Letter From Bishop Noll to Precious Blood Sisters Celebrating 50th Jubilee of Kneipp Springs
As has been clearly demonstrated in an earlier series of postings pertaining to the connection between the Rome City, IN Our Lady of America apparition site and this country's consecration to The Immaculate Conception ("The Immaculate Connection" January 10-12), Archbishop John Noll, who is credited with the saving of and the completion of the National Basilica to The Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., also had his hand in the original purchase of the property along with the construction of and the design of the business model that went with the healing center and convent where Our Blessed Mother chose to first appear as Our Lady of America.
Text as follows:
Sister Pancratia
Kneipp Springs
Rome City, Indiana
Dear Sister:
Since I cannot be with you and your fellow Religious and with Father Greb in person, I am writing to extend to all of the Sisters of the Precious Blood all of my heartiest congratulations on the Golden Jubilee of Kneipp Sanitarium.
I was present when Dr. Geiermann purchased the property on which the Kneipp Springs buildings are now situated, and was there also when he sold, to the Sisters, the original property which he had purchased.
My visits to the Sanitarium, once a week on weekdays and every Sunday during the summer until the chapel at the Sanitarium was built, have always been fond memories. I saw the doctor pioneer, the Sisters pioneer, and saw the Kneipp water Treatment win its way into the favor of a large portion of America.
Evidently I am happy today to see the institution, under a new name, thriving and accomplishing much good both for the physical and spiritual benefit of those who patronize it.
I am certain that the Catholic cottagers of Rome City are very grateful to the Sisters for having provided them with the opportunity of attending one of several Masses every Sunday.
With a blessing on the institution and on the Sisters who operate it, I am,
Yours Sincerely in Christ,
John F. Noll
Bishop of Fort Wayne
July 13, 1951
As one can see in his letter, he remained a frequent visitor and ardent supporter of this magnificent Catholic institution throughout his life.
It was here that Our Lady of America made the request that Her image be placed, after a solemn procession, in a place of honor in the yet-to-be-completed National Shrine. This request was made no less than 74 days after the passing of Archbishop Noll and 3 years before the Shrine's construction was actually completed. Will this be the year Our Lady's request is finally carried out by the American Bishops?
posted by OLTIV @ 8:06 PM
25 Comments
25 Comments:
Bishop John Noll was obviously a man of his time who was one of those rare people who saw the big picture so clearly.
He must have been inspired by Our Lady in a most glorious way to have been involved in so many important activities which have done so much to further Catholic faith in this country. I wonder if he had any idea about Our Lady's presence at this place he loved so much. I am sure he knew something about the young girl and Fr. Max Walz in 1915. It would be interesting to see if he ever wrote anything about these events.
Does anyone else know that can contribute?
PLEASE, Everyone reading this, write your personal Bishop and let him know of the miracles and locutions that have been happening to people at Rome City, IN; and at other locations, all through the miraculous gifts of Our Lady of America and Her Son!
Tell your Bishop of the instantaneous healing after the Vision, which happened at the first Pilgrimage ever at Sylvan Springs on July 14, 2006. Inform your Bishop of Everything that has been related here on this website of all the gifts being given to all different people whether it be in prayer locutions, converstions, physical healings, spiritual photographs, dreams, and even, at least one known recent vision from Our Lady of America! Tell him how She is pleading with us all. Let the Bishops investigate all of this at the Springs and at other locations mentioned where the gifts have been given. Give them the reason to take the time to discern all of this for themselves.
She is pleading with all of us to help her. We are the ones who Can and Will Need to bring Her Bishops together. These many gifts given to many and shared with us all are showing the fruits that all are waiting to hear and see regarding Our Lady's promises to Sister Mildred back in 1956. We even know now that at least one miracle of a healing took place, at the Springs, even before Her apparition to Sister Mildred. (It would not be surprising if many more unrecorded miracles had happened througout this time.)
We have continueously heard from people sharing on this website stories of miraclulous and wonderful gifts from Our Lady of America. They have been shared with us over and over. We have become Our Lady's Messengers because of the information we have received.
Please, We all need to write our Bishops and let them have the information to discern all of it on their own as they come together at their conference in June of this year. This is Vital to the hope and protection of our country and of our world.
Also let us pray together that each Bishop will take the information in all of these letters we write into serious consideration for furthering the movement for Our Lady's wishes for enthronement into the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
In the name of Our Lady of America,
God bless us all, and may we all become Her personal messengers to our personal Bishops.
I hadn't been to visit this site in a few weeks and I must say it has really filled my day off from all this snow we're getting here in Indy. There is a lot of good reading on here and the videos are great.
I will be sending this on to my friends and I can't wait for the weather to break so we can go get some of that water and pray a rosary on the hill again.
That Bishop Noll was certainly one of the more productive Bishops in our history. Our Lady must have been certainly pleased with him as a shepherd of souls for Her Son.
I am thoroughly convinced of the truthfulness of these messages and apparitions. I will be writing to my area priests and Bishop with information on Our Lady of America. I hope to travel to this special place and feel Our Lady's presence as soon as I am able.
May Our Lord and Our Lady watch over us and protect our country. May we return the love and honor by respectfully submitting ourselves to His plan.
Thank you Anne K. I pray many more will follow your lead and inform all of our bishops in this country of all the wonderful gifts Our Lady of America is now giving to so many.
May we pray and ask for the Holy Spirits guidance on continuing this heavenly quest.
I am getting a terribly fearful fealing that we are running short on time. Our Lady was so direct in Her requests in these messages that we must pay close attention to them and seek to have Her desires fulfilled ASAP.
I don't see a good way out of this mess the world is in except to go through a long period of strife in which this country is going to be put to test unlike anything we have ever been through in our history.
We need Our Lady of America now!!
I agree with you T. Meier-- we do Need Our Lady of America soon. I believe all I have read and have heard from others and agree that the time is running short, as they say. However we cannot be fearful or panic. Easier said than done, but we can't. That is not what Our Lady would want. We must believe we can halp to make this happen with clear thinking and prayer.
Maybe we should all write our bishops, as suggested above, unless others have a better or another idea to get this moving quickly. I don't think we can allow this to be continued to be ignored. I wish I had some ideas, but other then not panicking and becoming fearful, as easy as that is to say, we need to believe that through logical reason, prayer and working together we can hopefully get this done.
We have to try and remember that fear is not of God. We all feel it, but can be comforted through prayer and knowing that good always in the end wins over evil!!
Any ideas other than writing the bishops would be welcome. If there are no better ideas, than I guess we should perhaps do just that - write our bishops. All ideas are welcome, from me at least.
Please Our Lady, help us.
(KRIS)
Dear Friends,
If we are really sincere about contacting our bishops and others whose attention will help this effort I would also suggest that people (esp. those who have testified to their blessed fruits received here through OLOA) document these fruits and send them to those bishops already in favor of OLOA, who have been active thus far in promoting this cause to their brother bishops. They would then have additional documented testimonies to present for further evidence to the other bishops. They are (at least those I know of):
Bishop Richard J. Garcia - Monterey
http://www.dioceseofmonterey.org/contact/
Archbishop Raymond L. Burke - St. Louis
http://www.archstl.org/contact.html
Bishop David Ricken, Cheyenne, WY:
http://www.dioceseofcheyenne.org/naminbishop.html
Also, since this idea of contacting bishops is mentioned again here, I would just like to repeat my earlier suggestion, if you don't mind:
Whenever you take the time to gather the basic information together (including referencing this website and the OLOA website) and to respectfully contact your own bishop, it would be helpful to show that you are also sending this info to the Shrine's Rector who is familiar with this movement and to the Papal Nuncio to the U.S. If the Papal Nuncio receives enough notice of this grassroots effort regarding the Washington, D.C. Shrine, he is more likely to raise this issue to Rome and bring it up at Bishops' conferences. Below I've listed addresses for such contacts. Let us be little warriors of Mary in this computer age and "get out the vote" so to speak! God bless all in your efforts. Our dear Mother waits and notices every small or big effort. Beforehand, it's always good to call upon the Holy Spirit, her Spouse, to open the heart of whomever you are attempting to enlighten about OLOA! This would be a great cause for Marian prayer groups - make up as many packets as you can to send to those listed below. If any of you know men involved with the Knights of Columbus or other groups of men who have connections with those who have contact with bishops (mens' retreat centers), ask them to bring this up. God bless.
Monsignor Walter R. Rossi, Rector
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
400 Michigan Avenue NE
Washington, DC 20017-1566
Tel 202-526-8300
Fax 202-526-8313
Email info@nationalshrine.com
His Excellency, Archbishop Pietro Sambi
Apostolic Nuncio to the United States
3339 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC, 20008
Bishops of the U.S. dioceses contact info here:
http://www.nccbuscc.org/bishops.htm
KRIS
I have written my priest and Bishop re: OLOA and I hope everyone else here has also. I had heard that the Official Center had pulled the request to contact Bishops directly...I no longer see it on their website and it isn't on the front of this website any longer either.
Can anyone, from the Official Center, comment on whether this is what we should be doing or not? If I don't see any response to abate this tactic, I will continue to back the efforts of those in my community to write more letters to the Bishops and parish priests in our own locales.
I know we should not be afraid, but I too am "more than concerned" with the state of affairs in this country and the moral decline I am witnessing all around me. I hardly recognize any of the world I grew up in any longer. I was sickened at the Grammy program this past week when I saw all of the ostenatious displays of wasted wealth ("gold grills" for the teeth? Come On!!) This is a tell-tale sign of the decadence we are fostering in this society. We are like the Titanic in a sea of icebergs...it's is only a matter of time.
I think the Bishops are reading these letters just like we are. They may not be doing it all directly, but I am certain they have "people" who are watching this site and others for information and input.
Keep writing your testimonials...especially ones of faith conversions...and pray for the confirmation and enshrinement of Our Lady of America in the National Shrine this year.
I just found out about this website today from another local friend in Rome City who I visit during summers on Sylvan Lake.
We were talking about how many hours we had spent over the years looking across the highway at this beautiful campus with its old church and saying "some day, that place is going to have thousands of people crawling all over it". Even though we had no reason to justify it, we could always feel it.
When the Catholic family bought it back from The Way (a cult) and started holding the rosary there on Fridays, we went over and took part in the candlelit procession and prayer service. My kids still talk about it as one of their best memories at the lake. It WAS very moving and I have to agree with the kids on this one. It was such a naturally spiritual thing for us to do. No Mass, just the rosary and procession with several dozen others.
It will be the best thing to happen around that town if this is all confirmed and more people can experience what we all have come to appreciate.
I am not as sure as anonymous is that almost all the bishops are reading this website. I am a;most certain most are not even aware that it exists. I've had spoken to enough priests who said the bishops probably are not aware of this website, and having one or two aware, if they are is still not enough. I still think the best thing to do is to all of us inform their bishops, not just priests, of this website. Than we can be sure they are seeing it, and only then.
And I agree with Kris or whoever said it that the people who have received these gifts, should be very sure to write their testimonials with things to back them up to their bishops and the bishops that Kris left on the website.
God keep us all safe, until we do Our Lady's wishes.
I think that after the exhibit in Baltimore last November of the new statue, as reported on the official website, there are more Bishops familiar with this special devotion than there are those who may, as yet be unfamiliar with it. I don't believe anyone has been sitting around these past few months doing nothing for this cause either. Look at this site which has provided so much background info on the various aspects of the illustrious history and provenance of the site of the central messages of OLOA which were given to Sr. Mildred Ephrem Neuzil in 1956. I would dare say that only .05% of anyone familiar with the OLOA apparition knew much, if anything, about the Rome City location. This has been a font of knowledge and has brought myself and others to a greater awareness of the significance of the OLOA messages and their connective history with our National Shrine and the key players who have fostered our country's devotion and consecration to Our Blessed Mother as The Immaculate Conception.
If anyone feels there are Bishops out there who are still unaware of this movement, I nominate them as a "committee of one" to take it upon themselves to contact them and implore their indulgence in confirming OLOA and placing an appropriate likeness of Her in The National Shrine after a solemn procession.
I think you are all wasting your time. The Bishops will never confirm this and America has no chance of bringing the world to salvation through the "purity of our lives". Not with the way things are going these days.
Have you seen the huge lines leading to the confessionals? How about the overflowing numbers at Eucharistic Adoration? How about the fearful respect of church members while attending Mass? The answer to all of these is "NO".
You know, it used to be considered a sin to talk in the church while Our Lord was in the tabernacle. Now you can't hardly hear yourself think while exiting services because of all the talking and laughter as people file out from their pews. Some people don't even bother to wear modest clothing for Mass. What some of these women are wearing in church makes me wonder if they have any respect for themselves. Some of the men are just as bad. I saw one man with tobacco in his mouth one time.
If the Bishops don't have the fortitude to crack down on these areas of our faith-practice, how will they have the courage to approve anything to do with this?
I sure hope I am wrong, but I'm not betting on this. The message sure is good though.
Dear anonymous,
I would like to hope you would change your mind and your thinking, since we know that thought can create reality. Everyone is trying to stay positive and prayerful.
You have a right to your feelings and opinions, but I will pray that you will be more open to better attitude that this Can and Will work with all of us doing our parts in any ways we know how.
I choose to believe this will happen. All with me, let me know!!!
God Bless
I think we should send copies of the letters we send to our Bishops to our local newspapers as Letters to The Editor and post them on every internet site we visit.
If you really want to get the word out, why doesn't someone do like John Edwards' bloggers did and cuss out Catholics? That always seems to please the media editors.
I get the idea, but I am not sure that is the way Our Lady wants it presented. But it is an idea!!!
Anyone else with one??
Although it gets attention, I don't think cussing Catholics is the best way to get the attention necessary. I believe Ed Z. was making a joke out of a current event.
The internet is powerful at getting the word out. I think the Letter to the editor idea is not bad either. You would need to be careful to not be too "evangelizing" if you ever want it to be accepted for print by most local papers. They seem to like the images in cheese sandwiches more than the news of potentially major news events in the Catholic community (unless it's another accuser of sex crimes against a priest from 50 years ago).
Just a suggestion. I think it would benefit all of us more to try and keep a positive attitude towards our goal, and try not to allow our disappointment come out in anger at our bishops, for the sake of Our Lady and Her Son.
Since thoughts are so powerful, it might be better to turn all of our hostile energy into prayer and positive thoughts of seeing Our Lady of America in the Shrine as soon as possible.
Just a thought!
I don't believe that we should discount all of the hard work, even while done under the radar of most, that has really born fruit in now acquainting the bishops as a body with the background of this movement. That was only a first meeting, but was done through the strong belief by some wonderful bishops of greatg stature. So they must now have the benefit of our prayers to deepen this understanding of this cause since it is only through them that it will come to full fruition. I doubt then that it would benefit the past efforts of many to now try to bypass the bishops and use the media with all of the many risks there of the power to spin and tear down. This could only cause the bishops to see confusion and/or hysteria and even delay the momentum.
Also, only a thought. I think our Lady would better honor patience, prayer and obedience, however seemingly small and personally frustrating things appear.
KRIS
I think Ed Z's comment, although funny re: the bloggers for Edwards, is born out of the frustration I have seen mentioned on other websites re: OLOA and the perception of "secrecy" that seems to permeate this movement.
For instance, why wasn't there any advance notice on the official website that there would be a homily at the the March For Life that would, so correctly and directly, tie the OLOA messages with the agenda of the Right-to-Life Marchers. It seems that this was a MAJOR public relations goof. I mean, they had time to set up and professionally videotape it. This may be a minor issue, and I know that others will say we need to trust that things are being "handled", but there are others out there, like me, who would feel more encouraged if this was being carried out in a more "open air" situation. After all, Fatima was kept behind closed door discussion until 80,000 people showed up (because of newspaper reportings and radio reports) and ended up witnessing the miracle of the sun. It wasn't until after this event that the Bishops were motivated to move quickly. Maybe there are others in the American Church who think that Our Lady's messages that "time is running out" means that they have the option to call a time out or something.
Don't get me wrong, I am praying for this as much as the next guy, but even Our Lady, in Her own messages to Sr. Neuzil expressed concerns with the attitudes of some of the Church leaders. There is one way to overcome a faint echo and that is to send out a louder signal to overwhelm it.
I hate to say this but our Catholic Religion is starting to seem like nothing more then city politics, with people on the payroll just collecting a check. Ok I said it if I don't wake up tomorrow you will know why. Do you know where I'm going here? Think about it this has been going on for almost 100 years and nothing has been done. From the time we were all small kids, our Catholic faith tells us to believe in things we can't see and can't feel. So here you have all these things that so many people have felt and seen with there own eyes and it's not good enough. I guess what they are telling us is that you can't believe Priest's or Nuns either who come forward with all these things. I guess I just don't get it.
Please check the lastest Post and see what someone put down that Our Lady is looking for rosaries to keep us safe.
I don't know where that came from, but whoever put that in and the comment above it, I feel, is putting us on the correct track. Sounds as if our Lady is not waiting for her Bishops and is presenting us all who are listening with a pleas for prayer for the rosary to keep us safe in the meantime.
Maybe to continue on and to share this website with everyone, including priests and bishops is the way to get this done also.
I like the rosary one each day. It is powerful to pray the rosary to keep us all safe, at least as we are all trying to figure out additional ways to help this movement.
In the meantime, read the last post
and we can start a daily rosary towards all of these goals for Our Lady.
I sense the frustration of some of these past comments also. I do commit myself to prayer and entrust Our Lady to get this done because, after all, She started it. I get frustrated when I speak to priests and others in my church about this devotion when they look at me like I am "crackers".
They always have the same response: why haven't I heard about this if it has been going on since 1956? It begins to wear you out so much that you hesitate to even mention it any more but I always bring it up again. Now I carry my book of messages with me in church and wait for someone to ask me about it. Sometimes I get the same response but sometimes they want to know more so I give them the info on the websites.
I have been praying a daily rosary for this cause and others since last November and the Bishop's conference. I think it is a good idea. A better idea is to enlist others to join you before Mass in this effort and ask your pastor if he will make a note in the parish bulletin. Make it a community thing and see if it doesn't grow from that. You can use that time to let the others know of news in the movement (whenever the official site decides to say anything more) or of the information you learn from this website (which is incredible). If people begin to gather for these rosaries it will send a definite message to your pastor. Lead by example.
Nobody ever said these things would be easy.
A thought:::Does anybody know someone who can make bumper stickers for this movement? So many people put the fish on their cars, why not a symbol for this?
I'll do most anything at this point to get the word out.
Dear Irene,
You appear to be on the right track the way of Our Lady and her Son. God bless you for taking this initative on your own.
Yes it is frustrating when so little clergy do not know about this, but that is why Our Lady is showing herself in many different ways to people and asking us to help her. You have already taken the most important and first steps: prayer and sharing it.
I hope all who read your comment and the one left on the latest post will be encouraged to do as you are doing.
As far a bumper sticker, I don't know anything about those. But I suppose anyone could have them printed up and than hand them out.
I suppose that could be a group effort on your part. I am not sure. Maybe others can help with that one.
God bless you!
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