IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, OF THE SON AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, ONE GOD, AMEN
INTRODUCTION
Firstly, I thank God for our gathering today.
I also thank the most Pure and Holy, the Mother of all, the Holy Theotokos: the Virgin Mary, whom I always ask for Her love and protection.
I also want to thank the priests who gave me this opportunity to pray with you.
I hope the purpose of our gathering today is prayer; because if you came to see Myrna only, you will see that Myrna is an ordinary person just like anyone of you.
If you came to see a miracle, the biggest miracle is the presence of Jesus Christ in His Holy Mysteries under the forms of Bread and Wine.
If you came to see Christ our Lord, look at each others face and you will be seeing Him.
If you came to meet Christ our Lord so that you may love Him, love one another and you will be loving Him.
If you came to serve Christ our Lord, serve each other and you will be serving Him and His Church.
The phenomenon of "Our Lady of Soufanieh" began in
a simple suburb of
Soufanieh is known from its fruits.
That is why I ask you to remember me in your prayers so that my testimony be truthful, honest and fruitful.
I was born on
I married Nicolas Nazzour in 1982.
I am Greek-Catholic and my husband is Greek-Orthodox.
Six months after our marriage, strange things started happening to us.
We did not understand them in the beginning, only later did we understand that they were Heavenly Messages that must be delivered and shared with everyone.
On
An internal struggle started in me.
I would ask myself:
" Lord what is this oil ? Why did you choose me ?
I am a weak person, while there are thousands who are more worthy than I am for this blessing.
However, let Your Will be done.
From this day, I offer You all my deeds, my sorrows and my joys.
Let everything in me honor You.
I place in You my hope for I am ashamed of my weakness.
Take my will O Lord.
Let Your Will be done in me.
Keep me away from any act that You do not want, so that I may stay at Your service.
Give me a pure, humble, faithful, loving heart that does not ask for anything but the glory of Jesus Christ."
On the morning of
I carried the icon and took it to my husband Nicolas who was in our bedroom getting dressed.
He took it and put cotton underneath it on a wooden plate, on the desk in our bedroom.
We knelt and cried.
That sight was so beautiful, that I wish the whole world could have been in my eyes to see what I have seen.
From that moment on, my husband changed from a non-pious non-believing person to someone who surrenders to the will of God.
Nicolas asked me not to tell anyone about what was going on.
He said he would go and inform his family and sisters.
I was afraid then.
I did not know how to pray.
Suddenly I heard a voice saying to me:
"Mary, my daughter, do not be afraid, I am with you.
Open the doors and do not stop anyone from seeing me.
Light Me a candle".
That is how the door was opened and our house became a shrine to the Virgin Mary.
People come to our house from everywhere and we do not ask anyone for his identity or religion.
VISIONS
On
In a state of panic, I ran away from the unexpected vision.
That night, Fr. Elias Zahlaoui suggested to me that I should pray more, and that I should prepare myself for another apparition.
He told me to say to the Virgin Mary:
"Prepare me O Virgin to receive You".
On the evening of
My children,
Remember God, because God is with us.
You know all things and yet you know nothing.
Your knowledge is an incomplete knowledge.
But the day will come when you will know all things the way God knows Me.
Do good to those who do evil.
And do not harm anyone.
I have given you oil more than you have asked for,
but I shall give you something much more powerful than oil.
Repent and have faith, and remember Me in your joy.
Announce My Son the Emmanuel.
He who announces Him is saved, and he who does not announce Him, his faith is vain.
Love one another.
I am not asking for money to give to churches,
nor for money to distribute to the poor.
I am asking for love.
Those who distribute their money to the poor and to churches, but have no love, those are nothing.
I shall visit homes more often, because those who go to church, sometimes, do not go there to pray.
I am not asking you to build Me a church, but a shrine.
Give. Do not turn away anyone who asks for help.
The last apparition of the Virgin Mary was on
The Virgin Mary asked very clearly for Church Unity.
She said:
My children,
My mission has ended.
That night, the Angel told Me:
"Blessed are thou amongst women."
And I was only able to tell Him that
"I am the Servant of the Lord."
I am happy.
I Myself do not deserve to tell you:
"Your sins are forgiven."
But My God has said it.
Establish a church.
I did not say: "Build a church."
The Church that Jesus adopted is
The Church is the
He who has divided it has sinned.
And he who has rejoiced from its division has also sinned.
Jesus built it. It was small.
And when it grew, it became divided.
He who divided it has no love in him.
Gather!
I tell you: "Pray, pray, and pray again!"
How beautiful are My children when they kneel down, imploring.
Do not fear, I am with you.
Do not be divided as the great ones are.
You, yourselves will teach the generations THE WORD of unity, love and faith.
Pray for the inhabitants of earth and Heaven.
The apparitions were followed by a new stage: the ecstasies.
There, I become unaware of the material world and I become transported into the Heavenly world.
I would see the Virgin Mary.
Or I would see Christ our Lord as a strong light in the shape of a person.
Each time I was given a message to be shared and delivered to mankind.
The messages of the Virgin Mary and Christ our Lord can be summarised by: love, prayer, forgiveness and penance.
The most important request from Christ our Lord and the Virgin Mary is the unity of the Church, beginning with the unity of the Feast of Easter.
Through Her presence in Soufanieh, the Virgin Mary revealed to us Her great love and Her joy in our loving each other.
STIGMATAS
Through His presence in Soufanieh, Christ our Lord revealed to us, that He is still suffering, and that His joy is in our unity.
It is because of His love for me that he gave me a very special blessing: to participate with Him in His Passion.
So he reproduced His wounds in my body.
The wounds appeared on my hands, my feet, my side and my
forehead every time the Feast of Easter for the Eastern and
This happened in 1984, 1987, and 1990.
This shows the desire of Christ our Lord for Church Unity.
CHURCH UNITY
Jesus said to me in one of the ecstasies:
"Go to the whole world and say without fear to work for unity."
That's how I was invited for the first time in 1987 to the
Then, I was invited to European and Arabic countries, to
In all the places that I visited, the thirst of believers for Church Unity was great.
That thirst created in every country a group which spreads the message of Soufanieh and works for Unity.
To put it simply, the stain of oil is spreading in the whole world day after day, in order to fulfil the wish of Christ our Lord when He said:
"All that I want is for you to be gathered together in Me as I am in everyone of you."
There is no doubt, I encounter great difficulties in my life
and probably the greatest is related to what
"Christ came to His own, and His own did not recognise Him."
Everything would be easy without this obstacle.
The position of the Church regarding the Soufanieh phenomenon, both in Syria and the whole world, is one characterised by great respect, watchfulness, and comfort in the truthfulness of the episodes, the unceasing prayers and the complete gratuitousness in the house of Soufanieh from the very first day of the phenomenon until today.
However, this position differs from one Church to another.
Church Unity is the perfection of our unity with the Lord, within ourselves and with others.
Unity is a way of life, and a continuous task at discovering the other person through love and openness.
Unity is coming, there is no doubt about it, because Jesus is One and the Church must be One: Holy, Apostolic and Universal.
Probably the Church must be poor so that it may feel the need of others, and then its only richness would become the unity of its children.
Our haste towards this goal is achieved through humility, love and openness to the work of the Holy Spirit, and the belief that the will of God will be achieved only if we learn how to live this Unity.
Unity is achieved by lighting the fire of love.
For whenever our love weakens, unity weakens, and this is how our Church lives today in the world.
If we believe that our faith is common among the different churches, and if we are all called to one faith, one hope and one baptism; then Love is the problem !
Difficulty with Love appears when we try to love the way we want, and not as God loves us.
If the problem started from a weakening Love, then the solution is an increase in Love.
Love will give us new eyes, a new heart, a new mind, a new life.
The success of my mission is to live Unity in faith in the
one
The success of my mission is to live in harmony within my family at home and in the church; the same as Our Lord Jesus has lived with His disciples in love and piety.
HEALINGS
Healings are numerous in Soufanieh.
The most important ones are spiritual.
These healings converted many Christians in name only to be committed by word, deed, love and giving.
The physical healings were numerous also.
To name only a few:
Raquiya Qilta was healed from polio.
Alice Benlian was healed from a bone decease 13 years ago.
Several people were also healed from paralysis, blindness and cancer.
CONCLUSION
Woe to me if I do not preach.
The good news that I carry is to establish love by the Might of God, within the Heart of the Church; and with this love, all humanity becomes one family, one body, the Body of Christ, in which the Spirit of the all-Holy God dwells.
It is only then that the invitation of Christ our Lord becomes true:
"You are My Church and your hearts belong to Me".
Help me, O Virgin Mother so that I may respond to God's call in my life and make my will melt in His.
Help me to always keep You as an example before my eyes.
An example of humility, patience and obedience.
Grant me O Lord to become a living icon of Your Pure Mother for my family and for every family.
Teach me O Lord to pray for the small church which is the family, especially for the troubled ones, so that You may bestow upon them, through Your pastoral care, the ties of Love and Unity.
Please sustain me with your prayers, dear brothers and sisters, so that I may be faithful to my mission, so that I may say the word that speaks in the name of Christ our Lord, and to join my heart to His, for in our union, I can overcome all obstacles.
Thank You very much.