On a cold wintry January 31, 1993, the Feast of St. John Bosco, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Gianna Talone, accompanied by her fiancι, Dr. Michael Sullivan, at the Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto in Emmitsburg, Maryland. She invited them to leave their conventional careers and move to the Emmitsburg area after their marriage on June 19, 1993, the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She invited them to assist Her in doing God's work there. Our Blessed Lady then directed them to go to the Pastor of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Emmitsburg and inform him of Her invitation.
Emmitsburg, Maryland is steeped in Marian and Catholic tradition, dating back to the 17th century. It is now the home of Mount Saint Mary's College and Seminary, the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Basilica and Shrine, the St. Joseph's Provincial House of the Daughter's of Charity, the National Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, the St. Anthony Shrine and Parish Church, as well as St. Joseph's Catholic Church. Our Lady could have picked one from any number of qualified priests, theologians and Mariologists, rectors, and chaplains in the Emmitsburg area at that time to send this couple. However, she chose the Pastor, Fr. Alfred Pehrsson, C.M.
Alfred Pehrsson was born in 1929 at St. Mary's Hospital in Queens New York. As a pre-teen living in Queens, NY, he remembers first developing his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary as he attended the Miraculous Medal Novena weekly with his mother at their local parish church, Our Lady of Perpetual Help. The Vincentian priest who celebrated those Novenas would later become his seminary teacher in homiletics. He attended both Mary Immaculate (Northampton, PA) and St. Joseph's (Princeton, NJ) Seminaries before being ordained a Vincentian priest on May 31, 1958, (at that time, the Feast of the Queenship of Mary). He served as chaplain and pastor in Panama for 10 years and at Niagara Falls, New York, for 13 years. For 3 years in the 1970's he served on the Miraculous Medal Novena "Band," giving Novenas on the East Coast of the USA. He was assigned as the Pastor of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in 1989, and served in that position until 1996. He has since served as retreat master in Grand Rapids, MI, a chaplain of the Daughter's of Charity Provincial House in Albany, NY, and a parish priest in Birmingham, AL, before retiring because of health limitations at St. Vincent's Seminary in Philadelphia, PA, in 2004. Since the mid-1970's Fr. Pehrsson has been a member of the Marian Movement of Priests.
Fr. Alfred Pehrsson, C.M. was handpicked by the Mother of God for this role in Emmitsburg at this critical time in salvation history. His eyewitness testimony is crucial and his insight, a gift to all!
He is the Pastor!
LISTEN to Fr. Al Pehrsson's Testimony or READ a printable document of it:
Listen to Fr. Al's Testimony on-line (broadband internet connection recommended)
[1] If you do not see the flash player above you will need to install the Flash plug-in. You can install it at the link below. You may need to restart your browser after installing the plug-in.
[2] To download .mp3 files of the testimony to be listened to locally on your computer, you will need to download the 3 self-extracting "zipped" files listed below. The first 2 zip files have 9 tracks each and the 3rd zip file has 10 tracks. Once you download the zip file, if you double click on the zip file it will automatically self extract the tracks for you. (The three files are provided so that those with slower internet connections can download a little at a time). You can then listen to the files using any MP3 audio file format player.
