Roses at Saint Joseph’s
Saturday June 16, 2001
A few months after the Thursday night Prayer Group was suspended several leading parishioners from St. Joseph’s formed a group and went to Father Kerinan who is the new pastor and requested that the Rosary be continued on Saturday mornings after the 8:30 mass. Permission was granted and it did not take long for this to be adopted by people who wanted to see the Thursday night prayer group reinstated. Saturday mornings became the focal point of prayer at St. Joseph’s for the reinstatement of the Thursday night prayer group in addition to the many prayer groups that still meet all around Emmitsburg each Thursday night. Ted and I started going on Saturday mornings in addition to Thursday nights.
On Saturday morning June 16, 2001 at 9:45 am we walked out of the church after the Mass and Rosary and we were standing on the sidewalk in front of Saint Joseph’s when suddenly we were drenched with the scent of roses. Every breath was roses. I do not have the words that can properly describe what it is like when the roses come. If a nuclear bomb went off 10 feet in front of you and gave off the scent of roses it would not be as strong and clean as what I am trying to describe. When they come you instantly know they are from heaven and it would not be possible to confuse them with a perfume or anything else artificial. There is nothing on Earth that smells this good. The roses came in 4 distinct blast and lasted for a total of about 2 minutes. Ted smelled the roses and the 3 other people standing nearby there did not smell the roses at all.
After we left Saint Joseph’s that morning we drove to the Gettysburg Hospital to see Sister Genevieve who was still recovering from her shoulder replacement and I told her about the roses when we came out of church. Sister Genevieve said “ Our Lady must be trying to tell you something”. Later that night after I was home in Virginia the telephone rang and it was Sister Genevieve and she was calling to tell me that she had just received word that Cardinal Keeler was going to announce that a formal investigation would take place regarding the apparitions at St. Joseph’s. The roses came on the same day we got the official word that a proper investigation would take place.