Who is Christina Gallagher?

This is being written in May of 1997, and a little over nine years ago, in January of 1988, a series of extraordinary events occurred which were to totally alter the lifestyle of Mrs. Christina Gallagher, a shy Irish housewife. In the period since then, these events have also affected the lives of a great many other people, not only in Ireland, but all over the world. Christina Gallagher's name has become known throughout the world, indeed.

On Thursday, January 21, 1988, while visiting a friend in Dublin, Mrs. Gallagher experienced an apparition of Our Lady, and a few weeks later she began to receive messages from the “beautiful lady”, who revealed herself as the Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace. In the apparitions, Our Lady conveyed an urgent yet simple message, one fully in harmony with the Gospels.

As Christina Gallagher explains: “What Our Lady is asking us to do is to turn back to God while there is still time, sincerely repent of our sins and go to Confession; to pray constantly, and to pray from the heart, especially the Rosary; to love God in the Mass and in the Eucharist; and to be united and to love one another and to stop finding fault and bickering and fighting with each other. Jesus Our Savior, Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, died on the Cross out of love for all of us, and we cannot pick and choose. We must love everyone, and even if others cannot recognize Christ in those who are the weakest of His little ones, we must do so. Until we can recognize that Jesus is in each and everyone we meet, how can we recognize Christ present in the Blessed Eucharist, and present in the world, living among us?”

Now it seems that the things that happened to Mrs. Gallagher in the early weeks and months after she experienced the first 1988 apparition were hardly more than an introduction to what was to follow.

Had anyone told Christina Gallagher, even in early 1988 that she would soon find herself publicly relating apparitions and mystical phenomena completely beyond her personal experience, and that, within a few years, she would be traveling to places as far away as California and the Philippine Islands and addressing large gatherings of people, she would simply have refused to believe it. Nor would she have found it possible then to accept that within half a dozen years, she would find it necessary to spend a considerable amount of time each week in an area of her native Mayo, more than forty miles from her home .

The story of Christina Gallagher's apparitions and messages, and of the role in which she finds herself - through acceptance of what has been intrusted to her - is now widely known. In a cynical modern world, displaying widespread skepticism about religious beliefs, however, it is hardly surprising that visionaries and mystics, present and past, are sometimes treated as curiosities.

Christina Gallagher's experiences have borne that out.

“When Our Blessed Mother first appeared to me, and I started to receive the messages, and was asked to make them known, I was simple minded enough to think that once people heard what I had been given, they would believe, because the messages came from God. It didn't turn out like that.”

Mrs. Gallagher found herself being shocked at the level of skepticism and disbelief and the manner in which people, looking for any excuse not to accept the content of Our Lady's messages, sought to discredit her.

In some respects, it was even more difficult when she found that she could tell what was in people's hearts, especially when this happened with people whom she had presumed would be open to what God was asking.

Nine years later, Christina Gallagher has much deeper insights into such matters, but she still finds it painful to deal with the negative attitudes, the mockery, antagonism and total lack of belief.

“Sometimes, when praying with a group of people, it is clear to her that one or two people in the crowd are negative and somehow, they cause a block by their disbelief. It is as if that person will not allow the Spirit of God to work, and can hinder the others present. If I spontaneously pray, I find that I cannot get the words or put across the prayers because of that blockage.”

Mrs. Gallagher often finds that the people one might expect to be skeptical are the ones who are totally open and accepting and it is a great consolation that there are numbers of people with a strong faith, who are open to accept what Our Lady has asked.