Part II An American Pilgrimage

If you are new to this website, read the previous post below this one first.

Sister Mildred and the Continuous Apparitions of the Virgin Mary
Aug 21, 07:56 PM
Well, I survived last night, and nothing out of the ordinary happened. I wanted to see the Virgin Mary, but I didn’t. But long ago, someone else did, and the Blessed Mother’s been coming back ever since.

Sister Mildred Neuzil, known then as Sister Mary Ephrem, was a member of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood which ran the sanitarium in Rome City, Indiana. An assiduous group, they spend all day working, rarely speaking, except to patients and to each other about their tasks. In fact, they only had a half hour of free time every day, when they could chitchat about whatever suited their fancy.

On September 25, 1956, the Virgin Mary appeared to Sister Mildred, or “Millie” as she is affectionately known here, after private prayer. It’s said that Sister Millie told the Blessed mother that she didn’t have time to talk, as there was work to do. But Mary stayed with Millie the rest of the day, waiting attentively.

Mary said she wanted to be known as Our Lady of America, and cradled in her hands a replica of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. According to legend, Sister Millie was later able to accurately describe the basilica, even though it hadn’t been built at the time of the apparition. Mary said that she wanted a statue of herself to be enshrined in the basilica, which is still in process today.

Here is the church on the sanitarium grounds where the Virgin Mary appeared: And here is a close-up of the exact spot. Note the swath of light in the lower right. It wasn’t there when I looked through he viewfinder, and remained in the picture, no matter from which direction I pointed the camera: The Blessed Mother continued to appear to Sister Millie five more times in the coming weeks, and had many lessons to impart to her. Here’s one of my favorites:
“It is the United States that is to lead the world to peace, the peace of Christ, the peace that He brought with Him from heaven,” Sr. Mildred Mildred quoted the Virgin as saying. “Dear children, unless the United States accepts and carries out faithfully the mandate given to it by heaven to lead the world to peace, there will come upon it and all nations a great havoc of war and incredible suffering. If, however, the United States is faithful to this mandate from heaven and yet fails in the pursuit of peace because the rest of the world will not accept or cooperate, then the United States will not be burdened with the punishment about to fall…”

“If my desires are not fulfilled much suffering will come to this land. My faithful one, if my warnings are taken seriously and enough of my children strive constantly and faithfully to renew and reform themselves in their inward and outward lives, then there will be no nuclear war. What happens to the world depends upon those who live in it. There must be much more good than evil prevailing in order to prevent the holocaust that is so near approaching. Yet I tell you, my daughter, even should such a destruction happen because there were not enough souls who took my warning seriously, there will remain a remnant, untouched by the chaos who, having been faithful in following me and spreading my warnings, will gradually inhabit the earth again with their dedicated and holy lives.”
Have her desires been fulfilled? It’s a strong, and scary foretelling of the future of this country.

Anyhow, Sister Millie went to her priest, which told her to keep her apparitions to herself, lest others think she was crazy. She did, but when she told Bishop Paul F. Leibold of Cincinnati years later, he became convinced of their authenticity and published a book. Because she had guarded the secret so well, it was the first the people of Rome City learned of the apparitions.

To this day, the apparition is in the process of being approved, making it the first apparition of the Virgin Mary accepted by the Catholic Church in the United States.

The statue the Virgin Mary wanted has yet to be installed in the basilica, and there’s actually quite a bit of controversy around it. In the early 1970s, the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood ceased being contemplative, and took away their support of Sister Millie, who moved to Ohio with other sisters. (In 1976, they sold the sanitarum). In Ohio, Sister Millie and her compatriots lived as sisters, even though they were technically no longer part of an order, trying to further the cause of Our Lady of America.

Now, it’s a mess. Sister Millie died in 2000, and one of her comrades, Patricia Fuller ( aka Sister Joseph Therese) has taken up the cause. But so have elements within the Church, and the two sides are fighting. In fact, there are now two statues trying to be placed in the basilica by three different organizations. The Catholic Church says Sister Joseph is not a real nun, and misrepresents the Church. But Sister Joseph says that the Church is not holding true to the vision of Our Lady of America. It’s all very complicated, and I’m going to start researching it for a news story.
But here’s a drawing of the statue planned for the basilica based on Sister Millie’s description: Weird things are still happening in Rome City. It is said that this place can heal people, as a young boy was apparently cured of cancer a few years ago in this chapel: And people with cameras report seeing orbs that are reportedly the Virgin Mary. At dusk, they can be seen coming from the sun and approaching the door of the church, as if to say, “This is my home.”
I took pictures of the sun at sunset, and got this on the camera. It seemed to circle Nick Chester, my guide and the site’s historian: But there are also other things. One of the most interesting is the Wailing Room. When this was a retreat in the early 2000s, it was an average hotel room. But two years ago, strange drippings appeared on the wall.
The maid scrubbed them away, but two days later they returned. The drippings don’t start at the ceiling, and there is no difference between the pain in this room and any of the other rooms in Rome City. But they drip continuously, and are often still wet to the touch. Here is a close-up of the drippings: The owners stopped using it as a hotel room, and reportedly sent some of the substance to the lab, which said it was olive oil of Mediterranean origin. Weird.

Hundreds of pilgrims come to this site every month to press gauze to the walls and apply it to their ailing joints. They come, even though there are no advertisements of any kind to draw them. And the walls just keep oozing.

I don’t know what to make of them, but as Nick put it, “It’s true for those who come here and believe it. People will find what they want here.” That may sound skeptical, but Nick is a believer. He just knows that anyone can rationalize the occurrences as true or false, however they want to see it. I haven’t formed an opinion, but the sticky brown substance certainly was something else.
(By the way, I’ve seen what it looks like when oil paint is painted over with acrylic, and how it bleeds through. This did not look like that, if you’re wondering.)

On a completely unrelated note, I wanted to finish this posting with one of my favorite pictures of the day. It’s one of the stained-glass windows in the church, made in 1914 in Germany of traditional style. It depicts Jesus as a teenager. His parents lost him, and found him in the temple beginning his preaching to the elders there. Look at the gorgeous detail!