The Lady appears
It was March 25, 1945, the Feast of the Annunciation. My sisters and I sat talking in the drawing-room, around the pot-bellied stove. The war was still going on, and it was the time of the ‘hunger-winter’. Father Frehe was in town that day and stopped by for a brief visit. We were in deep conversation when, all at once, I felt drawn to the adjoining room and suddenly saw a light appearing there. I got up and couldn’t help going towards it. The wall disappeared before my eyes, and with it everything that had been there. It was one sea of light and an infinite depth. And out of that depth I suddenly saw a figure coming forward, a living figure, a female form. I saw her standing to my left above me, dressed in a long, white garment and wearing a sash, very feminine. She was standing with her arms lowered and the palms of her hands turned outwards, towards me. As I looked, something strange came over me. I thought, “It must be the Blessed Virgin; it can’t be otherwise.”
Prediction of the liberation
Then, all at once, the figure begins to speak to me. She says, “Repeat after me.” I therefore begin––she speaks very slowly––to repeat after her, word-for-word. She raises first three, then four and finally five fingers, while telling me, “The 3 is March, the 4 is April and the 5 is May 5th.”
The Rosary and the prayer
Then she lets me see the Rosary and says, “It is thanks to this. Persevere!”
She waits a little, and then says, “The prayer must be spread.” Then I see nothing but soldiers in front of me, many Allies, and the Blessed Virgin points at them. Then she takes the crucifix of the Rosary and points at the corpus. Then she points again at these soldiers. I should understand that it must become the life support of these soldiers, for that voice continues, “Now they will soon go home, these.” And she points at the troops.
The Lady, Mother
My sisters and Fr. Frehe had gathered around me. When he heard me begin speaking, he said to one of my sisters, “Just write down what she says.” After I had repeated a couple of sentences, I heard him say, “Listen, just ask who it is.”
And then I ask, “Are you Mary?” The figure smiles at me and answers,
“They will call me ‘The Lady’, ‘Mother’.”
A cross
The image fades away before my eyes and then I look into my hand. Then a cross is laid down before me and I have to take it up. I take it up very slowly, and it is heavy.
After that figure had said everything for me to repeat, she disappeared very slowly. Only then did the light also go away, and all at once I saw everything around me in the room as it had always been.
