The sun seemed to get closer and then further away then closer. It changed colours from alive colours of red to blue and green. It seemed to me as if I was looking at a live heart, pumping and pulsating, as if it was alive.
We made plans to visit Nowra and meet this prophet on the thirteenth of the month for an Atonement Day. Our First impressions were poor; the gate and fence at the entrance could do with some repairs and the large sign needed repainting. I was walking down the hill to the 'Holy Grounds' when I came to thinking about where Our Lord was born - in a stable at Bethlehem. Poor surroundings! Maybe I shouldn't judge by looks…..
My fears that this was 'new age' were soon relieved. It was only 8:30 A.M. and already the rosary is prayed in front of a little shrine. Gradually the small crowd grew to several hundred towards lunch time. I had been standing in a large queue for over an hour, waiting for my confession to be heard. Finally it was my turn to kneel in front of the priest and I had my usual list all prepared in my mind. As I knelt, the priest whom I came to know as Father Broussard said to me, "Wait a minute Guido I just have to do something. I will be back soon." My mind was racing, "How did this stranger know my name?" I didn't have long to wait for Father. Even a bigger surprise for me was what came out of me during confession. As Father said the introductory prayers for confession while holding the St Benedict Cross over my head, all of a sudden, sins from way back, maybe forty years, came tumbling out of my mouth! I had not even known they had been weighing on me for all this time. As I finished, Father, with a lot of care and tenderness and time led me to reveal to him where I was with my Catholic faith. I had gone along with all the changes in the church since Vatican II. Even though I felt disillusioned with the church, I didn't know the reason why. Father revealed to me that in the modern church there was a basic lack of reverence for God and that for the most part, most Catholics only remember their religion on Sundays. He asked me if I would like to be part of the Mission of Our Lady of the Ark? I affirmed his question because I was called. Bit by bit he said that I must never receive Holy Communion on the hand, that it is a sacrilege, and I do not have consecrated hands. I said to him, "But Father! I have been a special minister of the Eucharist for a number of years." Can you give that up? "Yes Father if it is wrong, of course."
Prayers continued all through the day. At lunch time, Tony and Frances, Maria and myself went back up to the car park to get a bite to eat. We were going back down the hill when Tony told us to look at the sun. As I looked, I could comfortably look directly at the sun without any pain. Not only could I look at it, I could see it spinning and turning. The sun seemed to get closer and then further away then closer. It changed colours from alive colours of red to blue and green. It seemed to me as if I was looking at a live heart, pumping and pulsating, as if it was alive. The strangest thing was they saw different things or different colours as the same time as I was looking at it. We all did not necessarily see the same details. Maria was really disappointed. She couldn't see anything unusual at all. Not that trip anyway. Next time we went to Nowra, she saw what I had seen last month and this time I couldn't see anything unusual at all.
The trip and the prayers, the confession and new found freedom that I had found made a huge impression on me. I was a new man. We went home very excited and I wanted to tell the whole world about the apparition of Our Holy Mother right here in Australia. The closest experience of goodness and holiness I had experienced some dozen or so years previously was at Lourdes, France. The
tranquillity and pervasive peace had had the same profound effect on me then. My face seemed to be in a perpetual smile of serenity.
