Our Lady safeguards our success through these times

In these bewildering days when even the most devout are confounded by circumstances and sense that society – even the Church – is careening out of control, it is comforting to know what Our Lady said centuries ago specifically about these times.

Christine Valentine-Owsik

In the early 17th century, a Conceptionist nun in Quito, Ecuador – now known as Venerable Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres – received seven apparitions from the Blessed Mother which describe precisely our present turmoil. The apparitions of Our Lady of Good Success were approved by the bishop of Quito then and many bishops since, yet most modern Catholics have not heard of them until now.

Beginning with her message to Mother Marianna in 1610, Our Lady said: “… from the end of the 19th century [until] after the middle of the 20th century … the passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of customs, for Satan will reign almost completely by means of Masonic sects. They will focus on children … to sustain this general corruption.”

Our Lady warned that all seven sacraments would be attacked, and difficult to obtain. “Seldom will [children] receive … Baptism and Confirmation. As for Penance, [children] will confess only while attending Catholic schools, which the devil will do his utmost to destroy by means of persons in authority.” She said Holy Communion would be profaned, and sacrileges would abound. Extreme Unction [Sacrament of the Sick] would be little esteemed among Catholics, and many would die “without receiving this sustenance for the final journey.” She said “Masonry would enact iniquitous laws [to] do away with the Sacrament of Matrimony, “making it easy for everyone to live in sin, and encouraging procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church.”

“The effects of secular education … will [accelerate] the death of priestly and religious vocations,” she said. “The Sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed, and despised, for in this sacrament, the Church of God and even God Himself is scorned and despised since He is represented in His priests.”

Then she describes priestly persecution. “The Devil will … persecute [priests] in every possible way; he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to deviate them from … their vocation and will corrupt many of them. These depraved priests, who will scandalize the Christian people, will make the hatred of bad Catholics and the enemies of the Roman Catholic Church fall upon all priests. This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous suffering to the good Pastors of the Church.” She said the priests left to uphold the Church will be “like firm columns, will remain unswerving, and will confront everything with a spirit of humility …”.

Finally, when evil will seem to have prevailed, she said “this will mark the arrival of my hour, when I in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss. Thus, the Church … will be finally free of his cruel tyranny.”

CHRISTINE VALENTINE-OWSIK is Legatus magazine’s editor.