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  Many hundreds give witness to gifts of conversion. Testimonies of spiritual healing involving Christina Gallahger and her mission are recorded at Our Lady Queen of Peace House of Prayer Achill, in Ireland. Just some of testimonies of those who have given withness are detailed on this website. Fr Gerard McGinnity PhD spiritual director of Christina Gallagher. Home Saved from Fire by Our Lady's Image and Achill Holy Water. Non-believer converted after inexplicable experience | ||
| One of the most unusual testimonies involving sacramentals linked to Our Lady Queen of Peace House of Prayer, Achill and to Christina Gallagher, emerged in July 2008 when the owners of a two storey rural residence built near the end of the nineteenth century, described how a bottle of holy water from the font at the House of Prayer inexplicably extinguished a serious fire at their home in November 2003. They also related how a family friend who had not been a practising Christian and said he no longer believed in God had a few days later assisted them in clearing out the badly burned kitchen area of the house. The man was astonished when he found himself unable to lift from a table or to throw out the almost empty 5 litre plastic can which had contained the holy water. As a result he said he would like to go to the House of Prayer and a week later did so, when his friend was going. In Achill he met Christina Gallagher and returned home afterwards, with his attitude to God totally changed. The man remained a practising Catholic and a firm believer in Christina Gallagher's authenticity up to the time of his death in 2007. The rural house fire occurred in 2003 but only when this writer met the woman in early 2008 did she refer to her belief in Christina Gallagher's charism and messages and in the House of Prayer, and said she didn't believe any of the 'stuff being written in the papers' and described how several people she knew including relatives had been converted after she brought them to Achill over the past number of years. STORY OF THE FIRE "The fire in 2003 was actually the second to occur in our home, but it was by far the worst, costing €100,000 worth of damage and we are convinced that had it not been for the weeping image of Our Lady which I had been given in Achill and the Achill holy water which I had brought home from the House of Prayer, our house would have been totally burned out" she said. Ellen, described how the fire had begun in their kitchen though they are still unclear even now, as to how the fire had stared in the first place. No one was in the kitchen when it began and I was not there" she said. "Within a short time, the various overhead cupboards and other fittings in the kitchen, the presses, the overhead clothes dryer fittings and so on were on fire. There was no electricity and my husband was only able to bring in buckets of water from a barrel outside. He had to try to keep down under the smoke, each time he went through the kitchen door to throw the water onto the fire." Ellen said that due to another fire some years earlier, the fact that she had decided not to remove the existing disfigured plasterboard ceiling that to put new sheets of plasterboard over it, had helped save the upstairs area, as the flames took longer to burn through into the upstairs floorboards. Her husband took up the story "I had the forty gallon barrel of water outside and all I could do was to go in with a bucket of water, throwing it where I could see the fire spreading. Then the water ran out, and the kitchen was still on fire and it was at that stage, with no water left, that I got the can of holy water, opened it and threw the holy water on the fire." The couple described how Ellen had a large 5 litre bottle of Achill holy water brought back by her some time earlier. And the man continued. "When I did, it put out the fire. I don't know how but that is what happened. When the fire brigade came after about 40 minutes, the fire was actually quenched, but the firementwere here for a while and spent some time hosing rafters and so on, making sure the fire didn't start up again." Ellen said, "The kitchen was destroyed and the windows had broken with the heat and we couldn't understand why the fire had not spread through the house. Particularly where there is a hatch into the sitting room above the presses that were on fire. Then I saw the framed picture of the weeping image of Our Lady from Achill which I had put up on the living room wall, and I realised how we had been protected that night by Our Lady," She showed us around her home and the adjoining kitchen and living room areas with the picture of the weeping Virgin still in place on the sitting room wall, and a half inch thick wooden hatch was all that separated this room from the kitchen, yet the fire had not spread there, and nothing was damaged by the fire in this room. In the hallway, beneath the stairs there was a picture of the Divine Mercy image of Christ and she said this had also remained untouched or damaged during the fire. We have no way of explaining how the fire was put out, other than to say the holy water had quenched it, though forty gallons of ordinary water had been thrown on to it" Ellen's husband had to spend two days in hospital, being treated for smoke inhalation, but he was none the worse for his fire fighting experience otherwise. HAS NO DOUBTS Ellen said that she has been going to the House of Prayer in Achill for years and had met Christina Gallagher and she believes that Mrs Gallagher is genuine and disregards all the scandal stories written in newspapers of the past six months about the visionary and about Fr McGinnity. Those papers don't care what they write or what they say about anyone All they want is something to sell their papers. I don't have any time for them. They wrote the same about Lourdes and Lough Derg I'm told. Relgion is an easy target." CONVERSIONS She said that in her opinion the most important aspect of their fire was a miraculous event - a spiritual conversion - following the fire. A day or two afterwards, they were clearing out the ruined kitchen, and throwing material and pieces of charred furniture and burned items out through the window." "A friend of ours, a man who didn't go to any church and said he didn't believe in God any more, came along to help us. The almost empty holy water bottle was on the kitchen table. He tried to pick up the bottle, to throw it out, but the bottle wouldn't lift off the table for him, and he could not understand it." "I couldn't throw it out', he said, looking mystified, and she told him to leave it were it was, that there was a drop of holy water still in it. "He knew my story, and where I got the holy water, so he asked me before leaving, when I'd be going next to the House of Prayer, I decided to go the next Saturday, and he came along, and he met Christina Gallagher that day in 2003." "On the way back he was a happy man and made it clear that he believed in the authenticity of Christina Gallagher describing her as 'the most genuine person I ever met." Ellen said. "He came back to the faith and he wore a medal afterwards and he still believed when he died last year (in 2007)," Ellen said. Ellen told us also that unfortunately on the human side of things, the insurance policy on their home had temporarily lapsed at the time of the fire, and they had to meet the fire loss themselves. OTHER CONVERSIONS She also explained that several other people who had gone with her to Achill, including a cousin of hers, (whom we also met) and who had not been practising Catholics, had gained conversions through meeting Christina. She said it was as if Christina had "x-rayed" her cousin and knew all about her. "She is a good woman", Ellen's cousin told this writer, making it clear that her experience of being 'read' had convinced her that Mrs Gallagher was authentic. Another lady friend who was not practising went with her to the House of Prayer and she had also returned to her faith. Ellen commented that her experiences at the House of Prayer had always been positive and she believed in the messages received by the mystic. "Some people didn't want to hear anything about the justice as well as the mercy of God, or about hell or purgatory, but a lot of other people appreciate hearing the truth, and appreciate the truth of what they hear at the House of Prrayer," she said. This testimoy of protection through OurLady's Image and holy water from Our Lady Queen of Peace House of Prayer in Achill was published in Ireland's Eye Magazine, August 2008 edition. |