Hi folks:
You may recall that I posted on some of my list groups in 2007 (my first post in the thread appeared on Oct. 5, 2007) about a then-17 year old young woman of Lebanese descent in the town of Benoni South Africa named Francesca Zackey who had, since 2005, claimed that she was visited by the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) and that she had been guided by the BVM to sungaze at dusk, where the BVM would appear within the orb of the sun; she attracted pilgrims from across the world, some of whom engaged in impromptu sungazing (usually at high noon, God bless their silly burned little souls...) and ended up with significant eye damage as a result.
Francesca also seemed to be channneling messages from the BVM (oh, and, regarding purported channelings of the BVM, you may wish to see my other posts across the past few years devoted to the wide variety and tone of messages that various devotees claim to be channeling from the BVM, including some very strange and apocalytic dommsday messages that sound more like they came from a seedy burned-out third-rate New Age channeler who had ingested a few too many hallucinaogenic mushrooms.... the whole matter is rendered even stranger by the hopefully accidental fact that one of the more famous -- and also more extreme -- BVM visitants/channelers is based just a couple of miles from my home here in the Appalachian Mountains in western Maryland....).
The brief flurry of news reports about Francesca in media across the world almost totally died up within a month of my first post on the topic, and little more has been available since then.
Well, I did an extensive search on the web today for any updates in the media about Francesa, and came up with nothing since the time of about October/November 2007.
However, I did discover that Francesca and her supporters now maintain a Facebook fan page devoted to her, called "Our Lady of the Rays", and the page claims that she is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, and it lists as its home address the residential address in Benoni (near Johannesburg) of her parents, where Francesca apparently still resides; part of the home has apparently been converted into a shrine to the BVM (and to Francesca's visions and channeled messages from the BVM....)
You may find her Facebook fan page at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Our-Lady-of-the-Rays/136411253506?v=info
The page bears the following introduction:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Francesca Zackey, a young woman of Lebanese descent, was made full of the Holy Ghost & spoke in tongues on the 2nd of October, 2005. On the 7th of May, 2007 - Mary, the Mother of God, appeared with the smell of roses & incense to Francesca under the title of 'Our Lady of the Rays' - She had beautiful brown hair and ice blue eyes. Her message was "Pray the Rosary like it's your last day on earth!" Supernatural phenomena like the miracle of the sun, the odor of sanctity, healings & conversions occur at the home of Our Lady of the Rays. People have travelled from all over the world & the Holy Ghost has descended upon them with tongues of fire & the charism of prophecy.
A sacred spring of holy water has even come up from the earth.
Francesca has written a book of all her visions & messages called "Doorlight to Heaven" which she will publish & launch in the future.
Francesca has a prayer gathering every Saturday at the home of Our Lady of the Rays from 2pm - 6pm.
Mother Mary, my Lady of the Rays, pray for us!
~~~~~~ (end of introduction from page) ~~~~~~
I notice that the page seems to be updated quite regularly, almost always with channelings from the BVM, ranging from rather preachy messages such as:
"Dear children, In this special time of your effort to be all the closer to my Son, to His suffering, but also to the love with which He bore it, I desire to tell you that I am with you. I will help you to triumph over errors and temptations with my grace. I will teach you love, love which wipes away all sins and makes..."
to much more mystically practical and pragmatic dispatches such as:
"Heaven is within you, by the grace of God, and earth without is a reflection of what is within"
which is, admittedly, on a par with the utterings of a sage such as Ramana Maharshi,
to cryptic, rambling and ambiguous missives written almost totally in text lingo, such as the following:
"2day I call u 2 love wif all ur heart & wif all your soul. Pray 4 the gift of love, because when the soul loves it calls my Son 2 itself. My Son doesnt refuse those who call Him & who desire 2 live according 2 Him. Pray 4 those who dont comprehend love, who dont understand what it means 2 love. Pray that God may ...b their Father & not their Judge. My children, u b my apostles, b my river of love. I need you."
(incidentally, the above text lingo post drew far more accolades (i.e., "8 people like this") from her Facebook followers by far than any of her other postings to date, which is a bit bizarre to me...)
and including really bizarre and cryptic communiques such as the following:
"Cedar of Lebanon, says "Cedar your lives! Cedar your lives!"
Well... enjoy! Perhaps you too may wish to join Francesca's Facebook fan page, as I just did a few moments ago!
Incidentally, I feel that it is a shame that her family and her followers have pulled all of Francesca's photos from the web, because the few photos of her that hit the mainstream media in 2007 showed that she was very beautiful.
with care,
--Vinny
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