Veronica Lueken - Marian Apparitions

Marian Apparitions

In June 1968, Lueken reported experiencing her first manifestation when she smelled a perfume of roses in her car while praying for the dying Robert Kennedy. She claimed that Saint Thérèse of Lisieux appeared to her and dictated sacred poem-messages.

Lueken reported her first Marian vision in her home on April 7, 1970. The Virgin Mary was reportedly informing her that she would appear on the grounds of the old St. Robert Bellarmine Church in Bayside on June 18, 1970, and subsequently, on all great feast days of the Catholic Church. From that day, Lueken reported a series of Marian apparitions on the property of St Robert Bellarmine's Roman Catholic Church at Bayside. According to her report, Mary asked her to establish a Marian shrine at the site on April 7, 1970, and to hold Rosary Vigils of reparation and also Sunday holy hours of reparation for the Pope and priests. Mrs. Lueken began to type up and circulate her prophecies, many of which had apocalyptic content.

Overwhelmed by the influx of an estimated five hundred to two thousand Marian devotees, the parish ministers fenced off the church precincts in December 1974. In 1975, Monsignor James King, Chancellor of the Brooklyn Diocese, announced that the diocese did not believe in Veronica's apparitions.

Meanwhile, Lueken elaborated on her reported visions. Apart from the Virgin Mary and the aforementioned Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, she also said she received visitations from Saint Joseph, Saint Paul, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Theresa of Avila, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Bernadette Soubrious and Saint Robert Bellarmine, amongst others. The Archangel Michael and the Archangel Gabriel were also said to have appeared to her.

One characteristic in support of Lueken's testimony was that of ecstasy, a high state of prayer and contemplation experienced by many saints in the Church. Most of the public apparitions occurred during the Rosary Vigils. During these Vigils, Lueken would fall into ecstasy where she would then see the Virgin Mary and other heavenly personages. Her exterior modesty and expression would take on characteristics reflecting ecstasy (which was witnessed many times by devotees in her presence). Her eyes would never blink during the time of ecstasy. She would describe the vision given her and repeat what she heard. Almost all of the ecstasies were recorded live on audio tape in the presence of hundreds of pilgrims.

Following the official church rejection, Lueken and her followers then assembled on a traffic island near the site of the alleged visitation (1974/75), until they negotiated a permanent site of worship at Flushing Meadows. The Rosary Vigils and Holy Hours continue here till this day.

She and her followers established Our Lady of the Roses Shrine, which survived her death in 1995. At the apex of this organization were Lueken (President) and her husband, Arthur (Vice President), Mrs. Ann Ferguson (Secretary), and Miss Maurine Ferguson and Mr. Michael Mangan (board members). Accompanying them, a Lay Order of Saint Michael existed to organize prayer vigils and assist the increasingly infirm and aging Lueken in administrative responsibilities associated with corresponding with her followers. Since Lueken described her experiences, other unrecognized Marian apparitions have occurred in Lubbock, Texas (1988–1989) and Conyers, Georgia (1989), and have incorporated similar apocalyptic motifs in their messages.

At some point, Lueken predicted, the authenticity of her visions would be recognized, and there would be a basilica built on the site of her first visions at Bayside, as well as the appearance of a healing spring, and the area would become the venue of a national Marian shrine in the United States.