"My child, your salvation is not here!"

Some Catholics who had fallen away and have come back to the Church explained that they did it because of an intervention of the Virgin Mary their lives. Here are two excerpts from their many testimonies published by La Croix Africa:

"After leaving the Catholic Church, it was through his wife that François, 70, from Port Bouët, in the district of Abidjan (Ivory Coast), decided to return to the faith in which he was raised. His wife, involved in the Legion of Mary, regularly encouraged him to pray to Our Lady. Impressed by the positive fruits of this intercession that he noticed in his wife, François felt drawn to recite the Rosary: "I began to feel the intervention of Mary in my life, he said. It’s thanks to her that I returned to the Church."

As for Esther, 33, she left the Catholic parish of Saint Marc in Yopougon (Ivory Coast) in 2001. It happened after she had an argument with a catechist: "I couldn’t accept humiliation, so I decided to leave Catholicism and go somewhere else to pray.” But during those years, Esther says she experienced the presence of the Virgin Mary. "In my sleep, the Virgin Mary was appearing to me. She said, ‘My child, your salvation is not here. Please go back to the Catholic Church where you were before.’”

Father Jean Alla, a priest of Grand Bassam (Ivory Coast), says that these “reverts” should nevertheless follow a formation and make a new profession of faith, because they had once rejected their Catholic faith.

Magloire Madjessou (in Abidjan)