New Delhi, India and a Meeting with Bishop de Penha

Dec 4, 2006, enroute to Pakistan, we spent one night in New Delhi in the care of Fr. Joseph Thomas, a faithful Roman Catholic priest of TLIG India.

December 4 New Delhi, India - Sacred Heart Cathedral Parish Conference Room - Meeting with Delhi TLIG Prayer Groups

Vassula with Fr. Joe during Prayer Group Meeting

Enroute to Pakistan, we spent one night in New Delhi, in the care of Fr. Joseph Thomas, a faithful Roman Catholic priest of TLIG India. Vassula has frequently traveled to and through New Delhi, the crossroads of India, giving the Messages, planting the seeds that have now borne much fruit in the TLIG Prayer Groups that have sprung up since. A few hours before flying off to Lahore, Pakistan, Fr. Joe gathered the TLIG Prayer Group members from Jarkhand and the Delhi area for Vassula to meet, informing her of the progress in the TLIG Apostolate in Northern India. In this metropolis of 15 million inhabitants, the population is predominantly Hindu, with a very small percentage of Christians. There are several TLIG Prayer Groups in this area, including one Prayer Group in the Hindi language.

With the Prayer Group members of North India

December 9 Mumbai, India - Visit to His Excellency, Bishop Bosco de Penha, Auxiliary Bishop of Bombay

Vassula with Bishop de Penha and Organizers, Celine and Agnello

The Bombay TLIG group set to work months before Vassula's arrival to prepare the public meeting, enlisting the help of its volunteers and informing the hierarchy of the West Bombay diocese, the Christian quarter of Bombay. His Excellency, Auxiliary Bishop of Bombay, Bosco de Penha was very pleased to meet Vassula in person and learn of the Messages and True Life in God activities. He carefully listened to Vassula's testimony of conversion and discussed, at great length, her mission of Unity. He was intrigued to know her family's reaction and acceptance of her gift, and Vassula answered truthfully that her husband and her family believed she had been given a special gift, but that it took a period of adjustment for them to accept the change in her life.

Bishop Bosco listening intently to Vassula speak

The Bishop, delighted with Vassula's testimony, then turned to each of us in the group, wanting to know more about our background and the effect of True Life in God on our lives. We spent a very enriching time listening to each other's conversion stories, marveling once again at God's Faithfulness and Providence. All four of us, Vassula included, had changed our lives and returned to the Church and the sacraments thanks to the Messages. We told him about many of our True Life in God friends all around the world who have had similar powerful conversions once they started to read the books: lukewarm and lapsed Catholics and Orthodox who rediscovered the truth of their faith in Holy Scriptures and returned to the Church and its Sacraments; Protestants who were brought to believe in the True Presence in the Eucharist and in the Sacraments, who come to honor and revere Our Lady, and pray to the saints for intercession. These Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants gather together in TLIG Prayer Groups united in their love for Jesus Christ, and pray fervently for Christian Unity. On a local level, Celine and Agnello shared with him the experiences of two young Hindu men in their TLIG Prayer Group who had found Jesus Christ, their Savior in the Messages. We felt the Bishop's contentment in seeing and feeling the enthusiasm and fire for God as we witnessed, bringing to our awareness the wisdom of this man of God who listened to our humble yet powerful experiences, and who had invested the time to search for the good fruit to discern God's work.

This is evangelization; each one of us has a story to tell and is called to witness of the wonders of the Holy Spirit's intervention in our lives. We can testify to the outpouring of the Spirit which raises souls from darkness and sets them alight to burn with the fire for God's Kingdom. We must give glory to God by proclaiming His saving Work as in the Parable of the Samaritan Woman (Jn 4: 4-42) and in the Parable of the Lamp: "No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed; rather he places it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light." (Lk 8:16)

Vassula presented His Excellency with a copy of the One-Book edition of the True Life in God Messages and the booklet of the 2005 True Life in God International Ecumenical Pilgrimage. He wished her well on her mission in India, and she gratefully thanked him for giving us his time and his blessing.

December 10 Public Meeting in the Duruelo Convent School Grounds, West Bombay

TLIG event organizer Celine Vieira introduces Vassula

In many parts of India, the pre Christmas Season is traditionally the time of the year when wedding celebrations are held, and together with the bustle of Christmas preparations in these Christian neighborhoods of Bombay, the sounds of the festivities were both faintly and evidently in the background throughout the evening. Many in the audience had come from far away; Vassula's many visits to different parts of India, and the support from many of the Catholic Clergy had brought a number of priests and religious to the Meeting.

The crowd had come to listen to Vassula's experience of God's simple approach and His Divine Providence which untiringly seeks to nourish each soul, always providing it with the graces to return to Him. True Life in God is God's Gift for our times, wherein He reveals His Desires for Intimacy with His children, Reconciliation, Love, and Unity in His Church, offering us the graces we need on our journey to holiness. Today's Apostasy, mankind's betrayal of the Divine Truths, continuously rejects the Divine Graces Heaven outpours on us in these times. In man's pursuit of the material, he has forgotten his divine lineage and prefers to identify with what is evil. The sacredness of God's creative work is being lost in man's rebellion and pride, goading him to rebuild a godless world, thus usurping God's power in the process. Today, all belief in sacred values is systematically being eroded.

Since the Christmas celebrations were approaching, Vassula cited the example of the secularization of Christmas. "God has given us many prophecies in True Life in God. After the prophecies of the Two Towers (11 Sept.'91), and the Tsunami (10 Sept.'87, 18 Feb.'93), another prophecy has come to pass. On the 24th of December 1991, the Lord said:

- citadel after citadel is being besieged by the Rebel; I come today and offer all mankind My Peace but very few listen; today I come with peace-terms and a Message of Love, but the peace I am offering is blasphemed by the earth and the Love I am giving them is mocked and jeered in this Eve of My Birth; mankind are celebrating these days without My Holy Name; My Holy Name has been abolished and they take the day of My Birth as a great holiday of leisure, worshipping idols; Satan has entered into the hearts of My children, finding them weak and asleep;

TLIG Bombay volunteers at the bookstand

In many countries in the West, they have succeeded in eliminating the powerful name of Christ in greeting cards and publications, substituting it with "Merry X'mas" and "Happy Holidays"! The Christmas Tree is no more...it has now become the "Holiday Tree." Our awareness is directed from the celebration of the Incarnation of Christ, the Savior and Redeemer, to a celebration of pagan pleasures and other rites.

The audience was dismayed to realize the subtleness of this threat to our belief and gratefully received the warning to be vigilant and carefully guard our Christian traditions. We, as Christians, should be always ready and willing to stand up for our faith and values.

800 people attended the Meeting, reciting the Prayer for Repentance and Deliverance with Vassula

TLIG Bombay Prayer Groups with Vassula

After Bombay, Vassula continued on her mission to Kerala in southern India. Many thanks to the Organizers and Prayer Groups in New Delhi and Bombay; to Fr. Joseph Thomas for his meticulous care and good work in Delhi; and for His Excellency, Bishop Bosco de Penha's hospitality and support.