OUR LADY OF THE ROSES - THE EARLY YEARS
Webmasters Note: This has been transcribed to hardcopy twice, apparently from two separate tapings according to the transcription indexes. Both versions are presented here for reading.
May 19,1970 (STORY OF VERONICA tape transcription, pp. 1-7)
Veronica--Now as time went on May the 19th a strange set of events set in. Now, I didn't expect this, but Our Lady didn't say anything would happen on May the 19th. So I worked that day, on May the 19th, and there on my back porch, there are a lot of roses in the backyard, there the bathroom window and the kitchen window where I usually stare out into, I say, Heaven's direction, the eastern sky. So I noticed these two wild roses, red ones on the bush. Now to me that was strange, because I had been waiting for the roses to bloom, when we were not in Bayside, as far as I could understand--all around Bayside, no roses. Well, I passed that out of my mind, and about 4 o'clock that afternoon, it was dark and dreary and rainy. I was. . . [words unclear] and shocked to look in my back yard and instead of seeing two roses the whole bush was filled with roses! Now I'd began to wonder what's going on, because how did the whole bush get filled up in a few hours? Well, my brother, I had told him about it and well, he's the type that ... [words unclear] used to odd things, you know. But then around 6:20, that evening, the sun came out-- ohhh, it was beautiful, like the first day of summer! So, my brother said, "Well, let's open the windows and air out the apartment", because it was stuffy. So I opened the bathroom window, and ohh!! what a shock, there in the sky was this man! Now, I could see him from his waist up, and I knew immediately he was a saint or an apostle because he had that wonderful good--and you get a feeling, whenever you see anyone from Heaven, people have asked me, how can you tell a Heavenly person. Well, you don't have to know, you feel! Because it sends a cause of feeling through you that's so good that you could lie there suspended and just watch him forever. But during that, there sort of goes through you a good feeling, that's beyond anything that you could ever experience, anywhere on earth, that you are, ahh!! like in a state of suspended animation, you know! So I looked at this man, and I remember he was a young fellow, and he had curly hair--you have to remember this because I found out later who he was from Our Lady--and but the strange thing about it was he wasn't looking towards me, he was traveling like, southwest, and he was waving with his hand over his head, and the strange thing, I thought was he's got a mitten on his hand! Now, I must bring attention to that mitten because several weeks later Our Lady requested--the Father of St. Robert's--She said, "Mittens must be worn in all formal processions." Now, Our Lady when She's saying mittens, she means gloves. So there was this fellow waving with a mitten on his right hand, over his head! Now, from the chain of events that happened later, I know he was heralding Our Lady's coming. Now, I didn't know that at the time, but now I know what that mitten was, you know, formal procession ... [words unclear] All ... [words unclear] signs from Heaven. Well anyway, he passed by, in a southwest direction, and then as I watched the sky there came this light. And I was a little startled, but then I really, really shook, because I thought, "this is the end times", because out this light emerged this large ball, at first I thought the moon was falling! It was a big white ball, and I was startled, you know, and I watched as it came out of the clouds and soon though-- ohh!--there on top of the ball was Our Lady! Now first She looked like a statue of about 4 feet high, and I thought it was a statue in church, you know! So I was looking, but the ball floated--like I said the ball was floating. Everyone from Heaven seems to float, they don't walk, they float-like, glide. So the ball floated closer to me and I could see Our Lady, and that She wasn't a statue because the wind was blowing through Her dress. And it was blowing Her dress in the wind, now She was floating--She didn't say a word, and I wasn't close enough to see Her face, but what I could see, because there was a sky-blue . . . [words unclear] so I'm sure She was dressed in white, white, what might have been a pale blue, but it looked white to me. There She passed into the clouds and then She was gone. But then what happened when She passed by was so beautiful I have the treasure of the world already because down through the sky was rays--thousands of slivers of cut glass, diamonds, thousands! And the sun shone through them, you know, the sun was shining through them, and I looked at this and I'd seen the treasures of anything, beyond anything that you could see here, to me the world looks like a dark and dreary place and the world is just as nothing compared to what I saw in Heaven in the past two years! So then, that just lasted an instant, it was, ohhh, millions of pieces of cut glass!! Ohh, and the sun was shining through them!! Ohh, and then it was over and I ran back into the kitchen and I got my brother up and I said, "Guess what I saw!"
So then I had to tell my friend Gracy, Jesus decided to send me what Theresa called a "companionable spirit," to sort of console me, I guess, and someone I could talk to because He's knows I'm a real (knocker?), you know. So He sends Grace to me. So, anyway, Grace is the twenty-seven year old girl next door, and she's a working girl, whereas I'm a housewife with a family, but she's a business girl. So she came over for coffee after she was done with work, and I wanted to tell her all how I saw Our Lady on the ball. So, I took her to the kitchen window, and she said, "Well, where did you see Our Lady?" Well, I was starting to point in the direction beyond the tree where Our Lady was on the ball, when we got the shock of our life! There in the sky was placed a huge ball, but on the top a big cross, a big cross on the ball. Now, it didn't look like the ball Our Lady was on, but it looked more like an outline of a, a smoky-gray outline of the ball, and then the cross on the top. But then the ball started to float in the same direction as it was when I saw it. Ahh, but then! As it got closer outside the cross seemed to disintegrate or evaporate and there She was! Our Lady standing on the ball! So when Grace and I saw it together it was a little different than when I saw it through the bathroom window, so She would seem to be real solid-like, from the waist up we could see Her, but from the waist down--I think it's because the clouds were going through Her-She looked more transparent, but there She was! And Grace and I stood there in shock, with my son Raymond in the kitchen, he's saying, "Let me see! Where is She?" ... [words unclear] but don't get excited, you're ... [words unclear] Well, Grace went home calmly while I'm just ohhh! ... [words unclear]