__________________________________________________ NUN HAD 'VISION' SIMILAR TO PEASANT'S PROPHECY AND ALSO SAW CRISIS IN CHURCH The other day we had an item on an old prophecy from a peasant in the apparition area of Medjugorje, a man who died in 1978 but not before predicting that a new church would be built and the village would draw the devout from around the world. Among his prognostications: "Listen to me, my children!" this man, Mate Sego, of Bijakovici (near Apparition Hill), once said, according to the local lore. "There will be a spring right around here, a spring with lots of water! So much water that it will make a lake and our folks will own boats that they will tie to a big rock." In our item last week, we asked if such a vision might be something literal (like the spring at Lourdes, perhaps even one of the alleged "secrets," a seismic change), or whether it was a metaphor ("living waters"). Now we wonder something else: Did the reported prophecy of this good man named Mate tie in with another prophetic image from another person from the other end of Europe? For this we switch scenes to Rome, in May of 1981, where a Croatian priest named Father Tomislav Vlasic -- who shortly would be ministering in Medjugorje -- was attending a Catholic charismatic conference. At that conference, the priest -- increasingly pessimistic about his parish ministry in a city in the region called Capljina (where he was stationed at the moment) -- asked to be prayed over. His intention: healing of the Church. And here we get to the crux of the matter as we recall that one of the individuals who prayed over the Croatian priest was Sister Briege McKenna -- herself a well-known Irish nun with a healing ministry. While Sister McKenna prayed over Father Vlasic, the nun -- a member of the Sisters of St. Clare -- reported that she received the mental image or vision of a white, twin-steepled church and Father Vlasic sitting on the celebrant's chair in the sanctuary of his church. In the vision the priest was surrounded by a large crowd, and beneath his seat were streams of living water (which were flowing from the altar). A tie to the Mate's prophecy? Many people were coming and cupping the water into their hands, said Sister Briege. Simultaneous with this, a priest named Emil Tardif -- another of those praying over Father Vlasic -- reported hearing the words, "Do not fear. I am sending you my Mother." The apparitions in Medjugorje began the following month. On the fifth day of the apparitions, incredibly, Father Vlasic was transferred to Medjugorje -- and a church called St. James that has two distinct and now famous steeples. We will be investigating more such mysteries when we travel to the area, but for now it is interesting to note another vision that Sister McKenna had when she herself journeyed to Bosnia-Hercegovina. According to a new book by Sister Emmanuel Maillard of the Beatitudes Community in Medjugorje, upon visiting the village later and attending Mass in St. James, Sister McKenna was waiting for a homily (in Croatian, which she didn't understand) to end, when the Lord revealed "a scene that will remain engraved in her mind for the rest of her life." This was in that two-steepled church. "I can still see it vividly," Sister McKenna recalled. "There was a huge black cloud coming down like fog -- thick black fog -- and as it was creeping down into the cities and villages, all these priests were sitting in front of me. "I was desperate and I saw myself saying to them, 'Fathers, please stop it, you have the authority.' "I knew it was evil that was taking over people's lives. I was pleading with those priests to recognize their power against the forces of evil, their God-given power." Of course, as we now know, the evil, at this time, in the 1980s, was already deeply penetrating the clergy itself. Priests trained in modern seminaries had no education in exorcism and other gifts of deliverance. Soon, there would even be new priests who did not know how to bless a home. In the next scene (the book by Sister Emmanuel recounts), Sister McKenna saw that many of the priests had allowed themselves to be caught up in the cloud of darkness which had blinded them. The Lord then allegedly said to Sister McKenna: "You must tell these priests that, for them, the only way to conquer the evil forces is by the holiness of their lives, their consecration, and their willingness to let themselves be immersed in My Light." That day began an intense ministry for Sister Briege -- a ministry often directed specifically at priests (for whom she gives retreats). Notes Sister Emmanuel's The Hidden Child of Medjugorje: at the end of that Mass, Sister Briege went to meet the presiding priest and learned that his homily had been about the power of the priesthood, the need to pray for priests, and the "urgency to recognize that we are living in times when a great spiritual battle is raging -- that the souls of the people of God are at stake, and that the clergy are the army to whom God has given His power."
