+Christmas 2020

Dear brothers and sisters,

Holy Christmas in the light of the Divine Will of the Child Jesus!

We would like to thank so many of you who sent us their greetings and their testimony in this time of trial and suffering. Our families, our children, our work, our formative activities, our projects, everything we live every day has been impacted and often transformed by the global health crisis. Isolation, illness, work difficulties, like a veil before the sun, have often covered the inner light that dwells in the depths of our hearts: a flame that allows us to see and that warms us!

                We are heartened to know that in her long life Luisa also experienced moments similar to ours. In her writings she told us how she faced them. That flame, or as Luisa liked to call it, “the spark”, is precisely the Divine Will that dwells in us. Nothing can ever extinguish it, nothing can obscure it because it is divine. In the birth of Jesus we contemplate precisely this “prodigy of prodigies, God and man, man and God! Without leaving the Father and the Holy Spirit, He comes to dwell in our midst, taking on human flesh, because true love never separates”. (Diary, Volume IV, December 25, 1900).

                All our strength lies in the hope that God and man are no longer separable.  Not only does God live in us but also – and this is decisive – we live in God, we live of God. This life that is both human and divine within us is the gift, the inheritance or, as Luisa called it, the Christmas gift. It is only missing – but many do not know it yet – that we decide to live this life, doing all our acts in the Divine Will of Jesus, even those acts that belong to this time of pandemic trial.

                We like to unite our wishes for you to those that Luisa made to St. Annibale Maria Di Francia: “With all my heart I wish you holiness in the Supreme Fiat, that holiness willed by our Creator, that is, not holiness in our will, but in His Will. May the divine Infant come into your heart and bring to you the eternal Sun of His Will, which, placing itself as its center in your soul, may direct your whole being towards this Will” (Letter of December 19, 1926).

Fiat!

Vincenza Arbore, president of the Association

Don Sergio Pellegrini, ecclesiastical assistant  and Antonella

To respond to Vincenza Arbore, Don Sergio Pellegrini, and Antonella go to:  info@luisapiccarretaofficial.org

December 15, 2020 (LifeSiteNews)

The months that we leave behind represent one of the darkest moments in the history of humanity: for the first time ever, since the birth of the Savior, the Holy Keys have been used to close churches and restrict the celebration of the Mass and the Sacraments, almost in anticipation of the abolition of the daily Sacrifice prophesied by Daniel, which will take place during the reign of the Antichrist.

By Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

– The following reflection by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is available in Italian HERE.

NOLITE TIMERE
a Meditation in expectation of the birth of the Most Holy Redeemer

Sleep, O Celestial Child:
The nations do not know
Who has been born;
But the day will come
When they shall be
Your noble heritage;
You who sleep so humbly,
You who are hidden in dust:

They will know You as King.

Manzoni, Il Natale

In less than two weeks, by the grace of God, this year of Our Lord 2020, which has been marked by terrible events and great social upheavals, will draw to a close. Allow me to formulate a brief reflection with which to turn a supernatural gaze both towards the recent past as well as the immediate future.

The months that we leave behind represent one of the darkest moments in the history of humanity: for the first time ever, since the birth of the Savior, the Holy Keys have been used to close churches and restrict the celebration of the Mass and the Sacraments, almost in anticipation of the abolition of the daily Sacrifice prophesied by Daniel, which will take place during the reign of the Antichrist. For the first time ever, at the Easter celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection, many of us were forced to assist at Mass and Holy Week services through the internet, depriving us of Holy Communion. For the first time, we became aware, with pain and dismay, of being deserted by our bishops and parish priests, who were barricaded in their palaces and rectories out of fear of a seasonal flu that claimed about the same number of victims as in other years.

We have seen – so to speak – the generals and officers abandon their army, and in some cases they even joined the enemy ranks, imposing on the Church an unconditional surrender to the absurd reasons for the pseudo-pandemic. Never, down all the centuries, has so much faint-heartedness, so much cowardice, so much desire to pander to our persecutors found such fertile ground in those who ought to be our guides and leaders. And what most scandalized many of us was the realization that this betrayal involved the highest levels of the Hierarchy of the Church much more than the priests and the simple faithful. Precisely from the highest Throne, from which we should have expected a firm and authoritative intervention in defense of the rights of God, of the freedom of the Church and the salvation of souls, we have received instead invitations to obey unjust laws, illegitimate norms, and irrational orders. And in the words that the media promptly spread from Santa Marta, we recognized many, too many, nods to the insider language of the globalist élite – fraternity, universal income, new world order, build back better, great reset, nothing will be ever be the same again, resilience – all words of the new language, which testify to the idem sentire of those who speak them and those who listen to them.

It was a true act of intimidation, a thinly-veiled threat, with which our Pastors ratified the pandemic alarm, sowed terror among the simple, and abandoned the dying and the needy. In the height of a cynical legalism, it even reached the point of prohibiting priests from hearing Confessions and administering the Last Sacraments to those were abandoned in intensive care, depriving our beloved dead of religious burial, and denying the Blessed Sacrament to many souls.

And if on the religious side of things we saw ourselves treated as outsiders and barred access to our churches like the Saracens of old – even as the implacable invasion of illegal immigrants continued to replenish the coffers of the self-styled humanitarian associations – on the civil and political side we discovered that our rulers had a vocation to tyranny: using a rhetoric now disproven by reality, they wanted to make us think of them as representatives of the sovereign people. By heads of state and prime ministers, by regional governors and local mayors, the fullest rigors of the law were imposed on us as if we were rebellious subjects, suspects to be placed under surveillance even in the privacy of our own homes, criminals to be chased even in the solitude of the woods or along the seashore. We have seen people forcibly dragged by soldiers in anti-riot gear, elderly people fined while they were going to the pharmacy, shopkeepers forced to close their doors, and restaurants that first took costly measures in an effort to comply with the government’s demands only to then to be ordered to be closed.

With bewilderment, we have heard scores of self-styled experts – most of whom are lacking any scientific authority whatsoever and largely in grave conflict of interest due to their ties to pharmaceutical companies and supra-national organizations – pontificating on television programs and on the pages of newspapers about infections, vaccines, immunity, positive tests, the obligation to wear masks, the risks for the elderly, the contagiousness of the asymptomatic, and the danger of seeing one’s family. They have thundered at us, using arcane words like “social distancing” and “gatherings,” in an endless series of grotesque contradictions, absurd alarms, apocalyptic threats, social precepts and health ceremonies that have replaced religious rites. And as they have terrorized the population – all while being paid lavishly for their pronouncements made at every hour of the day – our rulers and politicians have flaunted their masks in front of all the television cameras, only to then take them off as soon as possible.

Forced to disguise ourselves as anonymous people without a face, they have imposed a muzzle on us that is absolutely useless for avoiding contagion and actually harmful to our health, but indispensable for their purposes of making us feel subjugated and forced to conform. They have prevented us from being cured with existing and effective treatments, promoting instead a vaccine that they now want to make obligatory even before knowing if it is effective, after only incomplete testing. And in order not to jeopardize the enormous profits of the pharmaceutical companies, they have granted immunity for the damage that their vaccines may cause to the population. The vaccine is free, they tell us, but it will actually be paid for with taxpayers’ money, even if its producers do not guarantee that it will protect from contagion.

In this scenario that is similar to the disastrous effects of a war, the economy of our countries lies prostrate, while online commerce companies, home delivery companies, and pornography producers are booming. The local shops close but the large shopping centers and supermarkets remain open: monuments to the consumerism in which everyone, even those with Covid, continue to fill their carts with foreign products, German cheeses, Moroccan oranges, Canadian flour, and cell phones and televisions made in China.

“The world is preparing for the Great Reset,” they tell us obsessively. “Nothing will ever be the same again.” We will have to get used to “living with the virus,” subjected to a perpetual pandemic that feeds the pharmaceutical Moloch and legitimizes ever more hateful limitations of our fundamental liberties. Those who since childhood have catechized us to worship freedom, democracy, and popular sovereignty today govern us by depriving us of freedom in the name of health, imposing dictatorship, arrogating to themselves a power that no one has ever conferred on them, neither from above nor from below. And the temporal power that Freemasonry and the Liberals ferociously opposed in the Roman Pontiffs is today claimed by them in reverse, in an attempt to submit the Church of Christ to the power of the State with the approval and collaboration of the highest levels of the Hierarchy.

Out of this whole humanly discouraging scenario, an unavoidable fact emerges: there is a chasm between those who hold authority and those who are subjected to it, between rulers and citizens, between the Hierarchy and the faithful. It is an institutional monstrum in which both civil and religious power are almost entirely in the hands of unscrupulous people who have been appointed because of their absolute ineptitude and great vulnerability to blackmail. Their role is not to administer the institution but to demolish it, not to respect its laws but to violate them, not to protect its members but to disperse and distance them. In short, we find ourselves facing the perversion of authority, not due to chance or inexperience but pursued with determination and following a pre-established plan: a single script under a single direction.

We thus have rulers who persecute their citizens and treat them as enemies, while welcoming and financing the invasion of criminals and illegal immigrants; law enforcement officers and judges who arrest and fine those who violate social-distancing rules, even as they ostentatiously ignore criminals, rapists, assassins and treacherous politicians; teachers who do not transmit culture or the love of knowledge but instead indoctrinate students into gender and globalist ideology; doctors who refuse to treat the sick but impose a genetically-modified vaccine whose efficacy and potential side-effects are unknown; bishops and priests who deny the faithful the Sacraments but who never miss an occasion for propagandizing their own unconditional adherence to the globalist agenda in the name of Masonic Brotherhood.

Those who oppose this overturning of every principle of civil life find themselves abandoned, alone, and without a leader who would unite them. Loneliness, in fact, allows our common enemies – as they have amply demonstrated themselves to be – to instill fear, despair, and the feeling of not being able to stand together to resist the assaults to which we have been subjected. Citizens are alone in the face of the abuse of civil power, the faithful are alone in the face of the arrogance of heretical Prelates given over to vice, and those who wish to dissent, raise their voice, or protest within institutions are likewise alone.

Loneliness and fear increase when we give them ground to stand on, but they vanish if we think of how each one of us merited that the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity became incarnate in the most pure womb of the Virgin Mary: qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de coelis. And here we come to the Mysteries which we are preparing to contemplate in these coming days: the Immaculate Conception and the Lord’s Holy Nativity. From these mysteries, dear friends, we can draw renewed hope with which to face the events that await us.

Above all, we must remember that none of us is ever truly alone: we have the Lord at our side. He always wants our good, and so he never fails to send us His help and His grace, if only we ask for it with faith. We have the Most Blessed Virgin at our side, our loving Mother and our secure refuge. We have near us the hosts of Angels and the multitude of Saints who from the glory of Heaven intercede for us before the Throne of the Divine Majesty.

The contemplation of this sublime community that is the Holy Church, the mystical Jerusalem that we are citizens of and living members, should persuade us that the last thing we ought to fear is being alone, and that there is no reason to be afraid, even if the devil rages to make us believe that there is. True loneliness is in Hell, where the damned souls do not have any hope: that is the loneliness we should truly fear, and before it we must beg for the grace of final perseverance, that is, to be able to merit the grace of a holy death from the Mercy of God. A death for which we ought to always be prepared by keeping ourselves in a state of grace, in friendship with the Lord.

Of course, the trials that we are facing in this moment are tremendous, because they give us the feeling that evil is triumphing, that each of us is abandoned to ourselves, that the wicked have managed to get the better of the pusillus grex [little flock] and of all humanity. But was not our Lord perhaps alone in Gethsemane, alone on the wood of the Cross, alone in the Tomb? And returning to the mystery of Christmas that is now fast approaching: were not the Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph perhaps alone when they found themselves forced to take refuge in a stable because non erat locus illis in diversorio [there was no room for them in the inn]? Imagine how the putative father of Jesus must have felt seeing his Most Holy Spouse ready to give birth in the cold of the night of Palestine; think of their worries during the Flight into Egypt, knowing that King Herod had unleashed his soldiers to kill the Infant Jesus. Even in these terrible situations, the solitude of the Holy Family was only apparent, while God arranged everything according to His plans. He sent an Angel to announce the birth of the Savior to the shepherds.

He moved no less than a Star to call the Magi from the Orient to adore the Messiah. He sent choirs of His Angels to sing over the cave of Bethlehem. He warned Saint Joseph to flee in order to escape the massacre of Herod.

Also to us, in the solitude of the lockdown which many of us are forced to endure, in the abandonment of the hospital, in the silence of the deserted streets and the churches closed to worship, the Lord comes to bring his company. Also to us He sends His Angel to inspire us with holy purposes, his Most Holy Mother to console us, the Paraclete to give us comfort, dulcis hospes animae.

We are not alone: we are never alone. And it is this, in the end, that the authors of the Great Reset fear most: that we become aware of this supernatural – but no less true  – reality that makes the house of cards of their infernal deceptions collapse.

If we think of how we have at our side She who crushes the head of the Serpent, or the Archangel who has drawn his sword to drive Lucifer into the abyss; if we recall that our Guardian Angel, our Patron Saint, and our dear ones in Heaven and Purgatory are with us: what can we ever be afraid of? Do we want to believe that the God of armies drawn up for battle has any hesitation about defeating any servant of the eternally defeated one?

She who in the year 630 saved Constantinople from siege, terrorizing the Avars and Persians by appearing tremendous in the heavens; who in 1091 at Scicli in Sicily was invoked as Our Lady of the Militia and appeared on a shining cloud chasing away the Saracens; who in 1571 at Lepanto and again in 1683 at Vienna was invoked as Queen of Victories and granted victory to the Christian army against the Turks; who during the anti-Catholic persecution of Mexico protected the Cristeros and repelled the army of the Mason Elias Calles – She will not deny us Her holy assistance; She will not leave us alone in the battle; She will not abandon those who have recourse to Her with trusting prayer in the moment in which the conflict is decisive and the confrontation is nearing an end.

We have had the grace to understand what this world can become if we deny the Lordship of God and replace it with the tyranny of Satan. This is the world that is rebellious against Christ the King and Mary the Queen, in which each day thousands of innocent lives in the wombs of their mothers are sacrificed to Satan; this is the world in which vice and sin want to cancel every trace of good and virtue, every memory of the Christian religion, every law and vestige of our civilization, every trace of the order that the Creator has given to nature. A world in which churches burn, Crosses are knocked down, statues of the Virgin are decapitated: this hatred, this Satanic fury against Christ and the Mother of God is the mark of the Evil One and his servants. In the face of this total Revolution, this accursed New World Order that would prepare the way for the kingdom of the Antichrist, we cannot still believe that any brotherhood is possible if not under the Law of God, nor that it is possible to construct peace if not under the mantle of the Queen of Peace. Pax Christi in regno Christi.

The Lord will give us the victory only when we bow down to Him as our King. And if we cannot yet proclaim Him as King of our Nations because of the impiety of those who govern us, we can nevertheless consecrate ourselves, our families, and our communities to Him. And to those who dare to challenge Heaven in the name of “Nothing will be the same again,” we respond by invoking God with renewed fervor: “As it was in beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.”

Let us pray to the Immaculate Virgin, Tabernacle of the Most High, asking that in our meditation on the Holy Nativity of Her Divine Son which now draws near, She may dispel our fear and solitude, gathering us together in adoration around the manger. In the poverty of the crib, in the silence of the cave of Bethlehem, the song of the Angels resounds; the one true Light of the world shines forth, adored by the shepherds and the Magi, and Creation itself bows down, adorning the vault of heaven with a shining Star. Veni, Emmanuel: captivum solve Israël. Come, O Emmanuel, free your imprisoned people.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

13 December 2020
Dominica Gaudete, III Adventus

*Below is the text of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s video speech to Saturday’s Jericho March.*

JERICHO MARCH
“LET THE CHURCH ROAR!”

December 12, 2020

Dear brothers and sisters,

I greet all of you on this day dedicated to prayer for our beloved Nation, the United States of America. Let’s ask God to make truth and justice triumph! Let’s ask Him to dispel the lies and deceptions of the children of darkness!

You have organized these marches in many cities in America, and named them after a Biblical event: the siege of Jericho. Jericho was the first city that the people of Israel came to after they crossed the Jordan River and entered the Promised Land. The way that God commanded the Hebrew people to conquer Jericho shows us the wonderful ways of the Lord, which are so different from our ways! The Book of Joshua tells us that Jericho was walled up and completely closed – it appeared to be an impregnable fortress! It appeared that a long siege would be necessary to conquer it by hunger, or else that huge weapons of war would be needed to break down its walls. And yet the only thing God commanded was that the people walk around the city with the Ark of the Covenant, blowing the Jubilee Trumpets, as the soldiers and people followed in perfect silence, for seven days.

God did not want to make the city of Jericho fall immediately, in order to show mercy to its inhabitants and invite them to do penance. As Saint John Chrysostom says, “The Lord, who took six days to create the heavens and the earth, took seven days to destroy a sinful city.” The Jubilee Trumpets that sounded around the city were used by the Jews to announce pardon and forgiveness. God would not have made them sound without an ending that was full of goodness. In the same way, an ending that is full of goodness inspires our prayer today, for our Country and for our President!

Even the little children walked with their mothers around the city: those little ones were the most chosen portion of all, because they embodied the innocence that overwhelmed wickedness. Thus, moral strength fought against brutal violence, faith fought against unbelief, obedience fought against arrogant rebellion, humility fought against pride, and faith in the Lord fought against the presumption of man. God revealed the superiority of the power of Good over the power of Evil through an astonishing intervention.

We too, in this hour of great tribulation for our Nation, are praying that truth will triumph over lies, justice over abuse and fraud, honesty over corruption, honor over infamy, faithfulness over betrayal, and that order will triumph over destruction.

We are the silent army of the children of Light, the humble ranks who overthrow evil by invoking God, the praying army that walks around the walls of lies and betrayal in order to bring them down.

We fight the battles of the Lord with faith and courage, carrying the Ark of the Covenant in our hearts, remaining faithful to the teachings of the Gospel of Our Lord! We do not need material strength to fight, because we have the Lord of Armies at our side! Nothing can resist the power of the prayer. The walls of the Deep State, behind which evil is barricaded, will come crashing down!

Jericho was also the place where Jesus Christ converted the tax collector Zaccheus (Luke 19: 1-10). We pray for the conversion of public officials who have become complicit in public fraud and have betrayed their oath to serve our Nation.

Along the road that led from Jerusalem to Jericho, the Good Samaritan stopped to help and care for the traveler who was attacked by robbers (Luke 10:25-37). May his fraternal charity be an example for Patriots who are called to serve our homeland that has been attacked and wounded by both internal and external enemies.

It was also in Jericho that the Lord healed Bartimaeus of his blindness (Mark 10:46-53). May the blind man’s faith spur us on to conversion, so that we place our trust once again in God and that He may hear the cry of our prayer for our beloved Nation.

We are citizens of Heaven: this is the homeland that awaits us for eternity. On this earth we are also children of a homeland that gave us birth and in which we were raised and educated, a homeland we have served with dedication and courage. Be proud, as Christians and as Patriots, to be able to give witness today to your faith in God and your love for the United States of America, for its Constitution, and for its President Donald J. Trump.

Let us pray…

O Lord, Almighty God, prostrate before Thee we invoke Thy powerful protection in this hour of great turmoil, when darkness seems to be spreading over our beloved Nation.

Make vain the assaults of those who, blinded by vice and hatred of Thee, wish to subject our Nation and the whole world to the tyranny of sin and rebellion. Grant wisdom and courage to those who are called to decide the fortunes of the United States of America, and to those who serve their country with fidelity and honor.

Lord, bless our President and our public officials. For those who exercise the power entrusted to them from above, obtain the graces necessary to carry out their duties with integrity and justice.

O Almighty God, who many times hast manifested the power of Thy right hand at the side of Christian armies, place Thyself at the head of this army of Thy children. Let the prayer we address to Thee through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Patroness of the Americas, rise up to Thee, so that we may attain the freedom and peace that Thou hast promised us.

And just as in the time of Joshua, raise up holy heroes and courageous witnesses of the Faith, so also today hear the prayer we raise to Thee, and break down the walls of the City of darkness, granting victory to those who serve under Thy holy banner. Amen.

ONE NATION UNDER GOD

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
Former Apostolic Nuncio in the United States of America

GOD BLESS OUR PRESIDENT

GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ONE NATION UNDER GOD

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
Former Apostolic Nuncio in the United States of America

https://revelationstwelve.wordpress.com/2020/12/14/archbishop-vigano-we-must-pray-truth-will-triumph-over-lies-justice-over-abuse-fraud/

For more information go to:  https://www.luisapiccarretaofficial.org/news/pope-francis-proclaims-year-of-st-joseph/636 

The Five First Saturdays Devotion – start today!

as Requested by Our Lady of Fatima

Our Lady of Fatima Promises all the Graces Necessary for Heaven
if a Catholic Finishes the Five First Saturdays Devotion

“Whether the world has war or peace depends on the practice of this devotion, along with the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This is why I desire its propagation so ardently, especially because this is also the will of our dear Mother in Heaven.” -Sr. Lucy (March 19, 1939)

During her July apparition at Fatima, Our Lady said to Lucia, “I shall come to ask… that on the First Saturday of every month, Communions of reparation be made in atonement for the sins of the world.” Although she made no further mention of this devotion at Fatima, on December 10, 1925, our Blessed Mother again appeared to Lucia at Pentevedra, Spain, where the seer had been sent to the Dorothean Sisters to learn to read and write. It was there Our Lady completed her request for the Five First Saturdays and gave her great promise.

Appearing with the Queen of Heaven in that apparition was the Infant Jesus, Who said to Lucia: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.”

Our Lady then spoke: “See, my daughter, my Heart encircled by thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Do you, at least, strive to console me. Tell them that I promise to assist at the hour of death with the graces necessary for salvation all those who, in order to make reparation to me, on the First Saturday of five successive months, go to confession, receive Holy Communion, say five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for a quarter of an hour, meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary.”

The elements of this devotion, therefore, consist in the following four points, all of which must be offered in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. One should make this intention before carrying out Our Lady’s requests. A renewal of the actual intention at the time is best; however, if such an intention is made now, it will fulfill the requirements if, for instance, the actual intention is forgotten at the time of confession.

Confession: This confession can be made before the First Saturday or afterward, provided that Holy Communion be received in the state of grace. In 1926, Christ in a vision explained to Lucia that this confession could be made a week before or even more, and that it should be offered in reparation.

Holy Communion: Before receiving Holy Communion, it is likewise necessary to offer it in reparation to Our Lady. Our Lord told Lucia in 1930, “This Communion will be accepted on the following Sunday for just reasons, if my priests allow it so.” So if work or school, sickness, or another just reason prevents the Communion on a First Saturday, with this permission it may be received the following Sunday. If Communion is transferred, any or all of the other acts of the devotion may also be performed on Sunday if the person so desires.

Rosary: The Rosary is a vocal prayer said while meditating upon the mysteries of Our Lord’s life and Passion and Our Lady’s life. To comply with the request of our Blessed Mother, it must be offered in reparation and said properly while meditating.

15-minute meditation: Also offered in reparation, the meditation may embrace one or more mysteries; it may include all, taken together or separately. This meditation should be the richest of any meditation, because Our Lady promised to be present when she said “…those who keep me company….”

To those who faithfully follow Our Lady’s requests for the Five First Saturdays, she has made a wonderful promise which she, as Mediatrix of All Graces, will certainly fulfill: “I promise to assist at the hour of death with the graces necessary for salvation.” This means that our Blessed Mother will be present at the hour of death with the actual grace of final perseverance, (which after the gift/grace of Faith), is the most important grace.

After completing the Five First Saturdays, one may continue the devotion simply to console the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady. A tender love of our Blessed Mother will lead one to do all he can to make reparation for the sins which pierce her Immaculate Heart. Let us remember, too, that although Our Lady made this promise to those who would observe five such First Saturdays in succession, in her July apparition she asked simply that Communions of reparation be made on every First Saturday to atone for the sins of the world.