OUR LORD’S MOTHER VISITS EGYPT IN 1968

Original Book Title: OUR LORD’S MOTHER VISITS EGYPT IN 1968
Author Name: Pearl Zaki
Publisher Name: Arab World Press
Publication Year: 1977 AD
Book Language: English
ISBN: N/A

PREFACE

The simplicity and greatness of this Gift from God are most easily heard and understood in the words of the faithful. Thousands saw her. My sister-in-law, Claire Zaki, tells us how saw her:

In 1968 we heard about St. Mary’s apparition in Zeitun. Many people had seen her appearing outside the church.  One day a friend of mine in the school who lives close to the church told me, “have you heard about what is happening in Zeitun area?” She told me that she couldn’t sleep during the night from the loud voices and screaming of the people in the street. She heard that Virgin Mary appeared in this area and after that I heard this from many people.  

One day we decided to go to see if it were true or not.  We went there, spent the whole night and the area was very crowded with the people.  I never saw so many crowded people like this before. All of them were singing and praying but we didn’t   see anything in that night except white pigeons flying in the sky. We went home. I was so upset because I saw nothing. The next time we went to spend the night there, I thought, if we did not see her, never mind, but I felt that I was in church and I like the songs of Virgin Mary. I started to sing with the people. It was two o’clock when suddenly I heard   the people screaming with a loud voice. All of them were looking at the domes. Then l saw the pigeons flying from the back of the palm tree I saw something bright. I looked and looked. I saw this bright light: coming brighter and brighter and moving up. It was the appearing of Virgin Mary. I saw her full figure all in shimmering blue-white light. This appearing was for five minutes and vanished. I found myself clapping my hands, screaming a shouting with a loud voice, “I SAW HER, I SAW HER…!”

His Grace, Bishop Anba Athanasius of Beni-Suef and Bahnasa went to St. Mary’s Church in Zeitun on the evening Friday April 29, 1968.    He arrived at the church but remained in silent prayer prepared for whatever was to be  … (The sharing of this night’s experience is recorded   in the official report of the committee investigating Virgin Mary’s visits.)

On succeeding nights His Grace visited St. Mary’s Church. He gives witness accounts of these  nights but following is an experience he relates which can be understood in view of its truly being Our Lord’s Holy Mother. Each of us who waited at Zeitun Church of St. Mary experienced a similar feeling of wanting to know more about this “awesome” brilliance of Our Lady’s radiating the Glory of God. We should, if able, have attempted to have done the same as His Grace. He relates:

This  evening  at Zeitun Church I took  the  door-keys of  the  church  and   went  inside I was  sure  there  were no lights on inside the  church, I went out and locked the doors.    I walked a short distance and turned to up only then to find that the figure of Virgin Mary could be seen on the roof of the church. I went back inside. Once inside I was enveloped in strange experience. At this moment I was standing at the little ladder that led from the second floor to the top floor. I started up the ladder and I remember just standing on the ladder with my eyes looking at the ceiling of the church, praying that the people in the streets might not see me! Then it happened once, I was shaking all over. I took  hold  of the  ladder, but  the  ladder itself was shaking  with me and I was  shivering;  I felt  that  something  unusual  was there! I prayed. I felt, “if it is you, our Blessed Lady, let me see you?  I just want to continue my witness to the people! This is my aim. You see, I am trembling all over!”  The people in the streets continued to cry that she was there.

You see, I quickly went down and  saw that she  was now  on  the  roof  just  one  meter  from  where  I had  been. I came again quickly and asked the church doorkeeper to join me. He was a simple man, I know him from my childhood. He ran upstairs with me and then when I came near the ladder he asked me. “What do you want to do ?” I said, “I want   to see the Blessed Lady from the top of the church!” He said,  “but, Bishop,  haven’t  you heard  that  Jesus said God reveals mysteries to simple children and keeps them hidden from  the wise?  Do you think that we should see her from downstairs from the street and then we should go and shake hands with her upstairs ?  And what if we don’t bear it” ? So, I looked and   said, “Well, you are wiser than I am.  because you believe you  don’t  try,  although you  haven’t  experienced what   it means  to  be  trembling all  over  when  Something like this is near you.”   So I didn’t go.