An Encounter with Our Lady &
Her Divine Child

Marian Therese Horvat

This October 2025, I had the great joy to be in Quito, Ecuador, visiting Our Lady of Good Success. Accompanying me on the pilgrimage was Miss Salwa Bachar, to whom TIA owes our new collection of photographs of the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Good Success and her Divine Child, as well as many other pictures of Quiteño wonders and sights.

Our Lady above the Abbess seat, Our Lord on her chair in the Upper Choir, awaiting the transport to the Church sanctuary where they will be venerated by the public for the month of October. The statue also comes down for the 9 days prior to her feast day on Feb. 2 and for the whole month of May

The first day was one of disappointment, followed, however, by one of great consolation. We arrived in Quito on September 30; on that day the Statue of Our Lady of Good Success – who stands over the Abbess chair in the Upper Choir – is carried down to the Church and placed on the main altar so that she can be venerated by the public. Everything was prepared, the Mother Abbess told us later, the Christ Child had been taken from her right arm for the transport, her crown, staff and outer cape removed.

But that evening the Franciscans, who were scheduled to carry down the statue, cancelled unexpectedly. The nuns were ready, more importantly Our Lady was waiting, but no Franciscans. This seemed to me a great lack of seriousness and consideration for Our Lady on their part.

At any rate, we were unable to greet Our Lady on that first day. We viewed the beautiful Conceptionist Church, saw and honored the touching Child Jesus of the Cross on Pichincha Mountain at a side altar, entered the adjoining Plaza Grande and saw the place where President Garcia Moreno fell from the presidential palace when he was assassinated at the order of Freemasonry on August 6, 1875, and visited the colonial Augustinian Monastery and Museum across from the Conceptionist Convent in the main Historic Plaza. There is much to see in Quito.

christ child crucified on mount pichincha

The Christ Child spoke these words: 'I can do no more to show my love for you'

The embrace of Our Lady & the Christ Child

Two embraces that October morning

embrace 2

The morning sun brought with it with an unexpected consolation. We received a call from the Mother Abbess Angela, who invited us to meet with her and the past Abbess Madre Inez at the Convent that morning.

“The statue did not come down from the Upper Choir yesterday,” she told us, “and I saw that as a sign that Our Lady wanted you to embrace her. She is waiting for you.” She invited us to follow her to the Upper Choir where the nuns say the Hours of the Divine Office. What followed were truly some of the most moving moments of my life.

When we reached the upper choir Madre Angela gently placed the Infant Christ into my arms. The Child was light as a feather and my first impulse was fear that I might drop him. But the fear was short-lived; as this precious Infant rested in my arms, I felt such a great love for the Christ Child. Even more, I sensed how tenderly He loved His Holy Mother. He was in my arms because of her, and through her I was coming to love Him more and to desire to suffer for Him.

These are difficult sentiments to express in words. It was, I felt, a great grace Our Lady was giving me: She was bringing me closer to the Heart of her Son, which is one with hers.

When I climbed the short stairs to embrace Our Lady, my spirit was already awash in gratitude and a sense of my own unworthiness. I placed my hand under hers, and begged her to lead me on the good path in this fight for her and for Holy Mother Church until that day of the great and terrible leap from time to eternity.

Encounter with the Christ Child

I had been to Quito three times to see Our Lady of Good Success, and each time I was mesmerized by the expressive Virgin. However, I am embarrassed to admit, I was not so impressed with the Christ Child. He seemed a pale porcelain doll next to eloquent Virgin whose face can be deep red or turn pallid in sadness. She seemed more alive than the sweet but inexpressive “doll” in her arms.

Below you see a photo taken by a professional photographer in 2006 and one of my own taken on the pilgrimage I took in 2011 with my colleague Mrs. Judith Mead. I invite you to check the Images on your search engine and you will find many similar pictures of Our Lady (see second row below) almost always with a rich face hue and the Child more pallid and at times almost indifferent.

The face of the Christ Child seemed less alive than that of Our Lady

expressions christ child

This year of 2025, it was different. Each morning during the time we spent before the Sacred Image in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, it was the Christ Child that drew my attention.

Our Lady seems to look past us into the far distance as if foreseeing the chastisement she can no longer hold back. Her Son, expressive & sad.

Perhaps that first embrace in the Upper Choir was preparing me to pay more attention to the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity represented in this tender Child.

His cheeks were the same rosy hue as His Beloved Mother, his expression at times tender, at other times sad or even angry, his eyes always quite lively and bright. I was very conscious that the Archangels had completed not only the image of Our Lady but also her Divine Child. It was as if Our Lady – still beautiful and lifelike – had stepped back and presented to me her Son, so that I might know and love Him more.

The significance

What was the significance of this shedding of light on the Christ Child?

Our Lady & her Child, serious but tender

Very sad & foreboding

A tender & maternal look

First, it made me ponder if His time to act will not be soon. In one of the last apparitions to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, Our Lady warned that “dire times will come, whose very light will blind those who should justly defend the rights of the Church. Without servile fear or human respect, these shepherds will instead assist the enemies of the Church or help them accomplish their designs.”

“Woe to the error of the wise, to him who governs the Church, the Pastor of the flock that my Most Holy Son confided into his care.“

An apparent defeat, but at the very moment “when they appear triumphant and when the authority abuses my power, committing injustices and oppressing the weak, near will be their downfall. Dumbfounded, they will fall to the ground.”

She predicted a great chastisement that would fall on mankind, where God would punish the evil . Then, through a marvelous intervention of Our Lady, the victory of the good and complete restoration of the Church and society. Before that triumph, however, errant mankind would feel the Divine Wrath fall upon them from the hand of her Son, which she would no longer be able to hold back.

We are surely in a time when the authority is abusing the power, the shepherds are assisting the enemy, and heresy, blasphemy and impurity abound, which she also predicted.

Perhaps we are very close to that moment when Divine Justice will act and send the great Chastisement. Praying before the miraculous Image, it was as if I half expected at times for the small arm of the Christ Child to raise up and begin the Chastisement with a command for a great earthquake to shake the city... It did not happen, of course. But it seemed very possible.

Second, I recalled the reasons why Our Lady wanted this statue made. When she ordered Mother Mariana to have it made “just as you see me here now.” She wanted her Divine Child in her left arm so that all mortals would know how powerful she is in appeasing Divine Justice and obtaining mercy and forgiveness for every sinful soul who comes to her with a contrite heart. No one, however great a sinner, should fear to come to her.

“Let them come to me, for I will lead them to Him,” she said. And that is what she does. No one goes to Christ except through His Mother, as the Church has always taught. She wants nothing for herself, everything for Him. She leads us into His Heart so that we might love Him and give Him due glory.

Our Lord chose Her as the Mediatrix and Advocate of mankind, the Mother of Mercy. Through her flow all the mercies and graces that He desired to grant to all the children of Adam. This has been the constant teaching of the Church (here, here, and here).

‘Let them come to me, for I will lead them to Him’

Could this most recent affront by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and Pope Leo XIV, who issued a document warning Catholics not to honor Our Lady with her due titles of Mediatrix of all Graces and Co-Redeemer, be the blow that will bring the great Chastisement?

Turn to the Star of Tumultuous Sea

I invite you to contemplate these magnificent photographs of the Queen of Heaven and her Son, and then turn to her as she asked us to do. During these days of desolation, she instructed all her children to have recourse to her in all their spiritual and temporal needs.

These were her words to us in these tumultuous times: “Turn to me with confidence and say, ‘Star of the stormy sea of my mortal life, may your light shine upon me so that I do not stray from the path that leads me to Heaven.’”

Today when the seas are so stormy and a shipwreck seems so imminent both in the Church and in our personal lives, she herself tells us to direct ourselves to her under this title of Good Success and she will give us light to understand this terrible crisis and take the correct position, and then to lead us to the secure port, which is Heaven.