The Photograph

My name is Dănciuca Elena, I am from Măneşti, Dâmboviţa…
… In February 1964, on one of those days, I was at mother Verginica’s and I got up for the midnight prayer together with her. It was dark in the room and suddenly I saw a light which appeared and disappeared at once, like a light made by the flash of a camera. I asked her what was happening and she told me: the Lord Jesus Christ came down into our room with the holy apostle Luke, who took a photograph (of the Lord together with her). This photograph was then entrusted to me for safekeeping and I still have it today. In the photograph one can see mother Verginica and the Lord and the crosses on Golgotha, and in place of the rug in the room there are the stones of the mount of Golgotha. In the morning I went home to Măneşti and she gave me the photograph for safekeeping, so that it would not be found by the Securitate and taken away from among the testimonies…

– With God’s help, I can remember it quite well and in detail. I will use the text which she dictated to me from her conversation with the Lord. It was in February 1964, I was with sister Verginica in the house in the village of Maluri-Pucioasa. At night, around eleven o’clock, we had both got up to prepare for the midnight prayer. Sister Verginica had got up and moved to the edge of the bed, frail as always. She was dressed in a light-coloured little shirt and on her head she had a white kerchief. When that flash of light was seen which lit up the room, she was leaning on one hand on the bed, just as she appears in the photograph, and she had turned her gaze towards the Lord, Who had come before her. After a few moments, her gaze sought me, as if she wanted to tell me what it had been. But I asked her: sister Verginica, what was this light? She told me: it was the holy apostle Luke with a camera, while I was looking at the Lord before me. Not long after, the Lord Jesus Christ came again and spoke to her about the moment of the light which had been seen. And He said to her:

– Verginica, do not marvel at what you see and at what I give you. If I work in you and with you on earth, this which you see is a testimony, so that it may be for the days of the testimonies. I took the apostle Luke and We made two photographs alike; one We have taken and one We leave with you, but know that you are not allowed to do anything earthly with it. Do not go about with it to multiply it or to spread great rumour about it, lest My enemies and yours take it from you, lest it be found if this testimony is betrayed. We looked closely at the photograph, we both looked at it. Of the objects in the room, which was lit only by the oil lamp on the wall, the bed and the wooden body of the sewing machine also came out in the photograph. Besides these there came out: a crown of thorns laid on a white cloth on the sewing machine, the shape of a coffin at the foot of the bed, a hill with stones and greenery, a rose bush and three crosses. There also came out a black nun’s mantle over the little shirt which sister Verginica was wearing, a mantle from under which only a corner of the little white kerchief that covered her head could still be seen. While we were both looking at the photograph, the Lord had appeared to her, and she asked Him what the things in the photograph meant: “Verginica, Verginica, the mantle of mourning and the coffin and the crown of thorns on that white and heavy shroud are the signs of your suffering on earth. The hill of Golgotha with its crosses and with its stones has as its symbol your suffering and Mine in the work of God of these days. And I and you are seen in the work on earth so that it may be a sign for the days of the testimony, how I, the Lord, am on earth at work with you to prepare the people of the divine work at its end. Verginica, I am clothed in a shirt without seams and I am lit by My glory and I have shown My work of glory in you and with you.” After she had dictated to me to write down what the Lord had spoken, I went home to Măneşti and I took the photograph and put it away safely, as well as I could. This is what I can tell you about that moment. Since then the photograph has stayed with us, but now we must fulfil what is to be fulfilled with it. If the time has come for it to be borne witness to, I give you this holy thing which I kept hidden because of the house searches there were. We would like you to take it to Pucioasa, to the New Jerusalem monastery, and to put it in a place of honour, for it is a place chosen by God.
– If you say so, we will take it and we will set it there as a corner of heaven, and we will also present it in the Book which is called The Word of God 1955-1995 and which we will give you as a gift at the feast of Easter that seals forty years of the work of the Word of God in Romania.