All of the Old Testament was a preparation for the coming of Christ.

In this regard, St. John the Baptist summarizes the Old Testament. We read in the Gospel of St. Matthew:

“In those days John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said: “A voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.’” (3:1-3).

 

In the Messages of the Blue book, Our Lady is even more explicit with regard to the situation of today’s world.

“You read in the Gospel: ‘When the Son of Man returns, will He still find faith on earth?’ – Today I want to invite you to meditate on these words, uttered by my Son Jesus. They are grave words, which cause one to reflect and which succeed in making you understand the times through which you are living. First of all, you can ask why Jesus has uttered them: to prepare you for his second coming and to describe for you a circumstance which will be indicative of the proximity of his glorious return…

The loss of the faith is a true apostasy. The spread of the apostasy is therefore the sign which indicates that the second coming of Christ is, as of now, close at hand.

At Fatima, I have foretold to you that a time would come when the true faith would be lost. These are the times.”

Then She lists the causes of the Loss of Faith: “1) The spread of errors which are being propagated and are often taught. 2) The open and public rebellion against the authentic Magisterium of the Church, especially against that of the Pope. 3) The bad example given by those pastors who have allowed themselves to be completely possessed by the spirit of the world.” (13/3/90)

 

The Book of Revelation describes the great calamities which are the consequence of the sins of the world. Jesus clearly says in the Gospel: “… Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.” (Lk 21:34-36)

Don Stefano used to say that if all the abortions and sins against nature and against one’s neighbour stopped all over the world, God would put and end to incurable diseases.

 

Dear brothers, unfortunately it seems that not even the terrible Coronavirus has brought the once Christian nations back to God. Few are those who desired to join the initiatives coming from various parts for a crusade of conversion, prayer, Rosary and love for the Lord.

On 5 March 1982 Don Stefano was in Jerusalem, and Our Lady gave him this Message, quoting the Gospel of St. Matthew (23:37): “How often have I yearned to gather your children, as a mother bird gathers her young under her wings, but you refused me. If only you had known the days of your peace!”.

I hear again the sorrowful lament of my Son Jesus. How often have I, too, as Mother, called you to gather you under the wings of my motherly love. And now, the days of the tribulation have come. My requests have not been accepted…”

 

Our Mother predicts that the unfaithfulness of today’s world will lead to the Advent of the Anti-Christ

 

(7/6/86) “But, in these times, you have need above all of being defended from the terrible snares of my Adversary, who has succeeded in establishing his reign in the world…. Under the bloody scourge of this terrible trial, how are you to avoid being scattered and discouraged and to remain strong in the faith and faithful only to Jesus and to his Gospel? My Immaculate Heart will become your strongest defense, the shield of protection which will safeguard you from every attack of my Adversary…”

Each one of us must always, but especially during the events foretold by Sacred Scripture and by Our Lady, increase the recitation of the Holy Rosary, which will be our great protection. And let us not waste time by checking out the many pseudo-prophets or the chatterboxes of the Internet, but let us try to live out the remedies which Our Lady has suggested to us. I will only touch upon three of them.

 

The first REMEDY for our times is to return to Jesus, our only SAVIOUR: He is the LIFE AND RESURRECTION of our souls

 

In the past we developed a meditation entitled: “Jesus is the only Saviour”.

“Jesus Christ is the only Saviour, because he is the Life. Life is possessed by Him because He is God. Life is given to all by Him because He has obtained it for you by immolating Himself on the Cross for you. Life comes to you with grace, which makes you participate in the divine nature itself. Beloved sons, become the ministers of grace; become the bearers of life. For this reason, I ask you to be solicitous in the administration of the sacraments which Jesus has entrusted to you.” (24/6/97)

In the Gospel of St. John, Jesus says: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life. Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to his Son the possession of life in himself. (Jn 5:24-26).

Therefore, the Church’s job is to preach that today only Jesus can raise those who are dead in sin in order to obtain the Divine Life, a life of Grace. Therefore, in the above-quoted passages from the Gospel of Saint John, Jesus declares to all humanity that those who are in sin are already dead, while those who call upon him as Saviour and repent of their sins, He will raise again to new life already here on earth, that is, with Divine life in us.

 

We who are consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary should make the prayer of St. Patrick our own prayer:

“Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,

Chits in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in the eye that sees me,

Christ in the ear that hears me.”

 

“Jesus, Our Lady teaches us, asks of you, his priests, only to be loved. He asks this of you with the anxiety of a thirsty man who, moaning, waits for a drop of water, with the longing of a hungry man who stretches out his hand for a scrap of bread; with the ardour of a lover who longs to receive love from the one he loves. My beloved sons, open your priestly hearts to the perfect love for my Son Jesus. Your love is balm upon his Heart which sweetens the bitterness of his feeling Himself so little loved, in these times when the hearts of men have become cold, frigid, closed by egoism and a great aridity.

Never before as today has Love been so unloved. You who are his priests, love Jesus who is surrounded by great coldness and a general indifference. Let your priestly ministry be a service of love for Him.” (8/4/93)

Then She adds, quoting Jesus’ words:

“I have desired to eat this Passover with you.” … Enter into the Cenacle of his divine love, to understand how Jesus is Love which gives Itself, is Love which immolates Itself for you… Beloved sons, give thanks with me to Jesus for this, his great gift. Soothe his great sorrow with your priestly love; kiss each of his wounds; guard each of his words in your heart; respond with generosity to your vocation…” (27/3/97)

Our Lady tells us to be the St. John of the Eucharistic Jesus, to love him as he did. (31/3/88). She also suggests we say to Jesus in the Eucharist: “You alone are our great friend.” (21/8/87) We are still in time to examine ourselves and make sure this is the truth.

 

Another remedy for the abundance of corruption in today’s society is PURITY

 

Purity is one of the virtues that Our Heavenly Mother loves the most: She complains very often – as she already did at La Salette – about moral corruption even in the houses of Priests and religious. In the Gospel we read: “Blessed are the pure of heart for they will see God” (Mt 5:8).

11/2/97 “I am the Immaculate Conception.

It is my motherly task to lead all my children along the road of mortification of the senses, and of prayer, of purity and of charity.

Only thus can you penetrate into the mystery of love of my Son Jesus.

Jesus holds purity very dear. Only to the pure of heart does Jesus reveal the secrets of his divine Heart. To little children of pure hearts, Jesus reveals the plans of his merciful love, which purifies and transforms everything. To penetrate into the mystery of the life of Jesus and of his Gospel of salvation, you must live the virtue of purity.”

Jesus is the spouse of our souls: he is the Saviour who takes away our sins: He is our God who is love and mercy now and in eternity.

Our Lady calls pure souls privileged souls:

“If you only knew how much my Heart loves and cherishes purity! This is a virtue which makes souls open to receive a special influx of my love, which enables them to see me, to feel my presence with them. This is the time when I am drawing all these privileged souls to myself, so that they may be protected and kept unharmed, by me and by my Son Jesus.”

 

Our Mother insists on purity (of mind, heart and body) in order to lead us to the most important remedy of our times:

 

LOVE OF GOD, THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND OUR NEIGHBOUR

 

11/2/77 “I want you pure of heart to be truly capable of loving. Your love should be supernatural and divine. All inordinate attachment to yourselves or to creatures bedims its interior purity. You must love my Son Jesus and souls for love of Him… But for our love to be supernatural and perfect, it must begin with God. Love the Most Holy Trinity with the Heart of my Son Jesus and among yourselves love each other as He has loved you. In this way your love will always be more pure, and you will be capable of truly loving your brothers. Only he who is chaste of heart can open himself to a great capacity for loving and can live the virtue of charity. Today still, it is the pure of heart who can see God and, in his light, understand and love all men.”

In the whole Blue book, Our Lady mentions the word ‘love’ 1919 times.

 

On 13 January 1977 she gave us the message entitled:

I will teach you to love

“My very dear son, I love you. I love you so much! It pleases you to hear this repeated to you; it pleases my motherly Heart to say it to you more and more often. From now on, it should be love alone that guides you at every moment and in each of your actions. Love for the Father, for the Son and for the Holy Spirit – love for this Divine and Most Holy Trinity which, dwelling within your souls, impels your heart towards an ever greater love for your heavenly Mother as well.

It is in my Immaculate Heart that your Mother will form you to an ever greater and purer love for God. No creature has ever been able to love the Lord as has your heavenly Mother. The Spirit of the Father and of the Son begets in you a great thirst for perfect love, and thus your soul is inclined spontaneously to seek the Heart of the Mother. I will teach you to love God and your neighbour ever more and more. I will give to your heart my own capacity to love. I will help you to divest yourself of every other yearning, to bring you to a simple, continuous and pure act of love. And thus you will realize your vocation.

My only joy is to bring you to love, so that my own Heart may love, within yours, the Most Holy and Divine Trinity.”

 

It is said that before the famous Einstein died he wrote a letter to his daughter: although it almost certainly is not authentic, I would like to quote only a few lines, because it sheds some light on the whole of creation and on how God has always worked:

There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us. This universal force is Love. When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force: love.

In the Old Testament God already shows us that his heart is made of goodness, patience, justice and truth. This love is often assimilated to spousal love. God’s love surpasses even the natural love of a mother for her child. Especially in the book of Sirach, the God of all peoples loves each individual with infinite love.

If we want to be like Jesus, that is, resemble God, our supernatural life must be essentially Love. In every action of ours, we are driven by love for God and human beings: it is an act of the will, which sooner or later will also reach our heart. So we can overcome all obstacles provided we unite ourselves with the one who loves, that is, God.

An author summarizes all of this, by giving us some ideas that each one of us can develop: “Love is the force that unites the soul to God. Pure love seeks only the glory of God and the accomplishment of his will. Through the help of the Holy Spirit – who is Love – love allows us to taste and experience God. This is why prayer in particular should be an exercise of love and it makes us love God for himself, just as love circulates in the Most Holy Trinity. So we no longer live for ourselves but for God, that is, we return God’s infinite love with love. From this comes our generosity, and even by depriving ourselves of everything that is not God: always out of love for him.” (P. Gabriele)

 

The degree of love reached here on earth is the same with which we will love God in heaven for all eternity. Therefore, prayer, and especially Eucharistic Adoration, prepares us for a higher contemplation of God and the Blessed Virgin in Paradise.

 

We learn from the life of all the Saints that they demonstrated their love for God through suffering embraced out of love for him, that is, they transformed all suffering into a means of sanctification. Saint Paul said: “I bear the marks of Jesus on my body (Gal 6:17) and also “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:19-20).

A bit of pure love for God and our neighbour is more precious in God’s presence and brings greater benefits to souls, than all other works combined. The soul in love yearns for union and intimacy with God, not to enjoy, but to love him more and more. Because God is love.

Do we wish to live in peace even in the tribulations that will easily increase in the future? Let us always entrust everything to Jesus and Our Lady: both small and major events or details in our day and life. Let us be “Our Lady’s little children”. We have nothing to fear in their company. Don Stefano often said that he wanted to be a two-month-old baby in the arms of Our Lady.

Several times, during the meditations of the annual Exercises, Don Stefano Gobbi said: when we go before Jesus for our special Judgment, he will ask us only one question: “Did you love me? Did you love?”

In the first month of her messages, our Mother already said: “I want their heart, the heart of my priests. Oh, then I will be able to be a true Mother for them, and they will be true sons to me! I will take complete possession of their life… I will make them understand how they must be detached from everything and live only for my Jesus; how they must defend Him from every attack, love Him unconditionally, in living out the Gospel to the letter. I will cause them to experience a great love for the Church and for the Pope, whom I love so dearly and who will be comforted, defended and saved by the cohort of my Priests.” (29/7/73)

 

We cannot presume to love God if we don’t love our neighbour. Jesus said: “Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift”. (Mt 5:23-24).

Many Catholics in their lukewarmness don’t know that even Sunday Mass, which we know is so essential for an authentic Christian life, comes after charity, mutual forgiveness, and fraternal peace among God’s children, that is LOVE.

 

According to Chapter 25 of Saint Matthew, “the final Judgement won’t be different for Christians and for the others: I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was naked, I was homeless, I was in prison, etc. And you ignored me… or you cared for me. God doesn’t answer to anyone: He loves us even if we are not worthy. And he wants us to imitate him” (Rey-Mermet).

 

“In this is love – says saint John – not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins” (1Jn 4:10). Saint Paul: “Christ died for the ungodly… God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rm 5:6-8). An author says: “The important thing is to believe that sins are forgiven. To forgive, God is enough, because God is love. But it takes two to be reconciled. The Father cannot throw his arms around his prodigal son if he doesn’t come back freely to Him.” (Rey-Mermet).

 

Especially in the New Testament there are numerous passages on love towards one’s neighbour. It is sufficient to quote only one of these. 1Jn 2:10-11: “Whoever loves his brother remains in the light, and there is nothing in him to cause a fall. Whoever hates his brother is in darkness; he walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” What does it mean to have blinded eyes? In one of his Homilies at Santa Marta, Pope Francis put me in a difficult situation when he said that the sins against love are dislike, detachment and indifference. I realized that if I want to please Jesus and his Heavenly Mother I need to work a lot more on this. Jesus said in his Priestly prayer: “As you, Father are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us.” (Jn 17:21). This is not easy!

 

“I will bring you to love the Church very much. Today the Church is going through times of great suffering because it is loved less and less by its own children. Many would like to renovate it and purify it solely by criticism and by violent attacks on its institution. Nothing is ever renewed or purified without love! I will bring you to love the Pope with a deep filial love; the Mother will lead you to carry his cross with him and to share his sufferings. Where are they now, those priests who are close to the first priest, to this first son whom the Mother loves with special tenderness? Let it be you, O priests consecrated to my Immaculate Heart, who are closest to the heart of the Pope. Pray for him; suffer with him; be always with him! Listen to him; put his instructions into practice; spread his unheeded teachings!” (9/11/75)

In almost all the messages she gave during the international Spiritual Exercises, our Mother speaks about her love for us and her will that we love one another.

The Message of 1 July 1992 is entitled: Your priestly love:

“… I am building up among you a greater sense of brotherhood. I am helping you to grow in mutual love to the point where you become totally one… Let your priestly love come down, as a heavenly dew, upon this poor humanity, sick and wounded, far from God, victim of a materialistic and atheistic civilization which is living under the slavery of sin, hatred, unbridled egoism and impurity. Let your priestly love be a soothing balm on the deep and bleeding wounds of these times of yours…”

 

We too who belong to the MSM have often behaved as the older brother of the prodigal son: indeed, he told the truth, but without love; in this way he rejected his Father, who for us represented God the Father. Unfortunately, even many Catholics, who think they are custodians of the truth, have behaved like the not so “Holy Inquisition”, and since they are lacking love, they are not led by the spirit of Jesus.

 

During the isolation and silence of the Coronavirus, we too have thought about the love that God the Father has always had for us: this is why the Saints used to spend a lot of time contemplating the Cross. Not only has the Father always forgiven us, but he has welcomed us as he did with the son in the parable, still in dignity, in the privileges and free gifts he had given us before we stepped out of line. Not only does he forgive those who have recourse to Him with a contrite heart, but he also forgets; our Most Blessed Mother, who has the Heart of the Father, still wants us to serve her.

 

Our Lady really loves us just as Jesus loved us. This is why in all her messages she insists on telling us not to fear, because we have a Mother who is always close to us, rather, who lives with us and protects us. And she asks us too to live out of love every moment of our lives that still remain to us.

 

The message of Holy Thursday 1994 is entitled: Let yourselves be possessed by his love. She tells us: “How much Jesus loves you!... Let yourselves be possessed by his love”. (31/3/94).

“The Glory of Mary” is the title of the message of 22 March 1988. She insists:

“This heart of yours now belongs entirely to us, and we want to make of it a perfect instrument of our most pure love. I am asking you to love ever more and more. Love each day, and at every moment of your life. Let nothing disturb the purity and the intensity of your love. Love the Most Holy and Divine Trinity, glorifying the Father, imitating the Son, receiving the gift of the Spirit. Love, with the divine Heart of Jesus, all your brothers, especially the smallest, the poorest, and least, the desperate, the marginalized, the sinners. You must be the luminous ray of my motherly and merciful love. Love your brother-priests, especially the weakest, the most fragile, those who fall, those who are imprisoned by the chains of the passions, especially of pride and of impurity. For them, immolate yourself, each day, in silence, in hiddenness, in humility, in docility. Become the sweet and meek victim, immolated by me, for the good and the salvation of all priests.

Love always, without ever becoming weary. Everything must be done by you only out of love.

The journey you must undertake for me – out of love;

The Cross which you must carry – out of love;

The heavy work which is your lot to accomplish – out of love;

The Cenacles which you lead – out of love;

The countries you journey through – out of love;

The distant continents you reach – out of love;

The intense prayer that I ask of you – out of love;

The sufferings I ask of you each day – out of love;

The weariness which takes hold of you – out of love;

The exhaustion which prostrates you – out of love;

Your limitations which mortify you – out of love;

Your defects which accompany you – out of love;

All your life which you give me – out of love;

Only then will you be, here below, the glory of Mary. Only then will you be able to carry out the mission which I have entrusted to you and make blossom in your person, in your life and in your work, the garden of my greatest and most extraordinary wonders.”

 

 

 

 

 

END OF THE MEDITATION: Add the following as reference.

He loved them to the end (12/4/1990)

28/3/91  The Pasch of Love and of Sorrow. 

 

.11/3/74 : Great in love                                                                                              

 

10/7/74  I Accept your Crown of Love

3/5/76  You will be capable of loving

24/12/76 : I ask the gift of your love

14/7/77 United in love

4/8/77 Love always

22/1/80 A great net of love

8/12/81 On the road of perfect love 11/2/83 : Love one another

(come Spirit of love ; 26/5/86)                                                                                            

11/9/88 : Love is not loved

27 March 1997 Into the Cenacle of His Divine Love.