BLESSING OF NOVEMBER 6TH 2004. 1ST SATURDAY OF MONTH.
AT PRADO NUEVO. EL ESCORIAL (MADRID)
OUR LADY:
Raise all your objects; all will be blessed to strengthen your souls in faith.
I bless you, my children, as the Father blesses you, through the Son and with the Holy Spirit.
COMMENTARY UPON MESSAGES
February 26th, 1982
At the beginning of this message, Our Lord tells Luz Amparo, " I know you’re suffering, my daughter, but - by means of the sufferings of yours and the sufferings of other souls- a lot of lost sheep are coming back to my flock. I feel so much love for all those souls who are in sin! I feel so much pity for them that I look for them and I run after them to be found and forgive them! but they don’t want to see, they don’t want to detach themselves from sin, they look for life’s pleasures. Poor souls! How much pity I feel for them!" How should we not think of these words of Jesus’ Heart’s boundless love that goes after souls as the shepherd goes for the lost sheep? Can we forget that we all have been that sheep going away from the flock getting in danger?
"Like a stray sheep I wandered about- come and look for your lost servant" the psalmist sings (Sal 119 [118], 176). Likewise, there is a beautiful and touching parable; it is short but deep: " What do you think of this? If someone has a hundred sheep and one of them strays, won’t he leave the ninety-nine on the hillside, and go to look for the stray one? And I tell you: when he finally finds it, he is more pleased about it than the ninety- nine that didn’t get lost. It is the same with your Father in heaven: there they don’t want even one of these little ones to be lost" (Mt 18, 12-14)
Like the Good Shepherd, God looks for souls one by one, and he would go to the boundaries of Earth and to the most dangerous places to get that lost sheep back to his flock; it actually represents the sinner whose offences moved him away from God. How much offended He is by those souls who prefer an ephemeral pleasure to transcendent values and do nothing to meet again with their Shepherd preferring to remaini embroiled in vices!
In addition to this, another type of souls is also mentioned; those who promise to follow the Master when asked, " Whoever does not follow me carrying his own cross cannot be my disciple" ( Lk 14, 27).(1) However, as this message suggests, when the cross becomes heavier, "they throw it away, trample on it and shout, " I want to be free, I don’t want the cross, I want to enjoy myself !" These souls are my consecrated souls; to enjoy a second, they damn themselves eternally". These words are really shocking but as true as those written by Saint Theresa of Jesus, when praying she became to understand this, " I saw how much Hell is deserved for only one mortal guilt; for we cannot understand how serious doing it before such great Majesty is, and how far from God those things are".(2)
Then, Our Lord says to Luz Amparo, " My daughter, don’t neglect your prayers; abandon yourself to Our Hearts, My Pure Mother’s and Mine". "Abandon ourselves to Jesus’ and Mary’s Hearts" means relying completely on them and trying to fulfil His will. This certainty of God’s power and the help of his grace leads Saint Paul to say, "I can do all things in him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4,13). Indeed, joining God’s Will is so important that – according to Saint Alphonse Mary of Ligory - it is " the top of perfection and all of our actions, our wishes, our prayers should be directed towards it".(3) Moreover, Saint Theresa also explains, " the highest perfection does not consist in inner gifts or great bliss but in being our will so close to God’s will that if something we understand He wants, we should want it with all our will".(4)
Finally, requiring a doctrinal explanation, Our Lady warns us, " tell all those who are spreading false doctrines that they will not enter God’s Kingdom; they must repent and stop spreading those false doctrines; they must fulfil the Law of My Son’s Gospels, the one given by the Holy Church, Catholic and Apostolic, because there’s not salvation out of Christ’s Church". This sentence coincides with the typical expression repeated by the Fathers of the Church, " Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus" (" out of the Church there is not salvation"). How should we understand these words? They mean that salvation comes from Christ; He is the Head of the Church, which is His Body. Therefore, whoever saves himself is because of Jesus Christ’s merits. The Catholic Church’s Catechism says explicitly, "This statement does not refer to those who through no fault of their own do not know Christ or his Church: "Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience ( Lumen Gentium, 16)" ( n. 847).
This theme is also dealt with in the messages of November 6th 1981, January 15th 1982 and April 16th 1982. Moreover, in 1993 the salvation of members of other religions is mentioned, " Look, my daughter, there a lot of rooms in the Kingdom of the Father. Look, today you’re going to see one of them. Here, my daughter, although with less visibility, there’re those of other doctrines who believe in only one God and respect the Father’s Laws, although they don’t take part in the room of the true Christians and live in less visibility than the others. But look, my daughter, they ‘re also happy; where they live, armies and armies of angels flutter over them" (Our Lord, January 2nd 1993). Our Lord says in His Gospel, "In my Father’s house there are many rooms. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. After I have gone and prepared a place for you, I shall come again and take you to me, so that where I am, you also may be" (Jn 14, 2-3) Likewise, The Church teaches in the document cited above, "Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things (Hch 17, 25-28) and as Saviour wills that all men be saved (cf. 1 Tim 2, 4) (…) Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace, strive to live a good life. "(5)
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1 - Cf. Mt 10, 38; 16, 24; Mk 8, 34
2 - Book of Life, chapter 40,10
3 - Practice of the Love to Jesus Christ, 13
4 - Foundations, 5, 10
5 - Lumen Gentium, 16