Medjugorje USA's POW Apostolate

The suffering souls in Purgatory are crying out, we can help with a few simple prayers. For every soul that we help released from Purgatory, we gain another soul in heaven that is praying for us.

I have learned so much from Our Lady in the past 26 years of Medjugorje apparitions. On the 25th of every month I can still be found impatiently awaiting the new message of Our Lady much like a child awaiting a special treat.

In the beginning I often noticed that Our Lady repeated Herself on certain topic. In 2000, I decided to reflect on all the messages and try to figure out why Our Lady was repeating some things over and over again. It seemed to me that there must be some importance which we need better understand.

So I started searching for keywords in Our Lady's messages, words such as grace, faith, prayer, fasting, etc. Every message I found that had the key word I was searching for, I would bookmark. When I had comprised all of the key word messages, I would read all the messages together. It was a very interesting research, which gave me a deeper understanding of the meaning of each key word.

One word that I noted several times was the word Purgatory. It seems most Catholic's think of Purgatory as a place between Heaven and Hell and the subject matter pretty much stops there. Yet after hearing Vicka talk about Heaven, Hell and Purgatory in 1989, I had a deeper knowledge of these places, so I knew Purgatory was far more then just a place between Heaven and Hell.

After looking at all the messages of Our Lady on the 25th of each month, I decided to look at the early messages of the apparitions. This was something I had never done before. While doing this I discovered a message Our Lady of Medjugorje gave on July 21, 1982, our Lady say's, "Concerning Purgatory: There are many souls in Purgatory. There are also persons who have been consecrated to God - some priests, some Religious. Pray for their intentions, at least the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be seven times each, and the Creed. I recommend it to you. There is a large number of souls who have been in Purgatory for a long time because no one prays for them."

On earth in times of ill health and sadness, we are comforted by the offering of prayer. Yet Our Lady tells us in Her message that no one comforts the suffering souls in purgatory. When I realized this, I decided that Medjugorje USA's main mission would be to form a prayer group dedicated to praying for the suffering souls in purgatory, based on this message.

Something I have never shared with the Purgatory Oblation Warriors is an event that happened after the idea of the POW's came to my heart. I would like to share this now that I feel we are so very blessed to have over 2300 members worldwide.

I prayed to Our Lady asking I receive confirmation to form this prayer group. It was just a few days later when I lay across my bed still searching and studying the purgatory messages from Medjugorje the confirmation came. All of a sudden I heard a loud pop and a quick moment later there on the notes I was reviewing on purgatory was the crown from the statue of Our Lady of Fatima. The crown landed right on the name of the prayer group. This was the sign of confirmation.

The statue I have of Our Lady of Fatima is one of my favorites. It's place was on a shelf to the left side of my bed. My bed was close to that wall. The crown on this statue has a piece of plastic that extends into a hole that is in the top of the statues head. This though may not sound very pleasant if we give it much though but this is pretty much how crowns stays on many a statue.

There is no way the crown could have popped out. Besides this, the chances that it landed right in front of me on the purgatory notes I was studying were slim to none. I know this most unusual event was in answer to my prayer seeking confirmation to begin the Purgatory Oblation Warrior Prayer Group. Thus, the prayer group was formed in 2001.

Here we are today fellow purgatory prayer warriors, undoubtedly we are the largest organized purgatory prayer group in the world. I see from all of this Our Lady had big plans, even though I had no expectations of what the group would become.

I can't even being to imagine the amount of prayers our group have offered for the Holy Souls in purgatory but I'm sure the number of those prayers are huge. I am confident our group has reached a new status, so this month I will start to change all information in regard to our growing prayer group and as of the month of March we will become the "Purgatory Oblation Warrior Apostolate."

I personally thank the members for their dedication to this cause and more so, I offer thanksgiving to Our Lady in the name of Jesus for the many blessings. Remember my friends "We must empty purgatory!"

A refresher course on our obligation for current member or for possible new members is below. God bless you all for your daily sacrifice! Michael