CHRISTIAN RAVAZ
Our
Lady of Soufanieh
Source
of Holy Oil, Damascus, Syria
The
apparitions in Damascus
Preface by Father René
Laurentin
This book is available in its entirety in
electronic form on the INTERNET at the following address: http://www.soufanieh.com
(all lower case) or at http://www.soufanieh.com
Translated,
edited and updated from the French edition of 1988: "Les apparitions
de DAMAS --- Christian Ravaz" with permission from the author, by
«Association Notre-Dame de Soufanieh de Montréal» (September 1997).
First English edition, September 1997.
All rights reserved worldwide.
© Messengers of Our Lady of Soufanieh (1997)
First printing: 10,000 copies.
Published by: The Messengers of Our Lady of
Soufanieh.
No part of this
publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval
system or translated into any language in any form by any means without the
prior written consent of "The Messengers of Our Lady of Soufanieh".
This book is based on the
written testimonies of Fathers Joseph Malouli and Elias Zahlaoui also from
Myrna Nazzour's personal notes and on the investigation and interviews undertaken
by the author himself in Damascus.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
..................................................................11
WHY THIS
OIL.......................................................19
A young and simple
woman........................................19
The first
visitors..........................................................25
Visits of the
Church and of the Police........................27
THE TWO PILLARS OF
SOUFANIEH....................33
Father Elias Zahlaoui..................................................33
Father Joseph
Malouli, C.M........................................37
The two pillars of
Soufanieh.......................................40
THE
HEALINGS........................................................41
The first healing
attributable to Soufanieh..................41
The first healing
at Soufanieh.....................................42
The second
healing......................................................44
Successive
healings.....................................................46
THE FIRST
APPARITIONS...................................53
Myrna was afraid
of the Virgin................................53
The Virgin Mary
confides a message to Myrna.......54
TRANSFER OF THE
ICON
TO THE CHURCH OF
THE HOLY CROSS..........................57
Myrna and Nicolas'
interview
with the
Patriarch........................................................57
The third
apparition.....................................................63
The transfer of
the icon...............................................61
The return of the
icon..................................................62
A new
healing.............................................................63
The fifth apparition.....................................................67
THE EVENTS SUCCEED
AT A RAPID
PACE...................................................73
The Month of the
Holy Oil..........................................73
Some reflections
on the oil..........................................74
Ecstasies and
stigmata.................................................79
Second appearance
of the stigmata
and an
ecstasy..............................................................81
It is necessary to
pay the price.....................................82
Myrna meets with
the Apostolic Nuncio....................85
A luminous
blindness..................................................86
Events of
Khabab........................................................91
The Virgin Mary
calls again for unity.........................93
An astonishing
message..............................................95
A 90 minute
ecstasy....................................................96
One year of
absence..................................................100
Let them come to
Me at anytime...............................101
Events accelerate
again.............................................104
Myrna bears the
stigmata..........................................107
Ecstasy of Holy
Saturday - 1987 ..............................114
Ecstasy of August
14th, 1987.....................................115
Ecstasy of
September 7th, 1987.................................116
Ecstasy of
November 26th, 1987 ...............................116
What a
lesson............................................................119
*
Conclusion.............................................................122
* The seeds of the
Phenomenon................................124
* THE MESSAGES FROM
JESUS CHRIST AND
* THE VIRGIN MARY
TO MYRNA......................125
* SCHEDULE OF
VISIONS....................................147
* SHORT
DOCUMENTARY ON THE
* ICON OF OUR LADY
OF KAZAN.....................151
* ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................153
* PRAYER GROUPS -
CONTACTS.......................155
* REFERENCES /
BIBLIOGRAPHY......................157
(English, French,
Arabic, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch,Rumanian)
Note:
Items with a
* on the left margin are new items that were not in the original French book
published in 1988 and which have been added with the full approval of father
Elias Zahlaoui.
PREFACE
It happened in the
Orient. This is not a tale of "A thousand and one nights". It
is an astonishing document, truly disconcerting. We are in Damascus (Syria),
the city where Saul of Tarsus was about to persecute the first Christians, and
when he arrived...as a Christian, overcome by Christ. It is an Arab city where
Christians are many, scattered among various confessions, the differences and
divergences of which emerged throughout history. One finds in it all the
contrasts of the Middle East, with deep Christian roots.
It happened to
Myrna on November 27th, 1982, at Soufanieh, a Christian quarter of
Damascus, Syria: a small inexpensive icon, in a plastic setting frame, starts
to ooze oil, drop by drop, enough to fill a saucer. Myrna is 18 years old. She
is married to Nicolas since 7 months. She welcomes this oil as God's gift. Her
husband had bought the icon during a trip to Bulgaria.(1)
Wise men and
scientists, even theologians, may knit their brows.
Oil? What for, what
does it mean ? We have lost the sense of signs. The post-conciliar ritual
(Vatican II) has suppressed the anointing of oil to the catechumens, symbol of
the combat which characterizes Christian life. This unction, similar to the one
applied on wrestlers, who, thanks to it, have escaped the holds of the
adversary, is today optional and generally omitted. But one has kept the
"Holy Chrism", oil that anoints the priests, bishops, and every
baptized, every confirmed, as a sign that all Christians participate to
Christ's fellowship. Oil is a Christian language.
It is also a
Mediterranean language. It is sign of sweetness, of peace, of recovery. Since
the origin of Christianity, the Church gives the unction to the sick. And
pharmacists administer several remedies in some form of unctions. Some sick
people ask spontaneously their physician:
-Doctor, you
would not have some ointment... was what I heard from someone sick
consulting in a hurry my brother who is a physician.
-He had a bone
fracture the doctor answered:
-That would not be
of any help.
But the patient
insisted so much, that he would not let him leave without an oily ointment
tube:
-It is
excellent! he would say to him, so as to put him in a good state of mind...
before his entrance into a clinic.
- But this oil
from Damascus surely it does not come from Heaven! one may object?
That is what the
police thought, when they disassembled and damaged the picture, probed the
walls of the house, without finding anything suspicious. Similarly, physicians
have pursued their investigation without finding any explanations, as one will
read later. A few days before the oozing of the icon, oil had oozed
unexpectedly from Myrna's hands. The analysis of the oil revealed it to be
olive oil, and the physicians who attended several times the phenomenon are
puzzled, because they attest that the human body cannot produce olive oil.
The unction of
this oil on patients, has provoked healings that physicians have met with
astonishment. Our reason is disturbed and protests against such healing
phenomena.
Myrna lives the
event simply in her daily life which is sometimes interrupted and disturbed by
the phenomena. Would she have received the grace to also become an icon of the
Virgin? Are we not all called to resemble God's image, Christ's image, or His
Immaculate Mother's image? From this point of view, everything seems simple for
her.
The Virgin Mary
has appeared to her and messages were given to her, messages that we will also
read in this book.
She has lived
Christ's stigmata, and received the vocation to share Christ's Cross. She would
have preferred glory than the Cross, but she has accepted the Cross, out of
love for the Lord. This doesn't stop her from being a charming woman and a
tender mother towards her children.
Her husband,
initially a timid Christian, who at first tried to avoid marrying religiously
has, since, entered grace. The Virgin told Myrna:
- I have not
come to separate! Your married life will remain as it is.
The crowd comes to
pray at Myrna's and Nicolas' home. These people bring with them the sick. They
invade their house. The Nazzours make themselves available. Doctor Antoine
Mansour, one of the physicians of the former American president, Ronald Reagan,
who had investigated the phenomenon, has invited them to come to the United
States of America in 1990.
Such is the
astonishing story that you are about to read. The Church is prudent in this
matter. She has the habit of waiting. Even more so since the Church in Damascus
is split into various confessions. Myrna and Nicolas form a mixed home: he is
Orthodox, she is Greek-Catholic. The Orthodox hierarchy, initially favorable to
the phenomenon, has transferred the Icon solemnly to its Church. But the icon
stopped oozing and was sent back to Myrna's house with much less ceremonial...
But who is
Christian Ravaz, the author of this book? Why did he go to Damascus to inquire
about this unusual phenomenon ?
Nothing
predisposed him to this. He is not a fanatic of apparitions. He is a technician
by trade, but also a Christian "in search", one could say, but not in
the sense in which one uses this expression because it customarily designates
critical Christians who put their faith in question, and look elsewhere,
towards oriental disciplines (yoga, zen, transcendental meditation),
psychoanalysis or one thousand other things as long as they are foreign to the
essence of Christianity, thus dragging them finally elsewhere, and disorienting
them...
Christian Ravaz
has always been searching in the direction of the God of Abraham, revealed in
Jesus Christ, towards God's proximity. He has always sensed Him, even during
the crossing of the post-conciliar desert. Our transcendent God is close and
intimate. He made man to His Image. He incarnated himself because of love
beyond reason. To our human weakness, He gives us signs. It is not forbidden
for God to make miracles in this place.
Christian Ravaz is
not a sentimental. He had chosen a scientific career and lucrative one in the
field of data processing. One could discern in him, besides his technical
talents, his ability for trade. Under 30 years of age, he already held a good
position in the commercial field of data processing. He was very wealthy, had a
sports car and could afford anything. Why has this generous man, happy in his
career, at 33 years of age, felt the emptiness of this full life? Why did he
take the risk to leave everything? He doesn't like to be asked about it. He
says that he doesn't know why himself. Without a doubt, because his heart (in
the biblical and divine sense of the word) may have reasons which
"reason" doesn't know. In 1976, he left this enviable and successful
life to establish new Christian communities in Lyon (France) then to help a
group of gifted teenagers aged between 9 and 14 years, surmount the test of
their talents and find God. In 1986, he founded a monthly religious magazine "Chrétiens
Magazine"(2),
filling a yet unfulfilled need: for those who are seeking -as he is- the
proximity of God's intimacy: young adults, people tired of too many escapes, of
too much drifting; humble believers who wish to meet God, not knowing how, and
are on the look-out for signs that God continues to give, today, as always to
help us through our human weakness. The Gospel invites us to decipher the signs
of the times. And there are always signs at every period: sacraments first, but
also these subtle familiar signs that God gives us in our daily routine. These
signs are missed by those who don't have them. It helps Christians who know
where to find them, Christian Ravaz knows it as I do.
For my part, I had
written my first book on Medjugorje just like any other book. I didn't feel the
need for apparitions and a lot of readers of this book wrote to me, telling me
how they had recovered their lost faith. Christian Ravaz knows as I do, that
faith is not evidence, but rather darkness, that it is about believing God
simply on His given word: "Blessed are those who have not seen and have
believed" said Christ. He knows that it is necessary to develop the
essence of faith, but without despising nor rejecting such small signs from
Heaven, that God gives to every generous life because He understands very well
our sensitive nature.
Christian Ravaz
had one more talent besides data processing and trade: the gift of journalism.
His first articles were published when he was 15 years old. As a programmer, he
liked information. He exercised it under all its aspects: radio, television,
written press, initially as an amateur then as a professional. He likes making
interviews and documentaries.
When he heard
about the apparitions of Kibeho (Rwanda), in 1984, he went there immediately,
and that is how Europe learned about Kibeho. We could say that he sensed it. I
would rather say, according to theology, that he knew how to exercise
"sensus fidelium": the 6th sense of the faithful that, often,
discerns apparitions before authorities do, restrained that they are, by
prudence and reservation.
The same intuition
and the testimonies of Jean-Claude Darrigaud (priest and reporter to Antenna 2
- French TV station) and Elias Zahlaoui (vicar of Our Lady of Damascus parish)
have attracted him towards Damascus. He jumped on it. And here is the result(3). Christian Ravaz acts
quickly, thinks quickly, but always very concretely. He can sometimes drive you
out of breath. He drags you in an adventure where you can feel totally uncomfortable
or lost. As a good journalist he takes things as they come; and also as a good
Christian, acknowledges his humility before God.
Father René
LAURENTIN (4)
WHY THIS OIL?
A young and
simple woman
Nothing led to
think that Myrna, an eighteen year old young woman, married to Nicolas Nazzour
for seven months at the beginning of the events, was going to be at the centre
of an adventure that is beyond reason.
On Monday,
November 22nd, 1982, Myrna accompanied by Alice, her mother-in-law, was at the
bedside of Leila, Nicolas' sister, bedridden because of sharp pains that made
her scream. Were also present several women, relatives, neighbors as well as
Marie-Rose, Leila's eldest sister. The latter proposed that all people present
pray for the sick. They prayed during several minutes, when... Let's listen to
Myrna:
"Suddenly
I felt a strange, indescribable thing, all my body shivered, as if a force had
come out of me. A young Muslim woman named Mayada Kozaly shouted: «"Myrna,
what's on your hands?.»
Oil was oozing from my hands."(5)
Myrna almost
fainted, and everyone spontaneously shouted: "Oh Virgin, help us."
(6)
After this initial
emotion, Myrna rubbed the aching places on Leila's body with her hands filled
with oil. The pain stopped instantaneously. Later, the women were rejoined by
Nicolas, Myrna's husband. He noted the paleness of his wife's face, and was
worried. His sister Marie-Rose explained to him the adventure that they had
just lived, leading to the spontaneous recovery of Leila. He exploded with
laughter and addressed his wife in a mocking tone:
-" Maybe
you ate too much "labné" or macerated eggplants and oil has dripped
on your hands? "
-" Brother,
don't blaspheme " said his sister.(7)
Nicolas left the
house and promised to come back later for his wife. When Farid, Leila's husband
arrived, he found his wife smiling and busy at domestic chores. He said:
- Thank God,
you look better.(8)
Everyone in the
household concluded that he could not have said it better!
In the evening,
while praying again in presence of Farid and Nicolas and after Myrna had washed
her hands carefully and wiped them, Myrna's hands were filled with oil again.
Farid and Nicolas were convinced that they were facing a supernatural
phenomenon, something that they could not understand nor explain and that was
totally irrational. Alike their respective wife, they thought then that this
oil was a "sign from God". On their way home, Myrna and Nicolas were
worried, shocked by the events and could not stop asking themselves: "Why
would they have been chosen by God?". They knew that they were no
saints (they sneered joyously when I asked them this question). Besides, they
didn't have a religious background and went to Church only when necessary.
Nicolas simply states that he was a believer, but he thought about God when in
need only! In the days that followed the first manifestation, when Father Elias
Zahlaoui who had come to investigate the phenomenon, asked Myrna whether she
prayed a lot, she answered:
- Don't delude
yourself Abouna (Father in Arabic), I am 18 years old, I got married seven
months ago. All I know about prayers is the "Lord's prayer" and the
"Hail Mary". I know how to make the sign of the Cross and sometimes
go on Wednesdays to the confraternity of the Virgin with my mother-in-law at
the Church of the Holy Cross to attend the service (...).
Myrna spent her
childhood and adolescence between Beirut (Lebanon) and Damascus at the rhythm
of her family's travelling. She has two brothers and two sisters. Nothing
special has marked her childhood or adolescence. She has a reserved character,
although jovial, her face often brightens into a beautiful genuine smile. Her
behavior is normal and balanced; no pathological shortcomings, explained to me a
physician in Damascus; adding jokingly "she is hopelessly normal".
Nicolas is her elder by about twenty years. Myrna's parents had opposed their
marriage, because of the age difference but they gave up at their daughter's
resoluteness who felt a "real admiration" for this young man, she
said. Nicolas, when he met for the first time his future wife, said: "I
liked her immediately." He never thought about marriage, taking advantage
of the freedom of celibacy. An old priest who talked to me about this couple,
at Soufanieh, evoking their age difference had the following reflection: "Hadn't
the exegetes put forward the theory that Joseph was Mary's elder by 20 to 25
years?"
Myrna and Nicolas have
two children: a daughter called Myriam and a boy called Jean-Emmanuel. I
attended Myriam's baptism, celebrated on July 15th, 1987, by Father
Michel Farah, of the Greek-orthodox rite, one of the first witnesses of the
Soufanieh phenomenon, and who answered the call to priesthood then. Myriam, of
whom we will talk about later, is a gracious little girl, full of life, who
distributes hugs and kisses to all with her little hands, as soon as she hears
Jesus' name.
Our young couple
was not, at the very least, a "pillar of the Church." But they were
sincere believers, the same as is most of our younger generation today. Let's
review this problem for a minute.
Only an obtuse
mind can be unaware of the spur of pains of all kinds that we live today:
despair, anguish, hate, violence and solitude. The international dramas that
defray the chronicles, are only the tip of the iceberg while many personal
dramas have become commonplace. Haven't we sufficiently experienced these
"modernistic solutions" some of which are very generous, and which
wipe themselves clean quickly and are inefficient in the short term? We say:
"Outside Truth, there is no Salvation!" More than ever, that popular
common saying imposes itself as "the only" solution.
Few things invite
our contemporaries to turn themselves towards God. Paradoxically, the seeking
of the Truth is probably more intense than in the past, particularly with the
younger generations. They largely disregard the Truth without seeing it, and
get lost in the accommodating speeches of sects and in cheap and junky spiritualities.
If they are not
recruited by these harmful proselytes, they return to feel the solitude of
temporary loves, the boredom of modernistic spectacles and the gloomy appeal of
the ephemeral fashions. Does one offer them something else that is accessible?
Would it be
unreasonable and illusory to think that God cannot intervene directly?
To doubt it, would mean to doubt the absolute love that our Creator has for us.
Only a heart of stone would refuse to consider this mad hypothesis.
In the order of
grace, God intervenes differently depending on the times. Be it in times of
aridity, of times of darkness or times of profusion. Given the urgency of our
times, God intervenes today with a precipitation and density that humanity has,
for sure, not yet lived since His advent. The effects of His mercy, with their signs,
so subtle in the past, are today more than ever visible and identifiable. A
priest convinced about Soufanieh, in Damascus, told me without exaggerating:
"It is sheer provocation." Myrna, her friends and family were
"provoked". The aftermath of this provocation is already spreading
throughout the planet. His only goal is to allow the largest number to adhere
to the only "Truth" that is Love, without which the human being
cannot bloom and discover serenely the "reasons to live."
Facing the
phenomena that they had just lived, Myrna and Nicolas were very concerned, but
they began little by little to give way to the idea that "God, is maybe
asking something from them." Myrna was praying as such:
- My God, what
is this oil? I know that it is of divine strength, but why have You chosen me,
so weak, whereas thousands deserve more this grace than I do? In spite of
everything, Thy will be done. Now, I offer you my actions, my fatigues, my
pains, my sufferings and my joys, so that nothing interferes in my veneration
for You. Oh God, I put in You all my hope, because I fear my weakness. Steer me
away from any action that You do not want...(9)
What
thanksgivings! Isn't this what faith is all about? Our young bridegrooms, are,
since that day, living a fabulous adventure. They are witnesses and recipients
of facts which, at the very least are astonishing. They will alternately live
in anguish, then in serenity, then in doubt, then re-assured, then in pain, and
finally in joy. A true "road that leads to faith" somewhat
precipitated, but yet so easy to admit its necessity, for them and for us, if
we welcome the opportunity.
The First
Visitors
On November 25th,
Myrna's mother having learned about Leila's recovery, reminded her daughter,
with a little reproach in her voice, that she also was suffering very much from
the spinal column and asked her to pray for her. In the family's presence,
Myrna prayed while holding a wad of dry cotton in her hand. Again oil appeared
on her hands and dampened the cotton. Myrna, applied the piece of cotton on her
mother's back, and since then, the dorsal pains have vanished.
The following day,
Nicolas proposed that all the family observe a day of fasting, as a
thanksgiving in order to express gratitude to God for this oil. The proposition
was welcomed by all the family.
During a trip to Sofia,
Bulgaria, Nicolas had bought ten small replicas of an icon of the Virgin Mary
and of Christ Child framed in cheap plastic ivory imitation. He gave them as
gifts to seven homes of the family. This small reproduction of the icon, of
negligible value, will be known in the years to come by millions of Christians
throughout the world.
On November 27th,
while Myrna was going about her domestic tasks, her eyes notice the two icons
placed side by side. The first one, in wood, is very beautiful, it replicates
an icon of the XVth century. The second is one of the ten small reproductions
bought in Sofia. Myrna notices that the latter is very shiny, she takes it in
her hands and notices that droplets of oil are forming on the glass cover that
protects the reproduction. She is astonished. Once the surprise effect is past,
she runs towards her husband. Nicolas doesn't believe his eyes, he trembles for
a moment, and almost faints.
He takes the small
icon from Myrna's hands and places it on a little decorative plate so that the
oil doesn't fall on the ground. Quickly the plate fills with oil. (10)
He then places the
icon in a large silvery tray. Myrna and Nicolas kneel down, petrified, not
knowing what to do.
- "How can
oil flow so abundantly out of a picture printed on plain paper?" they would ask themselves.
Nicolas decides to
bring over the remainder of his family. Myrna has remained alone, she is
afraid.
What is it?(11) Suddenly, she hears a
woman's voice:
- My daughter
Mary, don't fear, I am with you. Open the doors, don't deprive anyone from my
sight (...)(12)
Nicolas returns
with several parents and friends. He is afraid of the aftermath of this new
demonstration that he can't explain and demands from all the people present to
keep the secret and to repulse the curious. Myrna interrupts him:
-No Nicolas, I
heard a woman's voice telling me to open the doors and not to deprive anyone
from her sight (...)(13)
Nicolas agreed on
the spot to his wife's request and opened the doors of their home. And the
first visitors arrived. Almost fifteen years have gone by and thousands of
visitors have since come in the modest house of Soufanieh to pray, among them
many priests and several bishops.
Visits by the
Church and by the Police
Having started on
Saturday, November 27th, 1982, these visits have not stopped to this
day. The small house of Soufanieh will even become a place of pilgrimage
as subsequently requested by the Virgin Mary in a "message."
The young couple
have made the sacrifice of their private life in total freedom and total
gratuity. Since the first days, they had placed a sign in the entrance of their
home: "the inhabitants of this house refuse any offering and will not
accept any donation whatsoever." I was a witness of this gratuity. To
illustrate it, I propose to you a small anecdote. Father Elias Zahlaoui, at the
time of my return to France on July 25th, 1987, had confided to me
several letters to mail out from Paris in order to expedite their delivery,
since mail between Syria and the West can take quite some time. The envelopes
were not sealed and when the custom officer opened them for inspection, you
should have seen his surprise when he took out from some of the envelopes small
pieces of cotton in little nylon bags, also some money and cheques. To tell you
that the Customs officer looked at me with interrogatory eyes would be a
euphemism. I hastened to read to him one of the letters (I had never done so
before - my mother had raised me well), indeed I could not affirm to the Custom
officer that I was not aware of the contents of the envelopes, this would have
aggravated my case significantly! I explained to him that some Frenchmen had
offered money to get a small piece of cotton filled with oil from the icon of
Soufanieh and that the money was being returned to them. Custom officers around
the world are used to hear weird and wonderful stories, however, seeing the
face of this customs-officer in Damascus listen to my explanations, I am sure
that he will never forget me again. He opened one of the nylon bags, felt and
smelled the cotton pad, then put back everything upside down in my bag. Did he
benefit from a special grace! Anyhow, he made me a sign to go through (without
looking at the remainder of the contents of my luggage) and I didn't have to
face the offense of exporting illegal funds from Syria !!!
The Nazzour family
is not rich but is not poor. Nicolas has worked several years in Europe and
accumulated some savings. Their house is moderately furnished. I would say that
they have a status of life equal to the one of middle class Frenchmen.
But, what
surprised me mostly is the constant availability of this family. Would you
accept visitors at any time of day in your house? Would you accept daily
crowded prayer service in your home at 18:00? Would you accept, as a young
married couple, to give your bed regularly to patients, to invalids, to spend
the night on the sofa in the living room? Myrna and Nicolas accept such
servitude with a smile.
All the family agreed
on the necessity to inform the Church authorities about these phenomena. Myrna
belongs to the Greek-Melkite Catholic rite and Nicolas to the Antiochian
Greek-Orthodox rite.
In the
Middle-East, the woman adheres automatically to the religion of her husband.
Therefore the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate was informed. His Grace, Msgr Boulos
Pandeli, accompanied by two priests, arrived quickly at the house on Saturday,
November 27th, 1982. They knelt with Myrna and prayed. Again oil
appeared on Myrna's hands. The bishop expressed his emotion, since in his
heart, he had asked for a sign showing the presence of the Virgin Mary!(14) When the prelate was
about to leave and Myrna wanted to kiss his hands, he refused and told her:
"No, my daughter, we should be blessed by you." Myrna exploded
in tears while saying (...)"This is something that I don't
deserve"(15).
The young woman never veered from this natural simplicity.
On Sunday,
November 28th, 1982, things could have become tricky. The family
received the visit of the State Security. The news of the phenomenon spread
across Damascus like a trail of gunpowder. During these agitated times in Syria
and because of the economic crisis, necessitating the setting up of a
considerable police network, some thought, with reason that "this was not
the time to attract attention!"
When police
officer Akram Abboud entered the house in order to make his investigation, Mrs.
Chahade Hanoun was explaining to Myrna how to pray the rosary, several people
having expressed the wish that it be recited before the icon.
The security
officer, after having completed his report took some photos. Later, in the
afternoon, he came back accompanied by three colleagues and a physician, doctor
Saliba Abdel Ahad.
At first, they
asked Myrna to wash her hands with soap in front of them and then to wipe her
hands in the white paper handkerchiefs that they supplied her with. Having returned
in the living room, the four agents surrounded the young woman while the
physician stood before her. They asked her to pray, which she promptly did.
Wasn't this the time for God to intervene? Myrna's Hands were covered with oil.
Doctor Saliba
rubbed the palm of Myrna hands, and for a long time observed the oozing of oil.
-What do you
think doctor?
said one of the agents. The doctor pointed his finger to the heavens while
saying:
-This is God's
work.
One of the agents
asked the family for permission to disassemble the icon, since there was a
rumor that the icon was fueled with oil through small pipes. The agent examined
carefully the wall, removed the small reproduction from its protective plastic
setting. Accidentally, he tore the top right corner (see cover photo).
Immediately oil oozed from the small picture. The agent quivered. He placed the
image in its original setting, prayed a moment then they all left. From that
day, the small house of Soufanieh will welcome members of the government and of
the army, no longer for investigation, but for prayer.
In the evening,
around 19:00, Father Elias Zahlaoui, vicar of the Greek-Catholic parish of Our
Lady of Damascus Church, arrived.
THE TWO PILLARS OF
SOUFANIEH
Father Elias
Zahlaoui
Father Elias
Zahlaoui is about sixty years of age, he is a well-known academic and an
appreciated personality in Damascus. He is the vicar of Our Lady of Damascus
parish (Greek-Catholic rite), he enjoys the confidence and esteem of his
bishop. Father Zahlaoui is a nice and jovial man who expends himself completely
in all the activities that he undertakes, he is a man of "good deeds"
and he has several happy initiatives to his credit.
On November 27th,
1982, he received three times, one after the other, the visit of several
members of the parochial choir of which he is the founder and organizer; the
latter invited him to visit Soufanieh, in order to get his opinion. The first
two times he refused categorically, prejudiced since his childhood of
supposedly supernatural events that had no value but to attract jeers and
gibes. But because of the insistence of these young persons, all known to be
serious and balanced people, he decided to go to Soufanieh, only "to
please them" he told me. Around 19:00, the young group arrives at
Soufanieh; with some difficulty they pave themselves a path through the crowd
which was in front of the house. Father Elias Zahlaoui is brought to the young
Nazzour couple's room. The first impression that he has noted in his diary was
the dense prayer atmosphere in the house, that still remains the main
characteristic of Soufanieh, beyond the many supernatural phenomena. Father
Pierre Boz, journalist of Radio Notre-Dame in France and who was one of the
first Western journalists to publicly speak on the events of Soufanieh, which
he had visited in mid-July 1984, had noticed the depth of the piety in the
house and reported in one of his broadcasts: "Rare are the churches
where one encounters such faith."
As soon as Father
Zahlaoui entered the room, he asked to see the icon. When approaching it, he
noticed something that looked like tears flowing slowly on the plastic covering
the small icon. He asked for a small piece of cotton moistened with oil.
Someone granted his request, he placed it in a small nylon bag. Similarly,
several small pieces of cotton moistened with the oil were placed in small
nylon bags and given to the young people who came with Father Zahlaoui. Father
Zahlaoui joined the prayer group and a few minutes later noticed that the palm
of his right hand was filled with oil, he ensured later that the nylon bag was
not pierced.
At the end of the
hymn, Father Zahlaoui was taken to the lounge, he asked to converse with Myrna.
Being a person of experience in human relations, he wanted to feel the
sincerity and the honesty of the young woman.
As a modern
Churchman, he had no inclinations for these kinds of events, however, in his
diary he notes the following impressions at the end of that conversation:
"These people were sincere and awe-struck by what happened under their
eyes."
Another fact
challenged Father Zahlaoui that day. While he conversed with Myrna, her sister
Lina entered the room and made him an unusual request:
- Father, could
you come in Myrna's room with Myrna to pray, because the oil has stopped oozing
from the picture?
At first, Father
Zahlaoui is tempted to escape, but accepts to get close to the icon: he is
terrorized; indeed this demand was strange in the very least. This reminds me
that fifteen years ago, with some young friends, we had provoked the surprise
and stupefaction of priests whom we merely asked for their prayers or their
blessing, in order to obtain some cure, thus inspiring ourselves from the
Charismatic Renewal with which we were familiar via the United States and
Canada. Of course they were disappointed, but, seeing our determination and
ingenuity, they could not refuse us. We obtained so many graces through them!
In particular, one of them was the love of "the Priest" at times when
we didn't understand the man who sometimes gave us the impression that he is
not fully convinced of God's strength and of the graces linked to his ministry.
Father Zahlaoui
knelt behind Myrna facing the icon. While he was praying silently for several
minutes, he heard the young woman pronouncing a personal prayer:
- Oh Virgin,
You are the source.. People come for You, not for me... don't allow the oil to
ooze from my hands and stop from Your picture...Virgin, You are the source...
Don't permit that the oil stops oozing from Your picture...
Father was
surprised by the innocence and depth of this prayer. He continued to observe
Myrna, who, without turning around, told him:
- I feel that
the Virgin has penetrated inside me.
Father shivered
when he heard the young woman's affirmation that he didn't quite understand.
This is when he saw oil appear abundantly on Myrna's palms and fingers, forming
bubbles, as if it were boiling. Drops built up all over again on the glass
cover of the icon.
Father Zahlaoui
was dismayed, incapable of making a decision; he told me: "I felt in
another world."
The same evening
he was anxious to report these facts to his bishop, Msgr Francois Abou-Mokh,
who listened attentively and ended the interview by saying:
- Pursue your observation
Father Elias, but I don't need to recommend to you to be prudent.
In the following
days, the prayer program is more organized. The Acathist hymn and the rosary
are the most frequent prayers at Soufanieh. However, time is allotted for
personal or spontaneous prayers. In addition to the innumerable titles and
supplications to the Virgin Mary in the Acathist prayers, some more have been
added, the most frequent being: "Hail, Source of the Holy Oil"
to which has also been added after the first healings: "... which
brings about the healing".
Father Elias
Zahlaoui wanted the phenomenon observed by as many people as possible, and in
particular by scientists, priests and nuns. The first religious community that
accepted to go to Soufanieh was the "Sisters of Our-Lady of Perpetual
Help"; all the community came, led by its superior general, Mother
Monique Battikha.
Father Joseph
Malouli
Father Joseph
Malouli is a robust octogenarian who enjoys a good health which is envied by many
young men. At the time of my interview, I had a hard time keeping up with his
walking pace in the streets of Damascus. He is an uncommon prominent
personality in Damascus. He had been a professor at the Lazarist College of Bab
Touma in Damascus during twenty-seven years. He is very popular with the
thousands of his former pupils for... his severity. A rock-solid man. "In
one piece" says the popular language, often hiding a "soft"
heart that only children know how to discover. I understood it even more after
seeing the desire of his ancient expatriate pupils in Europe or in the United
States, to visit him whenever they spend their vacations back home. I could
have attended one of his masses, his way of celebrating the mass is quite
revealing. Behind his rough character, hides a deep piety, a special devotion
for the Virgin Mary and a genuine love for Mankind. What strikes me more, is
the lucidity of his faith. It is the harmonious mixture of this dense popular
faith that leaves no room for doubt mixed with a solid doctrinal Catholic
knowledge.
He was born in
Maloula, Syria (origin of his name), one of the rare places in the world where
one still speaks Aramaic, Christ's language. I have had the privilege to hear
the "Lord's prayer" in the small monastery of this village,
the way Our Lord taught it to His apostles. The inhabitants of Maloula were
several times victims of horrible persecutions because of their Christian
faith.
At the time of my
investigation in Damascus several people, including priests, have confirmed to
me that Father Malouli was allergic to any "extraordinary phenomena"
related to faith. There have been several of them in Damascus in the past forty
years, and he had fought them then vigorously.
He found out about
Soufanieh the day the Security Officers accompanied by their physician met
Myrna. He had been invited to go there to observe the oozing of the oil that
exuded from the icon, but he categorically refused, affirming:
- " I wear
a cassock and I don't want to involve the Church in something that has no head
nor tail. "
Two weeks would
pass before his first visit to Soufanieh.
The first time, he
insisted on visiting Soufanieh with his Superior General, Father Farah along
with the Mother Superior of the Daughters of Charity.
He affirms that he
was not preoccupied to see the oil ooze from the icon, but rather, he wanted to
meet Myrna. Through some theological questions he asked her, he was convinced
that there was no hoax and that a supernatural event was possible. Since that
day Father Malouli has decided to come and join the crowd in prayer.
The two pillars
of Soufanieh
Since the first
days of the phenomenon, Father Zahlaoui and Joseph Malouli have become
interested in the events. Rapidly, they constituted archival files in which they
recorded the many events. These two priests didn't benefit from getting
involved in these events... except for encountering problems and sometimes the
disapproval of colleagues slightly prone to admit what is out of the usual
norms of the faith. They are both endowed with a solid general culture, an
excellent reputation and an iron will at sustaining good causes.
Syrian
intellectuals (physicians, lawyers, teachers...) became interested in the
events at Soufanieh when they knew that Fathers Malouli and Zahlaoui were often
there and seemed favorable. If in the future the Church authenticates these
phenomenon, Heaven could not have chosen two better propagandists.
THE HEALINGS
The first
healing attributable to Soufanieh
On Saturday,
December 11th, 1982, Myrna and Nicolas are solicited by the Hanna
family to pay a visit to Samir, one of theirs, impaired with a serious case of
thrombosis. Samir was also asking for the Eucharist. Myrna and Nicolas notified
Father Zahlaoui who agreed to go with them and to give Holy Communion to Samir.
The trio, while
entering the room of the sick, were surprised to see the latter rise from his
bed, kneel down, and place his forehead on the ground. As Father Zahlaoui tried
to stop his gesture, he replied:
- Father, God
exists.
Reinstalled in his
bed, after requesting Nicolas to leave the room, he addressed Myrna:
My sister Mary,
you are thinking of retiring in a convent, and the Virgin Mary doesn't want you
to do that.
Myrna is
astonished at this statement, since she had thought about it intensely for
several days, but didn't talk about it to anyone. Besides, he called Myrna by
her baptismal name: Mary. Interestingly, the Nazzour and Hanna families don't
know each other. Only close relatives and friends know Myrna's baptismal name.
A few days earlier, Samir had suffered an infarctus followed-up by cerebral
haemorrhage that turned him into a haemephlegia. Physicians had affirmed that
he could die at any moment. A friend had rushed to Soufanieh and brought back a
wad of cotton moistened with oil. In spite of the opposition of Samir's
parents, his friend introduced the cotton bowl in Samir's mouth, while opening
his jaw by force using a spoon.
Samir opened his
eyes, reassured his family in tears, asked for Holy Communion, and asked for
Myrna and Nicolas.
A reproduction of
the image of the Virgin Mary (different from the one of Soufanieh) suspended
above Samir's bed oozed oil repeatedly for three weeks.
Eight days after
his recovery, on Sunday, December 19th, 1982, Samir Hanna went to
Soufanieh. While getting out of the car that brought him at the entrance of the
house, his jointly-held hands were suddenly covered with oil. He raised his
hands in the air and spread his fingers, fearing to be accused of concealing a
wad moistened with oil between his hands or fingers. He entered the house his
hands in the air. To everyone's surprise, and to those who knew the gravity of
his illness, he was alert and his face was beaming with joy. He prayed for a
long time before the icon. At the end of the afternoon, he attended Father
Zahlaoui's mass at his parochial Church, Our Lady of Damascus.
The first
healing at Soufanieh
On Thursday,
December 16th, 1982, the inhabitants of the house of Soufanieh received
the visit of doctor Jamil Marji who tried for an hour to prove with rational
arguments that all these events were subjective, because no modern science can
prove them.
Suddenly, a woman
clothed in black, on her knees before the icon, starts to scream. Other people
close to her, are shouting:
Oh Virgin! She
is healed.
She is taken to
the lounge, emotionally shaken, incapable of expressing herself while moving
her arms violently. Her son is close to her and explains that she had reached a
paralysis of the right hand because of a calcification of the shoulder. Father
Zahlaoui thinks that she has just been healed and, as a prudent man, requests
medical certificates from her son as soon as possible. As a matter of fact, he
had them with him: the day before, he had come with his mother Raquille Kilta
to visit doctor Samir Roumani. The priest takes the certificate and doctor
Jamil Marji who was near him, browses at it, and finally examines Mrs. Kilta.
A few minutes
later, the physician comes back emotionally shaken, and tells Father Zahlaoui:
-Father, I
surrender. This is beyond me and beyond any human power, I am ready to testify
before anyone. Let me keep this report for a while, in order that I can
continue to observe this lady's progress in collaboration with doctor Samir
Roumani. (...)(16)
Let's render
homage to the humility of this physician, who came into this house with the intention
of reasoning these people thinking that they were in error and leaving the
house with a new conviction that initially was not his.
Half an hour
later, the district's chief policeman and the commander in chief of the police
of Damascus, general Walid Hammamieh arrived. Doctor Marji had informed them of
the spontaneous recovery of which he had been a witness.
These gentlemen
who are responsible for maintaining civil order proposed their services to the
household should the crowd, always on the increase, was to cause any trouble.
Damascus was then living tense moments and one feared political manifestations.
It is not useless to mention that policemen had strict orders to forbid any
gatherings. This did not apply to Soufanieh. Besides, it is worth noting that
through the years, several popular processions will take place around these
events, some of which have gathered several thousands of people, without any
significant incident.
The second
healing
In the morning of
December 17th, 1982, Father Zahlaoui has just arrived at the house
of Soufanieh when someone introduces him to Mrs. Ghalya Armouche who affirms
that she has been healed in an extraordinary way.
For several months
this lady had to endure violent pains in her right hand. In the evening of
December 16th, 1982, her daughter asks her to go to Soufanieh, but
her pains are so sharp that she is unable to comply with the request, but asks
instead for a piece of cotton impregnated with oil, which is granted. In the
evening, before going to bed, she slips the cotton in her nightgown's sleeve,
and after having prayed, she falls asleep. Mrs. Armouche affirms that in the
night, she dreamed that a beautiful lady was pushing her shoulder while telling
her:
- Stand up,
your pains are gone !
As a matter of
fact, the next day, her pains had gone. In the evening of December 27th,
1982, Father Zahlaoui solicited an interview with Mrs. Armouche's physician:
doctor Toutounji. Immediately the priest asks the practitioner's opinion on the
foreseeable evolution of the illness of his patient while presenting him with
an X-ray taken two and a-half months earlier:
- The poor
woman is condemned to paralysis.
- Will it be
possible to make an artificial joint?
- Here, no. But
if these people are wealthy, she may be operated on in Europe. Anyway, ask her
to come and see me tomorrow.
- I think that
she doesn't need your services anymore doctor, some other physician has healed
her.
- What are you
saying Father?
- The Virgin
Mary has healed her, doctor!
On Tuesday,
December 28th, 1982, doctor Toutounji performed a new X-ray followed
by a check-up. He observed that the calcification, since the previous X-ray,
had increased in volume, therefore full recovery could not be confirmed.
Besides, the physician made us observe that his patient didn't recover the
total mobility of her hand. To this day, the pain hasn't come back and the
calcification is static. Contrarily to other healings at Soufanieh, with
complete disappearance of the illness or the infirmity, here, one notes the
disappearance of the paralysis and pain, although the calcification is present.
Successive
healings
The number of
healings is so important that a medical and an archival file could not be
established for each case. Besides, several other healings have not been
brought to our attention. One aspect of the events at Soufanieh enables us to
note that physical healings which are generally considered peripheral in
comparison with the supernatural event, here on the contrary, form an intrinsic
part of the event. Most of these healings were eye-witnessed by many people,
some of them in front of all present, and it is always a joyfully crowd which
cheered God's glory for hours...
The number of
Christians, whose faith in the past few years has been strengthened or
rekindled by such events, is incalculable.
The credulous
people affirming that healings can only occur to simple people (euphemism for
saying: simplistic) should review their apriorism; I can easily mention an
impressive number of intellectuals, physicians, engineers and priests who have
been shaken up by supernatural phenomena and who don't grow weary of
"testifying" of their return to God, some with a deeper faith, some
with living a radical change in lifestyle. A few months ago, a priest told me
about his discrete journey to Medjugorje in Yugoslavia, where he had gone after
listening to one of my audio-cassette documentaries. He came back transformed.
He had gone there incognito - he had removed the cross on his jacket and had
replaced his Roman collar with a shirt full of flower designs(!) - however, the
day after his arrival, without being able to explain it, he exercised the
sacrament of confession during five hours. He spent most of the night sobbing,
kneeling in the Church of the small Croatian village. This priest, who, while
narrating his experience, told me "I have just become converted",
has just accepted important duties in our Church.
The times of
hyper-intellectualized faith, of bargain cheap theologies, of politicized
religion, of institutionalized doubts, are over. God's people demand the Truth,
and It alone.
How many were they
on Sunday, December 18th, 1982, in front of the house of Soufanieh,
on the sidewalk, in the street, in the public garden? Five thousand? Ten
thousand? We will never know. Nobody assessed this huge crowd of Christians and
Muslims united in prayer.
Suddenly, in a
disciplined way, as is the custom with people in prayer, the crowd
spontaneously opened a pathway for a sick person. A young soldier, Mohammed Al-Kahwaji,
carries in his arms his bedridden father.
Mohammed's father
had been struck by a hemiplegic when they announced him that his son, a soldier
in Lebanon, had been killed. However this information was erroneous and it is
his child whom he believed dead, who carried him in his arms to Soufanieh.
Myrna narrates:
"I
approached the sick person and I told him: Pray, ask the Virgin Mary to heal
you. Shortly after, he rose and stood up, initially with some difficulty, then he
walked. His son Mohammed waited outside, praying for his father. And suddenly
he sees his father before him, standing. He immediately kneels on the ground
and shouts with joy: "Thank you, thank you, oh Virgin Mary." The
people shouted: He is healed, he is healed, Hail Mary ... some applauded,
others joyfully shouting."
This could remind
us of the joyful and prayerful happenings of the Charismatic Renewal.
This same day,
Fadi Bahem, a 25 year-old young man carrying in his arms his older brother is
brought to Soufanieh. A witness speaks: "His legs were wobbly."
Deep inside me, I asked the Lord to forgive me, because I did not know how this
person would be healed. But when I saw him leave the house alone on his feet, I
almost lost my mind. Was I hallucinating? No, he was walking by himself.
The crowd seeing
this young man walking slowly, exulted with joy and sang hymns to the glory of
the Virgin Mary. On their way to their home in Mnin, a village (12 kilometres/8
miles) south of Damascus, his eldest brother, a military, when seeing his
healed brother arriving, started shooting in the air in jubilation with his
revolver.
An eight year old
child, Samer Sayegh, taken in the evening to the paediatric hospital in
Damascus for a poliomyelitis, insistently asked his parents to be brought to
Soufanieh. The child knew about these events from the family which received him
because of lack of room at the hospital. His parents initially refused, fearing
a hoax that would provoke a trauma to the child. But given the insistence of
Samer, they gave in and took him to Soufanieh. Seconds after his arrival, the
child started to walk. The following day, his personal physician, doctor
Bernard Khozem confirmed the complete recovery. After leaving the doctor's
office, Samer and his parents went to thank the Virgin Mary, praying joyously
before the icon, in company of Myrna and Nicolas.
But God had not
finished on December 19th, 1982, to bestow upon His children, His
Graces.
Mrs. Halaby who
endured a calcification of the right arm came to solicit Myrna's prayers and to
obtain a piece of cotton moistened with oil. There wasn't any oil available, so
she took a small piece of dry cotton, rubbed it on the icon and swallowed it.
While going home, a pleasant taste of oil came up her mouth. That same evening,
Mrs. Halaby didn't eat, she went to bed with the desire of preserving in her
mouth this good taste. The following day, she was healed of her calcification.(17)
One can think that
these extraordinary healings had been announced to Myrna by the Virgin Mary, in
the evening, at the time of an apparition: "I have given you more oil
than you asked for. I will give you something stronger than oil."
Voluntarily, we
did not proceed with the chronological order of events, a thematic order
appeared more appropriate. Indeed, during this period, the Soufanieh events
succeeded each other at a rapid pace. These increasing exceptional events, are
a positive argument in favor of the supernaturalness of Soufanieh. Would it be
humanly possible to imagine them and to fulfill them? Aren't medicine,
psychiatry and parapsychology, able to give us an example of extraordinary
demonstrations under some particular psychic conditions? These are only school
theories that can't be verified simply because they are not occurring on
demand, in a controlled way by scientists. Twenty years ago, one spoke a lot of
parapsychology, it is still a science in its infancy, although eminent
researchers are dedicating themselves to it.
Doctor Antoine
Mansour, one of the personal physicians of the former American president Ronald
Reagan, whom I met at Soufanieh, was categorical: all known events in the
domain of parapsychology that he had knowledge of, are limited to some sporadic
demonstrations, and he added: "Here in Soufanieh, it is God who is
intervening." Doctor Antoine Mansour was a timid believer, he was
converted while witnessing these miraculous events. In the United States, where
he practises medicine, he proselytizes in favor of Soufanieh. (18)
THE FIRST APPARITIONS
Myrna was
afraid of the Virgin Mary
On December 15th,
1982, about ten people are in prayer around the icon to the room of the young
Nazzour couple. This room, since November 19th, 1982, has been
called: "the Room of the Virgin." Around 23:00, Myrna was showing
unusual signs of irritation. Her friend Ghada is sitting close to her and she
holds her hands for a few minutes, when suddenly Myrna pulls them away, stands
up, and hurriedly goes to the terrace of the house.
She kneels when
she arrives on the terrace. She places her forehead facing the ground, for
about fifteen minutes, then she raises her head and says:
-A beautiful
lady was standing in front of me. I understood later that it was the Virgin
Mary and I ran away scared.
She went to her
sister-in-law's apartment which is at the same level as the terrace. She wakes
her up while shouting: "The Virgin, the Virgin." Her sister-in-law
couldn't see anything.
When Myrna told
her vision to Father Zahlaoui, the latter advised her:
- Myrna, you must
not be scared. Nobody is afraid of his mother. It is necessary for you to
strengthen yourself, to ask God for His Graces and the strength to welcome the
message that the Virgin Mary may give you.(19)
The Virgin Mary
confides a message to Myrna
On December 18th,
1982, a few minutes before 23:30, Myrna is in prayer in "the room of the
Virgin" in company of her mother and Father Zahlaoui. Three times, Myrna
leans towards the priest who was kneeling next to her, the latter thinks that
Myrna is sleepy and readies himself to leave. Suddenly Myrna rises and heads
hurriedly towards the terrace, followed by her mother who alerts the household.
Once on the
terrace, Myrna kneels down and sees a ball of light on one of the trees (a
eucalyptus) from the public garden facing the house. The Virgin Mary appears to
her. She describes her thus: "She is dressed with a white dress,
surmounted with a cape with a blue belt, a veil on her right shoulder falling
on her side unto her feet. She was very beautiful. I am unable to better
describe Her, words are lacking me."(20)
Myrna was
convinced that everyone present was also seeing the Virgin Mary. It is while
hearing someone asking "Where is she?" that she thought to be
hallucinating. Unconsciously she touched the foot of the Virgin Mary: "I
felt that I touched her indeed, she has a body like ours."(21)
The Virgin Mary
confided a message to Myrna:
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.
TRANSFER OF THE ICON
TO THE HOLY CROSS CHURCH
The interview
of Myrna and Nicolas with the Patriarch
On Thursday,
December 30th, 1982, Myrna and Nicolas went to the Antiochian
Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate in Damascus, at the request of His Beatitude, Msgr
Ignatius Hazim IV.
His Grace received
the young couple like a father does. The prelate informed them that the icon
will be transferred to the Orthodox Byzantine Church of the Holy Cross (about
500 meters/yards from Soufanieh). Nicolas is somewhat disappointed, he would
have wished that the icon be exposed for veneration by the faithful in several
Christian Churches from different denominations. However, he kept his
disappointment to himself. He did not display his disappointment to His Grace.
He will share it later with Father Zahlaoui who asked him to accept the
decision of the Patriarch unconditionally. The arguments put forward by Father
Zahlaoui are important, and they show that this priest is well informed
regarding the obedience of the faithful owed to the hierarchy of the Church.
Here they are:
1) The
obedience to the ecclesiastical leader imposes itself because it is an
obedience to the Lord himself. As to us, we don't know the Lord and the Virgin
except through what the Church teaches us, as She is in the last resort the
depositary of this sacred trust. Now, the fact is that the Nazzour's
ecclesiastical leader is His Beatitude, the Patriarch Ignatius Hazim IV.
2) The transfer
of the Icon to the Church constitutes an official and a popular recognition of
the phenomenon. It is a considerable plus, and this had become necessary, given
the interrogations that are coming from everywhere and on all levels. Besides,
this was to alleviate the family from the abnormal pressure the family was
undergoing for over a month.
3) Another important
reason that should not be disregarded: the ecumenical prayer. Soufanieh had
taught people to pray at the feet of the Virgin Mary without any confessional
differentiation whatsoever. Believers from all denominations, and even from all
religions had gathered around the Virgin Mary. Even non-believers had come and
were converted. Maybe the Virgin Mary wanted that a prayer of unity be made at
the Orthodox Church which would also constitute an important plus. Perhaps the
Virgin Mary would want all this in order to prepare the unity of hearts, and
especially the one of Christians.
Nicolas
immediately acquiesced.
At the time of
this interview, the Patriarch announced that an official communique would be
issued the following day.
Here is in-extenso
the communique of the Chancellery of the Patriarchate:
The following
communique has been issued by the Chancellery of the Greek-Orthodox
Patriarchate in Damascus:
So as to
enlighten the minds on what has been and is still being said, on what is
happening in one of our blessed families at Soufanieh, the Patriarchate deems
it useful to explain the following:
1. Miracles are
ordinary things for God, even if they do not appear so for us, because He is
the Almighty, it is He who created the laws of nature, it is He who can
override them whenever He decides. Without Him, can anything be blessed or any
healing take place?
2. The home in
which a vision out of the ordinary has occurred is a home of believers and of
an Orthodox family proud of its faith and where nobody pretends to be a saint
as many imagine. Mrs Marie (22)
is gentle and humble and her husband is an active worshipper and both of them see
in God an outstanding benefactor of the home, which has been founded thanks to
His blessings and complacency.
3. It has happened
for the See of Antiochus to witness several phenomenons which strengthen the
faith. Sednaya and Maaloula(23)
remain an active field of God's work. And all those phenomenons would appear at
times and then disappear, thus becoming a usual pattern in the life of the Holy
Church.
4. The
acknowledgement of a miracle is a difficult and infinitely serious matter. To
prove it, there are several objective criteria that can only be performed by
medical specialists expressly designated by the Church in order to analyze the
history of the illness so as to be able to prove, after a period of time, that
the healing has indeed taken place and that it has been realized in a
supernatural manner. One has to make sure that the healing is total, complete,
and permanent, because the Lord does not accomplish things partially. If all these
criteria are not realized, the Church cannot recognize the existence of a
miracle. But in all cases, it acknowledges the favour of God and its misericord
towards us, His creatures.
5. This is why, we
address ourselves to the faithful requesting them to continue offering their
thanksgiving to the Lord of heaven and earth and to stop any exaggeration in
their words or any excitement in their behavior, so that it does not turn
against God, the Church or the blessed family Akhrass and Nazzour.
6. We also declare
that the Holy Icon will be transferred from the house in which it is presently
located to the Church of the Holy Cross, where a suitable place for praising
the Lord and His Mother the Holy Virgin is to be found.
We request the worshippers
not to impose on Mrs Marie (Nazzour) and to her husband what cannot be
supported. May God maintain His grace upon you, strengthen you and bestow His
blessings on our faithful people.
Damascus, 31
December 1982
Signed by : The
Head of the Chancellery
of the
Antiochian Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate in Damascus
(Translated from
the original in Arabic)
The third
apparition
Nicolas and Myrna
were worried and saddened by the transfer of the icon. During the evening of
January 8th, 1983, shortly after 23:00, the Virgin Mary appeared
again to Myrna. From the beginning of the apparition, Myrna started to cry and
she shouted:
-The Virgin is
crying.
The Virgin Mary
said only one sentence:
-It does not
matter.
And the Mother of
God withdrew while smiling gently.
The transfer of
the icon
The ceremony of
the transfer of the icon started at 9:00 on Sunday, January 9th,
1983. The glass of the icon that morning is covered with many small oil
droplets. Minutes before the transfer, Myrna and Nicolas are standing in the
middle of the patio of their home with their face full of tears, holding the
precious Icon in front of them so that the many people present can kiss it as a
sign of blessing.
Father Joseph
Zahlaoui (without any relationship to Father Elias Zahlaoui) has been
designated by the Orthodox Patriarchate to carry the icon. He is going to carry
it in the beautiful Orthodox way, at arm's length above his head.
I saw several
times the video which was filmed at the time on this memorable day, and one can
read the emotion on people's faces. The ceremony is simple, but the images of
the video footage reflect a profound piety such as is rarely seen.
Thousands of
people from all confessions are present along the 500 meters/yards which
separate the house of Soufanieh from the Church of the Holy Cross.
At the head of the
procession, Father Malouli is conducting the prayer of the rosary.
Father Joseph
Zahlaoui carries the icon, he has at his side Father Elias Zahlaoui. They are
surrounded by two choirs, a Greek-Catholic and a Greek-Orthodox one. Behind
them, one can see Myrna and Nicolas, eyes red from tears. When they entered the
street that leads to the Church of the Holy Cross, Father Joseph Malouli turned
towards Father Elias Zahlaoui and told him: "It is a day that reminds
us of the times of Constantinople."
Once at the Church
of the Holy Cross, the precious icon is placed on a special setting, a few
meters (yards) from the Royal Door in front of the Iconostasis. During
forty-three days, the Church will be jammed with a prayerful crowd. But...
The return of
the Icon
During all the
time that the icon was at the Church of the Holy Cross, no oozing of oil will
be noticed. However, Myrna and Nicolas had placed in their room another icon, similar
to the one placed in the Church, but without a glass. The oozing will occur
several times on this other icon, oil building up this time on the surface of
the paper reproduction itself. (24)
On Monday,
February 21st, 1983, two Greek-Orthodox priests, Fathers Kfoury and
Hosni, arrived at the Nazzour home without any warning, and gave them back the
icon in a cheap, black plastic bag. A brutal altercation between the members of
the Nazzour family and the two priests followed.
As soon as this
event became known, the majority of Christian communities in Damascus were
shocked. Reprobation was on all lips. I investigated on this very unhappy
matter but I could not get any comments whatsoever about it from anyone;
obviously everyone wanted to forget about the incident and especially not to
pass on any judgment.
A new healing
If no oozing of
oil was recorded while the icon was at the Church of the Holy Cross, it is
interesting to mention the instantaneous recovery of Mrs. Alice Benilian, on
January 25th, 1983. She came from Aleppo in Syria with some friends
to Soufanieh. She had been suffering for the past thirteen years from a
paralysis of the right arm that was drying up. She was in prayer in front of
the icon, when she felt three times pressures on her head, as if they were
exercised by a mysterious hand. At the third pressure, Mrs. Alice Benilian says
she felt like a ball of fire going down through her head and hurl down her
chest. At this instant, her right arm unbent regaining its colour and vigour.
The extraordinary recovery is noted by her physician, doctor Pierre Salam, from
Aleppo. The practitioner concludes his report as such: "Personally, I
don't have any scientific explanation to give about this healing." (25)
In the evening of
the return of the icon, Father Joseph Malouli has rejoined the traumatized
Nazzour family. The Lazarist priest worked on appeasing people and invited
everyone present to pray. At 21:00, while praying with Myrna, Father Malouli
formulates inwardly this request:
- Virgin Mary,
enlighten us so that we don't make a mistake that can jeopardize your program.
After a few
minutes of meditation, Myrna leaves the room hastily without saying a word. Her
late brother-in-law Awad seeing her going to the terrace where the previous
apparitions took place, shouts to Father Malouli:
- Abouna
(father), Myrna went up on the terrace.
All the household
hastens to join Myrna. They find her kneeling, her hands joined, her face
brightly lit pronouncing words that seem dictated by someone else. She will
confirm that it is the message that is confided to her by the Virgin Mary, in
dialectal Arabic:
My children,
Let it be said between
us,
I have come
back here.
Do not insult
the haughty
who are devoid
of humility.
The humble
person craves other people's remarks to correct his shortcomings,
while the
corrupt and haughty neglects,
rebels, becomes
hostile.
Forgiveness is
the best thing.
He who pretends
to be pure
and loving
before people,
is impure
before God.
I would like to
request something from you,
a word that you
will engrave in your memory,
that you shall
always repeat:
God saves
me, Jesus enlightens me,
the Holy
Spirit is my life,
thus I fear
nothing.
Is it not so,
My son Joseph? (26)
Forbear and
forgive.
Forbear much
less than the Father has forborne.
Once the
Apparition ended, everyone goes back downstairs. During the conversation
everybody wonders: "But who is Joseph?". Father Malouli is
aside, meditating, his face circumspect. Half an hour later, he searches in one
of the pockets of his cassock for some identification. And, addressing the
people present, he tells them emotionally:
- I believe
that "Joseph" is me.
And he told them
about his personal prayer, that we mentioned previously, while presenting some
identification confirming his name, because, in Damascus, rare are the people
who knew it. He is known by everyone in Syria as "Abouna Malouli."
The fifth
apparition
In the night of
March 24th, 1983, everyone in the house follows Myrna to the
terrace, as she has just interrupted the prayer. Everyone kneels around Myrna.
The hands of the young woman is abundantly filled with oil to the extent that
oil drips from her fingers to the ground in the form of a large trickle. A
young man,
named Nabil, puts
his hands under this net of oil, and washes his face and head with it. Then the
young woman stands up, and with her thumb makes the sign of the Cross on
everyone present then turns in the direction of the apparition spot she was
fixing and makes the sign of the Cross with her index in the air. Myrna then
kneels and pronounces clearly, while pausing at every sentence, a prayer
dictated by "the apparition" that she alone is able to see and
hear:
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 One Church, because Jesus is One.
The Church is
the kingdom of Heaven on earth.
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.
At the end the
transmission of the "message" Myrna and everyone present recite the
Creed. She ends the prayer by adding: "Glory to God in the highest of
Heavens and peace on earth to men of good will."
She remains for
another short while in ecstasy and "comes back to earth" radiant.
Father Malouli
assails her with several questions. We learn that oil was oozing when the Cross
of a Rosary that the Virgin Mary was holding, touched Myrna's hands. The sign
of the Cross that Myrna made in the air with her index was to make the sign of
the Cross on the forehead of the Virgin Mary, as She had asked her to do. The
end of the Creed had thus been worded by the Virgin Mary.
A little fact not
lacking in humour: since the first apparition, Father Zahlaoui had requested
the Nazzour family not to mention these events to anyone, fearing new
opposition. Even Father Malouli who was constantly repeating: "An
important link is missing to the phenomenon... there should be a message" won't
be informed about the apparitions until February 21st, 1983. The
secret was well kept by the people around.
THE EVENTS SUCCEED
AT A RAPID PACE
The Month of
the Holy Oil
Mid-October 1983,
Father Malouli proposed that the month of November, the first anniversary month
of the apparitions, be called: "Month of the oozing of oil." The
proposition is accepted with joy.
A few days later,
a new set of events start, that will become the beginning of the conversion of
many.
Thousands of
photos of the small icon had been distributed since several months.
On October 20th,
1983, miss Salwa Naassan phones Soufanieh to advise that a photo of the icon she
had placed in her home is oozing oil. This same day, Samir Zaher, an engineer,
while praying at Soufanieh, notices droplets of oil on the reproduction he
holds in his hands. The following day, the same thing happens to the
reproductions of Mrs. Ghannage and Miss Jarallah. Day after day, the
manifestation of identical cases will increase in an impressive way:
-October 22nd,
1983: oil oozes from 15 reproductions.
-November 2nd,
1983: oil oozes from 15 reproductions.
-November 3rd,
1983: oil oozes from 9 reproductions.
-November 4th,
1983: oil oozes from 18 reproductions.
-November 5th,
1983: oil oozes from 10 reproductions.
-November 6th,
1983: oil oozes from 43 reproductions.
The phenomenon has
not stopped since and has spread throughout the whole world.
This new dimension
of the phenomenon of "the oil of Soufanieh" started shortly after
Father Malouli's proposal that the month of November become the month of the
Holy Oil. Is this coincidence or cause to effect? We will never know. However,
one can comprehend these manifestations when we analyze the message of the
apparition of December 18th, 1982: "I shall visit homes more
often, because those who go to Church, sometimes do not go there to pray."
Wouldn't these hundreds of reproductions of the small icon, which are oozing
oil, express in a delicate way the wish of the Virgin Mary "to visit"
her children?
Following these
manifestations, many testimonies of conversions have been recorded, many of
them from tepid believers who resumed praying and praying with the family in
particular.
Some
reflections on the oil
Several oil
samples from Soufanieh have been analyzed: from the Icon and from Myrna's
hands. The results of these analyses made by specialists have revealed the
presence of 100% pure olive oil. However, pure olive oil is nearly
impossible to trace in its natural form. Basically, all olive oils include, in
addition to the basic components, a minimal quantity of external ingredients.
For example in Provence (France), pressed olives are placed in wicker baskets
and under the pressure of millstones gather in various degrees, foreign
elements to the oil with which they are mixed.
When oil oozes
from Myrna's body, it evaporates slowly without leaving any trace on the epidermis.
This oil doesn't stain. We made the following experiment: on two silk samples,
we poured on the first sample a few drops of oil from Soufanieh, on the second
some drops of commercial oil. After eight days, the silk sample with commercial
oil is stained, while the sample with oil of Soufanieh is not stained at all
and is dry!
The icon is placed
in a small tabernacle in marble and glass (built by Myrna's father) whose door
is padlocked; its unique key is kept by Father Malouli who is very thrifty about
the precious oil. A joke goes around on this matter; "Father Malouli
would rather give his soul than give oil."
Nicolas told me
that one day, he placed a small phial full of oil in his safe, of which he
alone knows the combination. A few days later he opened the safe, the phial was
empty and dry. He later said, "No one but me could have opened the safe!"
A nun from the
community of the Daughters of Charity from Damascus wished to send a piece of
cotton moistened with oil to her sister's husband inflicted with an incurable
illness in 1983. The nun asks Father Malouli for cotton. Upon returning to her
community she shares the piece of cotton with two of her sister nuns. Each of
them helps herself; as for her, she is left with a small piece of cotton, all
dry. "It does not matter, I believe in it" she would say in
her written testimony, and the nun sends the small dry cotton piece to her
relative explaining in the letter the events at Soufanieh. Three weeks later,
she receives a letter from her sister informing her that the small piece of
cotton was "bathing" in oil!
Here is another
anecdote related to the oil. In 1985, a lady visits the house of Soufanieh. She
enters the house while Myrna is washing the floor of the patio. The visitor
cries out: "What do I see! The hands on which flows the oil of the
Virgin Mary are dabbling in dirty water! " Myrna replies: "The
Virgin Mary, do you think She had a maid?"
I now offer you to
read one of the many testimonies written about this phenomenon. I chose this one
because it emanates from priests in Bethlehem and Beit-Sahour, two localities
in the Holy Land that are very dear to the heart of all Christians.
In the name of
the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, the Unique God, Amen.
O Lord, how
great are Your deeds all of which You accomplished with wisdom.
To our
respectable sister Myrna, may the Lord strengthen her.
We address to
you, your family and your relatives a sincere salute full of love and springing
with faith.
From Bethlehem,
town of the sublime manger and from Bethsahour where the Angels heralded the
birth of the Saviour, we implore the Lord Almighty to grant you health and
strength as well as the power to display the marvels of the All Saint Mother of
God, so that She becomes the guide of souls thirsting for faith.
We are also
joyful to bring to your knowledge that on December 6th, 1986, we were invited
to the house of Mr. Mitri Tanass Abu-Aita, in Bethlehem, to marvel at the
transcending power of the Creator, and to see the Holy Oil ooze from the image
of the All Pure Virgin, "SOURCE OF HOLY OIL" that Mr. Georges Tanass
Abou-Aita had brought with him, during his visit to Soufanieh, in Damascus. The
oil has kept on oozing from the image for one whole month.
Hundreds of
priests and worshippers, belonging to the various Christian communities of
Bethlehem, Beit-Sahour, Beit Jala, Jerusalem, Ramallah and Nazareth have come
to visit and be blessed by the Image in question. They have prayed and sung to
glorify the Creator who bestows His miracles from Heaven and to honor the Holy
and Pure Virgin, Mother of Light.
May the name of
the Lord be blessed.
September 15th
,1986.
Signed by :
Father Jacob
Abou-Saada
Priest of the
Greek-Catholic community
of Bethlehem
Father Ibrahim
Khoury
Priest of the
Greek-Orthodox
Community of
Beit-Sahour
(Signature and seal of both
parishes)
Georges Tanass Abou-Aita
Mitri Tanass Abou-Aita
(lawyer)
(signatures)
(Translated from the
original in Arabic)
Ecstasies and
stigmata
On Monday, October
24th, 1983, on two occasions, around 14:00 and 19:00, Myrna went
into ecstasy and she did not remember anything particular.
On Friday, October
28th, 1983, Myrna affirms that she feels in the palms of her hands a
strange sensation as if they are being pierced by a sharp and pointed object.
She enters into ecstasy from 18:20 to 18:50, during which she sees the Virgin
Mary. Here is Myrna's narration:
"I was in
the clouds and saw my Mother the Virgin. She smiled at me and I smiled back as
if She was my sister and companion. She was standing up while I was nearly
crouched down. Her smile changed to severity and She told me: «Go down and tell
them that you are my daughter before being theirs.»" I obeyed immediately.
I saw them all crying around my body lying on the bed. How did I see that? I
don't know, and I told them: "Nouha (my mother's name), I am her daughter
before being yours" and I went back to the Virgin Mary. She then tells me:
"My heart has been consumed on My only Son and it won't be consumed on all
My children." I then came out of the ecstasy and opened my eyes.(27)
On Monday, October
31st, at 14:45, oil appears on Myrna's hands, she feels pains in her
hands, feet, side and forehead. Then, small swellings of the flesh start
appearing in the middle of her palms, similar to that of calluses. At 19:04,
oil oozes again, additional pains and the same sensation in her hands that she
had felt on the previous Friday, appear on her feet.
On Friday,
November 4th, 1983, a slightly blooded wound measuring 1.5
centimeter (.75 inches) appears under her left breast.
On Friday,
November 25th, 1983, at 16:15, the wound on her side bleeds all over
again. Around 17:00, blood oozes from the palms of her hand and her feet, at
the same places where she had felt these pains on October 28th. Several
physicians are called to observe the wounds, namely doctors Jamil Marji, Joseph
Nasrallah, Elie Barsa, Jean Siage, Joseph Massamiri, Georges Mounayer, Elie
Farah. Doctor Massamiri has taken some blood samples for analysis. He will
confirm that the blood he analyzed was the one of Myrna. The wounds will
disappear around 22:00 without leaving any scars. Small reddish stains similar
to haematomas will persist under the epidermis during eight days.
In the meantime,
Myrna has entered ecstasy from 20:00 to 20:20. She has had a vision of the
Virgin who was on a level slightly higher; at the time of the previous
ecstasies, the Virgin Mary and Myrna were on the same level. Here is Myrna's narration,
(the Virgin Mary is speaking):
"That is
all I want. I have not come to separate. Your married life will remain as it
is." Then she had a magnificent serene smile and said: "Would
you like to come to Me?" I replied positively. Matching gestures with
words, She said: "Your willingness to come to Me is enough..." I
tried to reach Her, but was not able to.
In the evening of
November 26th, 1983, for the first anniversary of the
manifestations, oil appeared on an icon and on Myrna's hands. Nicolas asks
Father Malouli the authorization to sing "Happy birthday to you" to
the Virgin. From the very start of singing the "canzonet" in Arabic,
two tears on the eyes of the Virgin Mary appear on an enlargement of the Icon
brought moments earlier by Manual Khawam. The same event will occur twice more
on the following day, on November 27th, before several groups of
visitors in prayer having come to celebrate the anniversary.
Second
occurrence of the stigmata and the ecstasy
On Holy Thursday,
April 19th, 1984, at 15:30, the stigmata have reappeared on Myrna's
body and are bleeding. The wound on her side measures ten centimeters (four
inches). At 15:30, Myrna enters ecstasy until 16:45. Father Malouli is close to
her, repeatedly telling her: - "Myrna, Myrna, ask the Virgin Mary what
She wants from us, so that we execute it."
The young woman
doesn't answer and will say later that she didn't hear the request of the
priest.
During this
ecstasy, she didn't see the Virgin Mary. She saw a high and beautiful mountain
on the top of which there was a luminous "ball" lighting it. She
strongly desired to climb the mountain. The video tape filmed during the
ecstasy, shows the young woman attempting to raise her head. After the ecstasy,
Myrna could not move her arm nor her left leg for several minutes; this was not
observed during the previous ecstasies.
It is necessary
to pay the price
In the week that
precedes the Feast of the Ascension in 1984 (Thursday, May 31st ),
Myrna is anguished and worried, sometimes she wants to rip her clothes apart.
On Holy Thursday
of the Ascension, around 15:30, Father Malouli converses with several women
while Myrna is calm. Suddenly Myrna tells the priest:
- I wish to see
JESUS.
- Why not, but
it is necessary to pay the price.
- What does that
mean: to pay the price?
- Perhaps it
will be necessary for you to suffer, or something else, I don't know. I only
know that it will be necessary to pay the price.(28)
Around 16:00,
Myrna goes into her room and lies down on her bed. Oil appears on her face,
neck and hands. Oil oozes also from her eyes, causing her terrible pains. Two
people hold her hands, fearing that she hurt herself, so much the pain is
intolerable. Myrna screams.
At 16:11 she is
appeased and enters ecstasy. Myrna describes her vision:
- I saw a
mountain, a light, and at the summit, I saw Jesus raising his right arm, while
the other one remained alongside His body (...)(29)
At 16:38, the
young woman opens her eyes, moans from the pains caused by the oil that oozes
from her eyes. At 16:45, she smiles and says:
- I saw Him.
At 16:48, she
re-enters ecstasy again until 16:58.
At 17:00, she
dictates the message just dictated to her by Our Lord:
My daughter,
I am the
Beginning and the End.
I am Truth,
Freedom and Peace.
My Peace, I
give you.
Your peace
shall not depend on what people say, be it good or bad,
and think
little of yourself.
He who does not
seek people's approval,
and does not
fear their disapproval,
enjoys true
peace.
And this is
achieved through Me.
Live your life,
contented and independent.
The pains you
have incurred for Me shall not break you.
Rather,
rejoice.
I am capable of
rewarding you.
Your hardships
will not be prolonged, and your pains will not last.
Pray with
adoration, because Eternal life is worth these sufferings.
Pray for God's
will to be done in you, and say:
Beloved Jesus,
Grant that I
rest in You above all things,
above all
creatures,
above all Your
angels,
above all
praise,
above all
rejoicing and exultation,
above all glory
and honour,
above all
heavenly hosts,
For You alone
are the Most High,
You alone are
the Almighty
and Good above
all things.
May You come to
me and relieve me,
and release me
from my chains,
and grant me
freedom,
because without
You my joy is not complete,
without You my
table is empty.
Only then will
I come to say: Here I am, because you have invited Me.
This prayer taught
by Christ to Myrna is now known by thousands of people, and is prayed daily at
Soufanieh. Several people spontaneously recite it during the day, whenever they
feel the need for it; some affirm that this prayer grants them a subtle spiritual
comfort.
On Friday,
September 7th, 1984, a new ecstasy occurs from 19:47 to 20:20. The
Virgin Mary entrusted Myrna with a secret that she cannot yet reveal: "This
is between you and Me until your death." From the message, she only
remembers the following words:
- (...) Live
your life, nevertheless let not life prevent you from continuing to pray
(...)
Indeed, because of
the troubling supplications of Mrs. Haifa, a blind Muslim woman, Myrna forgot,
permanently so it seems, the remainder of the message.
Myrna meets
with the Apostolic Nuncio
Since July 1984,
the Apostolic Nuncio in Syria, His Eminence, Msgr Nicolas Rotunno, had
requested from Father Zahlaoui a detailed report about the events of Soufanieh.
On Sunday,
November 4th, 1984, the Apostolic Nuncio met Myrna, in the communal
house of the Little Sisters of Foucauld; sister Pia and Miss Salwa were also
present at that meeting.
After a little
while, the Prelate asked Myrna to pray together. Sister Pia takes out of her
Missal a picture of the Virgin Mary that she gives to Myrna. Immediately, oil
oozes from this picture and from Myrna's hands. Msgr Rotunno takes the oozing
picture in his hand, and exclaims:
- It is a sign
from Heaven.(30)
On December 5th,
1984, Father Zahlaoui visited the Apostolic Nuncio and gave him a small
reproduction of the Icon. The Prelate enclosed it in a transparent plastic
frame and installed it on the night table in his bedroom.
It is worthy to
note this delicate and devout gesture from a highly ranked ecclesiastic
personality, which does not bind the future decision of the Church in any way.
The Apostolic Nuncio in Syria asked to be informed of all future events, while
respecting scrupulously all opinions, favorable or not.
A luminous
blindness
During the first
half of the month of November 1984, Myrna confides to her friend Hana that
during prayer she heard an interior voice telling her: "I want to take
your eyes." The secret is too much for Hana, the latter confides it to
Salwa. The latter decides to talk about it to Father Elias Zahlaoui while
recommending him discretion. As a matter of fact, the priest had noticed the
paleness on Myrna's face and was concerned about her worrisome appearance. On
Saturday, November 24th, without betraying Salwa's confidence,
Father Zahlaoui questions Myrna. She tells him about the interior voice she
heard during a prayer. The priest warns her, telling her that it may be Satan
tempting her to shy away from prayer. The young woman promptly replies:
- If the devil
believes by this means to remove me away from prayer, well he is grossly
mistaken, I have never prayed as much as in this last while!
- Are you
afraid?
- Not at all. I
abandon myself completely to the Lord and the Virgin. But I am worried about
Nicolas and our parents. If I lose my sight, how will they react? I pray so
that the Lord gives them strength.(31)
On Monday,
November 26th, 1984, at 22:40, the patio is crowded with people in
prayer, Myrna withdraws to her room. Her parents, the in-laws, Father Malouli,
Father Zahlaoui, the Orthodox deacon and lawyer Spiridon Jabbour as well as
four physicians join her in her room. Prayer in the crowded patio of the house
won't stop during three days and three nights.
At 22:50 oil
appears on Myrna's face and hands and she enters ecstasy.
Nabil Chkeir(32), video cameraman in
Damascus, tapes the ecstasy. It is worthy to note that starting with the
transfer of the icon to the Church of the Holy Cross, nearly all the events of
Soufanieh have been taped by Nabil, constituting an exceptional historic
documentary of priceless value(33).
Nabil is built like a rugby player, yet his friends told me that at times,
during taping, his legs would shake so much that he would hand over his
equipment to his young assistant Tony Wakim and retire nimbly.
At 23:20, Myrna
comes out of ecstasy, her eyes wide open, not disturbed whatsoever by the
powerful spotlights of the video-camera, she turns her head to the right, then
to the left, looks to the right, to the left, up and down with her dilated
pupils. She doesn't see any more. Everyone in the room observes her silently.
The deacon Spiridon sings the hymn of the Feast of the Transfiguration and
remains in the house during these three days that will be for him three days of
profound prayers. Witnesses say that he was "elsewhere, lost within God."
Suddenly, Myrna
breaks down in tears, shouting:
- Lord, it is
too much! She has just realized that she is blind.
She will affirm
that she was not in darkness, but bathing in constant light, without seeing any
object or person, whether her eyes are opened or closed. However she felt the
presence of sacred objects: crucifix, holy pictures... Several times, someone
would present her with various objects, she would only react in presence of
sacred objects. The following day, her husband hung on the cupboard an
enlargement of the icon, she will see a powerful light emanate from it and that
nothing will be able to conceal and will even be able to follow it with her
eyes when it is being moved around.
At 23:55, she asks
for some water and affirms that she won't drink nor eat any more for three days
in order to celebrate the second anniversary of the events as she had
announced.
At midnight, like
the previous year, all the crowd sings "happy birthday to you"
and eats (except Myrna) from a large cake baked for this occasion.
The following
morning, Father Malouli gives Myrna the Holy Communion. At this precise moment,
a very pleasant sweet fragrance fills the room.
In the evening, an
ophthalmologist, Elie Farah, examines Myrna's eyes. He doesn't notice anything
that can explain the blindness.
On Wednesday,
Father Zahlaoui gives the Holy Eucharist to Myrna. Again, the beautiful
fragrance fills the house.
On Thursday, at
9:22, Father Zahlaoui presents the Holy Eucharist to Myrna:
- Again?
she replies.
The priest is
surprised, he presents her once more with the Consecrated Bread, according to
the Byzantine rite, and the young woman takes it. Later, in the morning, Father
Zahlaoui questions Myrna. She then tells him that seconds before, she had just
received Communion. Several people who were present affirm that they saw the
young woman swallowing.
Father Malouli
thinks that she enjoyed a "mystical communion" an event frequent in
Christian mystical history. Myrna pointed out that she swallowed the first host
contrarily to the second one which she chewed as she always does.
At 11:43, she
vomits a small quantity of a very fragrant oil, the odour of which resembles
that of the "myrrhons", one of the liturgical oils used in the ritual
of the Byzantine Churches. The vomiting of the fragrant oil will occur again at
15:00, at 21:10 and 23:15. In between, Myrna sleeps while all people present
are praying.
At 23:18, feeling
the need to vomit again, aching in her bed, she opens her eyes slowly and
exclaims:
- Mother, I see
you!
Myrna has just
regained her sight and all the household is joyful. The Orthodox deacon
Spiridon, sings enthusiastically the hymn of the triumph of Easter: Christ
is risen from the dead, and through His death, He defeated death, and He gave
life to those who are in the grave...
Events of
Khabab
Khabab is a city
of 10,000 inhabitants, at 60 kilometres (40 miles) south of Damascus; it is the
Episcopal Seat of the bishop of Hauran.
Father Zahlaoui
had decided to take a three day retreat there with Myrna and Nicolas. The
hospitality of the establishment, its serenity, the piety of the priests and
the nuns who stay there made it an ideal place for a retreat and to update the
archival file with the past events.
In the evening of
the first day of their stay, on Monday, February 25th, 1985, at the
end of the meal, everyone rises to recite the "Deo gratias" prayer,
and Myrna's hands are filled with oil at the beginning of the prayer. The young
woman is embarrassed, her natural modesty prevents her to show her hands, but
the bishop, priests and nuns have noticed her embarrassment and the oil
covering her hands. Immediately, they went to the chapel. Again, during prayer,
oil appeared again even more abundantly on the hands of the young woman.
On February 27th,
1985, Myrna is invited to visit the sick mother of Father Mouaffaq El-Id, who
is very shaken by her brother's death. Myrna leads part of a prayer session
which she ends with the prayer that Christ taught her during the ecstasy on the
Feast of the Ascension in 1984. At the end of their gathering, her hands and a
replica of the icon of Soufanieh that she was holding are again covered with
oil. In the following minutes, Father Mouaffaq El-Id, led the Compline at the
Church in Bassir. The many faithful present that evening, noticed his emotion
which he could hardly control. At the end the Compline, the priest told the
faithful about what had happened an hour before at his mother's bedside.
On the 28th,
in the evening, Father Mouaffaq El-Id and His Eminence, Archbishop Boulos
Bourkhoche are invited to observe the tears of oil dripping from an enlargement
of the icon of Soufanieh, offered by Nazih Ra'd. That evening more than a thousand
people came to meditate and pray before this picture, among them: generals Adib
Jbarah and George Bdeoui. The phenomenon lasted until the following evening.
On Friday, March 1st,
1984, the icon has been transferred to the cathedral solemnly. The cathedral is
crammed with people. Msgr Boulos Bourkhoche improvises a small sermon to the
glory of the Blessed Virgin: " (...) Last year, on the same day, during
the Acathist, people had solicited rain for the harvest and our prayers were
granted quickly. Here She is today, pouring two tears: a tear of joy, seeing
Her children kneeling in fervent prayer, asking, requesting, repenting and
being grateful; and a second tear, deploring our unfaithfulness at not
answering God's call and our failure to pursue Christian perfection."
Two days later, on
Sunday, March 3rd, 1984, shortly before 14:00, Myrna enters ecstasy.
She is taken to a nun's bedroom who is in charge of the bishopric. The
archbishop witnessed the ecstasy. The young woman had a vision of the Virgin Mary
smiling, next to her was a priest that made the sign of the Cross while
blessing. Based on the description she made of the priest in her vision, they
show her several photos of Msgr Nicolas Naaman, the former bishop. She
recognizes the prelate without a doubt on one photo that shows him with his
head uncovered.(34)
On November 28th,
1986, our friend Father Jean-Claude Darrigaud interviews Msgr Boulos Bourkhoche
for the French Television network. At the end of the interview, the archbishop
said:
-My personal
impression: there is divine intervention (...) Nothing is impossible to God
Almighty.(35)
On February 11th,
1987, Msgr Boulos Bourkhoche and Father Zahlaoui visited the Minister of
Defence, general Moustapha Tlass. They spent a lengthy period of time talking
about the events at Soufanieh. The general is a Muslim, who on several
occasions at Soufanieh, has witnessed the oozing of oil bringing with him
members of the government and various Syrian personalities.
The Virgin Mary
calls again for unity
Returning from
Aleppo, after conversing with Mrs. Alice Benilian and her physician, doctor
Pierre Salam, on May 1st, 1985 - first day of the month of Mary - at
19:42 Myrna has entered into an ecstasy that lasted for fifteen minutes. The
Virgin Mary is seated on a crimson colour seat, her eyes staring at the ground,
holding Myrna's hand in her hands. The Virgin Mary told Myrna:
- My children
assemble; My heart is wounded. Do not allow My heart to break because of your
divisions. My daughter, I shall give you a gift for your hardships.
Everyone close to
Soufanieh concluded that this "gift from Heaven" is Myrna's newborn
daughter, born on October 15th, 1986, and baptized as Myriam.
In the beginning
of the month of May, Myrna and Nicolas went to Lebanon, where they have since
made frequent visits. During each of these trips, oil has oozed very often.
Would this not be a way for Heaven to manifest Its compassion towards a people
enduring a horrible war?
It is impossible
to detail in this book all the various and numerous events that occured in
Lebanon. We will only mention three personalities who were moved strongly: Msgr
Georges Iskandar, a Maronite bishop from Zahlé in the Bekaa Valley, the
well-known singer Tony Hanna and Mr. Rafic Kallab, director of the Credit
Agricole.
On Sunday, August
4th, 1985, Myrna entered into ecstasy during the Mass at the Syrian
Orthodox cathedral of Hassake in the Djezireh (900 kilometres/540 miles at the
northeast of Damascus). The intention of the Mass was for Church Unity and was
concelebrated by two bishops and several priests.
On Wednesday,
August 14th, 1985, the vigil of the Assumption of Mary, a new
ecstasy occurred in Soufanieh. The Virgin Mary confided to Myrna the following
message:
- My children;
happy feast. It is always a feast for Me when I see you all gathered together. Your
prayer is My feast. Your faith is My feast. The union of your hearts is My
feast.
During this
ecstasy, the Virgin Mary answered Father Malouli's question regarding the
appropriate attitude to take towards the ecclesiastical authorities on whether
they had to produce and deliver them a detailed account of the events: "You
will deliver the messages to anyone who shows interest" was Her reply.
An astonishing
message
On Saturday,
September 7th, 1985, the vigil of the feast of the Nativity, at
19:18 Myrna enters her room so that she can lie down on the bed. At 19:22, oil
oozes out of her eyes provoking some sharp pains. Her mother attempts to hold
her hands, fearing that her daughter, under the intense pain, may injure
herself. At 19:33, after taking a deep breath, she leans her head to the left,
her lips quiver, she enters into ecstasy.
She sees a
powerful, though non-blinding resplendent light, and from the heart of this
light, a voice exults:
I am the
Creator.
I created Her,
so that She could create Me.
Rejoice from
the joy of Heaven,
because the
Daughter of the Father
and the Mother
of God
and the Spouse
of the Spirit is born.
Exult from the
exultation of the earth,
because your
salvation is fulfilled.
Myrna came out of the
ecstasy with her eyesight veiled; she will recover her eyesight at 20:15, as
soon as Father Malouli ends reading the message to the people in attendance.
A 90 minute
ecstasy
Since the
beginning of the afternoon, on Tuesday, November 26th, 1985, a
massive crowd swarmed the house of Soufanieh and its surroundings. There were a
few curious onlookers: according to witnesses, there was a crowd engaged in
devout prayer, during which well known hymns and spontaneous prayers were
alternated.
Around 17:00,
Myrna's hands, neck, face and for the first time, her feet are covered with
oil. Shortly after, her eyes ooze oil. She then enters into ecstasy.
For the duration
of the ecstasy, a Lebanese physician, doctor Abillama, performed several tests
on Myrna's body, one of them provoking the harsh disapproval of those in
attendance, he introduced a knife under her right index. Myrna did not react at
all, but when she came out of the ecstasy, she felt severe pain.
As per Myrna's
request, only priests were allowed to remain in her room during ecstasy, even
her family withdrew. One comical anecdote: Tony Wakim, the assistant cameraman
hid in a dark corner of the room with his equipment. At the right time, he
wanted to film but his camera did not function. After several futile attempts,
he sheepishly left the room to inform his boss, Nabil, of his misfortune. When
he later tried to film, everything functioned normally!
Since the
beginning of the ecstasy, Myrna had a vision from Christ and He told her:
My daughter, Do
you wish to be crucified or glorified (36)
?
Answer: Glorified.
Christ
smiles and says:
Do you prefer
to be glorified by the creature or the Creator?
Answer: by the Creator.
Christ: This is realized through
Crucifixion.
Because each
time you look at the creatures,
the eyes of the
Creator move away from you.
My daughter,
I want you to
apply yourself to praying and to humble yourself.
He who humbles
himself,
God increases him
in strength and in greatness.
I was crucified
out of love for you,
and I want you
to carry
and bear your
cross for Me,
willingly, with
love and patience,
and (I want
you) to await My arrival.
He who
participates in My suffering,
I shall make him
participate in My glory.
And there is no
salvation for the soul except through the Cross.
Do not fear, My
daughter,
I shall give
you from My wounds
enough to repay
the debts of the sinners.
This is the
source
from which
every soul may drink.
And if My
absence lasts,
and the light
disappears from you,
do not fear,
this will be for My glorification.
Go to the land
where corruption has prevailed,
and remain in
God's peace.
As in previous
visions, when Myrna sees the "divine light" or Christ and comes out
of ecstasy, she does not regain her normal eyesight. (37) It will normalize only
after dictating the dialogue and the message to the priests in attendance.
One year of
absence
During one
year, from the end of the ecstasy of November 26th, 1985 until
November 26th , 1986, NOTHING will happen at Soufanieh; not a single
drop of oil, not a single vision, not a single apparition, nor a single
message.
This period is
one of the strongest proofs in favor of Soufanieh; indeed, if Soufanieh was of
human design, would it be foreseeable that its promoters can go on without its
associated profits (not only money) during 365 long days? Besides, one should
mention the unquivering tenacity of the protagonists and their unwavering
honesty. During these twelve long months, tens of thousands of eyes have
scrutinized Myrna's hands hoping to see oil ooze from them, thousands of hands
have joined devoutly in front of the small icon hoping for a "sign"
that is spoken about so much. There were also the disdainful shrugs, the
sarcastic remarks and gibes of detractors. The unbelievers were caught in a
very simple trap. As an old man, wearing his keffié(38) would say, praying before
the small icon: "Only God can invent such things!" But hadn't
He announced it:
- If My
absence prolongs itself and that light slips out for you, don't fear, it will
be for My glorification.
Since November
27th, 1982, prayer has not stopped one day at Soufanieh, especially
during this arid period. Will it some day come to an end at this place, in the
heart of Islam?
Let them come
to Me at anytime
On November 26th,
1986, at dawn, the small icon oozed oil again. Nicolas, seeing the phenomenon
anew, remained dumbstruck for several minutes before rushing to the telephone
to warn Fathers Zahlaoui and Malouli. The latter hastened to wake up
Jean-Claude Darrigaud, a priest and journalist at Antenna 2 (television-station
in France) who had come to Damascus specifically for reporting purposes.
In a few hours,
the dried marble cupula(39)
placed under the icon to collect the oil is filled again after a period of
twelve months. Within hours, the news spread in Damascus and its vicinities
(the Arabic 'telephone' is always efficient!), thousands of faithful rush to
Soufanieh.
Shortly after
18:00, whereas the crowd is in prayer in the patio and in the staircases in the
house, Myrna is febrile, and breaks down in tears. Father Malouli takes her in
the "room of the Virgin" and questions her:
- Myrna, do
you sense something ?
- No,
nothing, but I am thinking about my father.(40)
Around 18:45,
the young woman joins the people in prayer in the patio. At 18:50, she falls
back completely without any refraining effort.(41) Oil oozes abundantly from
her face, eyes, neck and hands. She is taken to her bed. She then sobs several
times while saying: "My God, My God."
At 19:00 she
crosses her fingers on her chest, her lower jaw trembling, she moves her
fingers, leans her head slightly both ways while spreading her hands.
At 19:30,
Father Zahlaoui speaks to her, Myrna answers him and dictates the message that
Christ confided her:
My daughter,
How beautiful
is this place.
I shall build
My kingdom
and My peace in
it.
I give My heart
to (all of) you so that I may obtain your heart(s).
Your sins are
forgiven,
because you
look towards Me.
And in he who
looks towards Me,
I shall paint
My image in him.
Woe to him who
represents My image
but has
ransomed My blood.
Pray for the
sinners.
Because for
each word of prayer,
I shall spill a
drop of My blood
on one of the
sinners.
My daughter,
let not earthly
matters trouble you,
because through
My wounds you will gain eternity.
I want to renew
My Passion,
and I want you to
accomplish your mission.
You will not be
able to enter Heaven
unless you have
accomplished your mission
on earth.
Go in peace,
and tell My
children to come to Me any time,
and not only
when I renew the feast
of My Mother.
Because I am with
them at all times.
Once out of
ecstasy and while dictating the message to Father Zahlaoui, Myrna heard only
the priest's voice, whereas the whole household was singing. Her hearing
recovered as soon as the message was transcribed completely. Myrna affirms that
during the ecstasy she saw a powerful light, at the centre of which shone
another brighter light, having a human shape. She heard the deep resounding
voice "of a man" who gave her the above message. (42)
Events
accelerate again
The annals of
Soufanieh are going to increase further again due to a number of impressing
events. Among others, an icon exuded oil while the Syrian general Ibrahim Bitar
was holding it in his hands. Many personalities have witnessed the oozing of
oil, including Mrs. Mouna Mouacher, wife of the Jordanian minister of economy.
Let's mention
also the visit of two bishops. The first one, during December 1986, Msgr
Georges Hafouri, Syrian-Catholic bishop of Hassake who had refused the events
initially and has now become one of its staunchest supporters, writing and
publishing several articles.(43)
The second one, on February 11th, 1987, Msgr Jijaoui Bahnane, a
Syrian-Orthodox who didn't hide his emotion, recalled in a speech the emergency
of the Unity of Christians in the world and
particularly in
the Middle East.
The events at
Soufanieh are so numerous and diverse, that it is necessary to make some
choices. Here is an interesting event: the "transport" of the icon on
March 24th, 1987, the vigil of the Annunciation. Around 23:00,
Father Zahlaoui gets a phone call from Nicolas. The latter is shaken, he
sputters unintelligible explanations and asks the priest to come immediately.
Father Zahlaoui rushes to the house and sees the entire household alarmed and
incapable of expressing themselves.
Myrna's father
explains himself first. He was praying the rosary in the patio facing the icon.
While raising his eyes, he notices a white rod under the icon that was not
present a few minutes before. He realized the icon is no longer resting on its
initial support but rather on another support placed a few centimeters (inches)
above. However, it is impossible that it has been displaced by anyone, it is
enshrined in a glazed tabernacle whose door is always padlocked, the only key
being in possession of Father Malouli. Father Elias Sargi and two other priests
were present that evening. The former didn't stop praying the whole evening,
crying silently, after having noted this "displacement" that is
impossible to explain rationally. But the anecdote is not finished. It happened
during Awad's last days, bed-ridden with cancer. Awad was Nicolas' oldest
brother. He spent the last weeks of his existence praying and listening to
songs dedicated to the glory of the Virgin Mary, some of which were of his
composition. Daily, the prayer program in Soufanieh still ends with one of his
compositions:
- The Virgin
at Soufanieh gathers us every evening, praying for peace and Christian Unity.
Awad was a
simple employee, his sudden deep piety and his hidden poetic talents astonished
many. He died on March 30th, 1987, at the first words of the rosary.
His nine-year old daughter, Alice, and Myrna prayed and sung during long hours
with dozens of friends and family at his deathbed. Awad was buried the
following day. An immense crowd accompanied him to his last resting place. The
coffin was hand-carried to the Church of the Holy Cross by young Christians and
Muslims alike, chanting along the path:
- Oh Virgin,
open your doors, Awad is Your favourite child.
During three
days, the family welcomed condolences. Several people have been invited to the
"meal of mercy" as is customary in the Middle East. In the afternoon,
Fathers Nasri Salmos and Elias Jarjour were in prayer before the icon. Without
any interference from the outside, the priests saw the small icon revolving
around itself, falling and sinking in the marble cupula filled with oil.
Several people
well acquainted with Soufanieh interpreted this event as a positive
"sign" from Heaven in favor of Awad. This conclusion is maybe hasty,
but nevertheless, the event was worth noting.
Myrna bears the
stigmata
People in
Soufanieh expected a major event to occur on Easter in 1987: the Feast of
Christ's Resurrection that year, occurred the same day among Orthodox and
Catholics. Indeed, they had noticed that the years when the religious calendars
of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches coincided, Soufanieh was the theatre of
an important event. It can be interpreted as an additional "sign"
addressed to Christians, to go beyond our human differences, beyond the
differences of the calendar, to pray God daily in order to receive His Mercy
and His Love to open our hearts to all our brothers. Every day brings us the
sad news of peace being dashed, especially in the Middle East. Peace between
nations, between ethnic origins between religions, will reign only if it is
lived and nurtured at the personal level: within families, in our work places,
in our cities and in our churches...
On April 16th,
1987, Myrna is in prayer in the "room of the Virgin" with Fathers
Malouli and Zahlaoui. (44)
The young woman is worried, pacing back and forth in the room. Around 14:30,
she kneels, and sits curled up, her head on her knees. She repeats tirelessly:
- Virgin
Mary ... Oh Jesus....
Suddenly Myrna
puts her hands on her temples while howling:
- Remove it,
remove it.
Father Zahlaoui
hurries and supports her from under her shoulders and, looking at the mirror in
front of them, sees blood suddenly spurting from the forehead of the young
woman. She unfolds her arms and drops them on the ground looking at the sky
while blood appears on her hands. The two priests while placing her on the bed,
notice that blood appeared also on her feet.
Father Zahlaoui
goes immediately to the living room in order to inform as many people as
possible by telephone, including several doctors; amongst which, doctor Antakly
and his wife, owners of a biological analysis laboratory in Espalion, France
(Aveyron) and who were on vacation in Damascus. Father Elias Zahlaoui then
returns to the room and notes all the events; here is his report:
Are present:
Fathers Malouli, Salmo and Ain as well as doctor Jamil Marji. Myrna sings
softly: "so that we participate to His Cross." She suddenly screams
aloud:
- Akh...
It is an
interjection of pain, that is the contraction of the arabic word "dakhilkon"
(literally: I beg you) and of ah. Doctor Antakly takes her hand:
- Akh, oh
Virgin.
In Arabic, a
Christian invoking God's Mother rarely says "Virgin Mary" but
rather "oh Virgin."
-Oh
Jesus.... For your sufferings, Lord. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, have mercy on me, your
sinful maid.
A physician
touches her foot then her hand and Myrna painfully screams:
- Oh
Lord.... Ah Jesus, I beg you, I cannot take it any more, Lord. I am in an
immense weakness. I cannot see my eyes any more. Oh Jesus, I implore you
Lord... I cannot endure as much as you, Lord.
I ask Nicolas
for details about the side wound, he answers me:" As large as the last
time."
Myrna's feet
are one on top of the other. Several times we tried to spread them apart but
she sets them back in the same position, as Christ on the Cross, in the shape
of an "X", the right foot on top of the left foot.
- Oh Jesus,
have mercy on me, oh Jesus.
- I asked the
physicians who were present for their testimony. Myrna speaks again.
- God is the
creator, God-Creator can prove Himself by Himself, he doesn't need any
witnesses. For your glory, oh Lord. We all remain dumbstruck. Myrna
continues with a weak voice:
- For the
forgiveness of sinners, of which I am the first (three times). I feel a nail driven
in my head. Oh Virgin I implore you. ...
Doctor Najat
Zahlaoui asks her: "What do we tell Myriam (Myrna's daughter)? Do you want
Myriam?" Myrna answers:
- She has
her mother. All my body aches me ... My eyes are in pain... My head... Give me
some water...
Father Nasri
Salmo presents her with a piece of cotton moistened with water.
- Lord, Lord
why did you abandon me?.. I don't feel my hands any more. Oh Lord, oh my Jesus.
Sustain my weak faith... Lord, Lord. Oh my Mother, tell your Son, oh my Mother...
Alleviate my suffering, Lord.
She raises her
head and drops it again.
- Move away
your crown Lord. Lord, Lord, Lord, I am not able to endure what you are
enduring yourself. Lord, You are God. Me, I am a little worm (it is 16:07).
Lord, don't permit that I mock of your appearance. Oh Virgin, I implore you ...
don't let people be frightened by the sight of Your Son, oh my Mother...
It is 16:17.
Pulse rate: 100. I speak with Fathers Salmo and Ain.
- Oh my
Mother, those are your children. You are their Mother.
I ask her:
"Do you see something?"
She answers:
- Light,
light.... I am conscious of everything, but I suffer very much.
I tell her:
"If you did not feel it this way, all your sufferings would not have any
sense."
- But pray
for me, Father, so that He alleviates my suffering.
I answer her:
"Myrna, say to Our Lord: Thy will be done, right?"
- Oh Virgin,
oh my Mother
It is 16:27.
Blood oozes from her forehead again.
- Oh my Mother....
my head.... Ah! my head. I implore you, remove it from me. That Your will be
done, Lord. Oh Jesus, I implore you, have mercy on your sinful maid.
It is 16:28, a
small scream.
- They hit
Him very hard. Akh, my Mother, I implore you. All my sufferings are equivalent
to the suffering of his toe.
It is 16:37.
Pulse rate: 130. Myrna makes the gesture of removing thorns from her forehead
and temples, with two fingers.
- Remove
them, remove them.
Blood oozes
from her forehead again. The gesture of removing the thorns continues for two
minutes.
- Pray for
me, remove them from me. He loves us.
Myrna's father
is shaken by his daughter's sufferings, he tells her: "He loves you
dearly, my child."
- He... He
loves us. We... we don't love Him. We pretend to love each other. We cannot
hide from Him. He knows who Loves Him. We are not sincere with each other. He
is patient. If He wanted to unify us by His will alone, He would have done it a
long time ago, but He wants 'it' from us (through us).
During this
time, I hear Father Malouli preaching in the patio on unity. It is 16:40.
Again, Myrna makes the gesture of removing the thorns.
- Akh Lord!
She rubs her
left temple. I propose that we sing a song, she agrees. Georges Bdeoui starts with
one of songs for Holy Thursday: "Today is suspended to a plank of wood,
the One who suspended the earth on the water. "
At 16:46, she
screams and places her hand on her left side.
At 16:50, I ask
her about what she is seeing:
- The
Light.... But I suffer a lot.
At 16:51, she
leans her head to her right and faints. I try to speak to her repeatedly, but
in vain. At 16:54, Doctor Mesmar examines the wound of the left hand. He then
cleans the wound and blood flows again in small quantity. Myrna's lashes are
agitated due a slight tremor. After obtaining permission from the priests,
Doctor Mesmar cleans the wound of the forehead. It is a deep wound measuring
three millimetres (.12 inches). Blood flows abundantly again to the extent of
filling the horizontal wrinkle of the forehead, spilling onto a few hairs then
flowing on the white linen that is placed under Myrna's head. The physician
cleans the wounds on her feet and blood oozes a little bit. At 17:20, she is
agitated, she crosses her hands and places them on her chest.
-My
shoulders.
She places her
hands on her head. She opens slightly her eyes and I ask her: "have you
seen something?
- I saw what
he endured out of love for us.
She answers
negatively when I ask her if Our Lord told her something. I am worried to ask
her if she is still suffering:
- No, but I
am exhausted.
Georges Bdeoui
asks me to ask her to narrate what she saw:
-All His
Passion.... I am very tired ... This sight, it will be impossible for me to
forget it.... I will tell you later.
She promises to
write it, but Georges Bdeoui insists:
- From a
distance, I saw Him going down a stairway, carrying a Cross.... dressed in red,
a crown on the forehead... climbed a mountain.... The Virgin with three
others... There were three women.... They hit him a lot.... After his
flogging.... Yes.... He is flogged before being given the Cross... Someone
carried the Cross with Him.... A soldier....The spectacle of the Cross.... With
a very high voice, heard a sentence as if it is not pronounced by him:
"Father, forgive them, because they don't know what they are
doing".... Three women on the ground, as if kneeling. I did not hear a
sound, it was a silent spectacle.
Another
question from Georges Bdeoui: "After the crucifixion did someone approach
Jesus?"
- They gave
Him to drink. They transfixed Him with a spear. He didn't drink. The last
thing, it was His scream: 'Father, forgive them'... maybe directed to us, by
this sentence, I don't know. When He died, it rained.... Silent spectacle. Only
one man and three women brought Him down from the Cross. The world had become
dark ....A few women.... a soldier.... a man and three women.
- How did you
know they were women?
- They were
dressed in black... The two crosses, I didn't see them. The fourth person was
with the women.
Myrna wants to
rise from the bed, I invite everyone present to leave the room so that she can
take a rest and I was the first to leave.
Father Zahlaoui
came back to the room after making several phone calls, he noticed that Myrna sang
slowly while pausing a few seconds between verses. She will later say than she
was singing with her brother-in-law, Awad, who had passed away on March 30th,
1987.
Ecstasy of Holy
Saturday, 1987
On Saturday,
April 18th, 1987, around 21:40, oil oozes abundantly from the icon.
Father Zahlaoui phones several physicians.
At 23:10, Myrna
in the middle of a group in prayer, vacillates. Her hands and her face are
streaming with oil. Two men carry her to her bed.
Father Zahlaoui
notes these events: Myrna has her hands on the forehead, and screams:
- ..Akh....
Lord!
She moans
deeply and presses her eyes with her two fingers. Oil oozes from her face.
Father Malouli invites everyone present to pray silently.
-Oh my
Mother, my eyes!
She presses her
eyes again. Nicolas and her father want to hold her hands, I invite them to
leave her alone.
- " My
God, oh my Saviour, oh my Mother, oh Virgin, Jesus have mercy of your sinful
maid (...) Lord I am not able to endure it any more, I am not able to endure it
any more...."
She rubs her
eyes, presses them while moaning in pain. She begins the "Lord's
Prayer" and everyone joins her. Myrna goes into ecstasy when we pronounce:
"deliver us from evil" - it is 23:16. Everyone notices that she has
her left hand on her chest, her fingers bent; the right hand is on the pillow,
the fingers positioned similarly to the Byzantine priest's fingers when he
blesses. Her father next to me, prays the rosary. Father Malouli invites
everyone to pray. Nicolas asks that we pray in our heart so that we do not wake
up little Myriam sleeping in her cradle in a corner of the room.
At 23:24,
doctor Jamil Marji examines her reflexes: none. Pulse rate: 100. The physician
opens her fingers which return to their position immediately, he notices that
the wound of the forehead is already healed.
At 23:30, Myrna
swallows her saliva, her lashes blink a little, she opens and closes her mouth,
she raises her eyebrows, shakes her head, then moves her fingers. The ecstasy
is over.
Ecstasy of
August 14th , 1987
In the
afternoon of August 14th, 1987, the icon has abundantly oozed oil.
At 18:05, Myrna saw Christ in a vision. He confided her with the following
message:
My daughter,
She is My
Mother from whom I was born.
He who honors
Her, honors Me.
He who denies
Her, denies Me.
And he who asks
something from Her,
obtains because
She is My Mother.
Ecstasy of
September 7th, 1987
The ecstasy
took place around 17:30. Myrna was alone. Coming out of ecstasy, she broke in
tears and refused to see anyone, including the priests.
Everyone in
Soufanieh was worried: - Was this message of extreme gravity? Did she forget
the message? Nabil, the cameraman, added: "Our Lord must have
rubbed her ears! "
That evening,
everyone left without being given the message as in previous ecstasies.
Ecstasy of
November 26th, 1987
On November 20th,
1987, the vigil of Mary's Presentation to the Temple, the icon oozes a lot of
oil. A French pilgrim group, directed by Pierre Sorin of "Association
Route Notre-Dame" in France, witnessed the event. They will come back to
Soufanieh on November 26th, where they had the pleasure of being
introduced to Father Rene Laurentin also on his first visit from France.
At 16:29, Myrna
asks Father Malouli to pray with her in the room of the Virgin. They are joined
by Father Rene Laurentin and the French group. Minutes later, her face and
hands are impregnated with oil and she enters into ecstasy. She sees Christ in
a vision and here is the message:
My daughter,
I am pleased that
you have chosen Me,
not only in
words.
I want you to
join My Heart to your gentle heart
so that our
hearts will unite.
By doing so,
you will save suffering souls.
Do not hate
anyone,
so that your
heart not be blinded by your love of Me.
Love everyone
as you have loved Me,
especially
those who have hated you and have spoken evil of you,
because in so
doing you will obtain glory.
Continue in
your life as wife,
mother and
sister.
Do not worry
about the difficulties and the pains that will afflict you.
I want you to
be stronger than them
-- because I am
with you --
otherwise you
will lose My heart.
Go and preach
to the whole world
and tell them
without fear to work for unity.
Man is not
condemned for the fruit of his hands,
but for the fruit
of his heart.
My peace in
your heart will be a blessing for you and for all those who have cooperated
with you.
The first
sentence of this message must be explained. At the time of the ecstasy of
September 7th, 1987, Myrna had received a personal message that
saddened her a lot. The priest present at that time preferred not to reveal it
until the appropriate time. Here it is:
Mary*,
is it not you that I have chosen,
the quiet girl
with a heart full of love and sympathy?
I have noticed
that you cannot endure anything for Me.
I shall give
you a chance to choose.
Know that if
you lose Me,
you will lose
the prayers of all those around you,
and know that
bearing the Cross is unavoidable.
* Myrna's real name is
Mary.
What a lesson!
This lesson
given to our sister Myrna by Our Lord is not solely addressed to her, it
concerns EVERYONE.
It is the
essential characteristic of this type of events: we are all concerned. Thanks
to spontaneous confidences or to answers from questions asked to people who
showed interest in these events; a constant spiritual progression is observed
enabling me to put forth the evidence of similar reactions with almost all my
interlocutors.
Firstly it is
the questioning of some extraordinary phenomena which are above and beyond our
reasoning and for which no specialist can advance a rational hypothesis. Then,
it is the evidence of Myrna's happy evolution, of her spouse, Nicolas, and of
almost all who approach this phenomenon with an open mind. These manifestations
could have turned sour a thousand times, as Father Malouli reminded me while
relating me some of the anecdotes. The aftermath of the exceptional events of
Soufanieh is constantly confronted with human weakness. All its protagonists
are roughly tested, 'evil' is everywhere, sometimes hidden behind a generous
act, a beautiful gesture or a nice word.
Then it is the
knowledge followed by the impregnation of the message. It is simple, and within
reach to everyone. A priest, friend of mine, endowed with a vast culture
convinced me of this. He added mischievously: "This message is
comprehensible to everyone and is essential for our faith, except for
theologians, it is too simple."
I was ready to
recapitulate each of the messages, to note and comment on the messages, as it
was asked from me.(45)
I thought that
this was not necessary, as our readers will be able to meditate on all the
messages and to personally understand their real wealth. Behind these limpid
sentences, there is our conversion, the ultimate goal of the visible
demonstrations of God in our world; the same as the transparent water of the
torrent which enriches itself in the mountains with a multitude of vital
elements for the prosperous cultures of the plains that it irrigates. This
message given at Soufanieh, one needs to read it over and over again.
Who can doubt
that 'God speaks' to the heart of our contemporary common human misery, when
the intellectualization of faith and desacralisation have dried our hearts and
emptied our churches. The "Technocrats of the faith" have dried the
heart of men, as the technocrats who conceived the Assouan dam in Egypt have
provoked the irreversible "desertification" of the fertile plains of
the Nile, perhaps forever...
It is likely
that you were attracted by these unexplained phenomena, allow me to exult while
repeating with our Arab brothers: Allah Akbar (God is great)
When Father
Elias Zahlaoui shares with me the last events of Soufanieh on the phone from Damascus,
he often concludes by saying:
"AGAINST
OUR WILL,
GOD WILL HAVE
US ALL. "
Yes, all of us,
if we want to.
The end.
Conclusion
The visions of
Christ and the apparitions of the Holy Virgin during the ecstasies have ceased,
following the last two messages: the one of Christ on Holy Saturday, April 14th
, 1990:
" but
you, My daughter, will not hear My voice until the Feast (of Easter) has been
unified."
and the one of
the Holy Virgin Mary on November 26th, 1990, eve of the 8th
anniversary:
"Do not
fear, My daughter,
if I tell
you that you are seeing Me for the last time until the Feast (of Easter) is
unified. Therefore, tell My children: Do they want or not see and remember the
wounds of My Son in you? If it does not pain them to see that you are suffering
doubly, I Myself, am a Mother, and it pains Me to see My Son suffering
repeatedly. Remain in peace, remain in peace, My daughter. Come, so that He may
give you peace, so that you may spread it among the people.
As for the
oil, it will continue to manifest itself on your hands to glorify My son jesus,
whenever He wishes and wherever you go.
We are with
you
and with
everyone who wishes the Feast (of Easter) to be one. "
Since that day,
the exudation of oil from the hands of Myrna has increased.
Because many
people wish to see Myrna, listen to her testimony and pray with her, Myrna has
received several invitations from people responsible in various Christian
Churches throughout the world.
Her travels
have started in Syrian towns and villages and in neighboring countries
(Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus) then extended to Europe (France, Holland, Germany,
Belgium), Africa (Egypt), America (United States and Canada) and Australia.
Throughout
these travels, the signs, such as oil exuding from her hands and from
reproductions of the Icon of Our Lady of Soufanieh, were present most of
the time. They would always trigger a movement of ecumenical prayers in which
all Christian communities would participate.
These trips have
become an integral part of the life of Soufanieh, further to the message of
November 26th, 1987, during which the Lord told Myrna:
" go
and preach to the whole world and tell them without fear to work for unity
".
THE SEEDS OF THE PHENOMENON
If one judges
the tree by its fruits, the seeds have already begun to appear: the formation
of a generation belonging to Jesus and Mary which prays, forgives, gathers,
announces the Emmanuel and learns to live in faith, unity and love so as to
fulfil the unity of Christians in the hearts and unify the Feast of Easter.
THE MESSAGES FROM JESUS
CHRIST AND THE VIRGIN MARY
The messages
during the apparitions are completed by the messages of the ecstasies. The
length of these various messages varies between one sentence and a paragraph.
Among the messages during the ecstasies, one is missing. Indeed, emotionally
shaken by the prayer of a Muslim woman, Myrna has not been able to remember the
message relayed to her at this occasion. The messages are confided in literary
or in dialectal Arabic. The vocabulary is very simple. The Holy Virgin has
confided to Myrna a secret that she is not to reveal until her death. Often
before delivering the message, Myrna would say for example: "Christ has
given me a message to which I have not understood anything."
This
translation is literal, rather than literary. October 21st , 1996.
THE APPARITIONS
OF THE VIRGIN MARY
First
apparition
Wednesday,
December 15th , 1982
Given Myrna's
state of panic, the first message was given to her on the second apparition.
Second
apparition, 1st message
Saturday,
December 18th , 1982, 11:37 pm
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.
Third
apparition, 2nd message
Saturday,
January 8th , 1983, 11:37 pm
The Virgin
was crying.
She told
Myrna:
"It's all right."
Myrna was
also crying, while shouting,
"The
Virgin is crying!"
At last, the
Virgin withdrew, but before disappearing, She smiled softly.
Fourth
apparition, 3rd message
Monday,
February 21st , 1983, 9:30 pm
My children,
Let it be said
between us,
I have come
back here.
Do not insult
the haughty who are devoid of humility.
The humble
person craves other people's remarks to correct his shortcomings,
while the
corrupt and haughty neglects, rebels, becomes hostile.
Forgiveness is
the best thing.
He who pretends
to be pure and loving before people, is impure before God.
I would like to
request something from you, a word that you will engrave in your memory, that
you shall always repeat:
God saves
me,
Jesus enlightens
me,
the Holy
Spirit is my life,
thus I fear
nothing.
Is it not so,
My son Joseph?
Forbear and
forgive.
Forbear much
less than the Father has forborne.
Fifth
apparition, 4th message
Thursday, March
24th , 1983, 9:30 pm
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 One Church, because Jesus is One.
The Church is
the kingdom of Heaven on earth.
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 ECSTASIES - FIRST
PERIOD
October 28th ,
1983 - November 26th , 1985
Message from
the Holy Virgin Mary
Friday, October
28th , 1983
Do not fear,
all this is happening to glorify the name of God.
Do not fear,
in you I shall
educate My generation.
Message from
the Holy Virgin Mary
Friday,
November 4th , 1983
Go down and
tell them that you are My daughter before being theirs...
My heart has
been consumed over My only Son.
It will not be
consumed over all My children.
Message from
the Holy Virgin Mary
Friday,
November 25th , 1983
This is all I
want.
I have not come
to separate.
Your married
life will remain as it is...
Would you like
to come to Me?... Come...
Your
willingness (to come to Me) is enough.
Message from
Jesus Christ
Thursday, May
31st , 1984 (Ascension Day)
My daughter,
I am the Beginning
and the End.
I am Truth,
Freedom and Peace.
My Peace, I
give you.
Your peace
shall not depend on what people say, be it good or bad,
and think
little of yourself.
He who does not
seek people's approval,
and does not
fear their disapproval,
enjoys true
peace.
And this is
achieved through Me.
Live your life,
contented and independent.
The pains you
have incurred for Me
shall not break
you.
Rather,
rejoice.
I am capable of
rewarding you.
Your hardships will
not be prolonged, and your pains will not last.
Pray with
adoration, because Eternal life is worth these sufferings.
Pray for God's
will to be done in you,
and say:
Beloved Jesus,
Grant that I
rest in You above all things,
above all
creatures,
above all Your
angels,
above all
praise,
above all
rejoicing and exultation,
above all glory
and honour,
above all
heavenly hosts,
For You alone
are the Most High,
You alone are
the Almighty
and Good above
all things.
May You come to
me and relieve me,
and release me
from my chains,
and grant me
freedom,
because without
You my joy is not complete,
without You my
table is empty.
Only then will
I come to say: Here I am, because you have invited Me.
Message from
the Holy Virgin Mary
Friday,
September 7th , 1984
The Virgin Mary
entrusts Myrna with a secret:
"This
is between you and Me until your death."
Myrna remembers
from the message only the following words:
Live your life,
but let not
life prevent you from continuing to pray.
Message from
the Holy Virgin Mary
Wednesday, May
1st , 1985
My children,
assemble.
My heart is
wounded.
Do not allow My
heart to break because of your divisions.
My daughter, I
shall give you a gift for your hardships.
Message from
the Holy Virgin Mary
(Hassaké,
Syria)
Sunday, August
4th , 1985
The Church is
the kingdom of Heaven on earth.
He who has
divided it has sinned.
And he who has
rejoiced from its division
has also
sinned.
I am happy: do
not fear, I am with you.
In you I shall educate
My generation.
Message from
the Holy Virgin Mary
Wednesday,
August 14th , 1985
Happy
anniversary.
It is always a
feast for Me whenever I see you all gathered together.
Your prayer is
My feast.
Your faith is
My feast.
The union of
your hearts is My feast.
Message from
Jesus Christ
Saturday,
September 7th , 1985
I am the
Creator.
I created Her,
so that She could create Me.
Rejoice from
the joy of Heaven,
because the
Daughter of the Father
and the Mother
of God
and the Spouse
of the Spirit is born.
Exult from the
exultation of the earth,
because your
salvation is fulfilled.
Message from
Jesus Christ
Tuesday,
November 26th , 1985
Eve of the 3rd
anniversary of the phenomenon
My daughter,
Do you wish to
be crucified or glorified?
Answer: Glorified.
Christ
smiles and says:
Do you prefer
to be glorified by the creature or the Creator?
Answer: by the Creator.
Christ: This is realized through
Crucifixion.
Because each
time you look at the creatures,
the eyes of the
Creator move away from you.
My daughter,
I want you to
apply yourself to praying and to humble yourself.
He who humbles
himself,
God increases
him in strength and in greatness.
I was crucified
out of love for you,
and I want you
to carry and bear your cross for Me, willingly,
with love and
patience,
and (I want
you) to await My arrival.
He who
participates in My suffering,
I shall make
him participate in My glory.
And there is no
salvation for the soul except through the Cross.
Do not fear, My
daughter,
I shall give
you from My wounds enough to repay the debts of the sinners.
This is the
source
from which
every soul may drink.
And if My
absence lasts,
and the light
disappears from you,
do not fear,
this will be for My glorification.
Go to the land
where corruption has prevailed,
and remain in
God's peace.
THE ECSTASIES - SECOND
PERIOD
November 26th ,
1986 - August 14th , 1987
Message from
Jesus Christ
Wednesday,
November 26th , 1986
Eve of the 4th
anniversary of the phenomenon
My daughter,
How beautiful
is this place.
I shall build
My kingdom
and My peace in
it.
I give My heart
to (all of) you
so that I may
obtain your heart(s).
Your sins are
forgiven,
because you
look towards Me.
And in he who
looks towards Me,
I shall paint
My image in him.
Woe to him who
represents My image
but has
ransomed My blood.
Pray for the
sinners.
Because for
each word of prayer,
I shall spill a
drop of My blood
on one of the
sinners.
My daughter,
let not earthly matters trouble you,
because through
My wounds you will gain eternity.
I want to renew
My Passion,
and I want you
to accomplish your mission.
You will not be
able to enter Heaven unless
you have
accomplished your mission on earth.
Go in peace,
and tell My
children to come to Me any time,
and not only
when I renew the feast of My Mother.
Because I am
with them at all times.
Message from
Jesus Christ
Holy Saturday,
April 18th , 1987
I have given
you a sign to glorify Me.
Continue along this
path and I am with you.
For if you do
not...
Message from
Jesus Christ
Thursday, May
28th , 1987 (Ascension Day)
Love one
another and pray with faith.
Message from
Jesus Christ
(Maad, Lebanon)
Wednesday, July
22nd , 1987
Do not fear, My
daughter, in you I shall educate My generation.
Pray, pray, and
pray again!
And if you
pray, say:
"O
Father, through the merits of Your beloved Son's wounds, save us."
Message from
Jesus Christ
Friday, August
14th , 1987
My daughter,
She is My Mother
from whom I was born.
He who honours
Her, honours Me.
He who denies
Her, denies Me.
And he who asks
something from Her,
obtains because
She is My Mother.
THE ECSTASIES - A TURNING
POINT
September 7th ,
1987 - November 26th , 1987
Message from
Jesus Christ
Monday,
September 7th , 1987
Mary*,
is it not you that I have chosen,
the quiet girl
with a heart full of love and sympathy?
I have noticed
that you cannot endure anything for Me.
I shall give
you a chance to choose.
Know that if you
lose Me,
you will lose
the prayers of all those around you, and know that bearing the Cross is
unavoidable.
* Myrna's real name is
Mary.
Message from
Jesus Christ
Thursday,
November 26th , 1987
Eve of the 5th
anniversary of the phenomenon.
My daughter,
I am pleased
that you have chosen Me,
not only in
words.
I want you to
join My Heart to your gentle heart so that our hearts will unite.
By doing so,
you will save suffering souls.
Do not hate
anyone,
so that your
heart not be blinded
by your love of
Me.
Love everyone
as you have loved Me,
especially
those who have hated you and have spoken evil of you,
because in so
doing you will obtain glory.
Continue in
your life as wife,
mother and
sister.
Do not worry
about the difficulties and the pains that will afflict you.
I want you to
be stronger than them
-- because I
am with you --
otherwise you
will lose My heart.
Go and preach
to the whole world and tell them without fear to work for unity.
Man is not
condemned for the fruit of his hands, but for the fruit of his heart.
My peace in
your heart will be a blessing for you and for all those who have cooperated
with you.
THE ECSTASIES - THIRD
PERIOD
August 14th ,
1988 - October 10th , 1988
Message from
Jesus Christ
(Los Angeles, USA)
Sunday, August
14th , 1988
My children,
My peace I gave
you, but what have you given Me?
You are My
Church and your heart belongs to Me, unless this heart has a god other than Me.
I told you:
The Church
is the kingdom of Heaven on earth.
He who has
divided it has sinned.
And he who
has rejoiced from its division has also sinned.
It is easier
for Me (to accept) that an infidel believe in My name than that those who
pretend to have faith and love swear by My name.
It is in God
alone that you must place your pride.
Pray for the
sinners who forgive in My name, and for those who deny My Mother.
My children,
I have given
you all of My time,
give Me a part
of your time.
Message from
Jesus Christ
(Damascus,
Syria)
Wednesday,
September 7th , 1988
My daughter,
I told you to
overcome all your difficulties
and know that
you have endured only a few.
Tell My
children that it is from them
that I demand
unity,
and I do not
want it from those who act as if they were working for unity.
Go and preach.
And wherever
you go, I am with you.
Message from
Jesus Christ
(Màad, Lebanon)
Monday, October
10th , 1988
My daughter
Mary,
Why are you
afraid even though I am with you?
You must speak loudly
to tell the word of truth about He who created you,
so that My
strength may be manifested in you.
And I will give
you from My wounds so that you will forget the hardships that people inflict
upon you.
Do not choose
your path, because I have laid it out before you.
THE ECSTASIES - FOURTH
PERIOD
November 26th ,
1988 - November 26th , 1990
Message from
Jesus Christ
Saturday,
November 26th , 1988
Eve of the 6th
anniversary of the phenomenon.
My children,
Is everything
you do out of love for Me?
Do not say:
What shall I
do,
because this is
My work.
You must fast
and pray,
because through
prayer you face My truth and you confront all enemies.
Pray for those
who have forgotten the promise they made Me because they will say:
Why did I not
feel your presence,
O Lord, even
though You were with me?
All I want is
for you all to gather in Me as I am in each of you.
As for you, My
daughter, I will leave you.
Do not fear if
you do not hear My voice for a long time, but instead,
be strong and
let your tongue be a sword that speaks in My name.
And know that I
am with you and with you all.
Message from
the Holy Virgin Mary
(Los Angeles,
USA)
Friday, August
18th , 1989
Do not fear, My
daughter.
All this is happening
to glorify the name of God.
Rejoice,
rather,
because God has
allowed you to come to Me so that I can tell you:
Do not worry
about what people say about you, but remain always in peace, because the
creatures turn towards Me through you.
Tell everyone
to pray more because they need prayer to please the Father.
May the
blessings of God be upon you
and upon all
those who have cooperated with you out of love for Him.
Message from
the Holy Virgin Mary
Sunday,
November 26th , 1989
Eve of the 7th
anniversary of the phenomenon
My children,
Jesus told
Peter, You are the rock, and on it, I shall build My church.
As for Me, I
tell you now:
You are the
heart in which Jesus will build his UNICITY.
I want you to
devote your prayers to peace, from now until the commemoration of the
Resurrection.
Message from
Jesus Christ
Holy Saturday,
April 14th , 1990
My children,
You,
yourselves,
will teach the
generations THE WORD of unity, love and faith.
I am with you.
But you, My
daughter,
will not hear
My voice until the Feast
(of Easter) has
been unified.
Message from
the Holy Virgin Mary
(Braaschaatt,
Belgium)
Wednesday,
August 15th , 1990
My children,
Pray for peace,
and especially in the East,
because you are
all brothers in Christ.
Message from
the Holy Virgin Mary
Monday,
November 26th , 1990
Eve of the 8th
anniversary of the phenomenon
Do not fear, My
daughter,
if I tell you
that you are seeing Me
for the last
time until the feast (of Easter) is unified.
Therefore, tell
My children:
Do they want
or not to see and remember the wounds of My Son in you?
If it does not
pain them to see that you are suffering doubly,
I Myself, am a
Mother,
and it pains Me
to see My Son suffering repeatedly.
Remain in peace,
remain in peace,
My daughter.
Come, so that
He may give you peace,
so that you may
spread it among the people.
As for the oil,
it will
continue to manifest itself on your hands
to glorify My
Son Jesus,
whenever He
wishes and wherever you go.
We are with you
and with everyone who wishes the Feast (of Easter) to be One.
End.
The words in
parenthesis are only to clarify and complete the translation from Arabic.
SCHEDULE OF VISIONS
(during the two brief
ecstasies of
Monday October 24th
,1983,
Myrna has not seen anything)
JESUS - CHRIST
Good Friday,
April 20th , 1984 - Soufanieh
(a brightly lit
mountain)
Good Thursday
of the Ascension, May 31st , 1984 - Soufanieh (At the summit of a
brightly lit mountain, Christ wearing a red outfit - 1st message of Christ)
Monday November
26th , 1984 - Soufanieh (a strong and bright inner light that has
lasted 72 hours from November 26th to November 29th,
1984, without message)
Saturday
September 7th , 1985 (message) - Soufanieh
Tuesday
November 26th , 1985 (message) - Soufanieh
Wednesday
November 26th , 1986 (message) - Soufanieh
Thursday April
16th , 1987 (without message) - Soufanieh
Good Saturday
April 18th , 1987 (message) - Soufanieh
Thursday of the
Ascension, May 28th , 1987 (message) - Soufanieh
Wednesday July
22nd , 1987 (message) - Maad (Lebanon)
Tuesday July 28th
, 1987 (without message) - Maad (Lebanon)
Friday August
14th , 1987 (message) - Soufanieh
Monday
September 7th , 1987 (message) - Soufanieh
Thursday
November 26th , 1987 (message) - Soufanieh
Sunday August
14th , 1988 (message) - Los Angeles (USA)
Wednesday
September 7th , 1988 (message) - Soufanieh
Monday October
10th , 1988 (message) - Maad (Lebanon)
Saturday
November 26th , 1988 (message) - Soufanieh
Good Saturday
April 14th , 1990 (message) - Soufanieh
Summary: 19 visions - 15
messages
THE VIRGIN MARY
Friday October
28th , 1983 (message) - Soufanieh
Friday November
4th , 1983 (message) - Soufanieh
Friday November
25th , 1983 (message) - Soufanieh
Friday
September 7th , 1984 (message) - Soufanieh
Sunday March 3rd
, 1985 (without message) - Khabab (Syria)
Wednesday May 1st
, 1985 (message) - Soufanieh
Sunday August 4th
, 1985 (message) - Hassaké (Syria)
Wednesday August
14th , 1985 (message) - Soufanieh
Friday August
18th , 1989 (message) - Los Angeles (USA)
Sunday November
26th, 1989 (message) - Soufanieh
Wednesday
August 15th , 1990 (message) - Belgium
Monday November
26th, 1990 (message) - Soufanieh
Summary: 12 visions - 11
messages
SHORT DOCUMENTATION ON THE
ICON OF OUR LADY OF KAZAN
By: Dr. Philippe Loron
(France)
The Virgin Mary
has been, since the XVIIth century, venerated as the Saviour of Russia. This
veneration has its origin in an Icon of the Virgin Mary which had miraculously
resurfaced in 1579, in Kazan.
At the
beginning of the XVIIth century, after the decisive victory of Peter the Great
over the Swedish army, during which the Icon had been brandished as the
flagship of victory, a cathedral was built in honour of Our Lady of Kazan, on
what has since become known as Red Square in Moscow. The Icon has been
venerated there until 1721, after which it was transferred to Saint-Petersburg,
the new capital.
Napoleon's
retreat in Russia has been attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of Kazan.
After the 1917
October revolution, at the time when three yound children had just been spoken
to by Our Lady regarding the conversion of Russia a few months earlier, in
Portugal, many sanctuaries were plundered, stripped and desacrated. The
cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, deprived of its Icon for the past two
centuries, was destroyed in 1936.
Suddenly, in
1970, the Icon resurfaces: a Jesuit priest from San-Francisco (United States),
also Rector at the Russian Catholic Center of Our Lady of Fatima spots it while
being offered for sale. With the approval of duly consulted Orthodox priests,
the Icon is bought, and then transferred to Fatima on July 21st the same year (on
the anniversary date of Our Lady of Kazan according to the Julian calendar).
The Icon is presently kept at the Byzantine Chapel in Fatima.
There is in
Saint-Petersburg (the city of Saint Peter), a church consecrated to Our
Lady of Kazan and which was converted, under communism, into a museum for
atheism. On May 1st, 1994 (the Orthodox Easter day of that year),
the Church has been reconsacrated to Our Lady of Kazan, and spectacularly
reopened to the cult: a huge cross was installed on the dome of the Church on
that day with the help of a helicopter. A Cathedral for Our Lady of Kazan is
also being rebuilt since November 4th , 1990, with the blessing of
the Orthodox diocese, on Red Square, at the same spot where the original
cathedral was standing.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly, thanks
are due to the author of the book: Mr. Christian Ravaz, allowing us to
translate his book from the original French edition of 1988.
Secondly, the
following people (who wanted to remain anonymous) are to be wholeheartedly
thanked for their inestimable gratuitous help at translating and preparing this
book in record time for Myrna's visit to North America during the summer of
1997: CT, JF, LD, MM, GB, JB, GT and GS.
May the Lord
and His Blessed Mother reward and bless them for their efforts.
PRAYER GROUPS / CONTACTS
NEW JERSEY,
U.S.A.
(English and
Arabic)
Christian
Unity Association
c/o : Father
Samy Baroody
St-Ann's
Greek-Melkite Catholic Church
802 Rifle Road
Camp
West Paterson,
New Jersey 07424
U.S.A.
Tel: (201)
785-4414
Fax: (201) 890-9599
YOUNGSTOWN,
OHIO, U.S.A.
(English and
Romanian)
Our Lady of
Soufanieh Prayer Group
c/o : Father
George D. Gage
St-Mary's
Romanian Byzantine Catholic Church
7782 Glenwood
Ave.
Boardman, Ohio
44512-5823
U.S.A.
Tel: (330)
726-8573
Fax: (330)
726-4102
INTERNET
(courier): Soufanieh@AOL.COM
(lowercase
required)
MONTREAL,
CANADA
(French,
English and Arabic, Armenian)
Association
Notre-Dame de Soufanieh de Montréal
c/o: Msgr
Michel Saydé
955 - 40th
Avenue
Lachine, P.Q. H8T
2G7
CANADA
Tel: (514) 634
0371
Fax: (514) 639
1587
INTERNET
(courier): soufanie@MLINK.NET (lowercase required)
Please visit
the INTERNET site dedicated to
OUR LADY
OF SOUFANIEH:
http://www.soufanieh.com
or
http://www.soufanieh.com
(lowercase)
REFERENCES &
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ENGLISH
BOOKS /
MAGAZINES:
-Remember
God - Author: Father Elias Zahlaoui, 1996, 125 pages. Translated from the
original french book. To be printed end-1997. Available on the INTERNET. ***
-Memoir. Our
Lady of Soufanieh - by Dr & Mrs Antoine Mansour, Beverly Hills,
California, 1991. Distributed by the 101 foundation, P.O.Box 151, Asbury Park,
NJ 08802-0151, USA. Tel: (908) 689 8792, Fax: (908) 689 1957.
-Magazine: Our
Lady, Mary Queen of Peace - Pittsburgh Centre for Peace. Special Edition,
Winter 1994, 6111 Steubenville Pike, McKees Rocks, PA 15136, USA.
-The Final
Hour - Michael H. Brown - Chapter 33, Riehle Foundation, P.O.Box 7,
Milford, OH 04150, USA. - Preface by Father René Laurentin.
-Meetings with
Mary - Visions of the Blessed Mother - Janice T. Connell, Ballantyne Books,
New York USA, 1995, 390pg. Chapter 101, pgs 248-255.
-Soufanieh:
The Apparitions in Damascus - Author: Christian Ravaz, 170 pages.
July/August 1997. Translation of the French edition of 1988. Available on the
INTERNET. ***
-Soufanieh:
the Internet document - 34 pages, distributed FREELY. ***
ARTICLES
- The Eagle
Tribune, Boston, USA, Saturday June 21, 1997. Cover page; title: "600
crowd church for annointing".
- Family
Practice (medical journal): "The inexplicable phenomenon of the
Stigmata", August 4th, 1997 - Pages 47-48. By Dr. L. Segel,
Toronto, Canada. 777 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5W 1A7.
VIDEOS:
-«OUR LADY
OF SOUFANIEH, DAMASCUS», filmed on location during November - December 1989
during the 7th anniversary of the phenomenon. Won first prize at the Polish
Catholic Film Festival. ###
- "OUR
LADY OF SOUFANIEH" - Produced by Dr & Mrs. Antoine Mansour,
Beverly Hills, California. (1hr 45min) - distributed by 101 foundation. P.O.Box
151, Asbury Park, NJ 08802-0151, USA. Tel: (908) 689 8792, Fax: (908) 689 1957.
- "THE
MIRACLE OF DAMASCUS - OUR LADY OF SOUFANIEH" - Produced by the
Messengers of Unity, 249 N. Grand Blvd, Suite 584, Glendale, CA 91203, USA.
Tel: (818) 956-3714. 3 tapes, 2 hours each.
-
TV-Interview with MYRNA & Father E. Zahlaoui,TV27, Ohio, USA,
Arabic-English, Father Zahlaoui & Myrna. 15 minutes, July 1996.
FRANÇAIS
LIVRES /
REVUES:
-« Lorsque
Marie paraît », Daniel Costelle, Edition Robert Laffont, S.A., Paris,
France. 1993. ISBN 2-22107498X.
-«Soufanieh:
Chronique des apparitions et manifestations de Jésus et de Marie, à Damas »
1982-1990, par le père Elias Zahlaoui. Edition O.E.I.L. 1991; 3, rue
Jean-François Gerbillon, 75006 Paris, France.
-«Constat
Médical et Analyse Scientifique des événements de Soufanieh, (12-16 Avril
1990)» par le Professeur Philippe Loron. Editions O.E.I.L. 1991; 3, rue
Jean-François Gerbillon, 75006 Paris, France.
-« Souvenez-vous
de Dieu, Messages de Jésus et Marie à Soufanieh». Père Elias Zahlaoui, en
collaboration avec Bernadette Dubois. Editions O.E.I.L. 1991; 3, rue
Jean-François Gerbillon, 75006 Paris, France.
-Revue:
Informateur Catholique, Mai 1993. Vol 12, no. 13, Édition spéciale (14 pages)
sur Soufanieh. CP 330 Chertsey, QC, J0K 2K0, Canada. Tél: (514) 882-9838, Fax:
(514) 882-9833.
-« Pourquoi
la Vierge apparaît aujourd'hui?» - 1988- Anne-Marie Turi, Ed. Félin, Paris,
France.
-Brochure:
Soufanieh - Messages et Manifestations de la Vierge et de Jésus à Myrna,
1982-1990, Association Notre-Dame de Soufanieh, 34 Allée des Châtaigners, 60150
Villers-sur-Coudun, France.
-Revue:
Chrétiens-Magazine, numéros 11, 27, 32 et 39, 98, 99. 9, rue du
Docteur-Potain, 75019 Paris, France.
-Revue: Stella
Maris , Octobre 1986, numéro #209 - par Mgr Georges Hafouri et Novembre
1987, numéro 221 - par C. Ravaz. Suisse.
-Revue:
Famille Chrétienne, numéro 640 et 648, (Avril 1990) - «Que se passe-t-il à
Soufanieh» 52, rue Taitbout, 75009 Paris, France.
-Revue: Feu
et Lumière, numéro 75. «Soufanieh: mystique sous scialytique ou l'examen
clinique d'une stigmatisée», par le docteur Philippe Loron, 50140 Mortain,
France.
-«
Soufanieh, les Apparitions de Damas », de Christian Ravaz, préface de René
Laurentin, Mambré Editeur Diffuseur, Paris, ISBN 2-9501594-1-9. 1988,- 201, rue
du Faubourg, St-Honoré, 75008 Paris, France.
-«Icônes
surprenantes de la Mère de Dieu», de Jean Mathiot, éditions Médiaspaul,
1990, 8 rue Madame, 75006 Paris, France; aussi aux Editions Paulines, 3965
Henri-Bourassa Est, Montréal, Qc. H1H-1L1, Canada
-«Multiplication
des apparitions de la Vierge aujourd'hui.» - Père René Laurentin. 1988.
Édition Fayard, France.
-Revue:
Icône: «Que se passe-t-il à Soufanieh», vol 4, no 2, Juin 1990, Évêché
Grec-Melkite Catholique, 34 Maplewood, Outremont, Qc. H2V 2M1, Canada.
-Revue:
Icône: «Bilan de la visite de Myrna au Canada 1993», vol 4, no 2, Juin
1993, - par le Père Elias Zahlaoui, publié par l'Évêché Grec-Melkite
Catholique, 34 Maplewood, Outremont, Qc. H2V 2M1, Canada.
-
Dictionnaire Marial, Editions C.L.D. (1991), Chambray, France.
- « Un signe
dans le ciel, les apparitions de la Vierge», Editions Grasset, par Joachim
Bouflet et Philippe Boutry (page 431); sous 'apparitions en quete de salut';
ISBN 2-246-52051-7; ISSN 1264-3416; Paris, France, 1997.
-«Les
Stigmatisés», Joachim Bouflet; BREF, Éditions CERF-FIDES, 1996. France.
(Pg. 112-113)
-«Les
Apparitions de la Vierge», Joachim Bouflet; Éditions Calmann-Lévy,
Septembre 1996; imprimé en Italie; ISBN 2-7021-2635-9.
ARTICLES:
- Une visite
en toute simplicité -par Nancy Massicotte, Journal local du
Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Québec, Canada. Juin 1993.
- Myrna
Nazzour: Miracle ou supercherie ? -Par le père Gabriel Dubé, Journal local de
Trois-Rivières, Canada. Juin 1993.
Mirna - par Michel St-Amant,
Journal local du Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Canada. Juin 1993.
- La Vierge
l'a choisie pour être Sa Messagère - La Revue du Liban. Par: Amalia Sayegh,
Beyrouth, Liban. Juin 1993.
VIDÉO:
- «Notre-Dame
de Soufanieh, à Damas», filmé sur place en novembre - décembre 1989 à
l'occasion du 7ème anniversaire. ###
-«Notre-Dame
de Soufanieh, à Damas, 2ème partie, Pâques 1990, la stigmatisation». ###
-« Dialogue
sur Soufanieh » Discussion sur le Phénomène avec le Mariologue Français,
l'Abbé René Laurentin et le neurologue, Docteur Philippe Loron (France);
interviewés par le Père Élias Zahlaoui à Soufanieh, Damas, Syrie, à l'occasion
du 14ème anniversaire du Phénomène, le 26 Novembre 1996. 1h 20min. ***
- « Les
Grâces divines à Soufanieh - Pâques 1990 », filmé sur place durant la
Semaine Sainte 1990. Stigmates, extase, récit du père Malouli. Distribué par la
société Grace Création (60.82.65.72) 2, Grande rue, Bât. B. 91510 Lardy,
France..
-« Chrétiens
d'Orient, Myrna, Soufanieh» Filmé en Février 1996, diffusé durant Pâques
1996, Antenne 2, Paris, France.
-«Miracle à
Damas» reportage vidéo de Jean-Claude Darrigaud, disponible aux éditions
Mambré, 201, rue du Faubourg, St-Honoré, 75008 Paris, France.
-«Réunion de
Prières et Témoignage de Myrna », reportage vidéo de Raymond Balestrat, 94
rue Pierre Damours, 75017 Paris, France. Filmé le 2 octobre 1996 à Vaumoise. 60
minutes. Avec le père Élias Zahlaoui.
AUDIO:
-« La
fabuleuse aventure de Myrna », entretien du docteur Philippe Loron avec
soeur Emmanuel, édition Diakonia, 35120 Saint Broladre, France. 1991.
-« La joie
ça s'apprend - Soufanieh, 1ème partie », entretien et ligne ouverte avec
Gilbert Charron et M. Melhem Mobarak. Diffusé le 25 Janvier 1996. 2heures. ***
-« La joie
ça s'apprend - Soufanieh, 2ème partie. » Diffusion de l'entretien
enregistré le 1er Juillet 1996 avec Myrna et le Père Élias Zahlaoui. Entretien
et ligne ouverte avec Gilbert Charron. 28 Octobre 1996. 2 heures. ***
-« La joie
ça s'apprend - Soufanieh, 3ème partie. » Sera diffusé en octobre 97.
Entretien enregistré le 1er Juillet 1997 avec Myrna et le Père Élias Zahlaoui.
Entretien et ligne ouverte avec Gilbert Charron et M. Melhem Mobarak. 2 heures.
***
-«Apparitions
à Damas », de Christian Ravaz, disponible aux éditions Mambré, 201, rue du
Faubourg, St-Honoré, 75008 Paris, France.
ARABIC
AUDIO:
-10th
Anniversary - Ryad Nejmé (with Wadih el Safi)- Syria
-MYRNA VISITS
CANADA I- July 1993 - 60 min - songs & meditations ***
-MYRNA VISITS
CANADA II - July 1993 - 90 min - songs & meditations ***
- INTERVIEW
with Myrna & Father Zahlaoui at the 'Al-Mahatta' radio station CFMB 1410,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 1hour; June 30, 1997.
VIDEO:
- L.B.C. Interview
with Myrna - July 1993 (10 minutes)
- MYRNA's VISIT
IN CANADA, 60 minutes - July 1993 ***
- TÉLÉ-LUMIÈRE,
Frère Nour, - November 1994 - 2hrs. Beirut, Lebanon
- TÉLÉ-LUMIÈRE,
Frère Nour, - November 1995 - 2hrs. Beirut, Lebanon
- TV-ORIENT interview,
60min, Detroit, USA, July 1996
- SOUFANIEH;
the early years. 1982-85, stigmata, ecstasy, testimonials. Interview with
Patriarch Zakka Iwas 1st, Syrian Orthodox in 1995. 2h 40 minutes. ARABIC only.
***
BOOKS:
-"AL MASIH
WAL ADRA FIL SOUFANIEH" - Fr. Emile El Hajje, Paulist Father, 180pg, 1993,
Lebanon.
-
"EZKOUROU ALLAH" - Author: Fr. Elias Zahlaoui, Translator: Adib
Mousleh; 220pg, 1995, Paulist Fathers, DISTRIBUTED GRATUITOUSLY. Syria
-
"SOUFANIEH" - Author: Fr Elias Zahlaoui - 550pg, translated by Mr.
Adib Mousleh, Syria.- 1991, DISTRIBUTED GRATUITOUSLY. Lebanon.
-"ADRA AL
SOUFANIEH" - May Daher, 105 pgs, 1989, Ed. Dar Al Nahar, Beirut, Lebanon.
-"AL
SOUFANIEH... till where ?" - Edgar Zeart, 82pgs, Tripoli, Lebanon.
ARTICLES
- 'Al Resala',
Montreal, Canada. June 1997.
- 'Al
Moustakbal', Montreal, Canada, June 1997.
POLISH
-Videofilm:
«Notre-Dame de Soufanieh, à Damas», filmé sur place en novembre - décembre 1989
à l'occasion du 7e anniversaire. Won first prize at the Polish Catholic Film
Festival. ###
-Article: "Stygmatyczka
z Damaszku" in "NOWE ZYCIE" - Styczen 10 i 17 1993 Nr 1 (16)
(Myrna)
DUTCH
-Videofilm:
"Onze Lieve Vrouw Van Soufanieh" - By Fr. J.M.Touw. Stichting
Vrienden van Soufanieh, Postbus 293, NL-6200, AG Maastricht.
GERMAN
-Book:
"Zeichen vom Himmel in Damaskus - Die Botschaft von Sufanieh" - Dr.
A.T.Khoury, 72pgs, Oros Verlag, Postfach 11 45, D 48337 Altenberge, Germany.
ISBN 3-89375-043-6. Tel & Fax. 02505-3500
RUSSIAN
-Soufanieh:
Chronicles of the Apparitions and Manifestations of Jesus and Mary,
Translation from Father Elias Zahlaoui's french book "Chronique des
Apparitions" published by: Edition O.E.I.L. 1991; 3, rue Jean-François
Gerbillon, 75006 Paris, France.
SPANISH
-Soufanieh:
The Apparitions in Damascus - Author: Christian Ravaz. Translation of the
French edition of 1988.
RUMANIAN
-Soufanieh:
The Apparitions in Damascus - Author: Christian Ravaz. Translation of the
French edition of 1988.
LEGEND:
***
ASSOCIATION NOTRE-DAME
DE SOUFANIEH DE MONTRÉAL
955 - 40 AVENUE
LACHINE, P.Q.
H8T 2G7
CANADA
TEL: (514)
634-0371
FAX: (514)
639-1587
INTERNET
E-MAIL:
soufanie@MLINK.NET
(lowercase/minuscules)
###
RASSEMBLEMENT À SON IMAGE
C.P. 455
SUCCURSALE SNOWDON
MONTREAL, P.Q.,
H3X 3T7
CANADA
TEL: (514)
733-3564
FAX: (514)
738-6003
And/et
RASSEMBLEMENT À
SON IMAGE
9, RUE GAY
LUSSAC
75005 PARIS
FRANCE
TEL:
(46.34.19.80)
FAX:
(39.66.90.54)
Since
November 22nd, 1982, the Christian inhabitants of the little suburb of
Damascus, Soufanieh, affirm that they are living the graces of the first
Christians. Unexplainable, astonishing events succeed each other at a rapid
pace. Moved to the deepest of their self, people from all confessions and
denominations, Christians as well as Muslims, gather and kneel while praying
together.
A
reproduction of Our Lady with Christ Child owned by Myrna oozes oil, similarly,
thousands of others also ooze oil around the world. Myrna's body also oozes oil
enigmatically. The young women bears Christ's stigmata. Through apparitions of
Our Lady and visions of Jesus-Christ, she receives messages which she must
share with the whole world. All signs of trickery being dismissed, could this
be God's presence in Soufanieh? Could this be the ultimate call to our
conversion from Jesus-Christ and the Virgin Mary, in the heart of Islam, to a
world heading towards its ruin?
Prayer
taught to Myrna by Jesus-Christ
on May 31st,
1984
Beloved Jesus,
Grant that I rest
in You above all things,
above all
creatures,
above all Your
angels,
above all
praise,
above all
rejoicing and exultation,
above all glory
and honour,
above all
heavenly hosts,
For You alone
are the Most High,
You alone are
the Almighty
and Good above
all things.
May You come to
me and relieve me,
and release me
from my chains,
and grant me
freedom,
because without
You my joy is not complete,
without You my
table is empty.
Only then will
I come to say:
Here I am,
because you have invited Me.
1 Nicolas had bought 10 small reproductions (6x8 cm
- 2.4x3.2 inches) of Our Lady of Kazan from the Alexander Nevsky Orthodox
Church, in Sofia.
2. Chrétiens Magazine; 9, rue du Docteur-Potain,
75019 Paris, France.
3. Beware, he is not always enthused. Other
apparitions have disappointed him. In this very case, he did not hesitate.
4.Father René Laurentin is a French Mariologist in
the Vatican.
5.From Myrna's personal notes, translated by Father
Joseph Malouli. Every time we will refer to Myrna's notes, to facilitate to the
reader, we will indicate: MPN.
6. MPN
7. MPN
8. MPN
9. MPN
10. The plate was filled to its extremities: 150ml
11. MPN
12. MPN
13. MPN
14. MPN
15. MPN
16. From Father Zahlaoui's personal notes.
17. Mrs Halaby's testimonial, recorded on
audio-cassette, during the interview with the author. "Apparitions à
Damas". Ed. Mambré, France.
18. Doctor Antoine Mansour's testimonial given
during an interview recorded on audio-cassette by the author. "Apparitions
à Damas". Ed. Mambré, France.
19. Myrna's testimonial during an interview with
the author, recorded on audio-cassette: "Apparitions à Damas", Ed.
Mambré, France.
20. Idem
21. Idem
22. Myrna's baptismal name.
23. Sednaya and Maloula: two villages north of
Damascus (30 and 60 kms / 20 and 40 miles), where three famous pilgrimage
centres are present. Sednaya is dedicated to the Blessed Mother. (Father Joseph
Malouli.)
24. The icon has then been placed in the niche at
the entrance of the house, just to the right of the doorstep.
25. Medical report from Doctor Salam, dated April
30th,1983.
26. The phrase that the Virgin Mary confided us in
this message, and asking us to repeat always, I have been able to see its
"fruits" recently, a few days after my return to France, on August
15th, 1987, during a surprise dialogue in a provincial sanctuary. A 25-year old
confided me her anguish since her childhood, and that she had decided to
consult a fortune teller or a visionary. Needless to say that her life was not
a success! I tried several times to reach within her, and she exploded in
tears. We confided all her difficulties to the Blessed Mother, and I taught her
this "phrase" of the Virgin Mary. Eight months later, she called me
and informed me of her radical departure from her old habits, she finally was
able to live her life. "Thanks to Mary", I would tell her. A friend
of mine, a monk in Avignon, France, is preparing her consecration to God
through Mary.
27. MPN
28. Father Joseph Malouli's personal notes.
29. Also on the audio-cassette interview: "Apparitions
à Damas", Editions Mambré, France.
30. Father Zahlaoui's personal notes.
31. MPN
32. Nabil died in April 1997.
33. The video-documentary realized by Father
Jean-Claude Darrigaud (Editions N.S.; distributed by mail by Editions Mambré:
"Miracles à Damas") has essentially been produced thanks to
Nabil's tapes.
34. All the events in this chapter have been
documented on official letterhead of the bishopric of Hauran, dated May 5th,1986.
35. Refer to the video documentary by father
Jean-Claude Darrigaud, "Miracles à Damas".
36. Father Malouli has asked Myrna about the
meaning that she gives to the word "glorified", she replied without
thinking: "It means: Glory to the Father and the Son..!"
37. Her vision was veiled by a screen.
38. An Arab head dress.
39. Built by Myrna's father, a marble craftsman by
trade.
40. Myrna's father was imprisoned under false
accusations. He was freed from jail on Christmas 1986, three months exactly
after his arrest.
41. The same way as it seems, during prayers of the
Charismatic Renewal movement, that are called "slain in the Spirit".
42. You can live this magnificent day while
watching the video filmed by Father Jean-Claude Darrigaud: "Miracle à
Damas". Ed. N.S.
43. The first newspaper to publish an article about
Soufanieh is "Notre-Dame-des-Temps-Nouveaux (France)" (March 1985).
This newspaper was founded by Abbot Jean-Marie Onfroy. The Swiss magazine
"Stella Maris" published an article on Soufanieh written by Msgr
Georges Hafoury in October 1986.
44. Myrna bore the stigmata in 1983, 1984, 1987 and
1990.
45. The messages are meditated and commented in
detail in Father Elias Zahlaoui's book: "Remember God". See
bibliography section for more details.