Apparition Hill - 2 October 2016 (Podcast excerpt)(S06E46b)

Name: Goodpods
Rating: 4.8 (3721 reviews)

10/01/16 • 36 min

The Sacred Space Team were delighted to interview Sean Bloomfield (Director Producer) and Cimela Kidonakis (Producer/DP) about their new documentary Apparition Hill which opens in Omniplex Cinemas on October 7th (The Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary). Apparition Hill is, as the tagline says, "a film about life... and what comes after." A film crew offered 7 free trips to a place of alleged miracles, Medjugorje, a little-known village nestled in between two mountains along the border of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia to film their experiences. Medjugorje has been a hotbed of debate as millions visit the town each year to see for themselves whether the legend is true: that Mary, the actual Mother of Jesus, has appeared to a select group of natives with regularity for the last 30 years. As of yet, the Catholic Church has declared no official ruling one way or another. The winners of the online video contest embarked on a journey seeking answers to life's questions.
Sean and Cimela share with us about their own experiences of Medjugorje, the video contest and the filming process. It is a truly moving account of what happens when you bring 7 strangers together to try to find answers to the questions we are all asking. The beauty of the documentary is it's completely unbiased view on whether or not Our Lady is truly appearing in the little village of Medjugorje. As Sean says in the trailer: "Medjugorje is either the greatest miracle since Jesus walked the earth or its the biggest hoax in the history of mankind."

Apparition Hill runs from October 7th to 13th. Whether you believe in Medjugorje or not, whether you are a believer or an unbeliever, even if you are simply curious about the phenomena of miracles and apparitions, you will find this documentary to be very moving. It is literally changing lives all over the world, and it has an opportunity to go to the Oscars! Throughout the last few months, several members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences® have been deeply touched by Apparition Hill. Read more about this HERE. To find out more about the film and its crowd-funding initiative HERE.
Sean was also helped to write the auto-biography of one of the visionaries, Mirjana Soldo. Mirjana was only 16 years old when she and five other children saw a mysterious young woman on a remote hillside in the village of Medjugorje, then part of Yugoslavia. The woman - who possessed a beauty and grace that seemed to come from beyond - identified herself as the Virgin Mary. The apparitions that began on the afternoon of June 24, 1981 would dramatically change Mirjana’s life and the lives of countless people around the world. This auto-biography gives an excellent insight into Mirjana's personal experiences of the apparitions and her struggles under communism. It is receiving five star reviews on Amazon and is a real page-turner. If you would like to find out more about Mirjana's book HERE (it is also available from The Book Depository HERE or Amazon HERE).

Text us at +353 874668950 or email at [email protected]

Text us at +353 874668950 or email at [email protected]

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Triduum in Honour of St. Padre Pio - 18 September 2016 - (S06E44)

On this week's programme Fr. John Mockler of the Servi Della Sofferenza (Servants of Suffering) chats with Lorraine about the upcoming triduum in honour of St. Padre Pio which will be held in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Newcastle West, Co. Limerick, from September 21st to 23rd 2016
Fr. John begins by explaining why he has organised a triduum in honour of St. Pio and why St. Pio is the saint for our times. St. Pio, who was the first priest who had the stigmata (the wounds of Christ), is the saint for our times, because in bearing the wounds of Jesus, he witnessed to the fact of the Resurrection in his wounds.
St. Pio also participated in the redemptive suffering of Jesus, as St. Paul says: "completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (Col 1:24). By uniting his suffering with that of Christ he was able to bring many people back to Christ in the confessional. For this reason, Pope Francis named him a 'Servant of Mercy' and one of the patrons for the Year of Mercy.
Fr. John speaks to us about the spirituality of St. Pio and what message he has both for young people and those who are not so young.
Fr. John also shares about his own devotion to St. Pio and how he came to hear about and became a consecrated priest of the secular institute of the Servi Della Sofferenza (The Servants of Suffering) which Our Lady requested be set up to continue the work of St. Pio in the world.
The triduum in honour of St. Pio will include an opportunity for the Sacrament of Reconciliation as St. Pio is the saint of the confessional, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the rosary and veneration of and blessing with the first class relic of St. Pio.
A first class relic contains a part of the saint's body, in this case it is part of a bandage that contains the blood of St. Pio. Of course, as we know relics are not magic, nor are they to be used superstitiously. When we venerate the relics of a saint we are professing our belief in:
"(1) the belief in everlasting life for those who have obediently witnessed to Christ and His Holy Gospel here on earth; (2) the truth of the resurrection of the body for all persons on the last day; (3) the doctrine of the splendour of the human body and the respect which all should show toward the bodies of both the living and the deceased; (4) the belief in the special intercessory power which the saints enjoy in heaven because of their intimate relationship with Christ the King; and (5) the truth of our closeness to the saints because of our connection in the communion of saints we as members of the Church militant or pilgrim Church, they as members of the Church triumphant." (H/T to the Catholic Education Resource Center where you can read more about the Catholic understanding of relics HERE).

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The Scriptural Rosary - 9 October 2016 (Programme Excerpt) (S06E47b)

October is the month of the Rosary and so in this week's programme, the Sacred Space Team chat about the origins of the Rosary, why it is both a beautiful and a powerful prayer and they pray the joyful mysteries of the scriptural rosary. We also have our usual notices, prayer intentions and saints of the week. The full programme is available HERE.
The Scriptural Rosary
Last Friday we celebrated the feast of the Holy Rosary. The month of October is dedicated to the Holy Rosary. According to an account by fifteenth-century Dominican, Alan de la Rocha, Mary appeared to St. Dominic in 1206 after he had been praying and doing severe penances because of his lack of success in combating the Albigensian heresy. Mary praised him for his valiant fight against the heretics and then gave him the Rosary as a mighty weapon, explained its uses and efficacy, and told him to preach it to others:

"Be of good cheer, Dominic, the remedy for the evils which you lament will be meditation on the life, death and glory of My Son, uniting all with the recitation of the angelic salutation (Hail Mary) by which the mystery of redemption was announced to the world. This devotion, which you are to inculcate by your preaching, is a practice most dear to My Son and Me. The faithful will obtain by it innumerable advantages and shall always find Me ready to aid them in their wants. This is the precious gift which I leave to you and to your spiritual children." (HT to ScripturalRosary.org HERE).
Saint Pope John Paul II, in Rosarium Virginis Mariae, said: The Rosary is “at heart a Christocentric prayer” (RVM 1). In other words, Jesus is at the centre or heart of the Rosary. We can see this with the Hail, Mary prayer. The Holy Name of Jesus is at the heart of every Hail, Mary we say.
Saint John Paul II says: “With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love” (RVM 1). Isn’t that beautiful! Every time we pray the Rosary we sit at the school of Mary and she, our beloved Mother, helps us to contemplate the beauty of the face of Christ. What do we mean by contemplate? The Catechism teaches us that when we recite vocal prayers like the Rosary in a prayerful manner, “Prayer is internalised to the extent that we become aware of him ‘to whom we speak’” (CCC 2704). In other words, we are drawn deeper in prayer by praying the words of the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be etc. and meditating or thinking about the mysteries of the Rosary so that we experience the love of God deep within ourselves.
Every Rosary we pray with love and devotion making our best effort to unite our hearts with our Blessed Mother draws us closer to God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. As Fr. John Mockler has reminded us a number of times, the Rosary is the most powerful prayer we can pray after the Mass. In fact, the Rosary is a continuation of the Mass because in the Mass we celebrate the Paschal Mystery, in other words, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the Rosary is a meditation on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

The talk on the Rosary and the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary prayed by the Sacred Space Team is excerpted from our programme HERE. The text of the Scriptural Rosary for each of the Mysteries is available HERE.

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