THE LIGHT IN THE NIGHT

“Calls from the Message of Fatima”

HEAVEN IS THE REWARD !

The nineteenth and next to last “Call from the Message (chap. 21, pp. 195-200) is once again addressed to us by Our Lady of Mount Carmel, who appeared to the three little shepherds on 13 October 1917, while people crowded there were gazing at the sun as it fell down towards them and then once again rose up into the sky:

« One can discern another meaning in the apparition of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, namely the call to holiness. In it we see She who, like ourselves, lived on earth and sanctified Herself, but now lives and reigns with God in Heaven, enjoying the fruit and the reward of this sanctification.

« Our Lady sanctified Herself as a pure and Immaculate Virgin by corresponding to the graces which God granted to Her in that state. She sanctified Herself as a faithful and devoted wife by fulfilling all the duties of Her state in life. She sanctified Herself as a loving mother who dedicated Herself to the Son whom God entrusted to Her, fondling Him in Her arms, bringing Him up and educating Him, and also helping Him and following Him in the performance of His mission. With Him she travelled the narrow way of life, the steep road to Calvary;

The very same one that Lucy contemplated in the vision of the third Secret: « Several other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious were climbing a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a large Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with its bark. »

« With Him she agonised, receiving in Her Heart the wounds of the nails, the piercing of the lance and the insults of the hostile crowd; finally, She sanctified Herself as mother, mistress and guide of the Apostles, agreeing to remain on earth for as long as God wished, in order to accomplish the mission which He had entrusted to Her as co-Redemptrix with Christ of all human beings.

« Thus Mary is, for each one of us, the model of the most perfect holiness to which a human being can aspire in this poor land of exile. How many times will She not have read and meditated in Her Heart these words of Sacred Scripture: “You shall be holy; for I, Yahweh your God, am Holy.” (Lv 19.2) »

Sister Lucy then explains that, along « the steep road » everyone advances at his own pace, some quickly, others slowly, according to their heart, but also according to the extent of the gift made to them within the mysterious divine predestination. The whole story begins with submission to Divine Law on the part of the servants, which will be the topic of the third part of the book:

« What God says to us here is for everyone and for all states in life, as we see from the context in which the phrase appears: “And Yahweh said to Moses: Say to all the congregation of the people of Israel, You shall be holy; for I, Yahweh your God, am Holy.” (Lv 19.1-2)

« This commandment obliges us to observe all the other commandments, because to transgress even one of them is to fall short of holiness. »

Ultimately this leads the perfect soul whose sole desire is to please God to adhere filially to His wishes and inspirations, in a more explicit manner in the religious state.

HOLINESS, THE UNIQUE AIM OF ALL CREATURES

This entire chapter is laid out in a manner that is contrary to the Conciliar reform’s principles of openness to the world and cult of man. The goal of life, « for all men », is not to build the world into a new earthly paradise, but to attain holiness:

« The obligation of being holy binds all men, even those who have no faith. Obviously, in the case of those who have no faith, the holiness will be that dictated by their own conscience, and there will be no supernatural merit because they will not have the fundamental reason that gives value to true holiness: to be holy because God is Holy, namely the desire to be holy in order to please God, to become like God, to do His will, to please God and prove to Him how much we love Him.

« As I was saying, those who do not have the happiness of possessing the gift of faith are also bound to become holy by a dictate of the human conscience; for the same reason, we say that even without knowing God, those who fulfil the natural law can be saved, as St. Paul tells us: “When the Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day, when, according to my Gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” (Rm 2.14-16) »

After this surprising openness, not to « all religions », but to all men, Sister Lucy goes on with an ardent call for Christian holiness:

« For us who have the happiness of possessing the gift of faith, which we received in the Sacrament of Baptism, the duty to be holy obliges us to something more: to be clothed with supernatural life, to impart a supernatural character to all our actions, in other words, to be holy because this is what God desires and because God is Holy. This duty obliges us to live in the shadow of the holiness of God or, to put it another way, by following the path that God has mapped out for us to be holy and to be with Him: “For I am Yahweh your God, consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am Holy.” (Lv 11.44)

« God Himself guides our steps along the road to holiness: “I am El Shaddai, walk before Me, and be perfect.” (Gn 17.1) To walk in the presence of God is to realise that His gaze is upon us, and that our whole being is, as it were, in front of the mirror of the light of God. »

Once again, this is reminiscent of the Third Secret: « And we saw in an immense light that is God, something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it: a Bishop dressed in White. We had the impression that it was the Holy Father. »

Ever since 13 July 1917, Lucy has learned to see, not only the Holy Father, but every creature in the mirror of God’s Light:

« Hence, when we realise that God sees us, we will not dare to offend Him. On the contrary, we will be filled with a desire to fulfil His Law in order to please Him, to delight Him, to deserve His favours and graces, and to sanctify ourselves in order to become like Him. Herein lies true union with God for everyone, and it is this that makes us holy. »

After having reminded us that every creature has holiness as its ultimate goal, Sister Lucy turns to the state of life that most surely leads to it : that of the evangelical counsels, adhered to by consecrated souls who embrace the religious vows of chastity, poverty and obedience.

RELIGIOUS CONSECRATION

« Consecrated souls are raised to a higher level on account of the holiness of the state of life which they have embraced. By turning their backs on worldly things, they have placed themselves in a particular state of readiness to correspond with the working of God’s grace in them. Once they have given themselves to God out of love, they have offered Him, once and for all, a holocaust of everything and of themselves. Now, this deed is in itself capable of raising them to a life of constant intimacy with God and perfect love of God, provided that through such consecration the consecrated soul has given itself completely, without restriction or reservation.

This is a renewal of baptismal promises and of their fruits. Freed in this way from all earthly and carnal ties, the soul soars toward God in a rapid flight, more direct, more ascendant. At least, its state of life gives it the ability and graces to do so.

When this offering is all-encompassing, this encounter with God becomes permanent and familiar. The soul relates with God as with a friend or a father who is always available, communicating to Him its desires, its aspirations, its ideals and its difficulties. And it is in this intimacy that God gives Himself to such souls and makes them holy. Moreover, such souls are aware of God’s presence within them, experiencing God as their temple and the place where they dwell. Hence, they take refuge there every moment and day of their lives. And even when God’s presence does not make itself felt, they plunge themselves into His immense Being and abandon themselves in His Fatherly arms; by faith they know that He is listening to them and is leading them by the ways that He wants them to follow. United to Christ, they offer their sacrifice to God, in accordance with the Apostle’s teaching that I love so much, namely:

« “Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His Name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” (Hb 13.15-16).

So it is not because all are called to holiness that Sister Lucy attributes it to everybody, like the Council did when it refused to choose between two masters, between Christ and the world. « In doing so it changed masters and irresistibly led crowds to betray the first one, the only True one, in order to serve the other, the new one, Man. » (G. de Nantes, “The perfection of love”, eleventh Conciliar constitution, CCR n^o 32, October, 1972, p. 4)

How can one not recognise the spoilt fruits of the Council in the observation that Sister Lucy adds:

« Unfortunately, we have to admit that very few people attain to this degree of intimate union with God. The temptations of the Devil penetrate even into the cloister and succeed in diverting some souls from the one sublime aspiration that led them to strip themselves of many things. »

The Abbé de Nantes compares the entire Christian mystery to a pearl necklace: the gracious curve of a descent and an ascent to the very source of the movement. Everything comes from God and returns to Him. But at the Second Vatican Council, the string of the necklace was broken. Since then, the pearls have fallen off, and have scattered on the floor, the entire supernatural substance of Christianity is spilling irrevocably over the ground and disappearing into the sands of the great modern Babylon under construction. There can no longer be any question of holiness:

« Then the tempter comes along and succeeds in blinding them with pathetic ambitions for places and positions of honour, to such an extent that, if they do not succeed in getting them, it seems to them the end of the world. So they have to be given the places and positions they seek, in order to reassure them. A poor kind of reassurance, this, when it is derived from the chains of pride, vanity and I do not know what else, which are the plague of monasteries and religious houses! »

This sounds like an accurate account of a canonical visit in monasteries and convents the world over, so authentic is the picture!

« And the Devil deceives very many with such chains! The “Imitation of Christ” had already said this, and St. Teresa of Jesus repeated it, but to what effect? The Devil does not give up, because it is the field where he reaps his harvest! »

At least, St. Teresa had managed to reform the Carmelite Order. Whereas the Second Vatican Council left the field open to the Devil in the Church. But here is the remedy, to break with the Council’s apostasy, which consists in putting man, behind whom Satan hides, in God’s stead:

« That is why Jesus Christ says to us that “Whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” (Mt 20.27-28) And those who know how to overcome these temptations immerse themselves in the immense Being of God as in an ocean of grace, strength and love; they penetrate the divine secrets with heightened clarity, and understand them even though they cannot understand them fully. God reveals Himself to such souls with a certain delight, and communicates to them knowledge of a part of Himself according to the capacity of each one to attain to the essence of the divine Being. »

These lines are really a light in the present obscurity, because Sister Lucy says this out of her own experience, and she is truly living out what is promised to those who are devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to those who resemble Her and who become Her disciples:

« Thus the soul identifies itself with the holiness of God to the extent to which it gives itself generously, and God takes it to Himself and enriches it with His gifts. It is here that the person is ennobled with the virtue of God, as the Apostle St. Paul tells us: “But, as it is written: what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him; God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what person knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of man which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.” (1 Co 2.9-12) And Jesus Christ says the same, but with Himself as the Revealer: “All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.” (Mt 11.26-27)

THE PERFECTION OF LOVE

And here is the agenda for a restoration of holiness, when the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph:

« God communicates Himself and reveals Himself to whomsoever He pleases, but when He does so, such communication requires faithful correspondence on the part of the person who receives it. God’s action does not destroy human nature; rather, it perfects and enhances it. It does not deprive people of their natural human, moral and physical reactions because it is through these that they are to sanctify themselves, in imitation of Christ who felt and who suffered for love of the Father. Nor does God’s action make them immune to temptation, whether of pride, from the Devil, the flesh or the world, because they are to sanctify themselves in the battle in which they will be victorious by the help of grace, after the example of Jesus Christ who, in spite of being the Holy of Holies, was also tempted. The harsh trials to which such souls are sometimes subjected may agitate them and even cause them to recoil, because God has not made them immune to human weakness; such trials are particularly hard to endure when they are the fruit of injustice, misunderstanding or a lack of truth. But those who cause the hurt are the ones who are responsible. »

Who is Sister Lucy aiming at here? She does not say. But, knowingly or not, she denounces the fruits of a Council of reform which recommended the cult of man rather than cult of saints in general, and of their Queen in particular, the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Mediatrix of all Graces. Can there be a more blatant « injustice », a greater « misunderstanding », a more serious « lack of truth » than this?

But here is something to encourages us to persevere in the way of the Catholic Counter-Reformation:

« Nevertheless, it is in the midst of all these conflicts that such people – if they persevere in the fight and win through – sanctify themselves and become, for God, a true praise of His glory, as the Apostle says: “To lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.” (Col 1.10-12).

However, grace must not make us lose sight of nature, which remains free to choose between good and evil:

« Whatever favours God may grant to a soul, He will not deprive it of the natural gifts which are given to all human beings: one’s own will, freedom, feelings, one’s own personality, with the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else. God has given these gifts equally to everyone so that by freely using them we can sanctify ourselves and earn an eternal reward. In this way, God respects in us the gifts He has given us, and we too must respect them in others. Thus each one has a responsibility and is answerable to God for his or her own self.

Sister Lucy is aware of man’s freedom, but she places its foundation and its source in God, and gives it the supernatural end of sanctification in this world and heavenly grace in the next:

« To strip people of any of these gifts is to force them to live as others want them to; it is to commit an injustice and make oneself responsible for the faults or sins that a person who is forced in this way may, for this reason, commit. »

This is what the Revolution did in France in 1789 and in Spain in 1936, dragging consecrated souls from their convents in the name of freedom. But those who disparage the religious state, even from within the Church, by dint of wishing to please the world, partake in its life, enter into its spirit, secularise themselves to the utmost, are even more guilty.

Whereas those who remain faithful to their vows, opposing this subversion perpetrated in the name of Freedom, will reap the reward of martyrs and confessors of faith.

« From the point of view of the person who has been thus humiliated, if he or she accepts the situation and endures the suffering with patience and for the love of God, then they sanctify themselves and merit a reward: “For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those that do evil.” (1 Pt 3.12)

In conclusion, Sister Lucy does not lose sight of mankind, called as a whole to holiness, as she stated at the beginning of the chapter, in order to form the body of Christendom, the work of the Church, for we are called to holiness as members of a differentiated body, not individually:

« Thus, since we have been chosen by God for holiness, let us endeavour to respond to the call with the best of ourselves, for our own personal growth and for the benefit of all. This is what St. Paul urges us to do: “As in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching; he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness- (Rm 12.6-8).

Like the true daughter of Saint John of the Cross that she is, Sister Lucy has often meditated on this maxim of her dear Carmel: « In the evening of life, only one thing is left: love. Everything must be done through love. »

« Thus, by the good use that we make of the gifts that God has given us, our holiness develops in the love that we owe to God and to our neighbour; we purify ourselves and become worthy of eternal life, since love is the essence of all true holiness, as the sublime Eagle of the New Testament tells us: “By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith.” (1 Jn 5.2-4)

« Perhaps someone will ask this question: Why must we be saints?

« The Apostle St. Paul gives us the answer in the following marvellous words: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. He destined us in love to be His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His Blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us. For He has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of His will, according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in Heaven and things on earth. In Him, according to the purpose of Him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of His will, we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of His glory. In Him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and have believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to praise of His glory.» (Ep 1.3-14)

« For this we were chosen, and for this we must become saints: to be the praise of the glory of God and to share in this same glory which we receive from Him as a grace.

Ave Maria!

WINNING HEAVEN

The twentieth call from the Message, which contains all the others is a “Call to follow the road to Heaven”

« As we have seen, the whole of the Message is a call to follow the road to Heaven, to walk in such a way as to succeed in attaining to eternal life. »

With a means of achieving this end: the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that God wishes to establish in the world. This is not written down because of the censorship, but it goes without saying for whoever truly knows the “Message”, for it is the central point and the very reason of its existence in a generation of apostates.

« In the times in which we live, there are even those who deny the existence of Heaven, whether because they have no faith, or because they do not want to commit themselves to following the narrow path that leads to Heaven. But they are wrong. »

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus believed « that they were speaking contrary to their thinking by denying the existence of Heaven, of the beautiful Heaven where God Himself would be their eternal reward. (Gn 15.1) In the joyful days of Easter, Jesus made me feel that there really are souls who do not have the faith, who, through abuse of graces, have lost this precious treasure, the source of the only true and pure joys. »

At the end of her life, St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, sat down at the table of sinners, feeling right to her very heart the pangs of their blasphemies, and countering them by multiplying acts of faith. A hundred years later, Sister Lucy speaks as an eye witness: she saw and heard Heaven descend to earth in the person of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. But she begins by stepping into the background and quotes the prophets, her forerunners:

« That Heaven exists is a revealed truth which cannot be denied. 

« There are many passages in Sacred Scripture which speak to us of Heaven. The prophet Isaiah, when pleading before God for his people, says: “Look down from Heaven and see, from Your holy and glorious habitation. Where are Your zeal and Your might? The yearning of Your heart and Your compassion? (...) For You are our Father.” (Is 63, 15-16). The same prayer is addressed to God in the Book of Deuteronomy: “Look down from Your holy habitation, from Heaven, and bless Your people.” (Dt 26.15).

So, even before having access to the Blood of Jesus (Hb 10.19), the prophets of the Old Testament were aware of the existence of Heaven. But Jesus could tell more to Nicodemus, more than the prophets – and Sister Lucy repeats it to Ratzinger: « Amen, Amen, I say to you that We speak what We know and We testify what We have seen but you receive not our testimony. » (Jn 3.11):

« And, in the New Testament, Jesus Christ taught us to pray as follows: “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” (Mt 6.9-10)

Our Lord Jesus Christ did not teach us to ask for anything other than the sanctification of His Father, the coming of His Kingdom, the accomplishment of Their common Will in the Holy Spirit, on the earth as in Heaven. And He even opened slightly the gate of Heaven so that we could have no doubt about its existence:

« After narrating the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan, St. Matthew wrote: “When Jesus was baptised, He went up immediately from the water, and behold, the Heavens were opened and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on Him.” (Mt 3.16) Some time after this, John the Baptist, when replying to a question put to him by his disciples, bore witness to Jesus in the following terms: “No one can receive anything except what is given him from Heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before Him. (...) He must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all, he who is of the earth belongs to the earth, and of the earth he speaks; He who comes from Heaven is above all. He bears witness to what He has seen and heard” (Jn 3.27-32)

Jesus even provided us with the means of having a share in the bliss of the citizens of Heaven even here below:

« When urging us to practise the love that we owe to our enemies, Jesus Christ said: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in Heaven.” (Mt 5.44-45). And He concluded His proclamation of the Beatitudes by saying: “Blessed you are when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in Heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Mt 5.11-12)

« The Lord tells us that we shall be blessed if we are persecuted on His account, because the prophets before us were persecuted in a similar way. But why is it that those whom God has chosen for a special mission and with whom He is in more direct contact, are persecuted and oppressed? It is the continuation of the mystery of the Cross which marks out for us the path to Heaven.

« Sister Lucy is speaking here as an eye witness of this Cross “a large Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with its bark”, seen on 13 July 1917. Before suffering throughout her whole life the persecutions and oppressions reserved for « those whom God has chosen for a special mission ».

HEAVEN IS A PLACE

« From the texts just cited, it is clear that the existence of Heaven is a truth that cannot be denied. Some people deny it because, they say, one does not know where it is, nor has anyone ever seen it, etc.

« But many things exist which we have not yet seen, but we do not doubt that they exist because someone who really knows has told us about them. We know, for example, that there is a sea of fire at the heart of the earth; here and there, in various parts of the globe, there are volcanoes to be seen with the lava that pours forth from them, but we do not see the fire itself which produces them. Nevertheless, we know that it exists. And the one who created this fire and keeps it going is the same Lord who created the fire of Hell and will keep it going, too, for all eternity.

« We also know that, out in space, there are many planets which we have not yet seen, many stars whose light has not yet reached us. No one has yet succeeded in measuring the firmament. Now, God, who created this unlimited space, can also have created a « place », an abode, a haven of peace, to which He has given the name of Heaven, destined to be the dwelling place of God and of His Elect for ever and ever. It is said that Heaven consists in the possession of God: there can be no doubt that God is the wellspring of all happiness, and that when we possess God we shall be eternally happy.

« When describing the Ascension of Jesus Christ into Heaven, St. Luke says: “Then He led them out (His disciples) as far as Bethany, and lifting up His hands He blessed them. While He blessed them, He parted from them, and was carried up into Heaven.” (Lk 24.50-51). And St. Mark describes this same event as follows: “After He had spoken to them, the Lord Jesus was taken up into Heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.” (Mk 16.19)

« We could continue to quote many other passages from Sacred Scripture which assure us of the existence of Heaven, but we will not do so in order not to make this humble document excessively long. Let what has already been said be sufficient for those who are prepared to believe without insisting on actually seeing everything! Not that it is a bad thing to be able to see, quite the opposite, since the more we see the better we understand how much more we have yet to learn in order to know the immensity of the work created by God. While maintaining due proportions, one could apply here, in relation to the difficulty in knowing the things of earth and Heaven, the phrase that Jesus Christ used when explaining to Nicodemus the need for faith in order to understand them: “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (Jn 3.12).

THE ROAD TO HEAVEN

« Wishing to confirm this truth for us, the Message, too, came to recall to our minds, and to speak to us about Heaven.

« When the little shepherd children asked the beautiful Lady where She was from, She replied: “I am from Heaven.” When they heard that She was a Lady who had come from Heaven, they remembered about a friend of theirs who had died a short time before and who, people said, had gone to Heaven, so they asked about her. The Lady replied: “She is in Heaven.”

« In the prayer that the Lady taught them to say at the end of each decade of the Rosary, we ask God to “bring all souls to Heaven.”

« And when the children asked if they, too, would go to Heaven, the Lady replied that they would. Hence, it is certain that Heaven exists. Heaven does exist!

« The great concern of God and of Our Lady is that people should be saved and go to Heaven; and since Heaven is the dwelling place prepared by God for eternal life, unless we follow the road that leads to it, we shall never get there. »

Here there is a surprising omission: Sister Lucy does not specify what is this « road to Heaven » that must be taken to reach the goal. Mystics are well acquainted with it: « This Way, is You, O Mary, immaculate lily of Eden’s flowerbeds, who carried in Your arms and showed to us the blessed fruit of Your virginal womb, Jesus the uncreated Wisdom. » (CRC n^o 23, August 1969) The Abbé de Nantes wrote this admirable “Mystical Page” when he was caught in the crossfire, assailed at the same time by the Roman authorities and by the integrists. Since they could not condemn him, Father Dhanis and his colleagues of the Holy Office “disqualified” him. From a canonical point of view, this is null and void. But for thirty-five years now, it has allowed the media to pass the Abbé de Nantes off as an “excommunicate”, as someone “condemned by the Pope”. And since the “integrists” were unable to involve him in their dissidence, they repudiated him likewise. Sister Lucy, Our Lady’s messenger, is caught in the crossfire as well, both sides of which are fuelled by the corrosive criticism of the same Father Dhanis. Therefore, what other recourse is there other than to turn to our heavenly Mother?

« As far as we know, there are already two people there in soul and body: Jesus Christ and Mary most holy, His Mother and ours; and there, too, go all the souls which have the good fortune to leave this world in the state of grace, that is, without mortal sin.

« On the day of the resurrection from the dead, all souls will be reunited with their bodies so that they can together share in the eternal happiness or the eternal damnation that they have deserved during the time of their pilgrimage on earth. Jesus Christ Himself has told us this, He who will then be our Judge: “For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgement, because He is the Son of man. Do not marvel at this, for the hour comes when all who are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of damnation.” (Jn 5.26-29)

« If God had created us merely in order to live out, on this earth, the few days that we spend here in the midst of toil, suffering and affliction that all of us, one way or another, have got to endure, then we could say that our life had no meaning, since it was destined to end in the dust of the earth from which we were made. But God, in His goodness, must have had greater purposes in mind, and His Love could not be content with this. We are the masterpiece of His love, since He created us to share in the immensity of His Life.

« From the moment of our conception, our life continues through time and goes on to eternity, where it will abide. As long as we live on this earth, we are pilgrims on the way to Heaven, if we keep to the way that God has marked out for us. This is the most important thing in our lives: that we should behave in such a way as to ensure that, when we depart from this world and at the end of time, we shall deserve to hear from the lips of Jesus Christ those consoling words: “Come, O blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Mt 25.34)

« It is for this reason that the Message speaks to us of Heaven and urges us to keep to the way that will lead us there.

« Ave Maria! »

Taken from  He is Risen n^o 18, February 2004