It was in 1915 when Mary first combated Marxism with public revelations. She appeared when an atheistic, Marxist government ruled the country of Portugal. She appeared out in the countryside to three small children who were tending sheep. They lived in the nearby village of Fatima, Portugal. In 1915, Portugal was verging on totalitarianism after the revolution of 1910. The revolution had decreed a sharp separation of Church and state, Church property was being confiscated, and religious congregations had been ordered to dissolve. The intelligentsia and ruling classes were anti-religious and anti-clerical. They were contemptuous of traditional religious beliefs that they considered to be mere superstition. They controlled the media and pervaded it with their errant wisdom that no good could ever come from feeling religious. Everyone was affected by church closings and became careful not to be effusive with their religious sentiments. Any display of ardent faith was becoming punishable by law. Despite this, strong religious faith still could be found among the peasants of the rural areas.

It was in this socially and politically repressed environment that Mary chose to manifest, and perhaps it was her success at Fatima that encouraged her to take on Nasser in Egypt fifty-three years later. At Fatima she appeared to three young children, Lucia dos Santos, age nine, and her two younger cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, who were tending sheep in the fields. One of the children, Lucia, thought she saw a translucent cloud that seemed to be shaped in the form of a human body. It moved across a clear sky and finally hovered above a pine grove.

A year later, in the summer of 1916, the children were guiding sheep to a meadow when they were caught in a sudden rainstorm. Taking shelter at a nearby cave, they ate lunch and waited until the rain stopped before collecting their herd. They said the Rosary, and then the rain stopped suddenly. Within moments of leaving the cave, they felt a strong wind blowing across the pines. 58 years earlier, Bernadette had a similar experience when she saw a strong wind blow a rose bush outside the opening of a grotto. When Bernadette turned in the direction of the rose bush she saw a golden cloud, but when the three children turned in the direction of the wind, they saw a translucent cloud like the one Lucia had seen the year before. This time the cloud moved toward them and finally became a transparent young man about 14 years old who spoke to them in living voice and told him he was the Angel of Peace. He gave them several prophecies.

On May 13, 1917 the Virgin appeared once more to the three small children, her appearance heralded by a huge burst of lightning in the sky. The children were instructed by the Virgin in living voice to return to the site on the 13th day of each month, and she gave them a prophecy in three parts. Word spread about the appearances at Fatima, but the atheistic Marxist government began a campaign to ridicule and discredit the children. Nonetheless, the children returned every month on the 13th day, as instructed by Mary. Once again she asked that a church be built on the site of her appearance. The Virgin Mary's request for a church on the site was finally fulfilled when the Basilica at Fatima was built.

The three children, who had suffered ridicule and threats, asked the Virgin for a miracle, for some sign that would prove that they had actually been visited. The Virgin agreed and specified the date for the sign as October 13. By now, the Marxist government could not stop the people from believing in the appearances of Mary, and on October 13, 1917, 70,000 people gathered in hopes of seeing this sign given by Mary. According to the accounts of the journalists and reporters in attendance, the sun behaved very oddly that day. First, the rain stopped suddenly, as it had the first day the children witnessed the Virgin at Fatima. As the clouds parted and the sun appeared, many people noticed that their wet clothes suddenly became miraculously dry. Then, the sun turned a strange silver color. It altered shape from a sphere to a disc and began to spin on its axis, shooting luminous colors from spokes into the sky. Then, the sun stopped spinning, and everyone thought it was over. Suddenly, the sun began plummeting to the earth, and all thought the end of the world had arrived. Most of the 70,000 fell to their knees and prayed.

Are we to believe this really happened? What if the Phaistos Disk is an historical record in clay of this same kind of event in the Mediterranean Bronze Age? The disk has spirals on both sides and its terra-cotta color might be the artist(s) attempt at duplicating the sun's color. The spiral could indicate "spin." An image is concealed on the Phaistos Disk that might be meant to show a spinning sun. This image is a star inside a heptagram inside a heptagon. If the star represents the Sun then, given the spiral that underlies it and the action implied by the heptagram-heptagon, the idea could be spinning sun. As extraordinary as it seems, this fits with my belief that the disk contains an ancient prophecy of the birth of Jesus.

Sixty-seven years later in 1984 at Betania, Venezuela, witness would again observe the spinning sun. In 1986 at Medjugorje, Bosnia the sun is said to have danced, moved and whirled and become so pale that one could look directly at it with the naked eye. Other accounts of an oddly behaving sun can be found in Gnostic literature of the 1st to the 4th century C.E., when the sun is said to have reversed itself and gone backwards on the day Jesus was crucified. At Fatima, witnesses saw the sun turn to all the colors of the rainbow. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the sun stopped spinning and returned to its proper place in the sky. All accounts of the Fatima event were exactly the same, but interpretations varied by a few whom had not been there but who read about it. They suggested that the manifestation all had witnessed was really the display of a UFO. However, none of the 70,000 witnesses reported anything like a UFO, and many reported being healed of their medical problems. Although the behavior of the sun was the most extraordinary thing 70,000 people had ever seen, ultimately it was eclipsed by the significance placed on the Third Secret of Fatima, the most famous of the Marian prophecies and the last one to be revealed. The child Lucia, to whom the prophecy had been given and who first saw the transparent cloud, became Sister Lucia and the sole caretaker of the Third Secret of Fatima until 1944, when she wrote the secret down and gave it to a local bishop. He in turn gave it to the Pope for safekeeping. The Secret has remained inside the Vatican until it was revealed on May 13, 2000.

Physical phenomena of nature seem to mark the appearances of the Virgin Mary, and perhaps none more startling than the occurrences at Menufiya, Egypt on August 13, 1997, 80 years to the day after the fantastic events at Fatima. At Menufiya, the Virgin's appearances before the people of Egypt were preceded by fire in the sky. There were incredible bolts of lightning, glowing falling stars, incredible fireballs and rings of fire around the cross at the Coptic Church named for the Virgin. In Menufiya the startling visions of the Virgin were followed by the appearance of two large white doves, almost magically suspended in air as they flapped their wings. Finally, a beautiful light appeared in the bell tower, and within seconds she appeared. The Virgin Mary was described as beautiful, wearing a crown and a blue gown. She moved about, praying and making motions as if blessing the crowd. She is said to have transformed into a huge silver dove and flown away. Sixteen years earlier in 1981 at Medjugorje, Bosnia, she appeared not as a silver dove but wearing a silver gown. Later, at Medjugorje, someone noticed up in the sky two small clouds shaped in the form of a cross. The sky was completely clear except for this cross of clouds. Later, the cross turned into a perfect shape of a dove. Miracles followed her appearances in Menufiya, Egypt and Medjugorje, Bosnia.

Sixteen years after her appearances on the dome of the Coptic Church in Cairo, the Virgin began to make her appearances in 1983 in Shoubra, Egypt, a suburb of Cairo. It was observed that a woman clothed in light was seen above the roof of the Coptic Orthodox Church of St. Damian. Once again, word spread and thousands assembled at the church every evening to witness the startling appearance, which sometimes lasted five hours. The appearances became even more frequent during the ensuing years into the 1980's. The Virgin, who was bathed in light and who hovered above the church, was very similar in appearances to the Virgin at El-Zoutin, also in the suburbs of Cairo. A commission established by the head of the Coptic Church investigated the appearance. Results of the investigation were released in 1987, referring to the appearance as a phenomenon for which thanks was given to the Lord. In addition, the commission thanked the thousands of people who had come to pray each evening for their calm and civil behavior as they "receive the blessing of the Virgin." Once again, the shining light of the vision above a Coptic Church in Egypt had brought together thousands of people of all faiths in prayer and thankfulness.

On the evening of August 21, 1982, one year before her appearances in Shoubra, Egypt, the Virgin Mary appeared in a Coptic Orthodox Church named after her in Edfu, Egypt. The church, which is located in El-Gomhourya Street in Edfu, was the scene of continuing appearances that lasted three months until the end of November. As news of the appearances spread throughout Egypt and the crowds grew with every passing day, and clergy began responding and investigating the situation. Finally, HG Bishop Hedra of Aswan confirmed the appearances.

Not only does nature behave unnaturally when in the presence of the Virgin Mary, but also crosses and statues take on unusual characteristics. In public revelation in Schio, Italy, the wooden cross in the church gives off the scent of roses. In Medjugorje, Bosnia, a 14-ton cross disappears into a clear night and then reappears with lights emanating from it and no connection to any electrical devices. In Akita, Japan between 1973 and 1975, a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary bled, wept and sweated. In Akita, the Virgin Mary appeared to the visionary Sister Agnes Sasagawa, beginning on June 12, 1973 and continuing until 1975. Like many mystics before her, a brilliant light, often called "the light too bright to behold" or "the light of the mystic," visited Sister Agnes. The Virgin appeared wrapped in light in Betania, Venezuela, Menufiya, Egypt and Shoubra, Egypt. In the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, this vision of light is not described as the light of the mystic but as the visionary moment. In Akita, brilliant rays of light emanated suddenly from the tabernacle on that momentous day in June, and then the event occurred twice again on the two days that followed. When Sister Agnes saw the light she received a prophecy from the Virgin. On August 3, she received another prophecy and then on October 13, she received the final prophecy.

Exactly sixteen days after these the emanations of brilliant light in Akita, a wound in the shape of the cross appeared in the palm of Sr. Agnes's left hand. It bled freely and was painful to her. Then, on July 6, Sister Agnes heard the living voice of the Virgin Mary coming from the three-foot-tall, wooden statue of the Virgin Mary in the chapel. Several of the other sisters of the Order saw drops of blood coming from the statue's right hand, mirroring the blood that flowed from the left hand of Sister Agnes. On four occasions to follow this blood was seen coming from the wound of the Virgin's hand on the statue. The wound was visible until September 29, when it vanished. Just as the wound vanished, the statue began to sweat, most notably on the forehand and the neck. Two years later on January 4, 1975, the statue of the Blessed Virgin began to weep and continued weeping at intervals for the next six years and eight months. The statue wept on 101 occasions.

Between the years of 1981 and 1989, during the time Mary began appearing in Medugorje, Bosnia and Betania, Venezuela, she also was appearing to seven visionaries in Kibeho, Rwanda, to whom she gave apocalyptic visions and prophecies. She has also appeared in Tung Lu, China. Since 1966, the Virgin has been appearing in the United States. In Hartford, Connecticut in July of 1999, she appeared as an image in a tree, imprinting an image of herself into the tree like onto the Cape of Juan Diego. A shrine was built to her on that site but the city moved it. Seventy-nine years earlier in 1917, at Fatima, Portugal, a small white cloud formed around the trunk of the tree where her appearances had occurred. On May 5, 1999, in Stretor, Illinois, a woman snapped three photographs of a statue of the Virgin Mary, and upon having it developed discovered the image of Jesus appearing in three stages along side the Virgin. Thousands of people have traveled to the site to see the statue that is the subject of the photographs. In Streator, miracles of healings and cures are associated with her appearances. In December of 1996 at Clearwater, Florida, she appeared as a reflection in the glass of an office building several stories tall. Millions of people have traveled to see it. In July 17, 1999 in Joliet, Illinois, she appeared in the glass of the attic window of an abandoned house. Thousands have traveled to see it and a group of Marian devotees is trying to buy the house and make it a shrine to Mary. Television crews are often on hand in case she appears so they can film it. And on July 30, 2001 she appeared to me in a bedroom mirror.

August 13 is the date the Virgin appeared on the roof of the church in Menufiya, Egypt and it also is the date of the publication of this account of the Virgin's appearances, as she requested. In her private revelation to me, she asked that a record of her appearances be compiled. Although I knew little about her appearances, I was chosen by Mary for the assignment and instructed that the date of August 13, 2001 be set for the publication of the CD containing this literature about her. She showed herself in a mirror, manifesting as a long oval of pure, white light that was somehow in the mirror but not reflecting anything in the room. Then, she gave me the spiritual name Maria Saint Claire, which she said was given in love and was to be used when writing about her. I accepted the spiritual name and began work on Mary's behalf, being much surprised to discover in her subsequent researches that a visionary in Kibeho, Rwanda named Marie-Claire was visited by the Virgin many times between the years 1981 and 1989.

The Virgin Mary, who exists exclusively, except for private and public revelations, in the timeless realm of spirit does not obey the conventions of linear time as we do. It is my observation that Mary's appearances seem to be calculated to occur, not in a linear way, but in a phenomenal way. For example, like a true Goddess she seems less concerned with time and more concerned with things feminine, such as what color gown to wear, whether to wear a ribbon and whether to appear in a cloud of light. She decides whether to wear her crown or to appear in the midst of stars. She chooses her colors of appearance and decides where her roses shall be placed. She chooses whether to come with angels or with doves of the holy spirit and she has power over the weather, deciding whether to be preceded by wind, lightning, thunder, rain, a spinning sun, mists or clouds. She chooses whether to send her Angel of Peace ahead of her or whether to come guarded by the Archangel Michael, as she did in the Marxist country of Portugal. She comes when she desires to come and not before or after.

She chooses whether to appear out in a field, or near a grotto, or inside or on top of a church. She appears on television if she chooses and does not appear when requested but only on dates that she sets. She appears both publicly and privately to those lucky enough to receive her, and she prefers the number 13 and likes to appear on the 13th day of the month. She observes our political conventions but combats them with churches built at her request, and she marks her appearances with impressions and designs that she leaves behind as momentos. She acknowledges the presence of witnesses and even touches their belongings. She seems to do all this easily and without strain, and we are grateful to her for her presence on our planet and in our lives. The Virgin Mary is a beautiful Lady of Light to whom we give the utmost devotion and love.