TESTIMONIALS
Our Lady of the Mount is truly universal, in a troubled world
people of all faiths and religions come here to worship
request, plead and give thanks.
This page reminds us that Mother Mary has helped and aided thousands along the way...
The testimonials below give us hope to carry on...
Be with us Mary along the way...
No Human Boundaries
Wax and floral offerings at the Mount
TESTIMONY OF THE MOTHER’S LOVE
This is the experience that I had in the Mount Mary Basilica compound, in the year 1971. For more than a week prior to the experience, the Mother was visiting me in my dreams. One particular one was a repetitive dream. I was seeing her statue being carried in a procession in front of my house. The procession would halt and the statue would become alive and come into my verandah. In every dream, I saw her very much alive. At one time I questioned her as to what made her visit me. She did not give a reason but replied, “I come every day to your house”. I narrated my dreams every day to my parents. Since I am an artist, I drew her face on an ordinary ruled paper and showed my parents. It was not the face of the statue in the basilica. The features were sharper and delicate.
My father suggested that we visit the church. So, on a week day which I think was a Wednesday, we (myself Rajkumari Joshi, my father C.N. Barse and my mother Nalini Barse) went there in the morning. There was a poor lady sitting on the steps of the main gate selling candles. In those days, there were no stalls outside, and the church compound had pebbles. We must have walked just one or two yards when we saw Mother Mary standing before us, in human form, around 5’8 in height, very delicate, almost translucent fair skin, thin, pink lips and sparkling blue eyes, so full of gentleness and love. She was clad in white clothes. All she did was smile. We were so taken aback that I at once turned to my dad and said, “She is the same lady that I drew.” He said, “yes”. She just smiled, turned to her left and disappeared. I at once turned behind to ask my mother whether she had seen the vision and she said that she did. For a while, we were stunned and asked the candle seller whether she had seen anyone in front of us as she was close enough to have seen her as well. However, she said that on weekdays not very many people visit the church so she saw no one else. I then asked her whether she saw any lady like a nun – in white and she said that she didn’t. My father immediately felt the need to go and pray in the church to which I said, “But she has just left the church”. Anyway, we went in and we prayed. This incident is known to most of my acquaintances, and though I feel that we were blessed, the one regret that is constant is that I did not embrace her or touch her feet.
Mother Mary has been part of our lives even before this incident. My father had an ailment in the right leg which was troubling him for decades. In 1958 when I was 9 years old, I told him to visit the church as Mother Mary would make him alright. So he did during the Bandra Fair. Due to the crowd he could only stand on the outer steps of the main entrance. He prayed there and as we moved down, he said, “My leg has stopped paining”. He is 91 now and his leg has never given him that trouble again.
Another prominent incident is when we were living in a rented apartment and were being constantly harassed by the landlord. I again told my dad that if we offer a little wax house in the church and pray for our own house, Mother Mary will give it to us. Doubtless, she gave us an opportunity to buy a small plot of land in Khar and my dad built a little cottage.
Our faith in Mother Mary is truly an undiluted faith and we do not even repeat our requests because of that. We just acknowledged her power and blessings. Believe it or not, if we pray to her, our house is filled with fragrance – sometimes lavender, at times sandalwood and even frankincense. Mother Mary is omnipresent and even though we are not Christians and even if we do not approach her for anything, she is always there for us.
Ms Rajkumari Joshi
Mumbai- August 2012
Mount Mary Saved Me
The date is indelibly written on my mind. It was 5 May 2001 and I was praying at her feet as I usually did every Saturday morning. I suddenly heard her tell me that before I returned next week I should get a mammography done. She was insistent that I don’t get it checked with a doctor but get myself tested on a machine. I was taken aback as I had no sign or symptom of such an affliction. But I found I could not leave the church until I gave her an assurance that I would obey.
So I did the test and suffered a bigger shock when the doctor discovered the beginnings of a tumour. It was tiny and difficult to detect but turned out to be malignant. Immediately, my life and my world that had been stable, steady and safe until then, turned upside down. All my achievements and relationships seemed unimportant, almost illusory in the face of death. I felt confused, frightened, isolated and lonely. I felt cut off from every one even my closest family. There was no person or power that could console and support me.
My doctor advised that no time should be lost and the surgery was fixed for 25 May. Though I did not realise it at that time, I was in despair. Here again Mother Mary came to my rescue. Three days before the surgery, a young boy who was praying for me got a message to be given to me. He was not able to understand it himself but he was told to give me the message exactly the way he got it. The message was “ I have cured you completely. I want your life.” The young boy was initially hesitant to give me the message because he thought it was contradictory. The second sentence seemed to deny the first. But I understood perfectly that what the Lord wanted was my life. He wanted my talents, my abilities, my attributes and my time for the advancement of His kingdom.
They say cancer is not totally curable but note the words in the message. That is the promise the Lord has made to me and He never goes back on his promises. But it had a condition attached to it. I had received similar thoughts 5 years earlier. I had disregarded them because at that time, I was fully caught up in the professional challenges of my career, completely involved in the process of rising in the ranks of a large organisation. While I was a regular church goer, I was unwilling to give up all the material benefits I had received and hoped to receive to devote my life to God.
The boy’s message seemed to disentangle several knots in my heart. I remained anxious about surgery but I no longer felt that my life and all existence was fleeting, fickle and meaningless. The day I received the boy’s message, I went before Our Lady and promised her that after my recovery I would not return to the position that I was holding but would offer my services for the work of her Son.
My recovery was just as quick as the detection. After surgery I needed no further treatment. In fact the oncologist who is a leading doctor in Mumbai called me aside and asked me which doctor had detected the cancer. I told her that it was no human being but divine intervention and narrated the entire incident. She said she could fully believe it because it was beyond human detection at such an early stage. She said very few people get the chance I did.
That is the power of Mount Mary and I consider it a privilege that she has chosen me as her humble servant to work for her Son my Saviour and Lord. On my part I have been faithful to my promise and I always ask for God’s grace to continue to remain faithful.
Ms Joan Manohar
Mumbai