OUR LADY OF THE ROSES - THE EARLY YEARS
May 19, 1970: Testimony of Veronica and Grace Pera (Events of May 1970 tape transcription, pp.1-3)
Veronica--. . . of June, 1978. It's most fortunate that this week I have staying with me my neighbor Grace Pera, a young girl who was witness to Our Lady's appearing over my--from the kitchen window, in my apartment in Bayside, on May, that day in May, I don't at this time remember the exact date for the taping, but it was May of 1970. I feel that it would be best for Grace to tell you in her own words how she saw Our Lady standing on this huge ball in the sky from my kitchen window. I was living at the time in the Garden complex in Bayside. Now, I can remember as though it was yesterday. I was in my bathroom and something just drew me to look out the window of the bathroom and I was startled because there in the sky over the trees and over the tops of the roof of the Garden complex was this huge ball coming through the sky, I was very frightened at the time and I felt myself almost sinking to my knees because I thought it was the end of the world, or the moon's coming through the sky or something. So I looked up and then though, I looked to the top of the ball-it covered a great part of the sky--and there was Our Lady standing on the ball and She was as human and as solid as you and I. Oh! She was dressed in this beautiful white gown, and She had Her hands out like, in our statues of Our Lady of Grace, but oh, She was smiling and, just standing on this ball. The ball was solid but yet it seemed to be weightless because the ball was floating across the sky in front of my view, going like from left to right, and also at the side of the ball, a young man, a very, very nice looking young man with curly blondish hair and he was waving--he was like accompanying Our Lady--he was standing also at the side of this ball, and being carried along with it, and he was waving! And on his hand, waving, there was a white glove. Our Lady later said it was a mitten. And, of course, through the apparitions later with Our Lady She said that mittens must be worn in all public processions--mittens, Our Lady calls the gloves mittens. Now I waited until Grace Pera--she was a young girl in quite a different vocation or let's say, career than I had as a housewife and mother, Grace was a stenographer, a career girl, a business girl, and a young girl in her twenties at the time, and I waited for her to come home because she was a very spiritual girl, and she had often been over to my apartment, we had discussed Jesus and Our Lady and the road with us in our human lives on earth. So I knew that she would be happy to hear what had happened. So I waited for her to come home--it was about, a little after seven in the evening when she arrived home--and I rushed into the house and I was making coffee and I said, and I was telling her what happened, and she said, "Where did you see Our Lady? You know, show me where you saw Her!" So I took her to the kitchen window, though at the time I was standing at the bathroom window, they're side by side facing the same direction, the east I found out later, but I took her to the kitchen window and Raymond, my young son that is in Heaven now with Jesus, he was doing some dishes or something at the sink, and we started to hop up and down because when we looked out the kitchen window Grace was shocked and I was of course happy to see that somebody else was seeing something besides me! You know, it kind of helps, like, to have company! So we looked up and there in the sky--it was a little different now. When I saw Our Lady on the ball, it was a solid ball, I don't know how to explain it. A solid, heavy ball, and Our Lady was as human as you and I--real solid. But now, what we saw was a huge ball made like a smoke ring. It was floating it was more supernatural looking than when Our Lady first appeared that afternoon. And it was like a smoke-ring, a huge smoke-ring right up in the sky, and it was passing from left to right, the same as when I saw Our Lady earlier, and but, we looked upwards and instead of the, there was a cross, a large cross made also very smoky looking on top of this huge globe-like ring. But then as we watched the cross began to dissimulate or disintegrate like vanish, like vapor blowing away and there was Our Lady standing on top of the ball again! But this time She was very wispy looking and smoky sort of. Not like when I saw Her earlier, and then that lasted--it's hard to say when you see something like this how long a time it was, but I would think it was only a matter of a few moments before it all just disappeared going from left to right across the sky over the buildings. Now, since Grace is staying with me this week, I would like you to hear what Grace has to say about this because it's very important--at this time, that May of 1970, after this happened I called Joey Lomangino in Lindenhurst. Joey, of course, is the leader of the group of Garabandal apparition children, the apparitions that appeared to the children in Garabandal earlier--and I knew he would surely like to hear this, and of course, this has always been a very sore spot in my heart for Joey because actually I felt-- well, Our Lady told me to call him in the first place! That was in May of 1970, after this happened this voice, that I can't explain to you, I knew it was Our Lady, though it was like--they call it a locution, I guess--Our Lady when She told me to call Joey, I wasn't like unconscious or in a trance like during the vigils, I was just standing there when Our Lady said to me, "Call Joey!" So I called Joey Lomangino and I told him what had happened, and then I put Grace on the phone so she could tell him, and I remember at the time, that he asked Grace, "Do you believe what you see?" And she said, "Well, I saw it! I was standing there!"
(pp. 4-5)
Veronica--But I would like you now to hear from Grace Pera. I do hope that she'll remember to put everything that she can into the taping, so that peoples of the world will know what happened when Our Lady first appeared in May of 1970, in reference to the starting of the Shrine in Bayside. Because you know that St. Theresa and Our Lady appeared to me first in 1968, in June of 1968. But in reference..
Veronica--In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Now I will give the tape over to Grace, and I pray that she can remember all the details that are so important to mankind and the words of Our Lady's beginning of Her Shrine at Bayside.
TESTIMONIALS OF GRACE PERA
Grace Pera--Hello. This is Grace Pera and I want to give testimony of seeing Our Lady at the home of Veronica, Bayside, in May of 1970. I was at Veronica's, and earlier in the day Veronica was telling me of her experience of seeing Our Lady through the window. At that moment I went to the window and I couldn't believe my eyes! There floating through the air was a ... [words unclear], with the cross on top, and as it was moving along the cross dispersed into the outline of Our Lady. Veronica was then directed by Our Lady to call Joey Lomangino in Lindenhurst to tell him of what we have just saw. Joey was very happy to hear the news and said that "It was surely a miraculous sign," and that Veronica should write down everything about it and send it to him. I thank God every day Jesus and Mary for giving me the privilege of seeing what I saw, and I know that this experience will remain with me for my entire life.
July 27, 1970 ( 2nd Testimony of Grace Pera)
Grace Pera-Hello, this is Grace Pera. I want to express the wonderful experience I had on the evening of May 19th. I was having coffee at Marney's when I wandered by the window. I happened to look up at the sky. It was a dismal sky without a cloud, as the sky would appear before a rainstorm. There I beheld a dark gray circle moving across the sky, and there was a cross above the circle. But as it moved, the cross started dispersing itself like smoke, and there appeared the outline of our Blessed Mother, and within a second the entire view disappeared. Another experience I had was about a year ago, in August of 1969. I was walking this particular night with Ronnie. We happened to look up at the moon. The moon was very orange, but to our amazement we seen drippings falling from the moon, and there was an illumination around the moon, as though the moon was on fire. It made one recall the Bible teachings of the moon bleeding. And this was exactly what it looked like.