I didn’t think of that!

so i promise st jude i'd light a few candles (cancer surgery seems successful) and end up counting beads and wondering about marian apparitions.

A worthy try, can't hurt.

Not a believer in religions but feel there is some force around us that can effect change in the physical realm to which we can appeal with positive result at times. Also not sure of how this happens, entirely, I can't articulate it.

That being said, I have an interesting experience with Our Lady of Fatima. As a kid, I always knew there was some energy realm around us that we could connect to and when I was exploring this concept along with being a kid who watched movies after school; I happened to see a BW movies about OLF and was really interested in the story. Fast forward to the mid 1980s when I was in SoCal and struggling financially after a work injury, I was surrounded by the new age movement and all the things and events going on where it seemed everyone was exploring old and new concepts.

I had a friend who was much older, a German lady who was a teen at the start of WWII and migrated to the US after the war as a spouse of a soldier. She and I had numerous adventures, she was an ordained minister of something but was well educated in many religions. It happened that she had visited the OLF shrine in Europe and had a moving experience there. There was some traveling version of the statue passing through our town and she encouraged me to go see it.

At the time I was not doing well financially and needed some expensive dental work while unemployed. Not having anything to lose, I went to see the traveling statue and talked with the tender, watched his presentation. While there, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to make an appeal about my dental issue and my lack of means to fix it, though I wasn't expecting any results from such an appeal. I'm not Catholic or anything, not some new age something or other, not any organized belief system. But about three days later I received a check from a sister of my grandmother for a little over the amount of $$ I needed for the dental work.

I don't question how that came to be nor do I claim that I know how it came to be, I hadn't spoken to any relatives about my issue prior to that. I am still thankful for the event and whatever it was that brought it to be, perhaps it was Our Lady of Fatima, I mean, I made the appeal in her presence and the result was nearly immediate. Or whatever energy that surrounds the concept of Our Lady of Fatima which the statue represents.

So, if there is a large scale appeal to Our Lady for the conversion of that country, I'm in, I think it's a great idea, seems those who ask Our Lady find results, believers or not. Perhaps it is a tangible focal point to direct the appeal that is the thing about it. Whatever it is, I think it's a good idea.

my faith is far short of supernatural, and i can not begin to explain the apparitions , generally to peasant children all around the medeterranian and over the centuries, but i've been praying for peace in my family, my city, my state, my country, and the world and don't mind saying that 50 years of "fighting for peace" may have been the wrong approach ever since the first village i had to "destroy in order to save. "

I also invoke St. Joseph, head of the Holy Family, which includes Jesus and Mary.
I needed the help of these saints in order to get past anger at relatives re failure to protect against Covid, for my own peace of mind.