade of the Rosary each day. The twenty decades of the Rosary are divided up among them.

The most important thing to know: is that when each of the twenty people says their assigned decade each day, a Living Rosary is created: which means that the five Joyful, the five Sorrowful, the five Luminous, and the five Glorious Mysteries are said every day by the members of the circle.

Each of the twenty people although saying only one decade a day, gains the whole twenty decades of the Rosary each day to their spiritual credit. That is because they are united with the other people in the Living Rosary Circle. That is a good deal!

(I make up each person an individual chart so that they have a different decade to say each month. Each Living Rosary Circle runs for a period of twenty months).

If you would like to join, please email me your name and snail mail address, so that I can post you the card and other Catholic information that might be of interest to you.

If you live outside Australia, I can speed things up by emailing you your chart before the snail mail reaches you.

Greetings and prayers for all your intentions,
Mary Ann
(Sydney, Australia)
P.S. Each of the Living Rosary Circles is allocated a special name (the name of a saint).
Email me at:

catacomb@bigpond.com

Please put the words:  The Living Rosary in the subject line of the e-mail.

Unrelated but useful information.

The powerful intercession of the Holy Souls in Purgatory for their benefactors and ways to help them

The web page has accounts of the intercession of The Holy Souls in Purgatory, for their benefactors in cases of illness, addictions, cars that won’t start, infertility problems, protection in accidents, conversion, chronic insomnia, their help for people who are experiencing major trouble with city councils, success with projects, employment, real estate, finding lost property and trouble with relations, etc. and prayers and ideas on how to help The Holy Souls in Purgatory.

Read my book: Help from heaven (Answers to prayer) free on-line

Please let others know about the book, so that they can benefit from it also.

A big compliment for the Sydney Opera House!

EWTN’s programe: Life on the Rock’s opening segment has music and images.  In this segment it has a picture of the Sydney Opera House with the word Heaven underneath it.  As an Australian and a Sydney resident, I accept the compliment although I know that heaven will be much better than the Sydney Opera House.

St Philomena’s help for an alcoholic

 
 
 
 

In the 1950’s a man left his wife and five children because of his alcoholism. His mother-in-law prayed to St Philomena to help him.  The Salvation Army found him in a very derelict state and took him in and rehabilitated him. In gratitude his mother-in-law whose name happens to be Philomena donated the statue of St Philomena pictured above to a parish in Sydney, Australia. St Philomena is powerful in her intercession for those who are addicted to alcohol, drugs and even cigarettes.  The account above was related to me by a friend, who personally knew the lady mentioned in the story above.

Happy Feast Day Mary, Help of Christians

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The history of the devotion to Mary Help of Christians  (from Lepanto to Australia) and also St John Bosco’s promotion of the devotion. 

Advice from St John Bosco:

  It is the office of a mother to give help to her children in all their needs. This title expresses in practice Our Lady’s position as our mother. She has all the help we need and she wants to give it to us, if only we will ask for it.

Call on Mary in all your difficulties with the little prayer, “Mary Help of Christians, Pray for us” and you will never call in vain. “Spread devotion to Mary, Help of Christians, and you will see what miracles are”.

A personal testimony

I have silently said the prayer:

Mary Help of Christians, pray for us,

(and added come to my aid in this situation), while seeing in my mind a picture of Mary Help of Christians in the sky, and below her the sea battle of Lepanto: the famous one in which Mary Help of Christians, helped the Christians gain a great victory, and have found that through this prayer, Mary has speedily sent me help in difficult situations on a number of occasions. Mary Help of Christians is the patron of Australia.

The following prayer was said in Australian Catholic schools for many years.

Prayer for the conversion of Australia

O God Who hast appointed Mary, Help of Christians, St Francis Xavier and St Therese of the Infant Jesus, patrons of Australia, grant that, through their intercession, our brethren outside the Church, may receive the light of Faith, so that Australia may become one in Faith, under one Shepherd. Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

Mary, Help of Christians pray for us.

St Francis Xavier, pray for us.

St Therese of the Infant Jesus pray for us.

Special note

St Francis Xavier and St Therese of the Child Jesus were patrons of Australia when it was considered to be a missionary country. They are no longer patrons of Australia. (I think that we need them back) besides I am very devoted to St Therese. (She is one of my all time favourites) and I was married on December 3 (the feast day of St Francis Xavier).

This is:  The novena to Mary, Help of Christians that was recommended by St John Bosco. 

My email enquiries to the Archdiocese of Sydney to find out exactly when Australia was no longer considered to be a missionary country, so as a consequence no longer had St Francis Xavier and St Therese of the Child Jesus as patrons of Australia have so far drawn a blank.

The prayer for the conversion of Australia was taken from a little booklet that was published in 1961.

An ecumenical boss

I once worked in an office in Sydney, where the staff were consisted mainly of Catholics and Jews.  The boss in my section was a member of the Anglican Church. He used to let the Catholics go to Mass in work hours at a nearby church on Holy Days of Obligation. The reason for this was that his little grandson was a Catholic and used to ask him why people were in different churches. This is hard to explain to a three year old. The boss had a great time telling this to the bank manager over the phone in these words, “I let Gilroy’s mob go to Mass”.  For those who are not familiar with this ‘Gilroy’s mob’ was the bosses’ way of describing the Catholics on his staff.  Cardinal Gilroy was the first Australian born cardinal.  At that time he was the Archbishop of Sydney.

How my family received a blessing from Pope Paul VI

In November 1970 Pope Paul VI visited Sydney, Australia.  Mum took us kids on the train to Sydney.  It was a hot day.  Lots of people were lined up along the street in front of Hyde Park. Mum took us to the front of the rows of people and earned the irritation of a lady nearby, who said that they had been there for hours in the heat. So my mother said “Lets cross the street and stand over there”.  We crossed the street and stood near the outside of St Mary’s  Cathedral.  The pope was inside the cathedral having a meeting with the clergy. Finally he came out. He was standing on the back of a ute which was driven out of the cathedral car park.  We were standing at the pedestrian lights.  No one expected the pope’s route to be there, so our family were the only ones standing there. The pope’s vehicle drove past there very slowly and the pope looked down at our family and studied our faces! We waved to him excitedly.  Then he lifted his arm high and gave a blessing to mum and to us children. (Most of us including myself, where in our early teens and were then in high school). Even today I find it hard to believe that this happened.

Loretta Young

The following story was told by the late Father Aeden McGrath an Irish missionary priest at a talk which he gave in Sydney, Australia.  Father McGrath was in China during World War II when the Japanese Army were in the country.  The Japanese were advancing toward the area where his parish was located. The local women were terrified of what was going to happen when the Japanese soldiers arrived. They begged Father McGrath who was a very short man to protect them.  There was very little that he could do. He prayed to Our Lady for help.  The Japanese soldiers arrived.  The Japanese sergeant had a big crush on Loretta Young the Hollywood actress, who he had seen in movies. He was keen to find out if Father McGrath had ever met Loretta Young.  As a matter of fact Father McGrath had met her, probably through association with Father Patrick Peyton (the founder of the Family Rosary Crusade). The sergeant ordered his soldiers to leave the people in peace, because Father McGrath knew Loretta Young!

This is one of the stories in my book: Help from heaven (Answers to prayers). The book can be read free on-line by pressing here. 

            

Help for people who are suffering from Panic attacks

Prayer is the most important thing to help the sufferer of panic attack. I have had firsthand experience of this unpleasant condition and have also given voluntary counseling, to people who have been sent to me, by a priest friend who did not know what else to do to help people who came to him, seeking prayers and help to overcome their panic attacks.

These people did recover from the condition.  When you add prayer to the equation things improve out of sight.

 

As well as prayer, I would like to recommend to your friend the following advice.  There are many books on panic attack, however the one which I would recommend to your friend is entitled: Living with It. The author of the book is Bev Aisbett. It is published by HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd.

 

A search of the Internet  will quickly locate web sites which distribute the book.  What is different about this book, is that it is actually a cartoon book with captions.  The author of the book Bev Aisbett, is a professional cartoon artist, living in Sydney.  She wrote this book, after suffering and recovering from this debilitating condition.  The visual humour in the book is extremely valuable to the sufferer of panic attack, and instructs them in what the condition really is, and the techniques which you can use to overcome panic attack.

 

Briefly the symptoms of panic attack are caused by a release of a large flood of adrenaline into the blood stream, which ordinarily is meant to protect you in dangerous situations, such as when you would flee if you saw a violent person running toward you to physically attack you, or to help you to move with great haste out of the path of a speeding car, which was coming toward you. However in the case of panic attack the body releases a flood of these chemicals inappropriately, (when there is no real danger).  However you are not sunk in this matter. There are steps that you can take to deal with the situation and be healed of panic attack.

 

I will outline some of these for you now.  If you feel the condition of panic attack coming upon you with its unmistakable symptoms of heart palpitations, sweating, shaking, extraordinary fear that doesn’t match the situation that you are in, (for example you may be just simply shopping at the supermarket, where no real danger exists), there are special breathing techniques which can be used.  Another technique is that you dare your body to unleash the symptoms upon you.  The symptoms will abate or stop completely, if you adopt an attitude that says,  “I do not care if the body unleashes the symptoms of panic attack upon me”.  The release of adrenaline in panic attacks is not able to operate when this attitude is adopted.  The more often you get on top of this matter the sooner you will recover from this condition. 

 

It has been observed that consciously switching to a calm attitude, during a panic attack, somehow enables the brain to switch off further releases of Adrenalin, thereby minimising the severity of the attack.

 

The habitual use of relaxation techniques, such as lying down and listening to soothing music or using imagination techniques, such as the imagining yourself in a very relaxed calm place such as the beach, are also useful in the treatment and management of panic attack.  It is important to replace negative and fearful ideas with the calming and positive ones.

 

It doesn’t really matter what stresses in your life led to panic attack, the important thing is dealing with it, and recovering from it.

 

Australian quiz

What state is Sydney in?

Is Tasmania a state of Australia or is it another country?

What is the capital of Victoria?

Name the most famous beach in New South Wales?

Name the capital of South Australia?

Healing of autism (Mary Help of Christians)

In the 1980’s an outdoor shrine of Mary Help of Christians was built and blessed in Sydney. Our daughter was three years of age at the time. She had severe autism and could not talk. The man who was in charge of the shrine was a friend of our family. He told us that he had a plan to hold regular gatherings at the shrine, where people would pray for specially chosen intentions. e.g. a person with cancer. He selected our daughter as the first person who would be prayed for. We willingly agreed. It was his hope that our daughter would receive a miracle healing. On the appointed day, a group of people gathered at the shrine. A Jesuit priest brought our daughter up to the microphone and introduced her to the people and explained to them that she had autism.  He asked them to join with him in saying the Rosary for her healing. At the end of the Rosary the priest asked the people to keep this intention in their prayers. There was no instant miracle that day, but in the years to come our daughter made spectacular progress.

 

Useful information 

The powerful intercession of the Holy Souls in Purgatory for their benefactors and ways to help them

 

Novena to St Philomena the Wonder Worker for the healing of autism