MESSAGE OF JANUARY 3rd,2004. 1ST SATURDAY OF MONTH.
AT PRADO NUEVO. EL ESCORIAL (MADRID)
OUR LADY:
Raise all your objects; all will be blessed and will be good to protect the homes of those who come to this place.
I bless you, my children, as the Father blesses you, through the Son and with the Holy Spirit.
COMMENTARY UPON MESSAGES
(December 18th, 1981)
Firstly, Our Lord offers Luz Amparo comfort and courage to endure her sufferings: " Yes, my daughter, here I am, as everyday, present in your sufferings, but today here I am also to comfort you, to relieve you to endure them". If we were able to accept our daily sufferings, and others as well… how many fruits of sanctity we would harvest!. John Paul II writes about Christian sense of suffering in one of his apostolic letters:
‘Declaring the power of salvific suffering, the Apostle Paul says: "In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church"1 (…)These words have as it were the value of a final discovery, which is accompanied by joy. For this reason Saint Paul writes: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake"2. The joy comes from the discovery of the meaning of suffering, and this discovery, even if it is most personally shared in by Paul of Tarsus who wrote these words, is at the same time valid for others3’
Secondly, Our Lord denounces the world’s evil (" They are committing crimes, sins of impurity, sacrileges…, the world is invaded by sin"), and He refers to a future event which has been prophesied several times : " Damnation is getting very close" . In order to understand the expression "close", we should know that God’s measure of time, is different from ours ( "with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day"4) Thirdly, among statements of high prophetic content, there are words of hope announcing " a miraculous renewal leading to God’s Mercy’s triumph". That period, unknown to us, will be characterized by a new pontiff’s election; according to this message, two great saints will take part in it: " Saint Peter and Saint Paul will intervene to choose a new Pope". How will they do it? Will it be a spiritual support of those who were the walls of our primitive Church and are commemorated together on June 29th’s solemnity? Nowadays, we cannot understand these words but, in order to improve our knowledge of popes’ history, we can add that Saint Peter, who was the first Pope on earth, was directly appointed by God ( ‘ And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church (…) I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven’5) Since then, popes have been chosen in some different ways: -By Roman’s Churchs` priests and deacons, making up a sort of papal senate which led to the school of Cardinals.. -By only the Roman clergy -By pontiff’s appointment, expressed in his will -By cardinals, met in conclave, as it is done currently since Gregory VI (1073- 1085)
‘There is no faith in My Church. That is why My Heavenly Father will order Me to come, I will perform an act of justice and mercy towards the righteous’ Do these words not remind us of those from the Gospel? After telling the parable of the evil judge, Jesus Christ said : ‘ Pay attention to what the evil judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?’ Is our present world not characterised by the lack of faith? Is this not happening even in countries of Christian tradition? He refers to this fact when He says that a huge number of Catholics are baptised but – in practice- they have left their faith aside. However, the Church keeps a faith inherited from the Apostles and, in this sense, it owns an everlasting wonderful richness.
A few years after, Our Lord uttered these hard statements: ‘ If you do not fulfil my laws, my children, what kind of Catholics are you?: repent and change your lives; these times are difficult, and men have not succeeded in understanding God’s Justice because they only think of his Mercy, my children. I will use my Justice for the unjust and my Mercy for the just’ (April 6th, 1996). Therefore, if we are Jesus’ Heart ‘s friends here and we regard the Virgin Mary as our Mother, Our Lord will give us an eternal embrace and He will receive us in his heavenly abodes.
The words announcing that new period after the tribulation are really beautiful: ‘Peace and reconciliation between God and men will take place. I will be served, praised and glorified; charity will shine everywhere; new kings on earth will be the Church’s right- hand., which will be strong, humble, pious, poor, jealous and it will imitate Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and men will live in dread of God. My Holy Church will be strong, pious, poor, jealous, and it will imitate Jesus Christ’s virtues’
Finally, apart from watching some scenes from Our Lord’s Passion (which we are not going to comment on), Our Lord asks Luz Amparo to pray for Russia’s conversion once again. He reminds her of her role of victim joined to the Divine Victim, Jesus Christ: : ‘You are feeling a flash of My heart’s suffering, trespassed by the ungratefulness of so many sinners. When it is intense, offer it for those souls who do not want to acknowledge, who want to damn themselves. Daughter, offer My Eternal father everything, joining it to my sufferings, my death on the Cross, my Mother’s sorrows; offer it for the world’s salvation. To finish with, Our Lady encourages and comforts her with words of special love: ‘ My daughter, my daughter, believe me: I am always with you. My daughter, yes, do everything my Son tells you to do, love him, be grateful for what he has told you, for the favour He has done to you by calling you and choosing you as an special daughter of His. Love him a lot. Realise that He is also suffering with you. Do not trust in your own strength but in Jesus’ only. He will provide you with all the strength you may need and I will assist you. We constantly do this to privileged souls’
1 - Col 1,24
2 - Ibid.
3 - ‘Salvifici doloris', 1
4 - 2 Pe 3,8
5 - Mt 16, 18-19