Is It Possible That a Prediction of the Mother of God Would Not Come to Pass?

Many people have entertained doubts about Our Lady of Emmitsburg's [OLOE] messages to Dr. Gianna Sullivan because one of Our Lady's predictions did not seem to come true. This is the prediction that Our Lady made:

"I have waited patiently for 2000 years for my plan to unfold....I requested, over 80 years ago at Fatima, sacrifice for sinners' conversion in reparation for sins committed against My Immaculate Heart....I predicted a future miracle that all might believe; and now as my plan commences, I once again predict a sign for this October." (OLOE 7-13-2000)

On Sept 8, 2000, the feast of the Birth of Mary, Cardinal Keller of the Baltimore diocese issued a statement to the effect that he was going to investigate Gianna Sullivan and that, until further notice, the Prayer Group in St. Joseph's Church should be suspended. Thereafter, the predicted sign that was to occur in October, did not seem to occur in any obvious way. Was this a false prediction or did Our Lady change her plans?

In the past, when I read comments about visionaries and prophets, I was often puzzled by the fact that the commentator would indicate that, while some of their prophecies came true, others did not. I did not know what to make of this. It certainly put doubts in my mind about those alleged saints and holy people.

However, when this prophecy of OLOE did not seem, to me, to have been fulfilled, I felt that there had to be some explanation that I was unaware of. The many years that I had spent reading all the Lessons from Jesus, that Gianna Sullivan had received and the many messages from Our Lady, left me with an enduring conviction that they were, indeed, from God!

Years later, a message from OLOE to Dr. Gianna Sullivan gave me a new insight into this issue. When Our Lady explained that her plans change due to our permissive will, I began to realize how Our Lady could make a prediction that did not come to pass. Our Lady explains:

There are two wills. There is the Divine Will and the permissive will. I have a plan for the salvation of the world for which I have prayed for a very long time on your behalf. Oftentimes, my plan changes, although it will be fulfilled according to God's Divine Will. It changes because you are gifted with a permissive will. You have the freedom to choose. God, in His Mercy and kindness, allows you to choose. He does not force you. (OLOE 8-5-2007)

There is an interesting example in the life of St. Catherine Laboure relative to how Our Lady's plans changed. Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal appeared three times to St. Catherine Laboure in the Chapel of the Motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity in Rue du Bac in Paris, France in 1830. Our Lady asked St. Catherine to have a medal struck which was initially called "Medal of the Immaculate Conception" but is now universally referred to as the "Miraculous Medal," because of the many miracles and wonders associated with the medal.

In this case, we learn that Our Lady's plans changed because of the lack of cooperation of St. Catherine's superiors. Speaking of the pilgrimages and miracles taking place at Our Lady of Victories Church in Paris, St. Catherine said: "You know, these miracles could have happened in our chapel." [Fr. Rene Laurentin as quoted in Roses in December, by Dom Forker, p 43.] Further, St. Catherine said that the pilgrimages associated with both Our Lady of Victories Church and with Lourdes, represented changes in the plan of the Blessed Virgin to compensate for what had failed to occur at the Apparition Chapel in Rue du Bac in Paris.

Another example of how the permissive will of human beings interfered with the original plans of Our Lady, happened at Fatima, Portugal. With regard to the famous Miracle of the Sun, Our Lady is said to have indicated to the visionary, Sr. Lucia, that because the Civic Administrator of Fatima had imprisoned the three little visionaries of Fatima and threatened to boil them in oil, that the predicted miracle would not be as great as Our Lady had originally planned!

It seems to me, that it is highly likely, that when Cardinal Keeler had the prayer meetings in St. Joseph's Church in Emmitsburg, MD halted, that this action influenced Our Lady's plans and that the predicted sign was not given by Our Lady in October 2000.

When the investigations of Dr. Gianna Talone-Sullivan were concluded by the archdiocese of Baltimore, Gianna was told that she could continue to hold prayer meetings, as long as she did not do so in any Church or other property of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Thereafter, the public messages of OLOE to Gianna Sullivan, which had stopped in Sept. 2000, were resumed in August 2002 and continued until Oct. 5, 2008. However, the prayer meetings were not held on any church grounds, etc. of the archdiocese. Then on Oct. 8, 2008, the new Archbishop of Baltimore, Edwin F. O'Brien, issued a Pastoral Advisory regarding Dr. Gianna Sullivan, and once again the OLOE Prayer Meetings were stopped. And once again, Dr. Gianna Sullivan and her husband, Dr. Michael Sullivan, accepted the requirements of the Pastoral Advisory.

The Escalating God Debate

In the Books section of the Philadelphia Inquirer, 6-7-2009, John Timpane reviews Terry Eagleton's latest book, Reason, Faith, and Revolution, Reflections on the God Debate. According to John Timpane: "The oldest questions of all -- Does God exist? Can science prove or disprove it? Is religion good or bad? -- have become the highest-profile intellectual debate of the decade."

Timpane points out that Eagleton's book was the result of a 2006 review that Eagleton wrote about Richard Dawkin's book, The God Delusion. As the result of Eagleton's review, Yale University invited him to give the Dwight H. Terry lectures in April 2008 relative to how "science and philosophy inform religion." The four lectures Eagleton gave form the basis of his newest book.

Eagleton's premise is that the great atheist writer's of our time, such as Dawkins, Hitchens and Sam Harris, have missed the point in thinking that the argument is about proving the existence of God. Rather, Eagleton believes that the issue is: "not about subscribing to some supernatural entity. It's about the image of Jesus in the gospels, a far more radical, subversive image than anybody is willing to accept. The idea is that of transformative love: having the courage to abandon oneself for others, a cause, for justice, in the radical way the New Testament presents Christ as doing." This last quote reminds me of G. K. Chesterton's words: "Christianity was never tried and found wanting. It has never been tried."

While reading John Timpane review was extremely interesting, instead of concentrating on Eagleton's argument, I found myself concentrating on the place of miracles in this recent God Debate. For example, Dawkins in his book, The God Delusion, claims that belief in miracles is not only unscientific but also childish. He writes in a tone of ridicule, about a God who not only created the universe and maintains it, but "who also intervenes in it with miracles, which are temporary violations of his own grandly immutable laws."

I think that it is unfortunate that so few people in our modern world admit to believing in miracles, including the clergy. I can't help but be reminded of the importance of history in understanding how the beliefs that seem so dominant in today's world, slowly developed. While I have been following the God Debate over the last decade, I have to admit that I am more familar with today's atheists, than I am with Marx, Engel and Lenin. While I knew that atheism and Communism were connected, it was only recently that I learned that atheism has been a part of Marxism since its inception. Nor did I realize that Lenin has said: "Our revolution is international, and our first enemy is religion." Then, about the middle of the 20th Century, the Communists started to emphasize a form of Scientific Atheism, which stresses that it is only through sound education in science that religion will ultimately be abolished!

Most people who do not believe in miracles turn to science to support their arguments. And many, many more are simply swayed by what our common culture either approves or disapproves. My interest in miracles has increased over the last two decades, because the number of reported apparitions of Our Lady, together with numerous messages and miracles, have increased dramatically. If God doesn't exist, as the atheists claim, all of these alleged apparitions of Our Lady are just that, alleged but not factual. And concomittantly, when you strip away miracles from the Christian belief in God, you have to ask: "Why believe in Jesus Christ?" If not miracles, "What supports your belief in Jesus as the Second Person of the Triune God?"