Our family had the privilege of spending a year with Vassula in an intense swan song of her life.
Over the course of a year, from 2023 to 2024, our family and Vassula engaged in in-depth discussions and planning for the center she envisioned to preserve and share her messages. We carefully outlined the different buildings—the chapel, the library, the exhibition hall, and more. But not only did we have practical discussions, we also discussed very frankly the theological details, especially as regards the so called Worship in common, as described in the Second Vatican council, and how it would relate to the center.
Below you will find a brief timeline outlining the progression of our work with Vassula. We share this timeline to show that her collaboration with us was not a mere spur-of-the-moment decision from her, but rather the result of a steadfast, enduring inspiration that sustained her until her final moments.
This is why we feel a spiritual responsibility to honor Vassula’s final wish. To overlook it would not only be unfaithful to her memory but also to the divine inspiration that guided our work with her.
In fact, on more than one occasion, Vassula gently encouraged us, urging us not to abandon this work or deny the divine origin of the inspiration guiding us.
Vassula told us to rely on God’s calling and to have confidence in Him who had inspired us. She told us to trust Him more, to remain in peace and not to worry.
By establishing this nonprofit association and creating a dedicated, small home for the spirituality of her writings and mission, we believe we are fulfilling God’s calling—the very inspiration that led us to work alongside Vassula during a blessed year.
We met Vassula at a retreat in Vadstena in the spring of 2023. We agreed to visit Vassula with a documentary filmmaker at her home in Rhodes later on.
In August 2023, we contacted Vassula by email. She was very interested in meeting, and we agreed to meet at her home with the documentary filmmaker in Rhodes in mid-November 2023.
We mentioned our plans for a Swedish center at Kastanjegården. Vassula was very happy and said it would be ’fantastic, and a blessing.’ We agreed to present the plans to Vassula in Rhodes in November.
In September 2023, we received a letter from Vassula that took us by surprise. In the letter, she shared her reasons for wanting our farm to not just become a Swedish center for TLIG, but to serve as the main center itself. We were deeply surprised by this proposal.
At the end of November, we spent several days in discussion with Vassula at her house in Rhodos regarding the plans for establishing a TLIG main center at Kastanjegården, what she called the ”first center”.
After our meeting in Rhodes, we began planning two key actions: first, the presentation of the project to the TLIG Foundation, in collaboration with Vassula, scheduled for May 2024; and second, Vassula’s planned visit to our farm for five days shortly thereafter, to evaluate its suitability as the main center for TLIG.
At the same time, we initiated a theological discussion on challenging ecumenical issues, particularly concerning the question of ’Worship in Common’. Vassula was keen on having an honest and open dialogue. The conversation concluded with the decision that the main center would adhere to the guidelines established by the Second Vatican Council.
In May 2024, we traveled to Geneva to present our project to the Foundation for True Life in God.
Together with Vassula, we presented our project. Several pointed out that the farm was small, especially for a main center for TLIG, but Vassula said that she didn’t mind the center at first to be small, she preferred to start small.
Between May 27 and 31, Kastanjegården hosted Vassula and some TLIG friends. We showed them the farm and the area around Österlen.
At the end of August 2024, Vassula began packing up her ’spiritual archive,’ the items she had collected during her many missionary journeys, to move them to Kastanjegården.
It was also during this time that Vassula began to notice the signs of the cancer that would soon lead to her death.
On September 9th, just 15 days before her passing, Vassula sent a project description to the Foundation, requesting funding for the project to establish the main center at Kastanjegården—a project she explicitly blessed and approved after so much correspondence between us. The following day, she was admitted to the hospital, from which she would not return.
A few days before her passing, from her deathbed, she arranged for the shipment of her spiritual archive—700 kg on two pallets—collected from her home to Kastanjegården.
On the night of September 24th-25th, 2024, Vassula passed away at the hospital in Rhodes, Greece, after undergoing two surgeries for cancer.
On October 16th, the feast day of St. Maria Alacoque, just under a month after Vassula’s passing, we founded the nonprofit association Home of the Two Hearts.
The association’s purpose is to support the creation of a space where the spirituality of Vassula’s writings and her legacy can be honored and cherished.
On November 27th, 2024, two months after Vassula’s passing, the Foundation for True Life in God, based in Geneva, decided not to proceed with Vassula’s and our plans to establish the main center at Kastanjegården. Instead, they chose to place it elsewhere and moved the archive that she had sent to Kastanjegården.
Even though Kastanjegåren were not designated by the Foundation to be the main center, we feel an obligation to proceed with Vassula’s final wish of making Kastanjegården a home for her legacy through the association Home of the Two Hearts.