Vassula Ryden is Greek, born in Egypt and belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church. Her husband's professional obligations meant that she had to live most of her life in third world countries. Vassula could never have imagined that God would unexpectedly reveal Himself to her in Bangladesh in 1985, as she considered herself totally unworthy. The supernatural grace to receive God's Word in such a way is called Prophecy. It is God that dictates, inspires and reveals to Vassula His words of Wisdom.

Although Vassula had never received any catechetical instruction or theological formation, God, in His graciousness, educated her and formed her in His Heavenly Courts. She was commanded by Him to be like a loud book and deliver His messages, that He named 'True Life in God', to the world. They are an urgent call to stop rebelling against God and make peace with Him, amending our lives through repentance. They are a call to reconciliation, love and unity among the churches. Many of the messages remind us of Jonah who cried out to the city of Nineveh to repent. They contain major warnings to mankind in danger of destruction and must not be taken lightly.

In these messages, our Lady too reminds us that the earth is in danger and will suffer with Fire. That God's wrath cannot be sustained any longer and it will fall on us because man refuses to break with sin. That God's mercy all of these years were to draw as many as possible to Him, extending His Arm to save them but very few only listened and understood. Our Lady says that we are very near the events that have been foretold by God. That His mercy will not hold much longer and that the time is coming where everybody will be tested and the earth will spew out from within it rivers of fire. The people of the world then will understand their worthlessness without having had God in their hearts. And finally, that the time has come where the household of God will be tested and those who refused His mercy will taste God's Fire.

We are asked to offer sacrificial love and steady prayers committing ourselves more to God. If anyone serves and immolates himself as an offering, the judgment that is to come by Fire will not be so severe upon them for in their spirit they will be enjoying the call of God that brought them to life.

Through all these years, Our Lord has tried and is still trying to awaken a true understanding in all of us by repeatedly giving us reminders: recalling what was said in the past by the Holy Prophets and His own Commandments. God will not allow us forever to offend His Holy Name and commit sins against the Holy Spirit, for which 'there is no forgiveness in this world or the next' (Mt. 12:31-32). So, repeatedly, He has been warning us that the world, living without Him, is self-destroying itself in its apostasy and provoking His Holy Justice to fall on them.

Prophecies such as the destruction of the Twin Towers, the Tsunami of 2004, the fall of communism in Russia and other prophecies, were foretold to Vassula and have all come true. If the world will not repent and the churches continue to be deaf to His callings for reconciliation and unity, a unity in diversity, a great chastisement of fire will be sent to the world.

However, when God speaks in these messages we do not fail to notice, apart from the warnings, the tone of hope that He is giving us. Yes, He would reprimand us many times, since He is Father, and like any father reprimands his children when they do wrong, so does our Father in Heaven, but He does it with love for He is Love and He created us out of love to return this love to Him.

These messages reveal God's intimate and paternal image towards His creatures and what He asks from each one of us is to become intimate with Him too so that we get to know Him. Nevertheless, He reminds us never to forget that He is Holy and asks us to put into practice the "fear of the Lord", too.

In these messages God is trying to revive in us what is dead. This is why He pours out His Holy Spirit on us to bring us back to Him, to live a true Life in Him. He promises us that soon there will be an outpour of the Holy Spirit on humanity, such as never before in history, a sort of a second Pentecost, that will transfigure the whole world and renew it. This is the hope we are all looking for. In the end, the Lord with our Blessed Mother will triumph.

There are many parts of Scriptures from the book of Revelations and the book of the Prophet Daniel that have been unsealed to us by Jesus Christ in these messages.

Why is God so anxious to reveal Himself so powerfully again in our times if it is not so that He saves us? When He says in one message: "I look at the earth today and wish I never did ... My eyes see what I never wanted to see and my ears hear what I dreaded to ever hear! My heart, as a father, sinks with grief. I fashioned man to have my image, yet they have degraded themselves and today so many of them have taken the likeness of the beast! (the devil). My heart pains me, for I see to the ends of the earth and what I see is not according to my heart's desires ... your Father rules everything but not your freedom.... and man has perverted his freedom..."

In this message the Lord sounds disappointed. But how could He not be when He sees that His own have turned more into having a rationalistic spirit, into materialism, which led them to apostatize. Even nature rebels against us from the wickedness of the world, the Lord said.

Unfortunately, too few realize the urgency of our Lord's warnings and many are judging harshly with criticism the messages and the messenger. One must not forget the truth contained in this paradox... the one who is despised becomes in reality the one who identifies most with Christ... This example suffices to teach us which one is more loved of God, the one who throws the insults or the one who receives them?

Rev. Ljudevit Rupcic, a theologian, professor of Exegesis wrote about the messages and Vassula's experiences: "If people answered to God's calling for constant prayer, the message would spread throughout the world the note of thankfulness to God. If one accepted that there must be unity between the churches; already there would be a hope of the fulfillment of Jesus 'promise - 'one fold and one shepherd' (Jn. 10:16). If people accepted God the way Vassula recommends, He would already be "everything in everyone" (1Cor. 15:28). If people took seriously God's warning about Satan, the latter would already be banished from men's hearts and from the world. If people would heed God's calling to conversion all men and women would be saints already. If everyone shared in Vassula's experiences, the personal history of each one, and consequently the history of all humankind, would be a song of Love."