What Is Our Lady Asking of Us? Prayer and Penance!

Four hundred years ago, Our Lady of Good Success appeared to a Spanish nun, Sr. Mariana de Jesus Torres,  in Quito, Ecuador and warned about a crisis in the Church arising at the end of the 19th century and becoming even worse after the middle of the 20th century. I'm going to be studying this approved apparition and sharing about it, not to frighten anyone, but to show how crucial it is to listen to Our Lady and respond to her call for her children to pray and sacrifice. The only solution to these evils is for faithful Catholics to grow in personal holiness and commit to lives of prayer and penance to help make up for "what's lacking in the suffering of Christ." What could possibly be lacking in the suffering of Christ? Our cooperation in his act of redemption. He won't force it, but wants us to offer it by conforming our will to His. What better time to embrace Christ's cross of suffering than during the holy season of Lent? Listen to our Blessed Mother and imitate her "Yes!"

Out Lady to Sr. Mariana:

Alas! How deeply I grieve to manifest to you the many enormous sacrileges – both public as well as secret – that will occur from profanation of the Holy Eucharist. Often, during this epoch the enemies of Jesus Christ, instigated by the Devil, will steal consecrated Hosts from the churches so that they might profane the Eucharistic Species. My Most Holy Son will see Himself cast upon the ground and trampled upon by filthy feet. (…).

As for the Sacrament of Matrimony, which symbolises the union of Christ with His Church, it will be attacked and deeply profaned.

In this supreme moment of need of the Church, the one who should speak will fall silent!...The vices of impurity, blasphemy, and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation, and that one who should speak out will be silent.

During this unfortunate epoch, injustice will even enter here, my closed garden. Disguised under the name of false charity, it will wreak havoc in souls. The spiteful demon will try to sow discord, making use of putrid members, who, masked by the appearance of virtue, will be like decaying sepulchers emanating the pestilence of putrefaction, causing moral deaths in some and lukewarmness in others.

How the Church will suffer on that occasion the dark night of the lack of a Prelate and Father to watch over them with paternal love, gentleness, strength, and prudence. Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger. Pray insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the secrecy of your heart, imploring our Celestial Father that, for love of the Eucharistic Heart of my Most Holy Son and His Precious Blood shed with such generosity and by the profound bitterness and sufferings of His cruel Passion and Death, He might take pity on His Ministers and quickly bring to an end those ominous times, sending to this Church the Prelate that will restore the spirit of its Priests.

We don't need apocalyptic events to make our lives miserable. How many people are suffering from lives of despair? If we aren't serious about praying and sacrificing for the salvation of souls we aren't part of the solution, but part of the problem. Penance, penance, penance.

Our Lady of Good Success, pray for us!