Our Lady of America and the Present U.S. Situation

The following article is a homily delivered on August 5, 2006 by Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner, of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, on the Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major. It was delivered at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama. – Ed.

Our Lady of America. This is the title by which the Virgin Mother, in a series of private revelations and apparitions to Sr. Mary Ephrem Neuzil (1916-2000) of the Congregation of Sisters of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, indicated how she wished to be known and honored in the United States, first of all in the Basilica-sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., national Shrine of Mary for the United States, and then in the entire American nation, as it were the connatural extension of this Marian sanctuary under this title.

These revelations, locutions and apparitions began about 1938 and ended in 1984. The central ones, however, which concern the title Our Lady of America and the request that the Virgin Coredemptrix made of the Catholic bishops and of the entire nation, occurred over a six year period about a half-century ago, from 1954 through 1959.

From their inception these messages, in particular the central ones, were given a certain approval, not only by the seer's religious superiors, but also by Sr. Mary Ephrem's spiritual director of many years, prior to his death in 1972, the then Vicar General and later Archbishop of Cincinnati, Paul F. Leibold, regarded by many as a very holy prelate. The last of these revelations took place in the early 80's of the last century, just after the suppression (1979) of the contemplative branch of the Sisters of the Precious Blood. With the permission of Archbishop Leibold (Auxiliary and Vicar General of Cincinnati, 1958; Bishop of Evansville, 1966-1969, Archbishop of Cincinnati 1969-1972) these revelations were published in a small brochure, first in 1960, subsequently in 1971 (both editions with the approval of Archbishop Leibold), with a final edition of 48 pages in 1989 (with approximately 10 pages of material not in the earlier editions), copyrighted by Sr. Mary Mildred Neuzil as she was known after the demise of her contemplative monastery. Place of publication was Fostoria, Ohio, in the Diocese of Toledo, where the contemplative sisters had retired after their suppression and where the last living member of the community still resides. (All quotations are from this booklet.)

The prayers composed by the visionary either under the direction or dictation of the Blessed Mother received the Imprimatur of Bishop Leibold in 1963 (the signature for the Nihil Obstat of the Censor librorum being that of the Rev. Daniel Pilarczyk, STD, present Archbishop of Cincinnati). In late 1965 Auxiliary Bishop Leibold of Cincinnati carried out the first of Our Lady's requests, that is, to strike the medal of Our Lady of America with her picture on one side and the coat of arms of the Christian family on the other. This medal is a kind of synthesis of the message of Our Lady to America and of the place assigned that nation in her maternal mediation for all mankind.

At no time can it be said that these messages were greeted with much enthusiasm by those to whom they were primarily directed by Our Lady, the Bishops and priests of the Catholic Church in the United States. With the exception of groups of Marian devotees, mostly pious laity and religious, educated Catholics as a class were either indifferent or strongly opposed to their authenticity, despite their approbation by Archbishop Leibold and his implementation of the first of Our Lady's requests. And in fact by 1980 the message-request, as well as Sr. Mary Ephrem, had been mostly forgotten, until in the last few years interest in them and her has revived. Why such a renewal should have occurred will become clear when the content of the messages is set forth in the context of contemporary events.

Evidently not all private revelations and apparitions are authentic. Many are plainly not what they claim to be, supernatural in origin. But many are genuine. Unfortunately the contemporary secular mentality in the western world often concludes that no such revelations are genuine, that they are a kind of epi-phenomenon in the life of the Church supplying for the religious needs of the less intelligent believers what more mature persons attain by more rational or scientific methods.

Usum non tollit abusus (abuse of a good thing does not invalidate its use). The old Latin axiom underscores the logical mistake of the modern skeptic: an illation from a particular instance of fraudulent claims to a generalization that all such claims are false. The fact is, the value and importance of private revelations in the life of the Church is directly proportionate, not to the religious-emotional needs of this or that group, but to the reality, value and importance of the maternal mediation or ministry of Our Lady in the Church for the good of all souls since Pentecost.

How seriously must we take the mystery of Mary as Mater et Magistra Apostolorum (Mother and teacher of the Apostles and of all the faithful), that is, her maternal mediation of all graces distributed by way of hierarchical and charismatic ministries? According to Pope John Paul II, and now according to Pope Benedict XVI, the ministry of maternal mediation confided to the Mother of Jesus in the Church, the "Marian principle of the Church," is more central that even that of St. Peter and of his successors. Mary's presence in the Church is precisely that of her continuous maternal mediation, above all in the hearts of those who are members of the Body of Christ, when they receive the Sacraments worthily.

Because this presence of Mary is so crucial and vital, those extraordinary manifestations of her dynamic presence take on exceptional importance, particularly in directing the attention of all believers and potential believers to questions and issues of fundamental importance for the salvation and well-being of all mankind. Nor are these extraordinary interventions of the Mother of the Church unrelated to one another. We shall see that the messages confided by Mary to Sr. Mary Ephrem are linked very much to those given at Fatima and also to some of those given between 1945-1959 to Ida Peerdeman of Amsterdam (died 1996).

Over the centuries the seers involved in such extraordinary interventions of Mary have been, with a few exceptions, persons not noted for scholarly attainments, but neither have they been persons lacking in common sense and basic virtue. Sr. Mary Ephrem was no exception to this norm. This norm in its own way clarifies how the supernatural origin of the messages and their reliability rests on something other than the natural gifts of the seer.

Sr. Mary Ephrem was professed a religious at the age of 17 in 1933. From then until 1951 her assignments were those concerned with domestic work. From 1951-1954 she taught kindergarten classes in a parochial school, and later in 1958 was permitted to enter the newly established and semi-autonomous contemplative wing of her community. In no way during the many years in which she enjoyed special extraordinary graces did she appear exteriorly as any different from a religious striving to grow in perfection and remain faithful to all she had promised at profession. That such a person should be able to write accurately and profoundly of the highest mysteries of faith, such as the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity, and that these writings were never found by the official censors to contain anything contrary to faith or morals, or indicating mental debility, is surely a sign of supernatural origin and the workings of the Holy Spirit through the mediation of Mary Immaculate.

The revelations, locutions, messages fall naturally into three groups: those between 1938 and 1954; those from 1954 through 1959; and those thereafter to 1984, in particular between 1980 and early 1984, when the final message was given.

During the first period from 1938 to 1954 it was chiefly Our Lord who spoke to Sr. Mary Ephrem. The content of his messages concerned primarily the personal life of Sister, her growth in holiness and especially in relation to the mystery of the indwelling Trinity, above all in the soul of the Virgin Mother. All this, however, was her preparation for a special task for which Our Lord had chosen her. Sister tells us that "in the early 1940's it was made known to me interiorly that my mission was to converge towards the sanctification of the family. I was not further enlightened at that time as to how this was to be accomplished."

What this mission would be and how it would be carried out, is the subject of many revelations and messages between May 22, 1954 and the end of 1959. These messages involve principally the active intervention of Our Lord, Our Lady and St. Joseph, with secondary apparitions of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, that is to say, those who make up the Holy Family, and those who in a particular way are assigned in heaven to serve that Family. The messages are many, but seen in this context they constitute a logical whole, whose central point of reference is the maternal mediation of Mary and the role which particular nations are to play in this for the eternal and temporal well-being of the entire human family.

Logically, Sr. Mary Ephrem tells us, Our Lord appeared first in 1954 to define the frame of reference for the key message of Our Lady concerning the spiritual renewal of souls and the establishment of true peace in the world, with an attendant liberation from the threat of nuclear holocaust and the destruction of entire nations.

Our Lord's first point is crucial: neither the source of life and peace nor the source of war and destruction is to be located in material or temporal things. If life is not sought in Him who is the Resurrection and the Life, then only terror, war and destruction will be found. A second consideration is intimately linked to the first. Men "fear man-made destroyers of life, yet destruction is within themselves. Man destroys himself through the evil that is in himself." Further, unless man comes into the light that is Christ, he remains in darkness forever. To come into the Light, one must listen to the voice of Christ which is the voice of mercy: "The voice of my heart is the voice of mercy." If men will not believe and walk in the Light, there is nothing that can be done to escape destruction, though Christ's heart beats with compassion for the sorrows of man and the weight of a contemporary cross, for the most part fashioned by man's own guilt. That faith may once again find entrance into the hearts of men, prayer and sacrifice are necessary and indispensable. Later in 1954 the Angel of peace, or St. Michael, appeared to Sister offering her the palm of victory, that is, the Cross, with the request: "will you accept this?" Only the cross can secure the victory of faith. The request of St. Michael, prince of the heavenly host, is addressed to every American.

Our Lord's second point is this: faith can only gain entrance into the hearts of men, if it gains entrance into the home. Every home must be modeled on the Holy Family, because every home is primarily a house of prayer, and only if it is a house of prayer will God dwell there. Where this is not the case, where parents have no time to teach their children to love Jesus, there they never learn to listen, not even to the voice of the Mother of Jesus. The breakdown of family life, indeed, the attempt at a radical redefinition of marriage not based on monogamy and purity, appears as a refusal to love Jesus and listen to his voice. Jesus calls this breakdown a conversion of the temple of God into a den of thieves. This is the root of the tragic nuclear holocaust threatening to overtake the entire world. Or in the simple, profound words of Jesus: the refusal to love Jesus in this way is the reason for the Father's anger. Only with the return of God to his first home, the family, can the terrible destruction threatening the world be averted. Only through love of the heart of Jesus will this be accomplished.

Toward the end of 1954 (November 20) Our Lady appeared to ask Sister's help in bringing peace to the world, precisely by restoring the family as a dwelling place of the divine Trinity. Our Lady told Sr. Mary Ephrem it was Our Lord's desire that

fathers and mothers strive to imitate me and my chaste spouse in our holy life at Nazareth. We practiced the simple virtues of family life, Jesus our Son being the center of our love and activity. The Holy Trinity dwelt with us in a manner far surpassing anything that can ever be imagined. For ours was the earthly paradise where once again God walked among men.

Characteristic of the Holy Family was the total absence of sin. So too must every family strive to be: holy and immaculate in the sight of God. Then peace will come.

Nearly two years later, on the eve of the feast of the North American Martyrs, 25 September, 1956, what Sister calls the "official" visits of the Virgin Mother began: official because they define quite precisely what is meant by the title Our Lady of America and what in assuming this title Our Lady asks of the American nation. According to Sister Our Lady came as Our Lady of Lourdes and promised to work more miracles in America, particularly in the United States, than worked either at Lourdes or Fatima, if Americans would do what she asked:

And the next morning, in a stupendous vision of the Immaculate during which Sister saw the heart of Mary appear "encircled with red roses, the symbol of suffering as it was revealed to me, and sending forth flames of fire," Our Lady said: "I am Our Lady of America. I desire that my children honor me, especially by the purity of their lives."

Later, on the same day, Our Lady of America said:

Sisters adds, that though Mary came in this manner as a token of her love for Americans, nevertheless Our Lady of America welcomes her children of all nations to her feet, for there will be found true peace. Our Lady of America is such because she is Lady of all nations, the Queen of men and angels.