Old St. Patrick's Podcast Series Currents: Awakening to the Flow of Spirit in our Lives John Blake is a 64-year-old father of four and a proud grandfather of four. He currently works in the maintenance department here at Old St. Pats. As a recovering alcoholic with 27 years of sobriety, John is grateful for the gift of each day and attributes his success to the Blessed Mother and all of the saints. In this episode, John reflects on his life-changing trip to Medjugorje and how the power of prayer helped him find peace with God and his fellow man.
Old St. Patrick's Podcast Series Currents: Awakening to the Flow of Spirit in our Lives
John Blake is a 64-year-old father of four and a proud grandfather of four. He currently works in the maintenance department here at Old St. Pats. As a recovering alcoholic with 27 years of sobriety, John is grateful for the gift of each day and attributes his success to the Blessed Mother and all of the saints. In this episode, John reflects on his life-changing trip to Medjugorje and how the power of prayer helped him find peace with God and his fellow man.
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Text from reflection:
Hi, my name is John Blake. My mom always said that Christ is the hound of heaven. Now, I think she thinks she made that up, but I'm almost sure that somebody else said it before her. Anyway, she would bother everybody with that notion who would, would listen to her, and then she'd go on to explain what she meant by that. I really think that in addition to Christ, my mom is a hound of heaven, uh, in so many ways. In 2001, my mom called me up. It was in the fall and it was a Thursday night and she said, " your father and I are going to mass, we're going to come and pick you up." I said, "Ma, I'm not going to mass on Thursday. I mean, I don't go on Sunday. Why would I, what, what are you doing? Why are you going to mass tonight?" So she puts my dad without saying anything else, she puts my dad on the phone, he says, uh," We'll be there to pick you up in the", in his radio voice, "we'll be there to pick you up in a couple of minutes," which meant that, uh, these were, this was one of the few occasions where my dad was serious and he was going to come and pick me up.
So, I got ready. I got out in the car when I got there, my siblings were all there. I go, "what's going on?" I felt like there was going to be an intervention of some kind, although, I had quit drinking years before and I wasn't sure exactly what I was doing wrong, but I got into the car and I found out we were going to St. Jerome's in Bridgeport, St. Jerome's Croatian, where one of the visionaries from Međugorje was going to have the vision of the blessed mother on that Thursday, that, that night. And, um, my mom was inviting us to go with, so when I got in the car, my bro, my brother rolled his eyes right away and I'm like, okay, all right, this, okay, mom, we'll, we'll do this. So we get to St. Jerome's and the place is absolutely packed. The cars are triple parked out on the street. There are people all over the sidewalk. There's a line to get in the door. And in fact, once we do get in, we're confined to the hallway, pretty much, we could hear the mass, we couldn't see much of anything at all in there.
So I spent a lot of my time out on that deck, smoking cigarettes and, finally, when it was time for communion my Mother came out and said, "get in this place here, what are you doing out here?" So I went in the following, her commands. I went in the door and, um, she said, "I have something serious to ask you." I said, "what?"
She said, "there's a man, who's taking a group to Međugorje who's in this mass right now. I spoke with him on the phone, there's room, on his trip for you guys to go, you and your brother Jim, and I would like you to go with them." And I said, "Ma, I can't take 10 days off of work to go on this trip to Međugorje, and nor do I want to."
She looks in the mass and says, "If I can find this guy, will you go?" And I looked at him brother and I, I laughed. I said, "yeah, man, if you could find him, I'll go to Međugorje." So she goes down the aisle and she goes to communion. Uh, she comes back, she stops, she looks, she starts stepping over all these people in the pew and she gets to this little old guy who shakes his bald head, "yes, yes." And she comes back and she points at us and she says, you two are going to Međugorje."
I said, "Mom, was that the guy there? Or are you, are you kidding me? That that's the guy that's taken the trip." She said," yes, it is." I said, "and Mom, you've never met him before, right? You've never met this guy." And she said," no, I never met him before." I go, "mom, come on. How is it that you found him in this church loaded with, you know, hundreds of people? How did you find this guy?" She said, "I went to communion, I asked the Blessed Mother, "my boys need to go to Međugorje, can you please direct me to him? And she did." My mom never lies and, and I believe I believe her so off, we went to Međugorje.
So when we get to the airport, we get to O'Hare, we figure that we're going to be with a group of old ladies and other Bible-beating kinds of people. And the first guy we run into is Tom Hawkinson from Hawkinson Ford, who went to school with my brother and who was on his sixth trip here. And he said, "I don't know what you've heard, and I don't know what you've read, I don't know what you think, but when you get here, you're going to be convinced. Like I was." He said," I've never met anyone who's gone there who doesn't believe the Blessed Mother is coming here every day." And we're like, we looked at each other, we're like, wow. So we get on the plane and go, and it's a 24 hour trip from the time you get to the airport to the time when you land or when you get to the place where you're going to stay in the village.
And we got there and, uh, there was a spiritual aura about the place that was undeniable, no matter what your position was on, what was going on here, it was very powerful. And, the first night of the first apparition, the whole mountain was lit up with rosaries. People were saying the rosary probably 10,000 strong on the mountain.
And in the Valley, every single dog that was owned by anyone, it seemed, was barking almost as a distraction to the rosary. Uh, we found out later that that, that commonly happens anyway, despite the distraction, the rosary went off, and then it was time for the Blessed Mother to appear and silence fell on the whole mountain.
And you could just feel the presence of the Blessed Mother, she was there and there was no doubt. And when she had finished with the message, a strong whip, like the wind blew through almost as strong as to knock you over, but it, but it didn't. And I was told further later that she often comes and goes on the wind and boy was that powerful.
So we continued on throughout the week, like this, going to Holy mass in the morning, walking, praying, going to confession, listening to speakers, all related to the events, that were happening in Međugorje. Each day, the Blessed Mother leaves a message and we got to hear the message, almost, you know, straight from the Blessed Mother's mouth in like real-time.
And it was very powerful and by the time that we left there, there was no doubt that in anybody's mind, who was with us anyway, that the Blessed Mother was appearing here daily and she had a strong and powerful message for the rest of the world.
On my second trip to Međugorje, I was as sick as a dog with some kind of respiratory virus. I was running a fever. I was cold. I was hot. I was sleepy. I was, uh, like manic wanting to get up and walk around and on the plane. And, uh, when we landed, I was a physical wreck I couldn't eat, I hadn't slept.
I haven't slept. And so Father Becker, who was with us, had the bus driver, stopped at a pharmacy to get medicine. And even the medicine didn't do anything for me. So in spite of that, the, the, you know, we get to Međugorje. We get to the house. Uh, we had stayed in before and the familiar routine takes place: mass, rosary, speakers, climb the mountain, Blessed Mother appears. And, um, again, the, the spiritual feeling that emits from this village is beyond my ability to tell you about you would, you would have to go there yourself. One of the traditions, uh, in this group is that they climb Mount Krizevac on the last day or the day before the last day, um, of leaving. Now, I was really sick and not thinking that I was going to be able to do this, but I went to the base of the mountain anyway with my brother and I told him, "Jim I'm, I'm not going to be able to climb the mountain. I'm disappointed, but I mean, I can hardly take a one step, put one step in front of the other. I'm freezing. I'm hot." He said, "no, you stay down here or even go back, um, to go back to the house." So as I'm talking to him about this two old ladies that were in our group, older ladies, I should say in their, I would say in their late seventies, Sisters, come up and say, "Fellows, do you think you could help us up the mountain?"
And I looked at my brother, like, and he looks at them and he says, "yes, we'll all we can help you." So I'm like, "Oh no, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this." So, the lady links her arm and mine, and we take a step on the first rock on the way up and it's not an easy climb. It's all like real slippery jagged rocks.
It's not easy. I mean, it's not like climbing the face of a mountain in that sense, but it's real, uh, difficult climbing. It's the real bumpy and unpredictable. So anyway, as soon as this lady put her hand on my elbow, every single physical symptom that I had was gone, G. O. N. E., gone. And I was able to bring the lady up the mountain with no problem at all, like a 16-year-old, just sprang out of the shower. And I brought her all the way down with no problem. I felt wonderful, magnificent, energized. And as soon as the lady let go of my arm, guess what? Every single physical symptom related to the cough cold respiratory problem was back in earnest and, um, but it was a powerful, powerful testimony, to the spiritual workings in this village. And I was to later find out in the same, or in the next 24 hours, how just exactly how powerful prayer was going to be for me. So it's our last night, I'm in bed. I'm coughing like nobody's business, and I'm worried that I'm going to keep my brother up all night and we have to travel for 24 hours the next day.
So I'm like, Oh my goodness, I have to get out of bed. So I got out of bed and I went out on the deck. And if you turn to the left on the deck and look toward the village, you can see the church spires. So I was out there kind of, kind of praying and looking out that way and trying to find some peace and, uh, maybe a way to be up for a while and go back to sleep.
When I looked up in the sky and there was a silhouette of Jesus in the sky with, with his right hand outstretched and vapor coming from his nose into his hand, and I heard interiorly, "I will blow the dust of sin from your soul." And this almost knocked me off the porch. I wanted to run in and get my brother before the image disappeared, but I was just so mesmerized. I couldn't believe it. Following this image was another image of Christ, who's on the cross, whose hands were liberated and they were straight up in the air, but whose feet were still nailed. And I didn't understand what it meant at first, but I realized later on through, I'm sure it was some help from the Holy Spirit, that while I had made some progress, I still wasn't right with God, with my family, with my fellow man and that I had, I had worked to do, that, in fact, I still had Jesus nailed to that cross. Anyway, this, this brought an end to trip number two, but the beginning of a completely new life for me and it'll be the subject of a, of a different podcast.