HUNGARY
October 30 – November 1, 2010
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“I have reserved for you, generation, riches and wealth; in time of famine I come.” 19 August 1994
Vassula introduced the Messages of True Life in God to Hungary 15 years ago on her first visit in January 1995. She had been invited to speak in Budapest, the capital city by Ilma Jordan, the translator of the TLIG Messages to Hungarian and a Charismatic group. The first books were published by Fr. Katona and Ilma Jordan’s son, and now the Hungarian TLIG Association/Foundation publishes the latest TLIG books. They are working on the TLIG One-book edition in the Hungarian language. The number of TLIG readers has grown and many TLIG Prayer Groups have been established in Aldebrő, Budapest , Hódmezővásárhely, Keszthely, Kőszeg, Salgótarján, Szeged, Tab, Tardos, and Vác. The Prayer Groups of Budapest and Szeged invited her this time.
We arrived in the morning at Ferihegy Airport in Budapest from Zagreb, Croatia and were met by young and dynamic TLIG Organizers Balazs Palko, his wife, and friend Attila. Many of our TLIG Associations were made up of young adults with powerful testimonies such as Balazs’. When he was asked how True Life in God came into his life, he answered:
“I knew nothing about God until I was 25. Then back in 2004, I had a deep conversion and TLIG had a great part in it. My friend Attila introduced me to TLIG and when I first saw a video of Vassula I could see Jesus’ Face for a moment instead of hers. Then I started reading the messages and since then I’ve been always convinced that it is our Lord speaking and He called me to spread this message. I had 3 years of catechism at our Franciscan parish, and I was baptized in 2007.”
Their enthusiasm for the True Life in God Messages is the driving force to evangelize, to kindle the fire of God’s Love in the hearts of the young, and Re-kindle the hearts of all those others who have drifted away from God.
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Preparations were underway for the 2 pm Meeting with the Press followed by the Public Meeting in Budapest that same afternoon.
Saturday, October 30 MEETING WITH THE ECUMENICAL PRESS
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2 hours before the Public Meeting, a Press Conference was organized in the VIP Room of the Pestszentimre Sports Center. Attending this Meeting were the Chief Editor of a Lutheran newspaper in Budapest, a Lutheran Pastor/Theologian, a Roman Catholic journalist from Radio Maria, and a Professor and journalist from the Catholic University. Vassula was given ample time to speak on True Life in God and her mission for Christian Unity, after which questions were asked:
How did Jesus change your life? “For 25 years now, I am running around the world under His Command – “Go and Christianize a de-christianized society!” All He has given me in these very long Messages, books, is for the benefit of the Church. He changed me so much that I work only for God, I have put God first.
I was not converted from books or from any human dialogue, but when God Himself approaches a being, it is totally different. He gives all that is necessary for a mission like this, especially perseverance, knowledge, and discernment. Having met God in such a way, I would like to share with all others this foretaste of the beatific vision. I want to transmit this joy to people and tell them Jesus is all forgiveness.”
Can you tell us from your experience how to pray the Rosary, to live the mysteries and understand them deeper? “The Rosary is very important. As an Orthodox, we do not have the chain but we have all the prayers of the Rosary. However, Jesus asked me one day to learn to pray the Rosary, and I did. Now all our Prayer Groups, which are not only Roman Catholic, but there are Lutherans, Anglicans, Orthodox, etc., pray it. Once they join our Prayer Groups and learn the Messages, God opens their hearts and they accept it, because after all, it is the Life of Jesus. It is accepted also by Moslems as in our Prayer Groups in Dhaka, Bangladesh, because they love Our Lady.”
But there is no reference in the Bible to the Rosary.. “Do you believe in the Holy Trinity? Where in the Bible is it written? It is understanding the Bible; the Holy Spirit brings the Church to understand certain parts. For example, in the Bible, the Hail Mary! was pronounced by the Angel Gabriel, we are not coming out of the context of the Bible. Rather, these parts are taken from the Bible and the Holy Spirit inspires people to pray, to meditate. The Rosary is a meditation.”
What is going on with Ecumenical Movements? Are they progressing? “There are always dialogues, it has always been and is still continuing. People in some countries do not know what Ecumenism is. People are not informed, some Catholics do not know anything about what is Orthodox. There is ignorance of each other’s Traditions, for example, the Sacraments. And also the Orthodox do not know anything about the Catholics; they ask, do they have Holy Communion? They are unfortunately taught that all Catholics are heretics. To cure this plague, the Patriarch and Metropolitans could perhaps go on TV and inform the nation of the truth.”
What about the condemnation of female visionaries? “Wherever in history have visionaries been accepted? Never! It will always be the same.”
How can one convince Clergy who forbid their faithful to read True Life in God or listen to you speak? “Jesus says: let those with eyes see and with ears hear. For an example, Cardinal Napier of South Africa wanted to meet me but was criticized by his priests. He is strong and insisted to meet me anyway, to be able to find the truth. He was able to clarify the negative things he had heard and was able to discern for himself. He then told his priests and they all calmed down. It needs courage and many don’t have courage.”
How can one tell something is from God? “By their fruit – conversions. Jesus says the greatest miracle is the conversion of the heart. This, Satan cannot do.”
Some Bishops and members of hierarchy support you, how are those others who don’t? “These are usually the ones who never read the Messages. Even if they did, they take things out of context. If you read the Scriptures in the same way, you find contradictions. We have to pray for these people, that God opens their eyes because they are missing something.”
For Christians today, what is the most important thing to do? “To evangelize! Everybody! It’s all a question of evangelizing and through the Messages of True Life in God, people who have read and know them well go and share with others and evangelize, they witness like I do.
It’s like this, God prepared a banquet of food in a time of famine and then He gave you the grace to invite you. Eat all you want! You eat and you enjoy yourself. But if you have the heart, you will think of the others starving out there and invite them to share instead of letting them die of starvation.”
What is the most authentic way to evangelize? “The best way to evangelize is to read and know the Messages and read them over and over. I have prepared 27 Questions & Answers to help people evangelize, it is on the internet. If you are able to answer the questions, the answers (which I have also given) are enough to make an Evangelization Meeting.”
Is there a danger people gather around the Message and not around the Lord? “But the Message comes from the Lord! And they bring one to the Scriptures, of which many passages are explained, and to the Sacraments of the Church – that is the goal!”
In Scriptures, Jesus teaches us to pray the Our Father. When I read your book, I was very touched with the Our Father. How does it feel to pray with the Lord? “You have to open your heart when you pray the Our Father. God made me repeat the prayer many times until my heart opened. If you say My Lord, My God, my Father, He is there! So when you say Our Father, He is there. He knows when you say it from your heart or like a parrot, or out of duty. When you say it with love, He accepts it. We forget He is there listening. And why do many people not grow in their love for God? Because they have intellectualized God.”
How can our priests become better and move towards Unity? “By prayer. They have to understand God’s Ways, that division is not from God.”
How did the Messages affect your relationship with your Lutheran husband? “He believed from the beginning but started worrying when the dictation became more frequent, and he realized the person he married had changed (after conversion). I had to learn to balance.”
PUBLIC MEETING IN PESTSZENTIMRE SPORTS CENTER MAIN HALL
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After the Meeting with the Press, Vassula was led to the hall where 1,000 people were waiting for her. Fr. Katona, a Catholic Charismatic priest Vassula had met in 1995, led the audience in prayer, gave a short introduction, and presented Vassula. She warmly welcomed everyone, especially those in the audience who first heard of the Messages 15 years ago.
“ I would like to share my experience with God so that you can feel God closer to you. We are here because we gather for Jesus to know more of Him and Our Blessed Mother. My themes today are the Mercy of God, the Intimacy with God, What is Sin?, What is Repentance?, Prayer and How God Wants us to Pray, How To Reconcile, make Peace with God, Love and Unity, How does God See Unity of the Church, the Holy Spirit and how He is Renewing Creation, also the Beginning of my Experience and the Encounter with God the Father.”
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To set the mood of the Meeting, Vassula continued: “In the audience there are many Catholics and other denominations as well, but I as an Orthodox do not feel any difference at all, because we are one in God’s Eyes.”
In an excerpt from her talk, Vassula spoke of The End of Times: “Why is God calling us in our times? Our times, according to the Lord, is the End of Times, not the end of the world, but the end of an epoch. It is an epoch known to be in deep apostasy. An apostate is someone baptized Christian and voluntarily rejects the divine truth. It has been said that this is the Great Apostasy of our times.
All I have learned came from the Mouth of Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. The Lord also teaches us the Scriptures. He made me open 2Thess2 where St. Paul speaks of the End of Times. He says there are 2 signs – The Great Revolt (Apostasy) and the Spirit of Rebellion (a spirit that apes God and rebels against the 10 Commandments of God). As it is written in Ezekiel, this rebellious spirit will want to sit on God’s Throne, to ape God. We have these 2 signs already. These are our times, more violent and more evil, more natural disasters and catastrophes. We are living in times where good is transformed into evil, and the world has grown cold towards the love of God. The world has climbed up to the peak of Apostasy! The world is destroying itself with its atheism and materialism. It is pursued by disasters and catastrophes; because of its Apostasy, they have no place for God. The world draws all of these catastrophes to itself. The world today refuses to give glory to God and glorifies itself, playing God. And people give more importance to false religions; so Satan is deceiving the world again. With the first lie he deceived Eve – that we can be God, and do not need God.
God’s Mercy So because of all this, what does God do? People ask where is God? God is a Father, and when a father sees his children blinded by Satan, what will he do? Our Father is a King! He will take off His Crown and put it aside and run after His children and look for all ways to contact them and call them back to their senses.
The Messages of True Life in God is one of these many means for God to call His people. God is calling, He says: ‘I am renewing My Creation!’ That is through the Holy Spirit. The good news is that in spite of all the wickedness around us, in spite of Satan demolishing, God sends His Holy Spirit to pour out on all His Creation like never before in history, like a Second Pentecost to renew His Creation. He says: ‘This is the beginning of the renewal; this is My Passage among tombs, among this vast graveyard. My Passage will turn the tombs into glorious cathedrals with the Fire of My Love within them!’”
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The Meeting went on with the audience showing deep interest in all Vassula was saying, smiling like children when she shared instances from her experience of God’s simple way of teaching her. God was transmitting His Message to His children through His humble instrument. At the end, Vassula prayed the Prayer of Repentance and Deliverance with the crowd and extended a blessing for Healing.
Sunday, October 31 SZEGED
Szeged is the third largest city in the country and is situated in southern Hungary. With a 66% Christian population of which about 50% are Roman Catholics, our 2 TLIG Prayer Groups engaged together so as to organize Va