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Picture of Our Lady Queen of Peace weeping tears of blood
'Those who
venerate Me by means of this image - I will intercede for their
every need and grace.' Christina tells us that: "Our Holy Mother appears to be about nineteen or twenty in age, with eyes that are like deep pools of blue. Her face is beautiful beyond imagination. "Our Holy Mother is more beautiful than any person I have ever seen. No statue or picture can show her beauty. She is radiantly happy. She moves slowly and reverently and brings with her an indescribable heavenly peace. She always smiles. She pours that love through me. If Our Holy Mother is speaking about something you may see her going from the smiles, to sadness, to tears, and even to tears of blood. But Our Lady always smiles, no matter what. I have even seen Our Lady smile through the tears. "The peace when I would see Our Holy Mother is as if everything is stilled beyond description. It's as if you are the only person existing to her at that moment. You're so loved and you're so in love with Our Blessed Mother." Christina speaks of a light: that simultaneously shines on her and from her forming a luminous glow that appears to come from inside her." Christina says you would give everything on offer in this world for a few seconds of the heavenly peace and love flowing from the Heavenly Mother. After the image was painted (from Christina's instructions) of Our Lady Queen of Peace as she appears to her, Our Blessed Lady confided to Christina that she had 'guided' the hand of the artist. Strangely, the artist himself shared his own experience of painting the picture by saying that although, in the beginning, the prospect of painting Our Lady's picture seemed awesome, when he commenced work he found an ease of execution which had never accompanied him with any previous portrait. When the second picture was completed, depicting Our Lady as She appeared on one occasion to Christina with the Sacred Host radiating light over Her chest and with tears of blood coming from Her eyes as has since happened in a number of Her apparitions, especially on occasion when She pleaded for the rejection of abortion. . . . . . .and the picture was honored with flowers and a light for the first time without any advertence to the particular date which befell - Saturday, May 13, - Our Blessed Mother appeared to Christina on that day holding a copy of the picture in Her hand remarking,
As Our Lady held the picture angry demons on either side tried in vain to snatch it from Her. It was only at the day's end while reflecting on the graces many had experienced that the full significance began to strike Christina's spiritual director. On hearing Christina's account of Our Lady's joy with the picture and the promise of intercession for those venerating Her by its means, he remembered that May 13 was once in the Church a feast in honor of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament and commentators on Fatima had found a link between Her choice of that day for Her first apparition there in 1917 and the strong call made in those apparitions for reparation to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. And here was Our Lady, by means of this beautiful and touching picture revealing in a new way Her union of sorrow with Jesus Her Son abused today as never before - Blood of Her Blood and Flesh of Her Flesh - in the Most Blessed Sacrament. The impact of Our Lady's love makes Christina look on the world as of no value. It is actually a temptation to our flesh. We may want this and that and we are drawn away from God for the flesh is weak. Our hearts become closed to God. We are led further and further down the wide road of the world instead of following the narrow path of the cross by imitating Christ. We have to choose: we cannot serve two masters. If we chose the narrow road and deny the flesh we are protecting the soul and surrendering to God. Then God fills the heart with a greater desire for Himself and inflames the soul with His own pure love. We discern more and more how temporary the body; it merely houses the soul. Christina has been taught clearly by Our Blessed Lady that everything we do must be done with love or else it loses its value. To do something with true love and charity is to want to do it for the love of God. Carrying out works of charity without this desire robs them of their power and true value. When asked about the joy of Our Blessed Mother Christina comments that it is overwhelming, to the point of being painful. Christina feels impelled to sing and praise God without ceasing, and to want to go straight to heaven never to be separated from Our Blessed Mother. Normal joy, Christina says, such as that experienced at the birth of a child is nothing compared to the real joy of Our Blessed Mother. Our Lady's joy is 'painfully beautiful'. Our Lady, however, is not always happy when She comes. Sometimes She is sad, sometimes She is weeping. The very sight of Our Lady in tears wrenches Christina's heart. Her tears have, on occasion, turned to blood. Our Lady has explained to Christina that She weeps for Her lost children, for those who have wandered from God and are lost in sin. As Mother, Our Blessed Lady is suffering to lead Her lost children back to God to save their souls. This has happened on a number of occasions and it really breaks Christina's heart; she would give her life - she has declared - to help stop the tears. She notices that when Our Lady weeps it is different to the weeping of the average person. Whereas the tears of the average person flow from the corner of the eye, Our Lady's tears flow from the very center of her eyes, slowly in one drop at a time, till they reach the end of her face and then disappear. In attempting to express this 'inexpressible feeling' Christina told her spiritual director, Fr. Gerard McGinnity: You would give your life, time and time again, even to wipe the tears of blood from her face, because it pierces your heart in a way that there's no words for. If a child is within a house, and the house is in flames, and you couldn't get to that child to take it out of the flames, your heart would be broken and you would be mentally distraught, it is the same sense of helplessness you feel when you can't wipe the tears of blood from Our Blessed Mother's face and from Her eyes. The only way you can do it, is surrender to whatever God permits, in the hope that God will lessen Her tears, that She will be in less pain of heart for Her children.
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