Our Lady of Good Success Quito Ecuador

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Continued:

Apparition of Jesus Christ

On November 2, 1634, after receiving Holy Communion, Mother Mariana had a vision of Jesus Christ:

He was, however, but one wound, especially His Sacred Heart, which was covered with small but piercing thorns which tormented Him with extraordinary cruelty. He shed a deluge of tears, accompanied by tender lamentations and sighs. Mother Mariana embraced Him in her heart with all the tenderness and adoration for her Lord and God that burned in her soul. In an outburst of sorrowful love, she cried out: «Esteemed and adored Love of my soul, if it is possible, tell me what causes Thee to suffer such a cruel martyrdom?».

Jesus Christ gazed at her with loving tenderness. Releasing a profound sigh, He said:

«... You see how these small thorns sting me cruelly. Understand that they are the grave as well as slight faults of my priests, secular and religious, who I take from the world and bring them to the cloisters. I lavish on them a deluge of spiritual graces, giving them also serious, prolonged sicknesses so that they might become like unto Me. But, ungrateful and heartless, they complain about My loving Providence. They think I am being cruel to them, and withdrawing with indifference, they leave Me alone.

The spirit of such souls will wilt like a parched flower, drying up and becoming unable to emit its fragrance in the garden of my Immaculate Mother, to which such souls were called. With this ungrateful behavior, they will thrust these tiny thorns into My Heart, cruelly wounding It, which is all love and affection for My chosen souls. At the same time they will frustrate the great designs that I have for them, for which reason I test them in this manner, for the cross and tribulation are the patrimony of the just here on earth.

Instill in your present-day daughters the love of the cross and sacrifice so that they can transmit this from generation to generation, in this Convent as well as in the Order in general. Imbue them also with a love for their religious vocation and regular observance, as well as fraternal charity and love for poor sinners, and faithful correspondence to the inspirations of grace. The times will come when doctrine will be spread among the learned and the ignorant, accessible to priests and religious, and even the common people. Many books will be written. But the practice of the virtues and these doctrines will be found only in a few souls: for this reason, saints will become rare.

Precisely for this reason: My priests and religious will fall into a fatal indifference. Their frigidity will extinguish the fire of divine love, afflicting My loving Heart with these small thorns that you see. For this reason, I desire that here there should be souls here in whom I can rest from My fatigues and in whom I might take complacence. Their afflicted, sacrificial lives will be the caressing, compassionate hands that remove these tiny thorns from My Heart and apply the needed balsam. Alas! If it were given to you to understand My intense interior suffering which accompanied Me from the Incarnation in the most pure womb of My Virgin Mother until the moment when My Soul left Its lacerated Body, nailed on the Cross.

And this suffering is caused by the lack of correspondence to the deluge of graces with which I inundate My priests and religious and, consequently, by the sins that they commit! Know, moreover, that Divine Justice releases terrible chastisements on entire nations, not only for the sins of the people but for those of priests and religious persons. For the latter are called, by the perfection of their state, to be the salt of the earth, the masters of truth, and the shields to hold back Divine Ire. Straying from their sublime mission, they degrade themselves in such a way that, before the eyes of God, they increase the rigor of the punishments. When they detach themselves from Me, they end up living a superficial life of soul, maintaining a distance from Me unworthy of My Ministers. By their frigidity and lack of confidence, they act as if I were a stranger to them.

Alas! If they knew, if they were convinced of how much I love them and desire that they enter into the very depths of their souls. There, without a doubt, they would find Me and would necessarily live the life of love, light and continuous union to which they were not only called, but chosen! Now, my spouse, in the few months of exile that remain to you, labor untiringly for the perfection of My priests and religious persons. In union with My infinite merits and those of My Immaculate Mother and yours, offer all that you do - even to your least breath- for this. I am greatly pleased by religious souls who take upon themselves the sublime task of sanctifying the Clergy through their prayers, sacrifices, and penances. In all times I will choose such souls so that, uniting themselves to Me, they will labor, pray and suffer to attain of this most noble end, and a special glory will await them in Heaven».

After this moving vision, Mother Mariana seemed transformed into a new creature. She seemed an angel in human flesh and a seraphim filled with God. Her words were flaming arrows of divine love that sweetly wounded the hearts of the fortunate daughters who lived with her.