Slovakia Report

May 25, 2010

Our 2009 TLIG International Pilgrimage Cruise to the shrines dedicated to St. Paul's Evangelization in the islands of Greece brought a new awareness of the need in our times to help spread God's Word to every corner of the earth. Our enthusiastic Eastern European brothers and sisters (TLIG Romania, Czech Republic, Croatia, and Hungary) on board our ship, the Aegean Pearl, agreed to pray together to the Holy Spirit in the hope of a possible visit by Vassula to their countries in the coming year.

It took many months to fulfill the first task which was to find suitable dates in Vassula's busy calendar. With countless e-mails flying back and forth, Vassula's decision to program these trips in May and October of 2010 was received with joy by all 4 countries. Careful planning and organizing were underway, and TLIG Prayer Groups were mobilized for the preparations. Gina of TLIG Romania, and Magda of Czech Republic were the first to be notified to submit their proposed Programmes for Vassula's visit. In the course of our communications, our TLIG Czech group started to include a new organizer, Ferdinand Vyscoz from neighboring Slovakia. It seemed the Lord had opened a door to a country Vassula had never visited. So instead of bringing Vassula to Prague in the Czech Republic, our TLIG Czech Prayer Groups were called to help bring Vassula and the Messages of True Life in God to Slovakia.

May 24, Monday Arrival in Slovakia

Right after Vassula's visit to Timisoara and Bocsa, Romania, she flew to Vienna airport where she was welcomed with bouquets of beautiful summer flowers by Fr. Petr and Magda. An hour's drive in Fr. Petr's car took us through the Austrian border to Trnva, the main city in Western Slovakia, located 50 kms. from Slovakia's capital, Bratislava,. We were amazed to know that the Christian faith was so alive in this country composed of a 69% Roman Catholic majority, 7% Lutheran, 4% Greek Catholic, and 1% Orthodox. We were delighted to meet the new TLIG organizer Ferdinand Vyscoc, his wife Iveta, their son, and 5 beautiful daughters, who together worked very hard to prepare Vassula's visit to their country.

We were welcomed by Ferdinand & Iveta at their Trnva home

It is curious to find that like our TLIG organizers in Romania, Ferdinand and his wife were forced many years ago to seek asylum in a faraway country to preserve their faith and beliefs during the communist regime. They had fled to Australia and lived there for many years, bearing and raising their children in an atmosphere of freedom to live and worship. It was there that Ferdinand and Iveta came upon the Messages of True Life in God, and after the fall of communism, they returned to their homeland. Always fervent in their faith, they struggled to establish themselves once again in their country. Ferdinand is a physicist, and with his wife and children, is active in the religious activities of Trnva.

May 25, Tuesday Trnva Sports Hall Meeting with the Clergy

Posters in different places in Trnva

Vassula walks to the Sports Hall

Before the Public Meeting in the same venue, Vassula was shown to a conference room where many priests were waiting. They were pleased to greet her for half of them were Franciscan and diocesan priests who had come from the Czech Republic and had already read the Messages. The other half was composed of Roman Catholic priests and a Lutheran pastor from Slovakia. Many were smiling and eager to hear Vassula speak.

Ferdinand serves as interpreter for the Clergy Meeting

Group picture after the Clergy Meeting

To give them a good background of True Life in God, Vassula recounted that before her Angel Daniel came to her in 1985, she had never practiced her faith and lived aloof from God, living only for herself. She knew nothing of what was going on in the Church because she was never a follower. She told them God approaches and communicates in the best language the soul knows. He speaks to her by means of locutions which is the interior voice of God, and interior visions. Vassula explained the manner in which God instructed her, “He would give me a thought, and in a simple way many things at the same time, and through this a wealth of knowledge is easily grasped in a split of a second. When God approached me, I had never had any Catechism, no theological studies. And after 25 yrs., 12 volumes were written...”

Vassula's Guardian Angel Daniel was sent to draw her attention to God and prepare her to meet Him. “Make peace with God,” her Angel told her. She explained that to make peace with God is to return to Him after a period of rebellion. Following a painful purification, God the Father came to her, and His first words were: “you belong to Me, you come from Me, you are Mine, you are My Seed..” Hearing His Voice filled her with an overwhelming feeling of reverence, and after He taught her to say the “Our Father” from her heart, meaning every word, Vassula recognized God to be her Father and was given the grace to feel His Paternal Love which drew her into the intimacy of a little child with her father. A very beautiful anecdote tells of how a familiar “Yes Dad!” had slipped out of Vassula's mouth as she listened to God the Father speak to her with loving closeness, making her forget for an instant the awe and the majesty of the First Person of the Holy Trinity, the Almighty! Vassula immediately realized the greatness and splendor of whom she was talking to and wished she could take back those words of such profane familiarity.. but with great delight, the Eternal Father reassured her saying “Do not be afraid daughter, I have taken your words in My Hand like a jewel.” Vassula continued to say: “God's Will is for us to love Him and serve Him. But to do this, we must first get to know Him by becoming intimate with Him, by approaching Him like a child approaches his father. Only then will we be able to learn to love Him and serve Him with all our heart.”

Jesus came to Vassula as the Sacred Heart, bringing to her, an Orthodox, the awareness of a very Catholic devotion, to show us He makes no distinction among us. “Consolidate My Church!”, was the Lord's plea. “The Lord says the Church is losing its light and is weakened by division and apostasy. Churches in the West are being closed down and destroyed, governments are passing laws against the 10 Commandments of God.” Our Lady had told Vassula that the world has grown cold to the love of God through its wickedness and apostasy. The world is destroying itself and Satan deceives us again with the first lie he deceived Eve – that we can be God.

“But there is The Hope”, she said, – “the 2nd Pentecost! God has given us the Church, the Bible, but the world needs the effusion of the Holy Spirit. Let us call on the Holy Spirit who is like a tide coming to shore reaching the ankles, then the knees, until we are washed over completely. True Life in God holds many teachings from the Holy Spirit to transform and transfigure the soul, and raise apostles for this end of times.” Vassula then spoke of True Life in God's main theme which is Unity among Christians.

Some Questions and Answers:

What does the Vatican say? The priests were interested to hear of the dialogue with Rome. Vassula took the opportunity to remind them of the 2 ½ year study undertaken by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) whereby 3 of their theologians were given all 12 volumes of True Life in God in the original English language. 5 CDF Questions were then asked for Vassula to answer, which she did. Vassula's replies to the 5 Questions were found satisfactory, allowing the procedure to continue through correspondence between Cardinal Ratzinger and the Bishops of the world, and thereafter by informing the bishops of some countries with questions, of the clarifications made by the CDF. This CDF study culminated in Vassula's November 2004 meeting with the Prefect of the CDF, the then Cardinal Ratzinger, in his office. At this meeting, barely 5 months before he was elected Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Ratzinger had stated that “the Notification has been modified” and he wisely requested that the 5 CDF Questions and Vassula's Answers be published from then on in each TLIG book.

What does the Greek Orthodox Church say?

Vassula informed them about His Beatitude, Theodoros, Patriarch of Alexandria and of All Africa who is her Patriarch since she is born in Egypt. She had met him several times and has informed him of her mission. He has read True Life in God. Vassula's mission and True Life in God are known among the Orthodox and many laypeople, Archbishops and Metropolitans around the world support her in spite of much persecution. There are those who are still not open to Unity and are quite opposed to the simple fact of hearing a woman speak of theology. Much prayer is needed to see and understand how the Lord intends to achieve Unity.

May 25, Tuesday
Trnva Public Meeting at 5 p.m.

"How many have read True Life in God?," Vassula asked!

Vassula refers to Iveta as she translates to Slovakian

Ferdinand of newly-formed TLIG Slovakia organized a very successful Meeting in the Sports Hall which welcomed an audience of 800 people. With the help of TLIG Czech Republic, several buses were hired to transport eager listeners from Prague, Brno and other parts of this neighboring country across the Slovakian border. TLIG books, Dvds, and other materials from Czech Republic were meticulously prepared by Magda's Prayer Group and transported for this Meeting. Vassula was pleasantly surprised to see TLIG Pilgrimage and other DvDs already dubbed in the Czech language! It was no wonder that at the start of Vassula's talk, 90 % of the crowd raised their hands when asked who knew about True Life in God. The Messages had come to the Czech Republic years ago and were in circulation all these years, and had found their way to Slovakia!

In this evening's talk, Vassula emphasized.... “why is God manifesting Himself in this manner? Why is it important that God speaks in our times? Why is it important there are so many apparitions of Our Lady? There has been a multiplication in the last 30 yrs. The Holy Spirit is outpouring Himself to all mankind like never before in history, pouring out His Gifts and Graces. Why is God calling us? Because there is a vast apostasy in all the world. Apostasy means Christians baptized but don't believe anymore and don't follow the truth anymore. There is a powerful apostasy in Europe but it is everywhere. God speaks today because He is a Father. Any father who sees his child going to the fire, he will not just sit there, but jump to save him. God does not just stay in His icon, He moves out of His icon because God is alive and active! We are living in the end of times, in an epoch of apostasy, so God gives us a time of mercy, with graces to renew us and revive us. That is why He has many callings such as True Life in God.

The Lord says: “I am renewing my creation, this is the beginning of this 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.... I do not come by force upon you with my Holy Spirit to violate your liberty, nor do I come to condemn you. I come to you out of My Mercy, to give you freely the fullest knowledge of My Will...”

Vassula explained: “This is what He wants, He wants us to know His Will. Yes, we are Christians, yes we are baptized, but we have to ask ourselves – are we doing God's Will? God's Will is to love. To love God is the first commandment, and to love your neighbor as yourself because the Lord says in the Messages, on Judgment Day, we will be judged according to the measure of love we have had for Him here on earth. That is why God is inviting everyone to become a living altar for God.”

Vassula asked: “Are we giving glory to God daily? We are Christians, we go to church, we pray, but do we give glory to God everyday? We do not glorify God as much as we should, instead we glorify ourselves. The world today refuses to give glory to God but glorifies itself! We have forgotten that all we are and all that we have, and that are good come from God. We believe our wisdom, good jobs, good health, etc. all come from our own efforts. We do not thank God for all the blessings we have such as family, the roof over our heads, food, clothing, etc. We have friends and they like us, we have blessings like family and children but we never thank him enough for all these things are His, all the comforts we have are from Him. All that is good, they all come from God. This is what it means when Our Lady says the world today refuses to give glory to God and instead glorifies itself, playing God. When I saw this with God's eyes, I was horrified because God gets offended, we do not praise Him enough, we do not thank Him enough.

We know and have noticed that the world has become more violent and more evil, and with more natural disasters because we are living in times where good is transformed to evil, we are living in times where the world has grown cold to the love of God. The Lord says the world has climbed to the peak of its apostasy and godlessness, the world is self destroying itself from its atheism and materialism. The world draws all the catastrophes to itself because evil draws evil. When our hearts are filled with hostility, any arrogance and lack of love, unable to forgive, this heart has no place for God and carries the war inside it, and what is within can be seen on the outside as well.

We are all called to a true repentance, to a true self-dying, to a true return to God, to a true abandonment. Having gone through this, God then becomes our intimate and Holy Companion, He will be conversing with us born of Him by grace, manifesting His sweet love to us. He said: “If you only know how I am ready to forgive your era's crimes by just one kind look at Me, a moment's regret, a sigh of hesitation, a slight reconsideration, a smile at My Holy Face, and I shall forgive and forget. I shall not even look at My Wounds. I will efface from My sight all your iniquities and sins; had you one mere moment of regret and all Heaven would celebrate at your gesture, for your smile and your kind look will be received like incense by Me and that slight moment of regret will be heard like a new song by Me...” 29 August '89

We must learn to forgive even those who still hold a grudge against us. In forgiving, the Father in Heaven too in His turn will forgive us and through this act we will grow in the love of God and neighbor. “It is someone who is forgiven little who shows little love.” Lk 7:47... God is trying to revive us, to revive what is dead...this is why He pours out His Holy Spirit on us, who is the Giver of Life, to bring us back to life.

The Holy Spirit said in one of the Messages : “I am He who brings you into a filial love with Our divinity to lead a divine life and become gods by participation.” The Holy Spirit is waiting, eager to invade us but does not find space in our hearts filled with sin and iniquity. If we do not repent, God will hold us accountable for our sins; He will hold us accountable for any indifference, any insufficiency, any arrogance, any pride, any prejudice, any uncharitable gesture, for disobedience to His precepts, for any malice in our heart, for ignoring Him, for ignoring grace when it was offered. He will hold us accountable for our rigidity and inflexibility when it comes to Unity. We had better shape up or He will ship us all out!”

These strong words of warning make us realize Jesus Christ wants a change of heart, He wants us to repent, to die to our ego and abandon ourselves to Him. She said: “ Jesus sees our heart. When you are repentant, before you can even open your mouth to ask forgiveness, Jesus has already forgiven you because your heart speaks.” Vassula shared with them the other themes of True Life in God: the meekness of God, the Intimacy with each of us He yearns for, the delights of being close to God knowing He is our Holy Companion, the Unceasing Prayer, the 3 Ascents of Spirituality, how the Lord wants an Equality of Love to raise us in a divine union with Him, and more of the Holy Spirit who illumines us and out pours His Treasures and Splendors which are the virtues, and the Unity of Christians.

Vassula ended her talk by giving the audience a meditation, addressing a question many of us have in our hearts. “There are people who come and say they pray and they pray and they never feel God inside them, they don't feel Jesus. To these the Lord says: “Come, you who err still in this wilderness saying, 'I have sought my Redeemer but have not found Him,' Find Me My Beloved in purity of heart, by loving Me without self-interest. Find Me in holiness, in the abandonment I desire of you; find Me by observing My Commandments; find Me by replacing evil with love; find Me in simplicity of heart.

Sin no more, cease in doing evil, learn to do good; search for justice, help the oppressed. Let this wilderness and this aridity exult; let your tepidity inflame into an ardent flame. Relinquish your apathy and replace it by fervour, do all these thins so that you may be able to say, 'I have sought my Redeemer and I have found Him. He was near me all the time, but in my darkness I failed to see Him. O Glory be to God! Blessed be Our Lord! How could I have been so blind?' I shall then remind you to keep and treasure My Principles, so that you may live.” 17 June 1991

Trnva youth fill the hall with song

After the talk, people rushed to get their books and Dvds

The Meeting continued with songs and music from the youth of Trnva and ended with a prayer for Healing and Deliverance. Vassula thanked the audience for coming and answering God's Call, and thanked the organizers for their good work for the Lord. Many rushed to the tables to get TLIG books, CDs, and Dvds, and signed up to join and form TLIG Prayer Groups.

May 26, Wednesday
Vassula meets the Auxiliary Bishop of Trnva

Vassula met Bishop Jan Orosch accompanied by Fr. Peter

Shortly before our departure the following day, Ferdinand was happy to announce to Vassula that the Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Trnva was waiting to meet her at the Archbishop's Palace, a beautiful Renaissance building in the old town of Trnva. His Excellency, Bishop Jan Orosch received Vassula warmly, and was pleasantly surprised to meet a normal and unassuming laywoman with a mission. He very kindly guided her through all 3 floors of the Palace, of which the beautiful Chapel still showed the ravages of the communist regime. This building had been sequestered and turned into army barracks, where chemicals were stored in the Chapel, permanently leaving some of the sacred paintings beyond renovation due to the damage caused by chemical fumes. Both Vassula and Bishop Orosch were pleased to have been given the opportunity to meet. We have seen that on the part of the Clergy, many unfounded doubts and misconceptions of True Life in God and Vassula's mission are quickly dispelled when priests and bishops are open to the Works of the Holy Spirit, and are properly informed that the power of conversion that lies in the Messages is only for the benefit of the Church and no one else. True Life in God brings people closer to God and encourages an immediate return to the Church and its Sacraments.

Iveta wrote soon after Vassula's visit: “I want to tell you that most people were surprised about the simplicity of God and it made them realize, how close God is to us, how simple He is and as a result of seeing Vassula they feel now much closer to God, because they realized how close He is to them. I think that this is the most touching thing about your visit and I suppose that was the reason for your coming, too.” Ferdinand was pleased with the success of Vassula's visit and immediately busied himself with organizing more TLIG events. In his quiet enthusiasm, he wrote: “We had our first TLIG prayer meeting in Trnava. We found a place and together with the Czech friends (Magda, Fr. Petr and Jan) we organised a meeting. There were more than 30 people present mainly from western part of Slovakia. There was a program from 10 am to 4 pm. We started with watching Vassula´s visit in Bangladesh, then we listened to witnessing of our Czech friends. After lunch we had a prayer meeting rules explanation, which followed with the prayer meeting itself. The last agenda of the meeting was to set up new prayer groups. There is one existing TLIG Prayer group in Skalica (western Slovakia) and we set up a new one in Trnava.”

May God bless Ferdinand and his family for the excellent work in organizing a vibrant and prayerful Meeting for Vassula and True Life in God. We are also very thankful to Magda, Fr. Petr, and Jan of TLIG Czech Association for their zeal and love for the Messages, and their assistance to bring True Life in God to Slovakia. Vassula commended TLIG Czech Republic's work in TLIG Media which includes the production of TLIG materials, notably in the dubbing of TLIG Dvds and Cds in the Czech language. Magda wrote and shared: “For me personally these days with Vassula were a big blessing. God changed my heart. During these days I felt how terribly dry and hard my heart was. You know, maybe a week before this meeting I recognized, that in my life I heard thousands of words and times about God, read about God, but during these days I tasted Him, His sweetness... I was very surprised and thankful, and it is only beginning. I was encouraged in my work for TLIG.”

May God be praised forever!
Submitted by Cecilia B. Lutz.