Yesterday (December 30, 2024), me and my parents went to Roanoke to spend some time together. Mind you, it’s an hour away from where I live, so I don’t go there very often. As always when I drive past a Catholic church, I looked up at the church and made the sign of the Cross as I was driven by. Suddenly I saw something. It was pure white, solid, very large, luminous, almost as large as the basilica. I clearly saw a white veil covering a head and shoulders. The sun’s rays didn’t go through the apparition. This lasted maybe 10-20 seconds before I couldn’t see anything anymore. At first I was shocked but I presumed it was a large statue of Our Lady that a bright light was being projected onto. I’ve never seen anything “supernatural” so I tried to put the whole thing out of my mind. A few hours later I was again driving past the church, when I looked up to make the sign of the Cross again, but what appeared there was there was no longer up at the Basilica. I don’t know what to think because I know I definitely saw something on that hill. It reminded me of the white veil of Our Lady of Fatima, so I think it could’ve been a sign from the Blessed Virgin. I’ve prayed a lot yesterday and today to try to discern this experience. Does anyone have some advice?
No advice, I'm just glad that you were able to experience that. Yesterday, when I was doing laundry, I was praying the Saint Michael chaplet. As I was switching out the laundry from the washer to the dryer, I thought I heard an angelic choir, very briefly and then it stopped. I just took it as a nice signal grace
Thank you. How blessed we are to be in the one true Church, to be Catholics, and to receive such graces!
I love such little things , Rose petals from heaven. Gentle caresses from above. Like Mary we must store such things in our hearts and cherish them. Years ago I used to go downtown to lunchtime Mass at St Patrick's, a lovely old church in the city centre. They have a little side chapel dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua with a first class relic of the saint ensconsed there. On Tuesdays they take it out, say special prayers and everyone gets a chance to go up at venerate it after mass. I had no special devotion to St Anthony but one day I paused at his shrine to pray when this really strong, beautiful perfume came down round me. Startled I looked round but could not see a source, no one was near. I at once suspected this was supernatural. Well you know this went on for weeks when I went into Church so I almost got to expect it. Well the good bottom line to all this was that I conceived a great devotion to St Anthony and this has never left me.From time to time I still smell that perfume. We don;t pick the saints, it is the saints that pick us. https://www.holyart.co.uk/blog/sain...rance-of-the-saints-for-every-saint-a-flower/ The fragrance of the saints: for every saint, a flower! The lily, the flower of Saint Anthony Saint Anthony of Padua is also often depicted with white lilies, which, according to his Sermones, represented penitents: “Consider that in the lily there are three properties: medicine, whiteness and perfume. The drug is found in its root, the whiteness and scent of the flower. And these three properties represent the penitents, poor in spirit, who crucify the members with their vices and their lusts, who guard humility in the heart to suffocate the impudence of pride, the candour of chastity in the body and the perfume of good fame.” (Sermons, Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, 12)
https://catholicfamilynews.com/blog/2024/12/02/padre-pio-pittsburgh/ Did Padre Pio Offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Diocese of Pittsburgh? During World War II, an American GI from the Diocese of Pittsburgh, Joseph (Joe) Peluso, first visited Padre Pio on October 6, 1944 at his monastery in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy. Joe attended the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered by Padre Pio on many occasions, and after 45 visits to see Padre Pio, Joe’s unit was transferred to France on July 15,1945. Joe was stationed, along with other American soldiers in Italy, about 37 miles from the Capuchin Monastery of Our Lady of Grace where Padre Pio lived. Joe Peluso brought other soldiers with him to see Padre Pio, but it was Joe whom Padre Pio ‘took under his wing’ and considered him to be his ‘spiritual child.’ Padre Pio told Joe that he would take all Americans to be his spiritual children provided they be good Catholics and receive the Sacraments frequently. Joe Peluso It should be noted that when Padre Pio takes a person to be his spiritual child, he takes that soul’s WHOLE family as his spiritual children. The following true story was related to me by Geraldine Grimes who is related to Joe Peluso through marriage. Geraldine’s Aunt Catherine Peluso Grimes was Joe Peluso’s sister. Catherine married Oliver Grimes, the brother of Geraldine’s father. Joe and his wife Rita, along with Catherine and Oliver, lived in New Brighton, Pennsylvania. This was not far from Saint Mary’s Church in Beaver Falls, all in the Beaver County section of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. On a chilly day in 1954 or 1955, the Mass Intention at St. Mary’s Church (pictured below) was for Aunt Catherine’s father-in-law, James, who was Geraldine’s grandfather. Geraldine, then a very young girl, was taken by her mother that morning to Mass. To their disappointment, and to the surprise of the daily Mass attendees who usually came to St. Mary’s for morning Mass, the doors to the church were locked. The faithful knocked on the doors to the rectory receiving no answer. St. Mary’s Church As they stood on the sidewalk outside the locked doors of the church, two men were seen, seemingly priests, approaching the church. One had ‘salt and pepper hair ‘and a beard, the other was a younger man, both in brown religious habits. As they reached the door to the church, the priest with the beard displayed a stern look and asked: “Why are the church doors locked?” The two mysterious men then walked around to the side of the church. A short while later, they opened the locked front door from the inside and let the people in. The parish priest never showed up. The Traditional Latin Mass, offered by the bearded priest began soon thereafter. When it was time for Holy Communion, Geraldine, who had yet to make her first Holy Communion, remained in her pew as her mother went up to the Altar Rail to kneel and to receive our Eucharistic Lord. When Geraldine’s mom returned to the pew, she quietly, but excitedly, said to her little girl: “The priest has holes in his hands like Jesus! There was a strong beautiful smell of flowers about him!” There were no flowers around the Altar. After the Mass, Geraldine and her mother waited outside the Sacristy door to speak with the visiting priest. After a while, the church lights were turned off and they discovered that the Sacristy was empty. It was as if the two men just disappeared. Padre Pio wore Gloves concealing his wounds except at Mass Later, Geraldine and her mom saw a picture of Padre Pio and recognized him as the priest with holes in his hands! A parish priest told them that it must have been Padre Pio at that Mass. Indeed, in the 1997 Vatican Decree on “the Heroic Virtues of Padre Pio,” he is described as a stamped representative of the Stigmata of Our Lord. Official Decree of the Heroic Virtues of Padre Pio | EWTN Padre Pio bore the visible wounds of Christ on his hands, feet and side for fifty years, which ended on the day of his death on September 23, 1968. Geraldine feels that the younger ‘man’ with Padre Pio who was tall, slender, with dark hair and who never spoke, may have been Padre Pio’s Guardian Angel. It is known that when Padre Pio, then Francesco Forgione, was very young, his Guardian Angel made himself visible as another child with whom young Francesco played. One of Padre Pio’s other special gifts bestowed upon him by Almighty God was the gift of bilocation, which enabled him to be in two places at the same time. Hence, although Padre Pio was no doubt in San Giovanni Rotondo on that day, he was apparently by the grace of God, at St. Mary’s Church in Beaver Falls at the same time. Padre Pio is known to have bilocated many times.
