September 19th - Our Lady of La Salette
Waldtraud
On September 19, 1846, the Mother of God appeared to two young shepherds,
Melanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud, on the heights of the mountain of La
Salette in France. There She dictated to them a public message which She
asked to make known to all Her people. And to each little shepherd privately
She confided a secret, concerning which She gave special directives. Our
text for the feast of Blessed Maximin Giraud, September 20th, gives in his
own words a brief description of the apparition. And we summarize [tomorrow]
the public message, with its warnings and predictions, all of which have
already been fulfilled. Blessed Melanie Calvat was invested with the mission
of founding a new religious Order, the Order of the Mother of God, which
would associate under one single common rule more than one community, and
would include the Apostles of the Latter Times announced by Saint Louis Mary
de Montfort in his Prophetic Prayer.
Blessed Melanie was told by the Mother of God to make known her secret after
the year 1858, and she published it herself in the face of great
difficulties. It was important, and remains important, for the Church to be
aware of its contents. We therefore will summarize today, briefly, the
secret of La Salette for those who may not yet know it, or even of it.
The Blessed Virgin announced that it was primarily the defections of the
Church which will bring down on the world the exemplary chastisement:
"God is going to strike in an unprecedented manner. Woe to the inhabitants
of the earth! God is going to exhaust His wrath, and no one will be able to
resist so many concerted woes... Many will abandon the faith, and the number
of priests and religious who will dissociate themselves from the true
religion will be great... Many religious institutes will lose the faith
entirely and will cause the loss of many souls. The Church will pass through
a frightful crisis... The Holy Father will suffer greatly. I will be with
him to the end to receive his sacrifice... For a time God will not remember
France or Italy because the Gospel of Jesus Christ is no longer known...
[But the] prayers, penance and tears of the just will ascend to heaven, and
the entire people of God will beg for pardon and mercy and will ask My
assistance and My intercession. Then Jesus Christ, by an act of His justice
and His great mercy toward the just [will intervene and] then there will be
peace, the reconciliation of God with men... Charity will flourish
everywhere.. The Gospel will be preached everywhere, and men will make great
progress in the faith, because there will be unity among the workers of
Jesus Christ and men will live in the fear of God."
She foretells: "Rome will lose the faith and will become the seat of
Antichrist." To call Her children to combat for God in the days of darkness
and sin, the Mother of God concludes:
"I address an urgent appeal to the earth: I summon the true disciples of God
who lives and reigns in heaven; I summon the true imitators of Christ made
man, the one true Saviour of men; I summon My children, My true devotees,
those who have given themselves to Me so that I might lead them to My divine
Son, those whom I carry, so to speak, in My arms, those who have lived
according to My spirit; finally, I summon the Apostles of the Latter Times,
the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who have lived in scorn of the world
and of themselves, in poverty and in humility, in contempt and in silence,
in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in
suffering and unknown to the world. It is time for them to arise and come
forth to enlighten the earth.
"Go, and show yourselves as My cherished children; I am with you and in you,
provided that your faith be the light that enlightens you in these days of
woe. May your zeal cause you to be as famished for the glory and honor of
Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light, you little number who see; for
behold the time of times, the end of ends."
Source: The Apparition of the Blessed Virgin on the Mountain of La Salette
(Magnificat: St. Jovite, 1973).
Saint Quote:
Whoever bids other folks to do right, but gives an evil example by acting
the opposite way, is like a foolish weaver who weaves quickly with one hand
and unravels the cloth just as quickly with the other.
-St. Thomas More
Bible Quote:
May the God of patience and of comfort grant you to be of one mind toward
one another. Rom. 15:5
<><><><>
Novena Prayer To Our Sorrowful Mother
Most Blessed and afflicted Virgin, Queen of Martyrs, who didst stand
generously beneath the cross, beholding the agony of thy dying Son; by the
sword of sorrow which then pierced thy soul, by the sufferings of thy
sorrowful life, by the unutterable joy which now more than repays thee for
them; look down with a mother's pity and tenderness, as I kneel before thee
to compassionate thy sorrows, and to lay my petition with childlike
confidence in thy wounded heart. I beg of thee, O my Mother, to plead
continually for me with thy Son, since He can refuse thee nothing, and
through the merits of His most sacred Passion and Death, together with thy
own sufferings at the foot of the cross, so to touch His Sacred Heart, that
I may obtain my request,
For to whom shall I fly in my wants and miseries, if not to thee, O Mother
of mercy, who, having so deeply drunk the chalice of thy Son, canst most
pity us poor exiles, still doomed to sigh in this vale of tears? Offer to
Jesus but one drop of His Precious Blood, but one pang of His adorable
Heart; remind Him that thou art our life, our sweetness, and our hope, and
thou wilt obtain what I ask, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Hail Mary
Virgin Most Sorrowful, pray for us
(Seven times each)
Mary, most holy Virgin and Queen of Martyrs, accept the sincere homage of my
filial affection. Into thy Heart, pierced by so many swords, do thou welcome
my poor soul. Receive it as the companion of thy sorrows at the foot of the
Cross, on which Jesus died for the redemption of the world. With thee, O
sorrowful Virgin, I will gladly suffer all the trials, contradictions, and
infirmities which it shall please Our Lord to send me. I offer them all to
thee in memory of thy sorrows, so that: every thought of my mind and every
beat of my heart may be an act of compassion and of love for thee. And do
thou, sweet Mother, have pity on me, reconcile me to thy Divine Son, Jesus;
keep me in His grace and assist me in my last agony, so that I may be able
to meet thee in Heaven and sing thy glories.
Most holy Virgin and Mother, whose soul was pierced by a sword of sorrow in
the Passion of thy Divine Son, and who in His glorious Resurrection wast
filled with never ending joy at His triumph, obtain for us who call upon
thee, so to be partakers in the adversities of Holy Church and the Sorrows
of the Sovereign Pontiff, as to be found worthy to rejoice with them in the
consolations for which we pray, in the charity and peace of the same Christ
our Lord.
Amen.