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Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gregor who wrote (21057)	10/12/1998 12:29:00 PM
From: SIer formerly known as Joe B.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 39621

Pilgrims gather for Virgin Mary message Monday October 12 10:50 AM EDT dailynews.yahoo.com CONYERS, Ga. (Reuters) - Thousands of Catholic pilgrims gathered Sunday at a Georgia farm where they believe the Virgin Mary will give a final message to a woman who claims to have spoken to her regularly for seven years. ''We decided to come because this is her last apparition,'' pilgrim Bob Kehler said. ''She (the Virgin Mary) is the commander-in-chief, the one who represents Jesus, and it has been delegated to her to gather up all her children.'' Kehler drove to the farm near Atlanta from Westminster, Maryland, about 500 miles away, and said he would stay until Tuesday, when former nurse Nancy Fowler says she will receive a final message from the Virgin Mary. Fowler claims to have had hundreds of visions of both Mary and her son, Jesus Christ, since 1991, but said last year that this year's message would be the last. Initially, messages from Mary came on the 13th of each month, but in 1994 they began to come only on Oct 13, the anniversary of Mary's reported appearance to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, she says. The Roman Catholic Church recognizes the validity of the Fatima apparition, but the church in Atlanta has distanced itself from Fowler's claims. An Atlanta group that supports Fowler and calls itself Our Loving Mother's Children Inc. said it expected 100,000 people to gather by Tuesday. Rockdale County public affairs director Lance Carter said based on the number of buses expected for the event, that estimate would likely prove accurate. About 3,000 people had assembled by Sunday night and some of those attending a sunset mass said they believed stones would turn into gold and healings and other miracles would occur Tuesday. But Fowler spokesman Richard Pfundstein said the visions and messages had nothing to do with such beliefs. ''While a lot of people, including non-Catholics, want to idolatrize the blessed mother, the blessed mother is actually like my eyeglasses,'' Pfundstein told Reuters. ''The only thing she does is help bring Jesus into focus. That's her whole job.''