BLESSING OF NOVEMBER 4TH 2006 . FIRST SATURDAY OF MONTH.

AT PRADO NUEVO OF EL ESCORIAL (MADRID)

 

OUR LADY:

 

            Raise all your objects... all will be blessed for the conversion of sinners.
          I bless you, my children, as the Father blesses you, through the Son and with the Holy Spirit.

 

                                   COMMENTARY UPON MESSAGES

 

                                               January 6th  1983

 

 

            "Today is a very important day, my child, especially for children. I'm going to ask you a gift, my children: I wish those who haven't received the Eucharist would prepare their souls and take It" (Our Lady, January 6th, 1983)

 

            Every year, the 6th of January, the solemnity of the Epiphany is celebrated; in Spain it is a great tradition and a very especial day for children because they are given gifts. Our Lady reminds us of this and asks us for a gift which will also bring joy to her Son: She wants all of us to receive the Eucharist but She points out "prepare their souls"; that is to say, Our Lady wants souls to go to the Eucharistic feast but they must be prepared, in grace. How many people take Communion without being in grace? Only God knows but there is so much confusion among Catholics that the number must be high.

 

             Prado Nuevo`s messages call us constantly to go to Communion as well as to Confession:

• " Go to the sacrament of the Eucharist, but clean your souls before, my children, with the sacrament of Penance" ( The Virgin, November 3rd 1984)
• " Go to the sacrament of Penance and to the sacrament of the Eucharist" ( Our Lord, October 2nd 1993)
• " Go to the Eucharist and go to Confession my children" ( Our Lord, October 7th 2000)
• " Go to Confession: the priest will forgive your guilt and then go to the Eucharist" (Our Lord, December 2nd 2000)

 

            Pope John Paul II expressed this idea several times; for example, during his first journey to Spain he said, "I will finish encouraging you, beloved worshippers and sons of Spain, to practice a deep Eucharistic piety. This will take you closer to Our Lord. And it will ask you for the sacramental Confession which will take you to Communion as well as the Eucharist will take you to Confession"[1]

 

            "Don't be like Herod, my children, I want you to be "cyreneans" whom my Son can give my cross to. I also want you to be like children so that I can transplant you to the garden of the chosen" (Our Lady, January 6th 1983)

           

            "Don't be like Herod" means "don't be cruel", especially with children, as one of the meanings of the word "herod" implies. On the contrary, She asks us to be like Simon of Cyrene who, as the Gospel teaches us, helped Jesus to carry the Cross: "On the way they met a man from Cyrene called Simon and forced him to carry the cross of Jesus"[2]

 

            Then She asks us to become children, practicing the typical infant virtues (simplicity, innocence, confidence…)to get a better life as Our Lord says in the Gospel ("I assure you that unless you change and become little children you cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven""[3] ). This way, She invites us to a spiritual childhood which will help us to get to Heaven more easily.

 

            "The garden of the chosen" is a mysterious expression; it could be "Paradise" because this term coming from the Persian language means "garden"; from the religious point of view, it refers to the place where the Just enjoy God's presence in the other life; they get there thanks to the good works they do in this life. Anyway, Prado Nuevo's messages distinguish between "Paradise" and "Heaven"; what can we say about it? We will try to explain it although the Church has not stated a firm opinion about it. However, the explanation we offer corresponds to the Catholic doctrine.

 

            On January 2nd 1993, The Lord revealed, "The Divine Majesty wants all of you to pass by the Paradise God prepared for the first couple to enjoy everything He created for them"

 

            These are curious and hopeful words of Our Lord's; He wants the redeemed to "to pass by the Paradise God prepared for the first couple to enjoy everything He created for them"; that is to say, the Earthly Paradise is different from the Celestial Paradise. How and when will human beings enjoy these two places? We do not know but there is actually a difference between both as the messages of Prado Nuevo refer to them:

 

-        "The chosen, my child, will come to the Eden of Paradise. I'll come with my Son for the chosen (…) the chosen will see each other in the paradise of love and happiness" ( The Virgin, September 25th 1981)

-        "This paradise has been prepared since the creation of the world, from the beginning, for every man of good spirit. Look at the bull and the cow grazing together, look at the lamb and the sheep, look at the most poisonous snake among men and children without hurting them, my child. Look at the rivers, look at this beauty (…) this was, my child, and still is what God had prepared for men and where men will go if they humbly accept God's Laws" (The Virgin, January 5th 1991).

-        "Man lost the Paradise because of his pride, his arrogance, his disobedience; and by means  of his humbleness, simplicity, poverty and obedience he will recover it" (The Lord, February 6th 1993).

-        "How much joy, my child, I feel when I realise I still have souls who are sowing good seeds and then they will receive the fruit in the celestial Paradise" (The Virgin, January 15th 1993).

 

            Curiously, a German mystic in the 18th century, Matilde of Magdeburgo, also distinguished between them in one of her writings where she described the marvels shown to her: "I saw both paradises I have talked about the earthly one. The celestial is greater and protects the earthly one from every tempest…"[4]