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Our Lady of Good Success
The Prophetic Mission of Mother Mariana
An interview with Dr. Marian T. Horvat on
Volume II of The Admirable Life of Mother Mariana
In the 17th century Our Lady appeared to a Spanish Conceptionist nun, Ven. Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, one of the Founding Mothers of the Convent of the Immaculate Conception in Quito, Ecuador. During her life of 72 years, Mother Mariana received many apparitions and favors from Our Lady, who revealed important facts in the History of the Church. The Virgin Mary also told her to have a statue of Our Lady of Good Success made to be a protection for the whole world in the turbulent times to come.
Our Lady told Mother Mariana a great crisis in the Church would begin in the 20th century, and that only then would the devotion to Our Lady of Good Success become known because it would be the remedy for that crisis. To atone for the many profanations, blasphemies, and abuses and to hasten the day of the triumphant restoration of the Catholic Church, Mother Mariana was asked to become an expiatory victim for those times which are ours. It is not difficult to figure out that the crisis predicted for the 20th century was Council Vatican II and its consequences.
It is truly extraordinary. Our Lady set out the whole panorama of the present day calamity to a simple nun in Quito in the early 1600s. Mother Mariana saw the grievous situation, and almost died from the violence of the shock. One can only imagine how a vision of the shriveled post-Vatican II Church would distress a nun living in the healthy climate of the Counter-Reformation in the Church, which had one of its highest points in Spain, her homeland.
In particular, she suffered from seeing the impurity and corruption of the clergy in this crisis. The depraved priests of those times, she predicted, would so scandalize the Christian people that their vile actions would raise the general indignation of bad Catholics and the enemies of the Church against all priests. It is a very strong statement; nonetheless it has come to pass. Today Catholics world-over have had to face the torrent of homosexuality and pedophilia that has unfortunately inundated the Catholic clergy and hierarchy. Sadly and undeniably, this prophetic message of Mother Mariana has been fulfilled in our days.
Question 1: Your mention the prophetic messages of Mother Mariana. What were some of these prophecies, and have they been realized?
Answer: Volume I of The Admirable Life of Mother Mariana that was published last year is important because it shows how her early sufferings and penances in the Conceptionist Convent prepared her for grand favors and her prophetic mission. The newly released Volume II is the book many persons were waiting for because it relates the majority of the prophecies, many that have come to pass, and others still reserved for the future.
While I was preparing Volume II to go to print, I received a book in Spanish about the prophecies of Mother Mariana written in 1985 by the postulator for her cause, Msgr. Luis E. Cadena y Almeida. (1) The work, which has the imprimatur of the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Quito, provides the historical data to demonstrate the faithful and exact fulfillment of the prophecies Mother Mariana received from Our Lady of Good Success and her Divine Son. I transcribed many of these facts in footnotes in Volume II for the benefit of the English-speaking public, so that they could see how each prophecy has been realized to the very letter.
Let me relate briefly just some of the prophecies that have come to pass:
The Postulator for Mother Mariana's cause proves the truth of the prophecies |
- The independence of Ecuador in the 19th century;
- The consecration of Ecuador to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by a “truly Catholic president” [Gabriel Garcia Moreno] in the 19th century;
- The proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady,
- and the dogma of Papal Infallibility, both in the 19th century,
- by a Pope who would become a prisoner in the Vatican [Pope Pius IX].
As for the prophecies specific to our times, they describe:
- An enormous apostasy in the Church,
- the corruption of the clergy and Prelates,
- heresies,
- the abandonment of the rules in convents and monasteries,
- the culpability of the ecclesiastical authority for this crisis.
More specifically Our Lady pointed to shortly after the mid-20th century as a crucial point in the crisis.
These predictions seems to accurately describe the consequences of Vatican II in the Church that we are presently witnessing.
Such exact fulfillments lead us to believe that the other parts of the prophecies for our times will also be fulfilled.
For Our Lady also predicted that at the moment when the situation would seem lost, she would intervene and save the Catholic Church from the crisis and restore her to her proper splendor. In this happy time, after a severe purge and cleansing in all the religious orders, there will be a revival of vocations, a return to the practice of the original rules, and a flourishing, healthy Church.
Question 2: Did Our Lady mention the Pope specifically in this general apostasy of the Church in our time?
Answer: On several occasions reported in Volume II, she spoke of an apostasy in the highest cubicle of the Church. For example, in the apparition of February 2, 1634, after Our Lady warned Mother Mariana of the many bad Superiors who would destroy the spirit of religion, she said: “Dire times will come, when those who should justly defend the rights of the Church will be blinded. Without servile fear or human respect, they will join the enemies of the Church to help them accomplish their designs.
“Woe to the error of the wise, to he who governs the Church, the Pastor of the flock that My Most Holy Son confided into his care!”
Further on, she added. referring to the role of the bad religious authorities in the crisis:
“But when they will appear triumphant and when the authority will abuse their power, committing injustices and oppressing the weak, their downfall will be near. Paralyzed, they will fall to the ground” (Chapter 10)
Therefore, while the message of Our Lady of Good Success, like that of Our Lady of Fatima, speaks of a great chastisement, it also offers the grand hope of a restoration of the Holy Church.
Question 3: Why do you think Our Lady said she would reserve knowledge for this revelation for the 20th century?
Answer: I think there are two main reasons:
Our Lady of Good Success promised succor
for these times |
First, as Our Lady herself told Mother Mariana, she wants to offer a special consolation under this invocation of Good Success to the faithful souls of our days who are suffering from a general confusion, a time, as she predicted, “when the light of the Faith would be almost extinguished.” By means of this devotion, she promised that Our Lord would work great miracles, spiritual as well as material, for the devout faithful:
“…above all those at the end of the 20th century, who would be the favored of His Heart, for in that period Hell would be unleashed and many souls would be lost.”
This devotion, then, is a special safeguard for peoples and nations in these days. Our Lady promised to work great miracles under this invocation; it only remains for us to invoke her under this title. We can depend on her guarantee of succor.
Second, I think there is also another reason why the devotion fell into a mysterious oblivion for centuries and the apparitions remained almost unknown. Had the enemies of the Church been aware of the prophecies of Our Lady of Good Success – I am referring to the Modernists and Progressivists who infiltrated the Church – they could easily have obscured or changed them, as happened with the Third Secret in the Message of Fatima.
Instead, at the very moment when the Progressivist Church would seem to have buried the Fatima message, the prophecies of Our Lady of Good Success come to light.
Question 4: Is this an approved devotion? Have the life and prophecies of Mother Mariana been studied by Church authorities?
Answer: This is, indeed, an approved devotion.. For three and a half centuries, since February 2, 1611 when the 8th Bishop of Quito Salvador de Ribera (1607-1612) blessed the miraculous statue and installed her in the Abbess chair, this devotion has been approved by the Bishops of Quito. The devotion to Our Lady of Good Success has been celebrated uninterruptedly for the last 395 years in Quito. For this reason, in 1991 the Archdiocese of Quito requested and was granted permission by Rome for a canonical coronation of Our Lady of Good Success as Queen of Quito.
As for the life of Mother Mariana and the prophecies she received, it was under the order of the 10th Bishop of “Quito, the austere and learned Bishop Pedro de Oviedo, that Mother Mariana recorded the revelations she received from Heaven in an Autobiography. The Prelate was privy to the intimate dealings of her soul, and realized the importance of having a permanent record made of her many revelations and favors. Fr. Manuel Sousa Pereira had recourse to that Autobiography as well as many other source documents guarded in the Convent archives when he wrote The Admirable Life of Mother Mariana (two volumes) in 1790.
The body of Mother Mariana and the Founding Mothers are kept in glass cases in the Convent cloisters |
For several centuries, as Our Lady had foretold, the life and history of Mother Mariana fell into oblivion, although the devotion to Our Lady of Good Success flourished inside the Convent. Then, on February 8, 1906, the body of Mother Mariana had to be moved because of a construction project. The tomb was opened and her body found incorrupt and whole.
Interest in her life and words revived and increased, and by the mid-20th century, small groups of persons from other countries had begun to visit the Convent and request more information about the nun whose life is so closely intertwined to the miraculous statue.
In the early 1980s, a commission of priests was established to study the life and works of Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres. The major source in this study was precisely this work by Fr. Manuel Sousa Pereira, written in 1790, and now translated to English and offered to the English-speaking world. The Commission made a thorough investigation, and with all diligence, impartiality and appeal to orthodoxy pronounced that these sources were “authentic, not falsely introduced, and worthy of credibility.”(2) In 1986 the Archbishop of Quito Antonio Gonzales initiated the canonization process for the cause of Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres.
Thus, we have today solid evidence – established by an ecclesiastical commission - of the truth of the apparitions.
Question 5: In your opinion, what were the most impressive parts in this work by Fr. Manuel Pereira?
Answer: I think that it is the apparition of February 2, 1634 (Chapter 14), in which the sanctuary light is extinguished. Our Lady then explains to Mother Mariana that this symbolized the Church in the 20th century, and explained the five meanings of that symbolic act. According to the words of Our Lady, the light being snuffed out represents the following:
A great crisis was predicted in the Church after the mid-20th century: Vatican II |
First, the propagation of heresies in the 19th and 20th centuries that would extinguish the precious light of Faith in souls;
Second, the great spiritual catastrophe in the Convent, and by extension, in the whole Church;
Third, the massive impurity that would saturate the atmosphere. “Like a filthy ocean, it will inundate the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty,” she said. “There will be almost no virgin souls in the world;”
Fourth, the corruption of children’s innocence and the crisis in the clergy;
Fifth, the laxity and negligence of the wealthy who would stand by and witness the Church being oppressed, virtue being persecuted, and the triumph of evil without employing their riches to attack evil and restore the Faith.
In a paradoxical sense, the somber details of this prophecy offer a consolation and relief to those who acknowledge the great crisis in the Church and society of our days. It provides us solace to know that Our Lady clearly foretold this dire situation, that she saw and sees our present suffering, and has promised to help us persevere in the fight if we have recourse to her.
It heartens us to know that she said that those destined for the restoration will need great strength of will, constancy, valor and confidence in God. Hearing this gives us courage to go forward, to sharpen our vigilance so that we will be worthy to be among that happy number of combatants who will see the day of her provident intervention and victory.
In addition to the impressive prophecies, there is something else about this work by Fr. Pereira that deserves mention. The words seem to transmit through the centuries the spirit of religion and the piety of days past. His description of events invites us to see the world with the eyes of faith, to understand the importance of discerning the supernatural in the things that happen in our daily lives.
Fr. Pereira, who himself died in the odor of sanctity, also stresses many important religious truths that Progressivism downplays or hides today: the importance of the time given to us in this life to earn Heaven, the strict account each one will make for his life at his judgment; the importance not only of practicing the virtues but also of not allowing the least concession to evil or the relaxation of good customs and religious practices. It is, as one reader observed, a book that should not just be read, but meditated upon.
Question 6: Would you like to say some final words to the readers of this interview?
Our Lady promised to assist those who spread the devotion |
Answer: It seems appropriate to close by stressing the important role of the faithful in spreading the message of Our Lady of Good Success. Our Lady told Mother Mariana that she would give her special help to all those who, by their support and resources, will help to spread this devotion in the times ahead when she desired to be known. These are our times, our days.
It is hardly necessary to note that Our Lady is never outdone in generosity. When Mother Mariana asked the Convent’s special patron, the Marquesa, for help in making her statue, that noble lady did not hesitate to offer everything at her disposal. Mother Mariana thanked her and told her, “God Our Lord and His Blessed Mother will abundantly recompense your generosity and devotion, increasing your spiritual as well as temporal welfare.” And you will see in Volume II that her generosity was immediately rewarded – Our Lady completely healed the Marquesa’s broken arm on that very day!
I am sure Our Lady will likewise recompense those who are helping to spread devotion of Our Lady of Good Success throughout the United States, an effort that will certainly stimulate the devotion to spread throughout Europe and the Americas.
1. Mensaje Profético de la Sierva de Dios Sor Mariana Francisca de Jesús Torres y Berriochoa, Quito: Fundacion Jesus de la Misericorida, 1985.
2. Ibid., pp. 8-9.
Posted July 17, 2006
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