A good coffee table book has to have a few specific features to be successful: a beautiful cover, a catchy title, great information and amazing photography.
Wincenty Laszewski checks all of the boxes with The World of Marian Apparitions: Mary’s Appearances and Messages from Fatima to Today. Detailing 48 appearances starting from 1884 to present, each page is filled with detailed information and beautiful images about each apparition. Check out these lesser known messages from Our Mother herself.
1925 – The Contemplative Mother of God
Sr. Lucia, who lived in the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Dorothy in Pontevedra, Spain, was visited by a little boy who needed help with learning the Hail Mary prayer. She taught him the prayer but he had trouble memorizing it. She gave him a simple prayer and told him to visit the Church of Our Lady. Sr. Lucia then received a vision of Mary asking her to propagate a new First Saturdays devotion to her heart surrounded by thorns. A few months later, Sr. Lucia had a second encounter with the little boy, and asked him if he knew the Hail Mary. He asked if she propagated Our Lady’s request, and at that moment light radiated from His Face and she realized he was Jesus. Her confessor still wanted more proof the devotion was needed because there was already a Fifteen Saturdays devotion. Jesus appeared to her in an apparition saying “I prefer those who practice the Five First Saturdays Devotion as an act of reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary to those who practice the Fifteen Saturdays unfeelingly and indifferently.”
1937 – Queen of the Poor Souls in Purgatory
Mary appeared to four girls passing my the cemetery of soldiers who died during WWI in Heede, Germany. She was radiant, holding the Baby Jesus in one arm and a globe with a cross in the other. She gave the message that the world was going to suffer a “minor judgement” and that they were to bring the people in their town to prayer. The Gestapo tried to stop the children but they continued to receive messages from both Mary and Jesus in secret. Mary asked, “I wish to be invoked as Queen of the Universe and as Queen of the Poor Souls.” The visions lasted three years, but one of the girls, Greta Gansferth, continued to have visions of Jesus and she died in 1996. Like the messages in Fatma, Mary requested prayer, especially the Rosary, a warning of disaster and promise of a new era when souls reject Satan.
1948 – Mediatrix of All Graces
As a new postulant in the Carmelite order in Lipa, Philippines, Teresita Castillo received her apparitions of Mary. She asked for a statue of her to be placed where she was standing and the vine next to her blessed. She also asked for a Mass at the site on the 12th of every month, the day “before Fatima.” She identified herself as “the Mediatrix of all Graces.” There were many miracles, including the rain of rose petals with an image of Jesus and healings throughout the village. Mary warned that Teresita would be persecuted, and she was to the point where she had to leave the convent. All of the diaries and evidence of the visions where burned, and they tried to destroy Mary’s statue, but couldn’t, so instead they hid it away for 40 years. In February 1990, ‘strange’ phenomenon started happening again in Lipa, and in May before one of the Carmelite sisters who witnessed the miracles from before died, she insisted that Mary be placed back in her proper place in the garden. There was another rain of rose petals and miraculous healings. The Archbishop of Lipa officially approved the devotion in 2015, but the Vatican in 2016 declared the apparitions “not supernatural.”
1981 – Mother of the Word
The first officially recognized apparition in Africa, Mary appeared to a total of 3 visionaries (others claimed to also have seen the visions but weren’t approved). The first was to Alphonsine Mumureke, who described Mary not white like other images, but “unspeakably beautiful.” Mary identified herself as “Nyina wa Jambo” or Mother of the Word. Alphonsine was mocked and suffered because of the visions, but when others also saw Mary along with miracles, they came to believe her. Mary declared that when she speaks her messages, they are not just for the visionary, or their diocese or just their country, but for the whole world. Mary warned of a dark time, and in 1994, a civil war broke out in Rwanda, killing one million people. Mary cried when giving this warning in 1982 speaking of suffering and “No one enters Heaven without suffering.”
1987 – Harbinger of Change
We do not know the true identity or exact location of this vision, as the visionary wanted to remain anonymous. She went by the pseudonym, Mariamante, meaning “beloved Mary” and Mary promised her, “I shall always protect you from the public eye.” Her message was primarily focused on the family; pray for chastity, take care of your children and pray for families that they have great respect for new life. The visionary initiated the international Apostolate of Holy Motherhood, with a mission to offer a path to sanctity in motherhood and families. Mary also asked for, “Silence and an inconspicuous life. That is what I ask of you. May the Lord’s light shine through you in your daily duties.” – just like all mothers.
2007 – A Strange Light
April 24, 2007 was the site of another miracle of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The day before, the legislature in Mexico City voted to approve on demand abortion. A Mass was being celebrated in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and when the liturgy was ended, “the center of the Guadalupe image began to glow with a bright light.” Thousands of people there witnessed the same light and began taking pictures, all appearing the same. Engineers studied the photographs and confirmed their authenticity and that the glow was not a reflection or superimposed, rather the glow was coming from within Mary right where Jesus would have been in the womb. It also is in the shape of a fetus with a distinct halo.
There is one thing that is true, that is that when Jesus was resurrected, he promised to never leave us, and he has kept this promise with the help of his Blessed Mother through apparitions and visions. Covering 48 visions and apparitions in modern times, each one shares the message of love and repentance, and more prayer. Beautifully illustrated and easy to read, The World of Marian Apparitions: Mary’s Appearances and Messages from Fatima to Today by Wincenty Laszewski gives us a quick glimpse into the beautiful messages given to the whole world by Mary herself.