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El Escorial visionary Amparo Cuevas: the Meaning of the Messages

      We continue with the sixth installment of the apparitions of El Escorial, Spain which began during the same time frame as Betania and Medjugorje and has received little publicity. Yet, like Medjugorje and Betania, El Escorial is still going on and is as important as the others for Our Lady comes as Nuestra Senora de los Dolores - "Our Lady of Sorrows" to call all her children back to her Divine Son Jesus through Prayer, Penance and Sacrifice in atonement for our own sins and those of the entire world. God's chosen messenger to receive these and impart them to the world is a housewife and mother of seven Luz Amparo Cuevas a visionary who has suffered much producing plentiful fruits. For part six of The Apparitions at El Escorial, Spain - Come to Jesus in humility and you will be rewarded , click on THE AGE OF MARIAN APPARITIONS.

Come to Jesus in humility and you will be rewarded.

      The visionary at El Escorial Amparo Cuevasherself suffers very much. She suffers from calumnies, ridicule, false accusations, trials sent to her by God, including the stigmata whichcauses her to bleed from forehead, hands, knees, back and side, as well as from the drops which she drinks from the chalice of suffering. Occasionally, the Blessed Mother will reward her for this suffering by asking her to write from one to six names in the Book of Life.

      Humility is a virtue, which Our Lady preaches in her messages to Amparo. The visionary is told to seek situations in which she can be humiliated because through humility one can attain heaven. Our Lady tells her to kiss the ground "for consecrated souls.", "for the conversion of sinners," for the sick." Jesus also tells Amparo to kiss the ground as a sign of humility. Our Lady explains how her Son used to do it many times a day in praying to His Heavenly Father. She reminds Amparo that those who will humble themselves will be exalted. Amparo is to seek the last place always. It is this humility that is tied in very closely with suffering. With humility and suffering which are indispensable to enter Heaven according to Our Lady comes the virtues of obedience and charity. She and her Son are the models of all virtues and this is often stressed by Our Blessed Mother, in order to enter Heaven, we must imitate Jesus, and the example of His Blessed Mother.

      Confession and Holy Communion are frequent themes in the messages. The Blessed Mother advises her children to receive Holy Communion when they attend Mass. However, she sates that they must go to confession first because there are many sins being committed by persons who receive Holy Communion without going to confession. Amparo explains to the multitude that confession has to be made to a priest and not to God the Father and that suffices. Our Lady stresses that is has to be done before a priest, who has been given the power to absolve sins.

      Devotions recommended by Our Lady to Amparo and her children are also themes of the messages. First and foremost is attendance at Mass, daily if possible. This is followed by confession and Holy Communion. Our Lady emphasizes the many graces and blessings derived from these spiritual exercises. She then encourages the recitation of at least five decades of the rosary daily, and, if possible, the entire rosary. "My Son is sad and lonely in the tabernacle" observes the Blessed Mother on several occasions. Therefore, she requests that her children visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament as often as they can so that they may console Him and make reparation for sins. The stations of the cross are strongly recommended.

      In her message of October 12, 1983, Our Lady said: "I also ask you, my children, to observe with devotion all the first Saturdays of the month. He who observes the first Saturdays of the month, confesses his sins and receives the Holy Eucharist, and prays the Holy Rosary daily, my Immaculate Heart promises to shed graces over all humanity, my children, over all those who have fulfilled what I have asked them, my children. I also promise to assist them at the hour of their death and to preserve them from the fires of hell."

      In her message of December 3, 1983, she affirmed: "My children, I am going to promise something else. All those who will observe all of these things will also pass through Purgatory, but only see the pains from which they have been freed by complying with these things. But that is why without suffering such pains, they will enter into the Heavenly mansions."

      The end times and the chastisement appear in a number of messages to Amparo. Our Lady warns of their coming but tells her children to prepare for them through prayer, penance, and sacrifice. She speaks of overwhelming destruction to come about, the disappearance of certain countries, the collision of Heavenly bodies, the millions of people who will die. In one of the messages, she states the during the chastisement those who are in the state of divine grace will be in ecstasy for a few moments and will not suffer pain. But she emphasizes prayer and sacrifice as a form of preparation for the event. In several messages, Our Lady has stated that she wants to save all of humanity, but not everyone wants to be saved. By her role as Mother of God, with Her Divine Son, she wants to save souls through the Infinite Merits of her Divine Son.

Next Installment: Messages containing Visions

February Flavors that tantalize the tastebuds of the mind and heart as long as you know the time of day no matter what millennium and are compassionate to those innocents whose blood the abortionists clamor to be shed.

      Before our Appeteaser segment goes on hiatus during Lent, we bring you two thought-provoking vignettes today - one on the day the earth and sun stood still and one on a quiz testing your compassion and sense of the Sanctity of Life. Both pose questions that are clearly answered in our final Appeteaser until after Easter. For the vignette Where did the time go? and Would you let them live? click on FEBRUARY FLAVORS TO ENHANCE FOOD FOR THOUGHT APPETEASERS

     Today, in our final Appeteaser feature until after Easter, we present two different segments that provide plenty of food for thought. First, there have been a lot of conflicts in this century between religion and science, so much so that his Holiness Pope John Paul II wrote an entire encyclical entitled Fides et Ratio - "Faith and Reason" proving that science cannot be determined without God. Proof of that is in the following account submitted by NH from her son TH which verifies not only the truths of Sacred Scripture, but the truths that God is in charge in this account of scientific time determined by a team of physicists and astronauts recently. In the second, we ask you not to judge too quickly for the shallow arguments some pro-life politicians and cafeteria Catholics offer up today in making exceptions to certain circumstances for abortion do not hold up in the case of four true cases. It should provide plenty of food for thought. Because of the holy season of Lent, this will be the last appeteaser until Easter as "Appeteasers" takes a hiatus. Have a fruitful, grace-filled Lent.

Where did the time go?

      For all you scientists out there and for all the students who have a hard time convincing these people regarding the truth of the Bible...here's something that shows God's awesome creation and shows that He is still in control.

      Did you know that the space program is busy proving that what has been called "myth" in the Bible is true? Mr Harold Hill, President of the Curtis Engine Company in Baltimore Maryland and a consultant in the space program, relates the following development.

      A great manifestation of God's majesty and Faith over Science happened recently to our astronauts and space scientists at Green Belt, Maryland. They were checking the position of the sun, moon, and planets in outer space, estimating where they would be 100 years and 1000 years from now. They have to know this so the United States won't send a satellite, up and have it bump into something later on in its orbits. Sounds crazy but quite plausible for they must lay out the orbits in terms of the life of the satellite, and where the planets will be so the whole thing will not bog down.

      Therefore they ran the computer measurement back and forth over the centuries and it came to a halt. The computer stopped and put up a red signal. This, they deducted, meant that there was something wrong either with the information fed into it or with the results as compared to the standards. They called in the service department to check it out and they said " what's wrong?"

      What was wrong was that they found there is a day missing in space in elapsed time. They scratched their heads and tore their hair. There was no answer.

      Finally, a Christian man on the team said, "You know, one time I was listening to a priest's homily and he talked about the sun standing still."

      While they didn't believe him, they didn't have an answer either, so they said ,"show us." He went to his desk and retrieved his Bible and, recalling the best he could, started to peruse the Book of Joshua where he found what he was looking for. He showed it to them and they replied skeptically that it was a pretty ridiculous statement for any one with "common sense." Nevertheless, he read the passage in Joshua 10: 12-14,

"On this day, when the Lord delivered up the Amorrites to the Israelites, Josue prayed to the Lord, and said in the presence of Israel: Stand still, O sun, at Gabaon, O moon, in the valley of Ailon! And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, while the nation took vengeance on its foes. Is this not recorded in the Book of Jashar? The sun halted in the middle of the sky; not for a whole day did it resume its swift course. Never before or since was there a day like this, when the Lord obeyed the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel."

      Amazed, the astronauts and scientists blurted excitedly, "There is the missing day!!" They checked the computers going back into the time it was written and found it was close but not close enough. The elapsed time that was missing back in Joshua's day was 23 hours and 20 minutes-not a whole day. They read the Bible and there it was "about (approximately) a day" These little words in the Bible are important, but they were still in trouble because if they could not account for 40 minutes they would still be in trouble 1,000 years from now. Forty minutes had to be found because it can be multiplied many times over in orbits.

      As the Christian employee thought about it, he remembered somewhere in the Bible where it said the sun went BACKWARDS. The scientists told him he was out of his mind, but he started turning the pages again and found these words in 4 Kings 20: 8-11,

"And Ezechias had said to Isaias: What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the temple of the Lord the third day? And Isaias said to him: This shall be the sign from the Lord, that the Lord will do the word which He hath spoken: With thou that the shadow go forward ten lines, or that it go back so many degrees? And Ezechias said: It is an easy matter for the shadow to go forward ten lines; and I do not desire that this be done, but let it return back ten degrees. And Isaias the prophet called upon the Lord, and He brought the shadow ten degrees backwards by the lines, by which it had already gone down in the dial of Achaz."

      Isaiah had spoken to the Lord and the Lord brought the shadow ten degrees BACKWARD! Ten degrees is exactly 40 minutes!

      Twenty three hours and 20 minutes in Joshua, plus 40 minutes in Four Kings make the missing day in the universe! Isn't it amazing?

      Our God is rubbing their noses in His Truth! And all the Holy Father has proclaimed in his most recent encyclical Fides et Ratio! is right on! One cannot reason without faith!

Would you let them live?

     In these days when so many call for the heads of the unborn in the vial sin of abortion, there are some politicians and even some misinformed Catholics who, though against abortion per se, make the exception in the case of rape, malformity or if the mother's life is in danger. Sometimes don't you wish it was retroactive and ask them how they'd feel if someone encouraged their mother to abort? We present four cases below that tests your compassion. Would you consider abortion in the following four situations???

1. There's a preacher and wife who are very, very poor. They already have 14 kids. Now she finds out she's pregnant with the 15th. They're living in tremendous poverty. Considering their poverty the excessive world population, would you consider recommending she get an abortion?

2. The father is very, very sick, the mother has TB. They have four children. The first is blind, the second is deformed, the third is deaf, and the fourth has tuberculosis. She finds she's pregnant again. Given the extreme situation,would you consider recommending abortion?

3. A white man raped a 13 year-old black girl and she got pregnant. If you were her parents, would you consider recommending abortion?

4. A teenage girl is pregnant. She's not married. Her fiance is not the father of the baby, and he's very upset. Would you consider recommending abortion?

     

• If you said "Yes" to the first case, you have just killed John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Protestant sect.

       

• If you said "Yes" to the second case, you have killed one of the greatest pianists and composers ever in Ludwig van Beethoven

       

• If you said "Yes" to the third case, you have killed Ethel Waters, the great black gospel singer.

       

• And finally, if you said "Yes" to the fourth case, you have declared the murder of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (Matthew 1:18-23).

" All who dissent do not live the Gospel message, and you who do this are as the Jewish rabble who cried out in their anger: 'Crucify Him!'"

      Those words from the Blessed Virgin Mary in Message #387 deal with those who would cast a dissident voice and slander her beloved pope-son John Paul II who she protects and who has dedicated his pontificate to via Totus Tuus. She imparts that all must be obedient to him and rally around him against those who would degrade him and seek to discredit his words. She reassures all that he speaks the truth in the true Church deigned by God. She follows this up in her message two days later by urging all her children to pray for unity as she imparts to the Hidden Flower of the Immaculate Heart, reaffirming the urgency of the times and that only through guidance of her Divine Spouse the Holy Spirit can we be assured of finding true refuge in her Divine Son Jesus. For messages 387 and 388, click on "I SOLEMNLY TELL YOU..."

Messages Three Hundred-Eighty-seven and Three Hundred-Eighty-eight

      Beloved Hidden Flower, I love and bless you. Yes, unite all suffering to my Divine Son's Passion for His Mercy pours out through the sacrifice of His victim souls.

      I ask you to say now to all of my children: Behold, I am your Mother. I, the Mother of God, intercede for each of you. I plead. I weep. And my Immaculate Heart, which throbs with my Son's Infinite Love, cannot cease its cries for you.

      Little ones, there is only one true Church, that which my Divine Son founded upon Peter, His Rock. Scripture tells you this and adds that there is to be one flock and one shepherd.

      To those to whom God has granted the faith of Roman Catholicism, I your Heavenly Mother beg you to cease your protestations against my beloved son Pope John Paul II. I desire for all lips to remain closed, and rather for all to bend their knees before the Blessed Sacrament that they may be filled with enlightenment, with true littleness and obedience. All who dissent do not live the Gospel message, and you who do this are as the Jewish rabble who cried out in their anger: "Crucify Him!" O! If you but knew the sorrow you inflict upon Him, Who seeks to give you Mercy but you reject Him.

      To all my children of every faith I solemnly tell you that you are no less God's children, nor am I any less your Mother. To each of you I also say: Rejoice in the faith God has given you and remain true to its first roots. Then in humbleness ask my Divine Son to send upon you the Holy Spirit that you may understand all that is still to come upon the world.

      All the world must pray for unity of mind and heart through the grace of the Holy Spirit. All are called to stand up for the Truth, which is my Divine Son. You must allow the Holy Spirit to possess you that your words are God's words and not your own.

      Children, it would be better if all lips were sealed so mankind could no longer stir up anger, bitterness, dissent by their words and actions. Rather, if all who truly loved my Divine Son would be as one in their faith and beg the Father to allow my Immaculate Heart to Triumph, the Father would hear and respond now.

      May each of you pray ardently for my beloved Pope John Paul II. I repeat. His life is threatened. The dissension he will face in Denver is none other than that which my Divine Son endured before the Sanhedrin, the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate and Herod's courts. How grievous a torment for him. Each dissent from the Truth increases his martyrdom. I need your prayers to offer to the Trinity to preserve his presence among you for yet a little while.

      The times are very grave. The warnings allowed by God increase. Therefore, pray, pray, pray! Be watchful sentinels and for all called by the Holy Spirit, let those communities of faithful I have called for, delay no longer but begin to live as the first Christians lived. Be vigilant. The signs are abounding.

      I love and bless you. Thank you for responding to my Call!

      Beloved Hidden Flower, I am here with you that you might be comforted.

      Tell all of my children that I, their Heavenly Mother, ask everyone in these days of spiritual battle, to keep guard over all their senses. Dear children, I beseech you, do not permit your lower human ego, your base human emotions to rule you. Rather, you must seek the possession of the Holy Spirit Who will instruct you upon the path of holiness. You will be lifted above your finite feelings which are as shadows, and allow you to grasp the realm of God which is Heaven.

      I desire for all my children to speak less and pray more because in this way you will not offend against charity. This is the pathway to the Furnace of Divine Love, my Son's Most Sacred Heart. Let all men be at peace praying for unity of mind and heart through the grace of the Holy Spirit.

      These are very serious times, dear children. Therefore, restore all virtue to your lives lest you be caught up and swept away by apostasy, schism and heresy.

      Pray! Be at peace. God hears the prayers of His faithful ones. I am your Mother. I will guide you.

      Pray! Pray! Pray! Thank you for responding to my Call!

     Today is the Feast of Saint Scholastica, Virgin and Religious Founder of the Benedictine Nuns while tomorrow, besides being the Fifth Wednesday in Ordinary Time, it is also the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. For the readings, liturgies, meditations and vignettes on these feasts, click on DAILY LITURGY.

Wednesday February 10:
Feast of Saint Scholastica, Virgin and Religious Founder

White vestments

First Reading: Genesis 2: 4-9, 15-17
Psalms: Psalm 104: 1-2, 27-30
Gospel Reading: Mark 7: 14-23

      The foundress of the Benedictine Nuns - Saint Scholastica, whose feast has always been celebrated on February 10th, was Saint Benedict's twin sister. Both were born in 480 near Umbria and Sabina in Norcia, Italy. Close from birth, both dedicated themselves to God from an early age. When Benedict went off to become a monk, Scholastica became a nun. When Benedict built Subiaco, Scholastica was at a monastery nearby also establishing convents for Benedictine nuns. She later followed her brother to Montecassino where she entered a monastery at Piumarola, Italy. It was there she died in 547 at the age of 67 with Benedict by her side. After a short visit with his sister, Benedict had intended to leave, but the weather was so fierce he had to stay. It was then he realized she was dying and that God had prevented him from going back to his monastery for this reason. He prayed with her by her bedside for three straight days. On the third day she succumbed and Benedict writes that he saw her soul rise to Heaven in the form of a pure, white dove.

Thursday February 11:
Fifth Thursday in Ordinary Time and
Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes
World Day of Prayer for the Sick

Green or White vestments

First Reading: Genesis 2: 18-25
Psalms: Psalm 128: 1-5
Gospel Reading: Mark 7: 24-30

      The Commemoration of Our Lady's first of 18 apparitions at Lourdes, France on February 11, 1858 is pivotal in advancing the Blessed Mother's plans toward the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart which will usher in the glorious Reign of her Divine Son's Sacred Heart. This feast is one of the favorite feasts of Our Lady for it was in her appearances to visionary Saint Bernadette Soubirous at the grotto of Massabielle that signaled the resurgence of Marian devotion to her Immaculate Heart for she confirmed to Bernadette that she was truly the Immaculate Conception. Since that time there have been countless miracles at the healing waters of Lourdes. Probably the most miraculous is the fact that those who bathe there are, in a sense, returning to the font of their baptism to wash away their old sins and put on the pure robe of grace and a new life in God. Lourdes was approved by Pope Leo XIII in 1890 and Pope Saint Pius X made it an official feast in 1908.

      Today's Prayer is taken from the Preface in the Monastic Supplement to the Roman Missal for the Mass honoring Saint Scholastica:

Father, to clothe Your Church in virginal beauty, You adorned St. Scholastica with the jewels of innocence and made her more acceptable to You with the simplicity of a dove. Sister of our glorious Father St. Benedict, she was also associated with him in sanctity, and under his guidance, seeking You alone above everything else, she produced abundant fruits of grace and has merited to enjoy Your love for all eternity.

    Dear children! I again invite you to prayer. You have no excuse to work more because nature still lies in deep sleep. Open yourselves in prayer. Renew prayer in your families. Put Holy Scripture in a visible place in your families, read it, reflect on it and learn how God loves His people. His love shows itself also in present times because He sends me to call you upon the path of salvation. Thank you for having responded to my call.
For more on Medjugorje, click on MEDJUGORJE AND MORE

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February 10, 1999 volume 10, no. 28   DAILY CATHOLIC