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DO NOT FORGET THE SORROW OF MARY
Jesus tells us: "I did not forget this sorrow of Mary, My Mother. That I
had to torture Her with the expectation of My suffering, that I had to
see Her weep. That is why I deny Her nothing. She gave Me everything. I
give Her everything. She suffered all sorrows. I give Her all joy. "
And He continues: when you think of Mary, I would like you to
meditate on that agony of Hers that lasted thirty three years and
culminated at the foot of the Cross. She suffered that for your sake.
For your sake She suffered the mockery of the crowds that considered Her
the mother of a madman. For your sake She endured the reproaches of relatives and important
people. For your sake she bore My apparent disavowal: "My Mother and My
brothers are those who do the will of God. " And who did His will more
than She did, and a terrible Will, that imposed on Her the torment of
seeing Her Son tortured!
For your sake She endured the fatigue of joining Me here and there.
For your sake She made sacrifices, from the sacrifice of leaving Her
little house and mingling with the crowds, to the sacrifice of leaving
Her little fatherland for the tumult of Jerusalem. For your sake She had
to be in touch with him, who was brooding over betrayal in his heart. For
your sake She suffered hearing Me accused of diabolical possession and
heresy. Everything for your sake.
You do not know how much I loved My Mother. You do not consider how
the heart of Mary's Son was sensitive to affections. And you think that
My torture was purely physical, at most you add the spiritual torment of
the final abandonment by the Father.
No, children. I experienced also the passions of man. I suffered
seeing My Mother suffer, having to lead Her, like a meek ewe-lamb, to
the torture, being compelled to torment Her with continual farewells, at
Nazareth before evangelising, with the one which I have shown you and
which precedes My imminent Passion, with the one before the Supper, when
Judas had already initiated My Passion with his betrayal, and with the
dreadful one on Calvary.
I suffered seeing Myself derided, hated, slandered, circumvented by
unwholesome inquisitiveness that did not evolve into good, but into
evil. I suffered because of all the falsehood that I had to hear or see
acting beside Me. The falsehood of the hypocritical Pharisees, who
called Me Master and asked Me questions not because they believed in My
intelligence but to lay snares for Me; the falsehood of those who had
been benefited by Me and who became My accusers in the Sanhedrin and in
the Praetorium; the long premeditated subtle falsehood of Judas who sold
Me to the executioners with the sign of love. I suffered because of the
lie of Peter who was seized with human fear.
How much falsehood and so revolting for Me, I, Who is the Truth! How
much there still is, even now, with regard to Me! You say that you love
Me, but you do not love Me. You have My name on your lips, but you adore
Satan in your hearts, and you follow a law contrary to Mine.
I suffered thinking that with respect to the infinite value of My
Sacrifice, the Sacrifice of a God, too few would be saved. All, I say:
all those who in the course of the centuries of the earth would prefer
death to eternal life, thus making My Sacrifice vain, were a present to
Me. And with that knowledge I went to My death.
You can see that your Jesus and His Mother suffered bitterly in their
moral egos. And for a long time. So be patient if one will have to
suffer. "No disciple is superior to his Master. " Jesus said so.
PURGATORY It is a Catholic tradition that the month of November is
dedicated to the Holy Souls in Purgatory, the Purgatory which is no
longer spoken of. Its existence was often denied. Martin Luther and
Calvin in particular used the denial of Purgatory in their fight against
the Catholic Church. They relied entirety on Holy Scripture which does
not speak of Purgatory although it is implied in some places (2 Macc.
12:46; Mat. 12: 32; I Cor. 3:15; 1 Pet. 1:7). The Council of Trent
(1545-1563) affirmed the Catholic Faith in a solemn statement: "Whosoever maintains that as
a result of the grace of justification
the penitent is absolved from sin and eternal punishment to such an
extent that he does not have to suffer temporal punishment in Purgatory
neither in this world nor in the future world prior to entering the
Kingdom of Heaven, be excommunicated." (22nd Meeting, Can. 3).
We live in a time in which the cancerous tumour of Liberalism is
eating its way into the Church, where every shepherd, every theologian
declares himself to be the superior teacher of the Faith, and the,
ordinary faithful no longer know whom and what Truth to believe, so
different is the situation from parish to parish, from diocese to
diocese, from country to country.
The Council of Trent did not specify
whether Purgatory is a special place, in what way souls are cleansed;
neither did it mention the intensity and the length of their punishment,
nor how prayers and good deeds by those on earth will help the souls in
Purgatory.
Bishop Gray writes in his book "De la Vie et des Vertus Chretiennes
(About Christian Life and Virtues): "Apart from the points made of the
definite teaching - and they are not at all numerous - the theology of
Purgatory is one of the humblest pages of theological science; what I
want to say is: it is a page in which our ignorance and our self-satisfaction
are defined in a most unrelenting manner."
And now, in order to please our "separated brothers", one does no
longer speak of Hell and Purgatory and the excommunication of those who
deny the existence of Purgatory. God, in His goodness and mercy,
constantly perfected the official teaching of His Church during the
course of centuries. He speaks to us through the saints (cf John
16:12-13). Let us remember that the Church canonises only people of
heroic virtue and not those suffering from hysteria, nor dreamers with
crazy illusions. And let us also ponder on what God showed the saints
concerning the severity of their atonement in the other world.
St. Paul the Apostle (1 Cor 3:15) speaks of those who are saved "by
the fire". St. Augustine (354-430) comments thus upon these words: "The
Apostle states: they will be saved as though through fire. One should
not underestimate this fire because of the words 'He will be saved'. It
is certain that this saving fire will be more terrible than all the
suffering which a person may experience throughout his life." St.
Catherine of Siena (1347- 380) had an enormous influence on the Church
in her time. Her writings and private revelations are still held in high
esteem. She said: "If the poor people only knew what Purgatory and Hell
is, they would rather die ten times than suffer such pain for even a
single day."
St. Catherine of Genua (1447-1510) wrote a very famous work about
Purgatory, in which she describes the effects of cleansing Love: "Pain,
that cannot be described by a tongue nor comprehended by a brain, unless
it is privately revealed by God."
St. Veronica Giuliani (1660-1727), of the Order of St. Clare, offered
herself as a victim soul for the souls in Purgatory. "The number of
souls delivered from Purgatory cannot be counted. " Many appeared to her
and thanked her. A young novice from a Convent in Florence appeared to
her and said: "O dear Sister, as you have paid my debt I shall not
forget to pray for you and your Convent. If I could return to earth, I
would quickly become a saint, and if the nuns of your Convent knew what
Purgatory is, they would change and live like good religious Sisters. I
repeat to you: If your Sisters had the faintest idea of Purgatory, they
would turn themselves into saints." Many other Holy Souls said, "If we
could return to earth, we would become saints in a Jiffy."
St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582): "Of the many souls that were shown to
me, I saw only three ascending directly into Heaven. One of them was a
zealous penitent called Peter of Alcantara. All the other souls sank into
the earth and only appeared again once they had been cleansed," said
the saint,
St. Margareta-Maria Alacoque (1647-1690) became famous due to
the appearance of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and her mission. She prayed
much for the Holy Souls in Purgatory. She declared that one day, she saw
a nun who had died many years ago. "She said to me that she had much to
suffer in Purgatory but that God made her suffer now on irreparable
sorrow; she had to experience how one of her relations was thrown into
Hell."
St. Jean Vianney, the Cure d'Ars (1768-1859). What great efforts
he underwent to ensure that prayers were said for the deceased! Madame
Gros from Lyon had received many graces in Ars. One day, she brought her
young cousin to go to Confession to the saint. "Thank your cousin with
all your heart that she brought you to me," Said Fr. Vianney very
seriously, "for without her you would be in Hell." And after outlining
the reasons for his words after her confession, he added: "And you can
see, my dear, how ungrateful we are. Your father has been suffering in
Purgatory for the past ten years. You enjoy his inheritance but do not
give it a single thought for a Mass to be said for him which would
deliver him from Purgatory."
Madame Ladreyt from Lyon, upon leaving the confessional of St. Jean
Vianney in February, 1859, heard Father's voice: "My child, did you pray
much for M. Neyrand?" - "But certainly. Father." - "But why are you not
continuing your prayers for him?"
The Abbot Neyrand was Madame Ladreyt's Father Confessor. In her
gratitude, she had always remembered him. Three months earlier, he had
died in the odour of sanctity. A few weeks later. Madam Ladrevt stopped
her prayers for him as she was at peace with the fate of this holy man.
"But Father," replied Madam Ladreyt, "I only stopped praying for him
because I thought he was in Heaven. " - "No, my child, he has been in
Purgatory ever since his death. " - "But Father, this is not possible.
"- "O yes; he is suffering punishment because he was not forgiving
enough to his penitents. Continue with your prayers for him."
The lives of many other saints bear witness of a similar kind.
Through them, God reminds us constantly of the existence and the
severity of Purgatory.
One of our contemporaries, the late Maria Simma of Austria, had
countless visits from Holy Souls for more than 30 years. Her experiences
have been recorded in the German language. A small part of it has been
printed in English by the Franciscan Press in Chicago. (also available
from the Franciscan Minims, Apdo. Postal 14-239; 07001 Mexico, D.F.
Mexico). We ought to meditate often on our cleansing in Purgatory. The
Bible says: "Think of your end, and you will stop sinning. "
Let us use the time that is left. Let us offer up our deeds, our
daily work, the thousand miseries of our life, our illnesses, the
sufferings of our daily grind, our death, and bear all with love. The
most merciful God put all into the trials of our life, in order to make
possible the redemption of our IOU (I owe you). Blessed is he who does
not waste the price for our sins, for Catherine of Genua tells us:
"Whoever cleanses himself in this life from his inequities will pay just
one penny for the redemption of a bond of1000 ducats; otherwise he will
have to invest 1000 ducats in the next life for all that he could have
paid for on earth with one penny."
Three evangelists relate the words
of Our Lord: "With the measure used by you, you also will be measured. "
And can we count on the prayers by the living if we do not pray for
the deceased? What to do? Have Masses said for the Holy Souls in
Purgatory; pray the Stations of the Cross; say the Rosary to the Holy
Wounds; attend a Mass voluntarily during the week, one which is said in
memory of a deceased person; receive Holy Communion and offer it up for a
soul's deliverance; do deeds of repentance; have the Gregorian Masses
said in November (30 Masses in total, one for every day), the month of
the Holy Souls. May the month of November be the month in which our dear
deceased one be delivered from Purgatory, or at least given genuine
relief from purgatorial pain.
HOLY MARCHING ORDERS
(Br. Bruno)
The twenty-first century should have been a golden age, but it is chaos.
Iraq is settling into a state of terrorist war, and war is at the gates
of Iran. Africa is put to fire and sword. Colombia is as well, where the
United States is caught in a trap. In Oceania, for four years now,
ethnic guerrilla warfare is reducing the Solomon islands to rubble. In
Europe, France is breaking up. How can this unrest on earth surprise us
since we are at war with Heaven? Quite precisely for forty years now.
Ever since an Ecumenical Council gathered at Rome all the bishops of the
world and deliberately, explicitly, unanimously refused to obey the will
of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, who descended bodily
from Heaven in 1917, in order to express in person to three Portuguese
children the will of God and His design for giving peace to our time,
and to show them through visions "what is to take place very soon" (Ap.
1:1).
Reciting the Rosary is the first commandment of the Covenant that God
has wanted to re-establish with the earth for eighty years now after He
put an end to the First World War, just as immediately after the Flood:
"Say the Rosary everyday to obtain peace for the world and the end of
the war. " (13thMay, 1917).
The Blessed Virgin came seven times to request this. The seventh
time, at Pontevedra, in 1925, She added to the request for the Rosary
that of Confession and the reparatory Communion of the five first
Saturdays.
Now when the Council rejected the request of Cardinal Cerejeira, the Patriarch of Lisbon, to which a hundred and thirteen
bishops had subscribed, it refused to recommend the recitation of the
Rosary! In the Acts of Vatican II, the Rosary is not mentioned a single
time.
So, between the "Spirit of the Council" and the will of the
Blessed Virgin there is a radical incompatibility.
Second commandment: the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary by the Pope and all the bishops united with him, in order
to obtain her conversion and, through it, peace in the world. The
Blessed Virgin announced that She would come to request this
consecration at an opportune time. She did so in 1929, at Tuy. But the
Popes did not want to do it: not Pius XI, not Pius XII, not John XXIII,
not Paul VI. Moreover, bound by the secret commitments signed with
Moscow by these last two Popes, the Second Vatican Council refused to
condemn the 'errors of Russia', the cause of wars and persecutions
against the Church, according to the 'Secret', the great prophesy
entrusted to the three shepherds on 13th July, 1917.
By 'errors of Russia', the Most Blessed Virgin was referring firstly
to the ancient error of the Orthodox schism that separated Russia from
Rome, since 1448; and secondly, to the error of Marxism that had not
yet, on 13th July, 1917, taken possession of Russia, but which would do
so three months later. Thus the Most Blessed Virgin described as an
"error" an ideology that all the bishops of the whole world, gathered in
Council at Rome around Pope Paul VI, refused to condemn!
So, between the Council's doctrine and the Blessed Virgin's doctrine,
there is a radical incompatibility.
However grave and scandalous this
opposition may be, it is no reason to enter into schism. God forbid!
This would add one evil to another. Like an echo. Sister Lucy wrote to
one of them on 3rd July, 1989:'There is nothing in the world that can
justify breaking with things that are fundamental on account of those
that are secondary.' The remainder of this letter is truly inspired:
"Peter slipped and fell, but Christ nevertheless continued to entrust
him with the supreme government of His Church."
This sentence is not only a reference to Peter's denial committed at
the time of Christ's Passion. Under the name of "Peter" Lucy refers as
well to his successor, but if she seems to concede to her correspondent,
it is in order to say that the Pope nevertheless remains the Supreme
Head of the Church.
Admirable is the communion proclaimed by this saint, or rather, the
solidarity with Peter in transgression, when she adds: "What we lack",
we sinners, I a sinner, as Saint Bemadette said, 'is the humility of
Saint Peter, who acknowledged his sins, wept for them, and asked for
forgiveness.'
In reading these lines, how can we not think of the
vision that Jacinta had one day of the "Holy Father in awry big house,
kneeling by a table, with his head in his hands, and weeping." Why
would the Holy Father weep, if it were not out of repentance? And for
what denial, if not for that which Paul VI initiated by promulgating on
6th August, 1964, the encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, the charter of his
pontificate, in which he set out to promote a "kind and fraternal
dialogue" with men of all religions, and even with atheists and
Communists, instead of calling them to conversion.
By offering to "dialogue" with the various beliefs and
unbeliefs, the
Pope not only disowned the martyrs and confessors of the bygone days,
who had fought false religions and atheist Communists as the instruments
of Satan, but disowned as well the Blessed Virgin Mary Herself Who has
asked the Pope, for more than seventy years, to consecrate Russia to Her
Immaculate Heart, in order to convert her.
So, between the new "evangelization" of the Council and the
post council, and the missionary pastoral
approach of the Blessed Virgin,
there is a radical incompatibility.
Now, the vision that concludes the
great "Secret" of Fatima confirmed the traditional, immemorial adage,
according to which the blood of martyrs is a seed of Christians:
'Beneath the two arms of the Cross, there were two angels, each with a
crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of
the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way
to God. "
It is this triple incompatibility between the "spirit", the doctrine,
and the "new evangelization" of the Council and of our modern Popes, on
the one hand, and the will, the doctrine and the missionary pastoral
approach of the Blessed Virgin, on the other, that explains the present
state of the Church and the world.
Cardinals Ratzinger and Sodano dare to affirm that "the situation
referred to in the third part of the Secret of Fatima would now seem to
belong to the past, " However, one would have to be struck with
blindness not to be able to see in the heavenly vision of the Third
Secret the film of our terrifying present day.
Are not the flames given out by the flaming sword of the Angel of
Extermination the wars which, from one pole of the earth to the other,
are spreading in Africa, in Asia, in South America, in the Middle East,
threatening to set alight the entire universe?
How can it be denied that they describe today's world and that of
tomorrow, if we persist in not setting any store by recourse to the
Immaculate Who radiates from Her right hand the grace, the light, and
the force of God: 'They were extinguished on contact with the brilliant
light that Our Lady radiated against them with Her right hand."
In May, 2000, after the beatification of Jacinta and Francisco, a
priest exclaimed: "Poor Lucy." During this ceremony, in the presence of
the Pope and Sister Lucy, Cardinal Sodano had hinted at revealing, while
at the same time distorting, the general drift of the Third Secret. What
drama is the humble Carmelite nun, the messenger of Our Blessed Lady in
deep sorrow, living through in her Carmel of Coimbra?
Let us go back to
her warning against schism. Lucy continues: "This is the penance that
God wants and asks of us: that we acknowledge our own personal sins with
humility, that we ask forgiveness for them and that we change our lives.
"
Now, there was a Pope who spoke in this manner, the one whom the
children of Fatima saw clearly in the Secret at the head of these
martyrs, "a bishop dressed in White, killed at the foot of a large Cross
of rough-hewn trunks at the top of a steep mountain after having passed
through a large city half in ruins.'
(A book was published last year,
called "John Paul I, The Pope Of The Secret". It is the fourth volume in
a series on Fatima. It deals with the Third Secret of Fatima, and can be
obtained from:-
Maison Saint Joseph,
F-10260 Saint-Parres-les-Vaudes
France.
I do not know the price. Ed.),
THE WAY OF PENANCE In 1919, Maria Rosa, Lucy's mother,
fell ill, and so gravely ill that she prepared herself for death. Lucy's
sixth memoir, devoted to her mother, tells how "the difficulties,
disagreements, troubles, and doubts" that assailed Maria-Rosa from 1917
affected her health. It was written in 1992, completed on 25th March,
1993, and published through the vicepostulation in 1996.
She consulted
all the doctors in the region, but they all prescribed medicine of
little effect. She consulted a doctor from Leiria, but to no avail.
Later, she went to see a doctor from Reguengo do Fetal, Dr. Carvalho,
who came to examine the sick people of Sao Mamede. He diagnosed
dislocation of a kidney and a slipped disc, and prescribed several
medications and the application of red hot needles to the back.
She felt
some relief as a result of this treatment, but for the application of
the red hot needles she had to go to Sao Mamede every time, and there was
no means of transport in those days other than horseback or on foot. Going
by horseback involved suffering the sharp pains caused by the vibration
of the animal, and to walk was too far for Maria-Rosa in her state of
health. If she walked she had to sit down on any stone she could
find to take a little rest, and she would arrive home worn out and
breathless.
And so she had to give up this treatment with the result that she
went from bad to worse until the day came when it seemed as though her
days on this earth had come to an end.
We called the doctor, but he could do nothing. We called the parish
priest to administer the last Sacraments, and we all gathered together
as a family to give her one last embrace and to receive her blessing,
kissing her trembling and dying hand. She began with my eldest sister;
being the youngest, I was last. When she saw me, my poor mother lifted
herself up a little and, squeezing me close to her, she exclaimed: "My
poor daughter! What will become of you without your mother? I die
heartbroken thinking of you. "
And sobbing bitterly, she squeezed me even more tightly and could not
let me go. My sister Maria forced me out of her arms and took me into
the kitchen. Ordering me not to return to our mother's bedside, she said
to me. "Our mother is dying in torment because of all the sadness and
trouble you have brought on her."
I knelt down and leant over a bench, and with a profound bitterness
I had never felt before in my life, I offered my sacrifice to God,
begging that my mother's health might improve. Almost immediately, my
sisters Maria and Teresa came to me and said: "Lucia, if it is true that
you saw Our Lady, go now to the Cova da Iria and ask Her for our mother
to be cured. Promise Her what you will; we shall do it, and then we
shall believe."
I got up and went out. To avoid being seen, I took the side roads
between the fields, over by the wasteland, reciting my Rosary all the way.
I ended it on my knees at the place where Our Lady had appeared.
And shedding abundant tears, I made my request to Our Lady that She
cure my mother. I promised Her that I would come on nine consecutive
days with my sisters to say the Rosary on my knees from the top of the
way to the place where not so long ago the holm oak had stood on which
Our Lady appeared.
I also promised Her that on the last and ninth day I
would take nine children with me and then offer them dinner.
And, full of courage and hope that Our Lady would grant me this
grace, I got up and went home. On my arrival, I found my sister Gloria
in the kitchen. She said to me: "Lucia! Come and see! Our mother is
already better. " My father kept my mother company in her room. As son
as he heard us speaking, he came and took me by the hand, saying: "Come
and give your mother a kiss; she is already getting better. "
My mother, sitting in her bed, was drinking a bowl of chicken broth.
My father took the bowl, so that she could embrace me. "Where have you
been, my daughter? Have you been to ask Our Lady to cure me?" my mother
asked.
"Yes," I answered.
"I am already feeling better.
Thanks be to God!"
Then my father gave her back her bowl, so that she could drink the
rest of the broth. Sitting on a little Chest in her room, at the head of
her bed, he sat me on his knee and asked me where I had been and what I
had done.
I answered that I had been down to the Cova da Iria to say the Rosary
and to ask Our Lady to cure my mother, that I had promised to come back
with my sisters for nine consecutive days, to go on my knees reciting
the Rosary from the top of the way to the place of the apparitions, and
that on the last day I would take nine poor children and offer them
dinner.
My father replied: "As soon as your mother is alright and has
regained her strength, we shall all go together and do every thing to
thank Our Lady for having granted us such a great grace. "
In the meantime, my sister Gloria came with a bowl of broth and
said. "Lucia, have a little broth, as I think perhaps you have been
fasting?"
I answered; "No, I don't want any broth; keep it for our
mother. I shall drink something else. "
She insisted, saying: "Come on! Take it. Our mother won't go without.
For dinner, I am going to kill another two chickens and make a pot of
broth, which will be enough for everyone. Godmother Teresa will bring
the rest. She has already come to say that she has prepared our
dinner; she even wanted to bring it round thinking that our mother was
going to die. As she is better, thank God, Godmother will bring it round
all the same and come with Godfather to have dinner with us. Maria and
Teresa have gone back to their place to get on with their work, but they
will come back with their husbands, and we shall dine all together. "
Then my father and my mother told me to drink the broth, and I drank
it. In the evening, we had dinner in the dining room with the bedroom
door left open, so that everybody could see my mother. She wanted to get
up, but my father would not allow it because she was still too weak. So
she had her dinner sitting up in bed. Whilst she drank another bowl of
broth and ate a little chicken with rice, she smiled at everyone around
her.
All there was to eat was placed on a small chest covered with
course linen tablecloth. The whole family was there: in the
bedroom were godmother Teresa and godfather Anastaco sitting beside the
bed; my father sat on a small chest, and I sat next to him on a stool.
Godmother Teresa sat with her back to the window. All the others were in
the dining room, sitting on stools or chairs, or else standing. Each one
held a plate in his hand and helped himself to the food with pleasure
and a good appetite.
One after the other they entered the bedroom to say a few words to my
mother, who answered them with a happy smile, glad to see them all so
united and joyful. She was like a hen with all her chicks pecking the
ground and hopping around her. All thanked God: Wonderful! Gracas a
Deus; my mother was already feeling better.
At the end of the meal, when my sister had cleared away and washed
up, my father gave thanks to God, as he usually did.
Then my mother, sitting on her bed, recited the Rosary; all the
others knelt down in the dining room and prayed with her in thanksgiving
for the cure Our Lady had granted her.
At the end of the Rosary, my mother sang: "We want God!" and all
joined in enthusiastically: "We want God, ungrateful men, This supreme
Father, this Redeemer, Fools make fun of our faith But in vain do they
rise against the Lord. O Virgin, bless the clamor of our faith: We want
God, He is our King! We want God, He is our Father! " Afterwards, my
father told everyone of the promise I had made in asking Our Lady to
cure Mam-ma. They all answered, saying: "We, too, want to go there. "
And when my
mother felt stronger, she did go there. She even wanted to cover the
distance from the top of the path to the place of apparitions on her
knees, but my father forbade her. She walked behind us, singing and
saying the Rosary, whilst looking after the poor children we had brought
with us.
When we had ended the recitation of the Rosary, at the place of
the apparitions, after the litanies, my mother sang: "Salve, nobre
Padroeira!"
Hail, O noble Patroness
of Thy protected people,
Chosen among all
As
the people of the Lord.
O glory of our country,
Which Thou hast saved a
hundred times,
As long as there are Portuguese
Thou shalt always be
their love.
To help us is Thy glory.
Thou hast no greater joy:
No one
invokes Mary Without obtaining grace.
Thou art our Patroness,
Never
forsake the protection
Of the flock entrusted
To Thy protective power.
Thou are the most sublime work
Ever to have come from the hand of God!
Neither on earth nor in Haven above
Does a greater being exist!
We then
returned home, with the poor children and the mothers of some of them
who had wanted to accompany us and join in giving thanks to God and Our
Lady.
The day before, my mother and my sisters had prepared and placed in
large dishes, left in the oven, the meals to be offered to the children.
I n the yard outside, my father had already placed the sides of the cart
on trestles to serve as table. They were covered with white coarse linen
table cloths. Thus, on arriving home, all we had to do was to fetch the
large dishes from the oven, put them on the table with the other dishes
that were there together with those brought by godmother Teresa: rice
cooked in milk and fruits. Godfather Anastado, who had come to pray and
sing with us at the Cova da Iria, brought the wine.
We all ate with the children and their mothers who had accompanied
us. There was enough food for everyone, and what was left over was
shared by my mother among the poor children. She placed the meat in big
bread rolls, which she had baked especially on the day, and each child
was given one to take home. She put the bread rolls in the grey paper
bags they had at that time. We took our leave of one mother, all happy
and content, giving thanks to God and Our Lady.
My mother resumed her normal life three days after her cure, and for
many years thereafter, although from time to time she suffered from
minor illnesses, which did not, however, prevent her from getting on
with her usual domestic chores. Inspired by Our Lady, Lucy, together
with her sisters, made that act of penance which has ever after been
followed by the Portuguese people, even though the pastoral practice in
force today hardly encourages them to do so. The pilgrims are still
going the whole length of the esplanade on their knees right up to the
Capelhina.
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
PRAYER:
THE ROSARY
Letter from Sr. Mary-Lucy of the Immaculate Heart to Mother Maria Jose
Martins, dated 16th September, 1970:
After the sacred liturgy of the
Eucharist, the Rosary is the prayer that unites us most to God
through the richness of the prayers of which it is composed.
All its prayers are from Heaven, dictated by the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit.
The Gloria which we recite at all the mysteries, was
dictated by the Father to the angels, when He sent them to sing at the
birth of His Word, and it is a hymn to the Holy Trinity.
The Our Father was dictated to us by the Son, and it is prayer
directed to the Father.
The Ave Maria is wholly impregnated with Trinitarian and Eucharistic
meaning: the first words were dictated by the Father to the angel when
He sent him to announce the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word:
"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee".
Thou art full of grace, because within Thee there dwells the source
of the same grace. It is through Thy union with the Most Holy Trinity
that Thou art full of grace.
Moved by the Holy Spirit, Saint Elizabeth was moved to say: "Blessed
art Thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus."
If Thou art blessed, it is because Jesus, the fruit of Thy womb, is
blessed. Moved by the Holy Spirit, the Church has added: "Holy Mary,
Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death."
It is also a prayer directed to God through Mary. Because Thou art
the Mother of God, pray for us.
It is a Trinitarian prayer, yes, because
Mary was the first living temple of the Most Holy Trinity: "The Holy
Spirit will come down upon Thee. The Father will overshadow Thee. And
the Son who will be born of Thee, will be called the Son of the Most
High."
Mary is the first living tabernacle in which the Father enclosed His
Word. Her Immaculate Heart is the first ciborium to have guarded It. Her
womb and Her arms were the first altar and throne on which the Son of
God made man was worshiped and adored. It is there that the angels, the
shepherds and the Magi adored Him.
Mary is the first priest who took the Son of God info Her pure and
immaculate hands; who took Him to the Temple to offer Him to the Father
as a victim for the salvation of the world.
Thus, the prayer of the
Rosary is, after that of the sacred liturgy of the Eucharist, that which
best introduces us into the intimate mystery of the Most Holy Trinity
and of the Eucharist.
It is also that which best fills our mind with
the mysteries of faith, hope and charity. It is the spiritual bread of
our souls. He who does not pray perishes and dies.
It is in prayer that we meet God, and it is in this encounter that He
communicates to us the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity, without which
we cannot be saved.
The Rosary is the prayer of both the poor and the rich, of the
learned and of the ignorant; to withdraw this devotion from souls is to
withdraw from them their spiritual bread.
It is the Rosary that
maintains that little flame of faith in many consciences where it is not
quite extinguished. Even for those souls who recite the Rosary without
meditation, the simple fact of taking it into one's hands to pray is in
itself a reminder of God and of the supernatural. Just to recall the
mysteries at each decade is more than a ray of light to maintain the
wick still smouldering in souls.
That is why the devil wages such a war
against it!
OUR LADY OF
MOUNT CARMEL
In the 11th Century a group of Latin Rite hermits began living on
Mount Carmel in Palestine following the example of the Prophet Elias who
lived there himself, many centuries before. In time, these people of
prayer became known as "the hermits of St. Mary of Mount Carmel".
Because of Muslim victories in the Holy Land, the hermits eventually
moved to England and other European countries, where they became the
Carmelite Order.
Images of Our Lady of Mount Carmel always show Her
dressed in brown and tan, wearing a flat crown, and holding the Infant
Jesus.
Traditionally, both She and the Infant hold brown scapulars in their
hands, though this detail has lapsed in more recent years, with many
images and statues showing white scapulars, or even less vague representations.
Legend has it that the brown scapular was given directly to St. Simon
Stock. He was born in Kent around 1165, and it is said that when he was
12 years old, he began to live as a hermit in the hollow trunk of an
oak, and later became an itinerant preacher until he entered the
Carmelite Order which had just come to England.
During his occupancy of the office the order became widely spread in
Southern and Western Europe, especially in England. Above all, he was
able to found houses in the university cities of that era, as in 1248 at
Cambridge, in 1253 at Oxford, at 1260 at Paris, and Bologna in Italy.
Simon was also able to gain at least the temporary approbation of
Innocent IV for the altered rule of the order, which had been adapted to
European conditions.
Nevertheless the order was greatly oppressed, and it was still
struggling everywhere to secure admission, either to obtain the consent
of the secular clergy, or the toleration of other orders.
In these difficulties, Guilelmus de Sanvico, shortly after
1291, relates, the monks prayed to their patroness the Blessed Virgin.
"And the Virgin revealed to their Prior that they were to apply fearlessly to Pope Innocent, for they would receive from him an effective
remedy for these difficulties. "
The Prior followed the counsel of the Virgin, and the order received
a Bull or letter of protection from Innocent IV against these
molestations.
It is an historical fact that Innocent IV issues this
papal letter for the Carmelites under date of13th January, 1252, at
Perugia in Italy.
Later Carmelite writers give more details of such a
vision and revelation.
Johannes Grossi wrote his Viridarium about 1430,
and he relates that the Mother of God appeared to Simon Stock with the
scapular of the order in Her hand.
This scapular She gave to him with
the words: "Hoc erit tibi et cunctis Carmelitis privilegium, in hoc habitu
moriens salvabitur" (This shall be the privilege for you and for all the
Carmelites, that anyone dying in this habit shall be saved).
On account of this great privilege, many distinguished Englishmen,
such as King Edward II, Henry Duke of Lancaster, and many others of the
nobility secretly wore the Carmelite scapular under their clothing and
died with it on.
Today the Carmelite order still regards this as its chief privilege,
and one it owes to St. Simon Stock, that anyone who dies wearing the
brown scapular, will not be eternally lost.
The Shrine of St. Simon Stock is at Aylesford, near Maidstone, in
Kent, and is visited by many pilgrims and organized pilgrimages
throughout the year. The monks of for hospitality and retreats.
MEDITATION ON THE POWER OF GOD
I am the Great God of Abraham.
I have assigned My Angels to guard
each of you.
To access the power of My angels,
you must hear My voice.
To hear My voice, you must pray.
To pray, you must trust.
To trust My Power, you must love
Me.
To love Me, you must know Me.
To know Me, you must seek Me.
To seek Me is to find Me.
All else passes away by My Will.
I live in the heart of all creation.
I am life.
I am who Am. My love guides and
comforts each of My children. My
love resides in My faithful children,
who, through My compassion,
comfort and love My suffering
children.
I Myself call My children to Myself.
I free them from their bondage. I
bring them along the path of My Son
Jesus to Myself.
Each soul must pass through the
valley of suffering to come to My
waiting arms.
Those who comfort the afflicted will
be comforted.
I never reward iniquity. You must not
eat of the fruit of the poison tree. It
will make you sick. You will lose
your discernment. You will not be
able to hear My voice. You will be
unable to see Me in the world.
Shed your attachments to the earth
and to the things of the earth, which
are transitory.
When you come to Me in truth and
humility, I will set you free.
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