The Virgin Mary to Marco Ferrari in Paratico, October 24, 2021:
My dear and beloved little children, I rejoice on finding you here in prayer. Thank you, my children! Today I invite you to place your fears, your sorrows, your sufferings, your anxieties and your worries in my Heart. My children, my Heart receives everything that you wish to present to me today… I also receive your joys, your happiness, your satisfaction. My children, I receive everything and I urge you to transform your lives so as to please Jesus. From this place, I urge you to go out into the whole world bearing the Gospel, testifying to your faith and spreading charity and love. I welcome your hearts into my Heart and I bless you in the name of God who is Father, God who is Son, God who is the Spirit of Love. Amen. I kiss you all and invite you to pray for the poor, the sick and the abandoned: tell them too that my Heart blesses and welcomes them. Goodbye, my children.
We must never forget that Jesus gave the Church a mother, His mother!
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home. (John 19:26-27)
One of the earliest frescos of the Blessed Mother dated about 150 A.D. is in the catacomb of Priscilla. It is an image of Our Lady holding her son. Jesus is the Head of the Church, and we are His Body. Is Mary only the mother of a head, or the entire body? This mystical union of the Church with Mary, a creature like us, is not an obstacle to our worship of the Holy Trinity but, in fact, enhances, instructs, and deepens it. The Catholic Church has understood and taught for over 2000 years the significance of this beautiful gift that Jesus left us: a true, living Mother who, in our times, has come to comfort and walk with us through these difficult days.
I used to be afraid of Mary. I used to think that she would steal Jesus’ thunder. But as I embraced her as a mother, I soon began to realize that she is the lightning that shows the way to Him. The more I “took her into my home”, that is my heart, the more I fell in love with Jesus, my Savior. The more I entrusted my discipleship to her mothering, the more I have been able to detach from this world and follow her Son. What a lie it is that Satan has planted in Christendom that Mary is an obstacle to God! Even the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, understood her role in the life of the Church:
Mary is the Mother of Jesus and the Mother of all of us even though it was Christ alone who reposed on her knees… If he is ours, we ought to be in his situation; there where he is, we ought also to be and all that he has ought to be ours, and his mother is also our mother. —Martin Luther, Sermon, Christmas, 1529.
And if she is our mother, then we should pour out our wounded, troubled, confused and anxious hearts upon her this day. St. Paul says that we should not despise prophecy but test it. So test this prophecy! Do it: ask Our Mother to help you in your present situation. Ask her to find solutions. Ask her to rescue you. Ask her to be with you. And then watch.
The Word of God is trustworthy: Behold, your mother!
My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge
and the way that will lead you to God.
—Our Lady of Fatima, June 13, 1917
—Mark Mallett is the author of The Final Confrontation and The Now Word, and a cofounder of Countdown to the Kingdom
Related Reading
Do I need her? Read The Great Gift
The key to Mary that unlocks the Scriptures: Key to the Woman
The Marian Dimension of the Storm
Protestants, Mary, and the Ark of Refuge
Our Lady’s powerful intercession in a dark moment: A Miracle of Mercy