Our Lady Comforts Her Children at the Moment of Death

The Necessity of Devotion to Our Lady

The more one reads about what the Church has to say about Our Lady, the harder it is to disagree with the consensus of the Saints, namely, that a tender love of Mary is a true indication that one loves and is loved by God.

“Many have proved invincibly, from the sentiments of the Fathers – among others: St. Augustine, St. Ephrem, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Germanus of Constantinople, St. John Damascene, St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, St. Thomas, and St. Bonaventure – that devotion to Our Most Blessed Virgin is necessary for salvation [true devotion consists in charity], and that it is an infallible mark of reprobation to have no esteem or love for the Holy Virgin while, on the other hand, it is an infallible mark of predestination to be entirely and truly devoted to her. The figures and words of the Old and New Testaments prove this. The sentiments and examples of the Saints confirm it. Reason and experience teach and demonstrate it. Even the Devil and his crew, constrained by the force of truth, have often been obliged to avow it in spite of themselves.”

St. Louis de Montfort

Mary Protects the Mystical Body of her Son

Many perish because they are led into heresy. Devotion to Mary is a safeguard against heresy. Our Lady protected Our Lord, so you can be certain that she will not abandon His Mystical Body, the Church, “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).

“Follow her and you cannot go wrong, says St. Bernard. There is no danger of a true child of Mary being led astray by the devil and falling into heresy.”

– St. Louis de Montfort

Like us, Mary is an instrument of God’s Blessings

Jesus uses the members of His Mystical Body, the Church, as channels for His grace. This should be obvious enough; look at the Saints. Mary is simply the channel of grace par excellence. To draw near to Mary, therefore, is to draw near to her Son, her All. He lives in and through her without restraint; she offers her Son no resistance; she is perfectly docile to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. “Fiat voluntas tua!” (“Thy Will be done” – Mt. 6:10).

Mary leads us to her Son

All those who love Mary come to love her Son. This is because Mary’s will is God’s will; her entire life and being is fixed on God, her All. “Where Mary is, there is the Son!” (St. Paul of the Cross). She cannot fail to lead us to Him. If you think the Saints led many souls to God, look at Mary and what the Saints say about her!

“She is the mediator between us and Christ, just as Christ is the mediator between us and God.”

– St. Bonaventure

Our Lady appears to her children at the hour of death

When death comes, God will judge us as He finds us. If we stay close to Mary, she will take special care of us; she will do everything in her power to ensure that we are led safely to Jesus.

Our Lady has appeared to many Saints and holy souls throughout the centuries – and even to great sinners. And her message is always the same. She reminds us that there is an abyss of love and mercy for us if we will take her hand and approach God with confidence. In her great love for us, her children, she has promised to protect us, or even appear to us at the moment of death if only we serve her faithfully (cf. the Three Hail Marys devotion). And how do we serve her? “Stay close to my Son,” she said to one Saint. In a word, we must love Jesus and let Him act in and through us. “Fiat voluntas tua!”

“I will, as a most loving mother, without fail be present at the death of all those who piously and holily serve me, and will console and protect them.”

– Our Lady to St. Mechtilde

You can be sure that Jesus will be there with her!

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A Sure Way to Convert Sinners, Even in their Final Moments!

“My Heart loves each soul infinitely.”

– Jesus to Bl. Dina Belanger

Nothing pleases Our Lord more than the salvation of souls. He came from Heaven to seek us. Each soul is extremely dear to Him. He makes use of the members of His Mystical Body to convert sinners, even at the hour of death:

“This is a brief hour in which God has secretly saved many a soul that to all appearances had been lost. I never saw a case where this happened to a person who had not done something good with a well-intentioned will.” – Mechtilde of Magdeburg

The Sacred Heart thrills with joy and Heaven rejoices when a sinner returns to God. How beautiful it is to bring souls to God!

God asks for your help:

“During My human life on earth, I could do no more for the salvation and sanctification of souls; and since that time, I have wished to continue the work of redemption through My life in souls. Pray and intercede with My Divine Father. Intercede, that means praying earnestly, praying untiringly, praying with certainty of being given what you are asking. Pray and intercede!” – Jesus to Bl. Dina

Our Lord revealed to Servant of God, Sr. Josefa Menendez, that confident and persevering prayer generally obtains the conversion of the souls for whom we pray; if they reject the graces offered, someone else receives them. Prayer, therefore, is never in vain! Also, Our Lord revealed to St. Gertrude that He converts souls in His own time; He alone knows when they will best be disposed to accept His grace.

The Precious Blood

The Precious Blood of Jesus is the price of our salvation. It is a gift of infinite value, perfectly pleasing to God the Father. Few souls know this, but the Precious Blood is God’s gift to us! This has been confirmed by theologians and Saints e.g. St. Mechtilde and St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi.

The following words ought to encourage us to pray for the conversion of sinners, even in their final moments. The prayers suggested (in italics) are remarkably powerful!

+ Ven. Louis de Blois (Blosius): “God Himself has deigned to reveal to His friends that these [the following] words, suggested to the faithful when dying, or piously said by word, or in the mind, by those who are dying, are of wonderful efficacy; so much so that no one who has the Catholic faith* can perish, if, in his last moments, with a truly sincere heart, he humbly says these words to God, or devoutly accepts them in his own mind. [*We may confidently hope that the efficacy of this prayer extends to all those who sincerely wish to be united to Christ. “Invincible ignorance” and other doctrines come into play here.]

The following words, said in the hearing of the dying, are of great profit:

“O Lord God, I am that miserable one, whom Thou, in Thy fatherly love, didst create, and through the most ignominious death of Thine only-begotten Son didst redeem from the power of the enemy. Thou only hast power and dominion over me, and canst save me according to Thy immense mercy.”

+ Ven. Leo Dupont: “I must tell you at the same time one of my devotions, borrowed from St. Teresa, and I would beg you to adopt it for your own use whenever occasion offers. The saint, on hearing of the death of one of her old friends, exclaimed, ‘Lord, if in the course of my whole life I have done any good thing, apply it to this soul’; and at the same instant she understood that the beautiful soul for which she had interceded was ascending into Heaven.”

+ Our Lord to Sister Mary of St. Peter: “Ask My Father for as many souls as I shed drops of Blood during My Passion.” By asking for the Precious Blood to be poured out on souls we prevent Its being, as it were, spilled out on the ground in vain. In His mysterious Providence God has put the salvation of others in our hands: we must ask for it, and ask fervently and often.

+ One of the best means of participating in the graces and blessings of the Precious Blood is to offer It to the Eternal Father. “An offering,” says Father Faber, is “more than a prayer.” In prayer, we are the recipients, but when we make an offering, God vouchsafes to accept something from us. St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, when in ecstasy, once exclaimed:

“Every time a creature offers up the Blood by which he was redeemed, he offers a gift of infinite worth, which can be equalled by no other.”

God revealed the practice of making this offering to this Saintly Carmelite nun when He complained to her that so little effort is made in this world to disarm His Divine justice against sinners. Acting upon this admonition, she daily offered the Precious Blood fifty times for the living and the dead. She did this with so much fervour that God showed her on different occasions the numerous souls who had thereby been converted or delivered from Purgatory.

At another time when St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi was in ecstasy, she saw all the holy patrons of the city of Florence [accompanied by innumerable other saints], before the throne of God interceding for sinners. Their petitions, however, remained unanswered. Then the guardian Angels of the poor sinners approached, but their prayers likewise remained unheard. Next came the multitudes of the blessed to make intercession for the guilty souls. While imploring God’s mercy, they were intent at the same time upon offering to the Eternal Father the Precious Blood, and on account of the merits of the Divine Blood, their petitions were granted. Ought not these examples incite us to offer the Precious Blood frequently during the day?

+ Precious Blood Offering: “ETERNAL Father, I offer Thee the most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, in satisfaction for my sins, in supplication for the holy souls in Purgatory and for the needs of Holy Church [especially for the soul of (Name)].” – The Raccolta, 188

+ In order to obtain special graces through the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, let us ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to offer It in our stead. This advice is given us by many devout servants of God, in particular by St. John Vianney [the Cure of Ars] who says that this is the best method of prayer. He furthermore adds: “My children, mark this well: whenever I obtained some grace, it was obtained in this manner, which I never found to fail.”

We can make this offering many times a day. We can use these words:

“IMMACULATE Heart of Mary, do thou offer to the Eternal Father the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the conversion of sinners, especially [Name].”

+ St. Gertrude’s writings are replete with most beautiful sentiments concerning the Precious Blood. To St. Mechtilde Our Lord once revealed Himself on the altar, with hands extended and Blood streaming from His Wounds:

“I show these bleeding Wounds to My Father to appease His wrath. He pardons when He sees the Blood.”

Sources: ‘Glories of the Precious Blood’ (TAN publishers); ‘A Book of Spiritual Instruction’ by Ven. Louis de Blois (Blosius); ‘The Life of Leon Papin-Dupont, The Holy Man of Tours’

A Beautiful Revelation For Every Christian (Pt. 2)

“I am perfect love, for all the things which I have done from eternity, I did out of love; and, whatsoever I do or shall do in the future, likewise proceeds and will proceed from My love. My love for man is now as great and incomprehensible as it was at the time of My Passion, when, out of exceeding love, I delivered all the elect by My death. And, if it were possible for Me to die as many times as there are souls in Hell, I would with most prompt will and most perfect charity give up My Body, and would endure for each soul the same Passion and Death that I endured for all.”

– Jesus to St. Bridget

The holy Benedictine, Fr. Paul of Moll, was often lost in ecstasy when he spoke about the love of God, to the extent that he would sometimes be raised off the ground for ten minutes or so; his face often radiated with an indescribable brightness, and an aureole surrounded his head. This holy priest knew well the love of God, which can bestow on us no greater blessing than transforming us into saints; the saints are partakers in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4) to a remarkable degree, and for all eternity the Heavenly Father will be glorified by them to the degree that they resemble His Son. If we were to consider, even infrequently, the infinite desire that God has for our salvation, we would better be able to appreciate the value and purpose of trials, sufferings and temptations of all sorts. The cross is truly a blessing beyond compare. Sr. Jeanne Benigne Gojos, the holy lay-sister of the Visitation Order, was accustomed to adoring the holy will of God in all things. With God’s grace, we can do the same. 

If we truly desire to please Jesus and to save our souls, as well as many others, we must ask daily for the gift of divine love. This is a treasure beyond compare; It alone can transform this fallen world.

Deo Gratias!

“Why do you fear death?” – Jesus to Sr. Mary

“Why do you fear death? Do you doubt Me?

(1) For your sins: see here is My mercy.

(2)For your cares, your anxieties, your desires: here is My Providence.

(3) For your weakness: here is My Omnipotence.

(4) It is My joy to give you hour by hour sufficient strength, to have you entirely dependent on My love.”

– Jesus to Sr. Mary of the Trinity

(I have inserted the numbers)

(1) St. John Vianney (Taken from his Catechism): “Some say, ‘I have done too much evil; the good God cannot pardon me.’ My children, this is a great blasphemy; it is putting a limit to the mercy of God, which has no limit – it is infinite. You may have done evil enough to lose the souls of a whole parish, and if you confess, if you are sorry for having done this evil, and resolve not to do it again, the good God will have pardoned you.”

“My mercy for fallen souls is limitless.” – Jesus to Sr. Josefa

(2) Garrigou-Lagrange (Taken from ‘The Three Ages of the Interior Life’): “We read of the just in the Book of Wisdom: ‘Though in the sight of men they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality. Afflicted in few things, in many they shall be well rewarded: because God hath tried them, and found them worthy of Himself. As gold in the furnace He hath proved them, and as a victim of a holocaust He hath received them.’ Thus trial causes hope to grow, and hope does not deceive us, for God does not abandon those who trust Him. ‘No one hath hoped in the Lord, and hath been confounded.’ It is evident that the Lord will not refuse Himself to those who love Him, to those to whom He has already given His Son. . . . He has prepared eternal beatitude for those who love Him above all else.”

(3) “And when the enemy represents to us our weakness, let us say with the Apostle, ‘I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me’ (Phil. 4:13). Of myself I can do nothing; but I trust in God, that, by His grace, I shall be able to do all things…” – St. Alphonsus

 “The only way to make rapid progress along the path of divine love is to remain very little and put all our trust in almighty God.” -St. Therese

(4) “O My daughter, how many would have abandoned Me if they had not been crucified. The cross is a gift too precious, and from it come many virtues.”

– Jesus to St. Gemma Galgani (Born: March 12, 1878; Died: April 11, 1903)