“Stage 3” needs your help! We have officially completed Stages 1 & 2 of construction goals for House for Mary. The House is a place set apart for meditation and retreats. Priests, religious and laity will be able come for renewal to the pilgrimage site of Garabandal, in the lovely Peña Sagra Mountains of Northern Spain.
In cooperation with civil leaders in Garabandal, we has purchased land and made great headway in constructing a large retreat center in this scenic, spiritual “hotspot.”
Dear Friends, won’t you answer Mary’s urgent call for conversion, prayer and evangelization, by uniting with us in her project – building a House for Mary that will surely help “revive the land,” and the world?
Stage 1: Foundation – Complete!
Stage 2: Walls, windows, doors – Complete!
Stage 3: Plumbing, electricity, flooring – WE NEED YOU!
We invite you to join in this inspired project that is 17 years in the making! The story of how Totally Yours founder, Guy Murphy, was led to build this house, is full of wonder and heavenly touches:
+ Hurdles for permission to build the house were jumped the very day after Guy flew to Garabandal to pray a St. Joseph Novena on the property.
+ One of the visionaries, Mari Loli Mazón, spoke to Guy on the phone, smoothing out difficult project details.
Guy Murphy, O.P. PO Box 897 Hillside IL, 60162 630-279-8424 [email protected]
Jan 17, 2016 Garabandal Project Timeline Subject: Build a House for Mary
Guy Murphy is a chemical engineer who had a conversion in Medjugorje in December of 1989. The details are found in the book with the Church Imprimatur “The Weapon of Medjugorje.”
In 1997, while on pilgrimage in Garabandal, Spain, the opportunity to do a little hiking in the pines presented itself. I was climbing with the group of pilgrims and decided I would climb a little higher than the pines to just enjoy the view. The area is mountainous with rolling hills. The pines were green and the ground has several various shades of green and brown. The sky was blue and the clouds white, it was beautiful. The rolling hills created a sense of wonder that is hard to describe. I started to try to imagine what the area would look like after the lasting sign that is predicted by the Garabandal visionary’s takes place. I heard an unusual but beautiful sounding bird chirping. It reminded me of the bird that was chirping when we were up on Mount Subasio in Assisi on our first Totally Yours pilgrimage in spring of 1994. My mind flooded with the memory of, Carol Ross, having her life-long anticipated vision while on that pilgrimage in Assisi. I was not sure why, but there seemed to be a connection. We will leave that story for another time. After the bird started chirping, I started to think that it would be great to buy one of the barns in the distance across the valley overlooking the pines. It could be used for quiet retreats after the great sign appears. I was certain there would be no way to buy anything once the sign took place, so now seemed to be the best time.
Questions about obstacles entered my mind. How could I buy property in Spain? This is so far away from home. I do not even speak Spanish, so language would be a barrier. As I climbed back down to the town the woman who owned the hotel happened to come out near the street right then. I pointed out the barn across the valley and asked who owned it. At that time a man came walking by with a cow on a leash. It turned out he owned the barn and was willing to sell it to me. That was interesting! When I returned to Chicago, I contacted the Spanish Embassy, which led me through the process of filling out the necessary paperwork to buy the property.
Eventually, I was able to buy the property. A couple years later, more property opened up closer to the town and I was able to purchase that too. Today there is a mercy road in the town and my property is located close to that road. Since I own the property, I began to inquire as to how to go about building a small house there. It would be a peaceful place for me to take some time for myself and some friends so we can let God speak to us in the silence of our hearts with St. Ignatius Spiritual exercises. Fast forward to February 2001 For the past 25 years, my parents have taken a six-week vacation to the beautiful island of Maui. They rent a condo at Whalers Village on the 11th floor overlooking the beach. They have always invited all their children to come visit them there. I have been taking a vacation to visit with them there every year since 1996. This has always been a refuge for me, allowing a time to rest from all the travelling that I do with pilgrimages and my engineering troubleshooting work. The number one priority while on these visits has been writing my books, “The Weapon of Medjugorje” and “Angels of the New Era”, but I also enjoy relaxing, and praising God for His beautiful creation, Maui is very much a little paradise.
Each evening, I would go for a walk along the beach with the Blessed Mother and pray a couple of Rosaries. One evening, as I was returning to the condo, I was overcome by Our Lady’s presence. The experience seemed so real. I could not see Her or hear Her, but somehow, I sensed She was telling me, “wait, do not go in yet.” I just stopped on the beach and enjoyed the beauty of nature. The moon lit up a path on the ocean that made it look like a golden carpet that one could walk on. I could see the Island of Lanai in the distance, it was so beautiful. I enjoyed the warm gentle breeze on my skin, and the fact that there were no mosquitos. As I listened to the waves gently crashing on the shore, I sensed Our Lady saying, “Build a house for Me!” I was in awe that she would make this request of me, but, I just enjoyed Her peaceful presence and the peaceful moment. Later I went back to the condo. Today there are many employees to answer the phones at my pilgrimage company, Totally Yours. Back then there was just an answering machine, so even though I was on vacation, I would work an hour in the day and an hour in the evening to keep up with the pilgrims. I would call home (my office is in my home) and retrieve the messages that were left on my answering machine and write them down.
The following day at an appropriate time, I would return calls. The very evening that I felt Our Lady asked me to build her a house, one of the messages on my answering machine was from Garabandal. It was after 11:00 pm at night and since Spain was 11 hours ahead of Maui time, it was already 10 am there. Totally Yours runs a pilgrimage every year to Lourdes, Garabandal and Fatima. We have to book the hotels one year in advance so my first thought was, “I wonder if there was a problem with our reservation.”
I returned the call to Garabandal. As it turned out, they had information about my property. The lady at the hotel tried to tell me, but she spoke mostly Spanish and then she said, “wait, there is someone here who can speak English.” To my surprise, one of the original visionaries, Mary Lowly, was in town and she spoke English! She got on the phone to translate. I said, “Thank you so much, Mary for taking time to translate for me. That is so kind of you. What is the message?” In the background, I heard someone speaking in Spanish, “Blee, ablee, ablee!’ “If you want” “Blee, ablee!’ “To build a house” “Blee, ablee!’ “On your property” “Blee, ablee!’ Mary translated, “In Garabandal, your property is between the rural and urban zones. You can get an architect to come up with floor plans and submit it to the city council. They review the plans and the zones every three years and will decide if they will give you a permit.” I thanked her, ended the call and immediately remembered the inspiration I just had about Our Lady saying, “Build a House for Me.” My memory shifted to the video footage of those Garabandal girls having their visions and doing all those miraculous things. I was in awe for a long time trying to digest and process what had happened, it certainly seemed to be no coincidence. I was so convinced that God was guiding the project and it was going to be a slam dunk to get that approval for the building permit that I hired an architect who developed floor plans. Three years later, the city council rejected the permit. I could not believe it. Three years later, the city council rejected the permit again.
Three years later, the city council rejected it again. They said my property was not big enough to build and the next-door neighbor would not sell me their property. Finally, I had to surrender the situation to God. On February 3, 2014, as I attended a prayer group in Glenview IL, where the Sacred Heart, Jesus frequently appears to a visionary named, Ann Patterson. For all these years, Jesus did not say any details about the Garabandal project. On this day, Jesus told the whole prayer group through Ann that I was to go to Garabandal before May 1 st. Further, He requested that I recite a series of prayers and consecrate the property to St. Joseph. Totally Yours, publishes the Sacred Heart messages on our web site, www.MEDJ1.com. The timing was right as I was leading a group to Italy and Medjugorje for the Canonization of Saint John Paul II that would finish up on April 28th.
After the pilgrimage, I headed to Garabandal while the rest of the pilgrims flew home. I recited the prayers and dedicated the land to St. Joseph. The very next day, the neighbors on the other side of the property sold me their land. The City Council approved the project and said the land was going to be large enough to build on. I was convinced my plan was all set and ready to go until October 2014, when Dr. Rosalie Turton of the 101 Foundation came to the suburbs of Chicago to speak at our Totally Yours Marian Conference. As Dr. Rosalie and I discussed the Garabandal House plans, she expressed how very excited she was about the plans except there was one problem. She emphatically said, “It needs to be BIGGER.” I explained to her, “I cannot afford bigger.” She replied, “This property is so important for the world’s situation, you are just thinking about yourself and your personal retreats.” I had to admit, “Yes, so?” She challenged me, “So, Bigger!” I tried to make excuses, “But, but, but.” She interrupted, “No, buts, bigger!” She reassured me, “God will provide.”
