On this day, (while it seemed the exact opposite), Satan's power over us was destroyed!
Satan's hold on us through sin and death has been vanquished and God has won an eternal and everlasting victory for all who believe and accept God's love through the Cross.
Salvation is a free gift and yet, it also must be freely chosen.
We have to choose Jesus and His salvation, and unfortunately, many in our world have not. Many believe satan's lies and cling to their sin.
God could have accomplished everything for us by His strength, but He has asked us to freely participate in bringing to fullness the salvation He has won.
He asked to be other Christs: to be His Hands and Feet, His Heart, His Voice...
Our fasting and prayer is a participation in redemption, and it is through these means that we are both protected from satan's snares and help to break the hold satan still has over those he has deceived.
Our Lady teaches us that our fasting and prayer, united with Christ's passion and resurrection, pours out graces of love and redemption upon those who don't believe and have not yet known God's love.
Mary teaches us that fasting stops wars.
Who of us isn't in the midst of war, of sin and division? Who of us doesn't need to continually combat lies that come against our minds and souls? Who of us can say we have never been deceived?
The greatest war is the enemy's constant attacks against our minds and souls that call us to distrust God rather than having faith in Him, and to choose selfishness rather than the selflessness of love, gluttony over self-denial, lust over purity, greed over charity, wrath over forgiveness, envy and jealousy over kindness and gratitute, sin over holiness, pride over humility, war and division over peace and unity, choosing to be strong in ourselves rather being weak in Christ:
But the Lord said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.…In the midst of this battle, Mary has come to tell us we are essential to fulfilling God's plan.
We matter!
“Dear children, behold, also today I want to call you to start living a new life as of today. Dear children, I want you to comprehend that God has chosen EACH ONE OF YOU, in order to use you in a great plan for the salvation of mankind. You are not able to comprehend how great your role is in God’s design. Therefore, dear children, pray so that in prayer you may be able to comprehend what God’s plan is in your regard. I am with you in order that you may be able to bring it about in all its fullness. Thank you for having responded to my call.” (1/25/87)
She tells us we needs to live her messages in order for God's plan to be fulfilled, which is to bring about the Triumph she first prophesied in Fatima!
The fruit of Mary's womb, Jesus, brought about the ultimate Triumph and crushed Satan fully and completely on the Cross on Good Friday, but it is up to us to live out this salvation.
In this age, Our Lord wants to establish devotion to Mary - he wants all to see her integral part in God's plan of salvation.
After showing the children hell, Mary said in Fatima: "You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart."(7/13/1907)
For we would not have had the person of Jesus without her, for although He was God, He chose to be formed in her womb. Jesus and Mary are intimately united and will be for all eternity. Because Jesus is a Divine Person, He lived not only His life on earth, but also as the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, always lived outside of space and time - therefore every aspect of Jesus' life is also eternal. All time - past, present and future - is as one for Him ... thus, in a certain sense, we can say Jesus is still present in the womb of Mary, He is still a newborn dependent on her nourishment and care, He is still a son being sheltered and provided for by St. Joseph, etc. - even now because God IS - I AM WHO I AM - existence itself - thus, all times associated with Him are eternal.
That is why when we can participate in the Holy Mass, we can truly be present at Calvary. The veil of time and space is lifted and we are there in the one eternal ever-living Sacrifice of Jesus offering Himself to the Father. The part that is ever new, is our participation in this Mystery - as we unite ourselves to Christ in His offering to the Father, through the grace and salvation He first won and shared with us.
This understanding helps us begin to understand how truly united and inseparable Mary and Jesus are... and how God - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - long to proclaim her part in crushing satan through her complete humility. For Mary was the littlest of all. There was no hint of pride or vanity in her that blocked grace - she was so empty of selfishness and so humble that she could be completely Full of Grace -
So she, filled with God's life and love to the full, became the fulfillment of the first promise of God following the Fall:
“I will put enmities between thee [the serpent] and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel” Gen 3:15.It is to littlest one, Mary, that He has entrusted us. It is her complete and total humility that has made her the head-crusher of satan, and in so far as we are humble and united to her, we too participate in this great plan of God.
O, nothing causes satan more pain than to be brought down by mere creatures, who through humility, prayer and sacrifice heap burning coals of love and mercy upon his head - O, what horror for him!
No, God did not leave us to battle satan alone during these 100 years of trial. Instead, He has given us his Mother to be our own.
Her messages are Heaven's battle plan against satan.
She tells us that, through our cooperation, we have a part to play in ending the power satan has been allowed to have for these past hundred years. This reality was shown to Pope Leo XIII in a horrible vision. He was so shaken by what he saw that he sat down at once and composed the St. Michael Prayer, which he asked to be prayed after every Mass throughout the world.
This vision took place on Oct. 13th, 1884 -- exactly 33 years before the great miracle of the sun at Fatima!
Watch this for some incredible insights regarding Pope Leo's vision and Fatima:
Mary in Fatima asked the children to pray and offer sacrifices for the salvation of souls, saying:
“Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them.” Our Lady of Fatima, August 19, 1917Mary asks the same from us today through her requests for prayers and fasting in Medjugorje. She also confirmed that it would also be through Medjugorje that her plans in Fatima would be fulfilled, saying to Mirjana:
Her triumph is the defeat of satan's power in the lives of her children.“What I have started in Fatima I will finish in Medjugorje. My heart will triumph.”
Likewise it was through Medjugorje that Mary confirmed Pope Leo XIII's vision of the Church being allowed to be tried by satan. Mirjana revealed that satan came disguised asking her to renounce Our Lady and to follow him. If she did so, she would be happy; but if she chose to follow Our Lady, her life would be filled with suffering. Mirjana rejected him and immediately, Our Lady came to Mirjana and satan disappeared.
Then Our Lady gave Mirjana the following message:
“… Excuse me for this, but you must realize that satan exists. One day he appeared before the throne of God and asked permission to submit the Church to a period of trial. God gave him permission to try the Church for one century. This century is under the power of the devil, but when the secrets confided to you come to pass, his power will be destroyed. Even now he is beginning to lose his power and has become aggressive. He is destroying marriages, creating division among priests and is responsible for obsessions and murder. you must protect yourselves against these things through fasting and prayer, especially community prayer. Carry blessed objects with you. Put them in your house and restore the use of holy water…”
(Mirjana revealed this occurrence and message to Pope John Paul II in a letter in December 1982…)
The antidote to the reality of satan, of sin and of evil is love and humility.
It is Mary. Inseparably united to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit... whose only desire is to do whatever He tells her...
This humility, love and union with God is the only source of peace.
Saint Jacinta of Fatima implores us:
"Pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace, since God has entrusted it to her."Coming as the Queen of Peace in Medjugorje, Mary gives us the weapons of victory:
Participation in Jesus' Sacrifice of Love, Grace and Mercy poured out in our daily bread - Holy Mass,
Conversion of heart - Confession,
Feasting on His Holy Word - Scripture,
Lifting our minds and hearts in communication with God - Prayer
and renunciation of our selfishness - Fasting.
We, who listen and live her messages are her chosen ones, and perhaps it is us of whom St. Louis de Montfort prophesied:
Towards the end of the world ... Almighty God and His holy Mother are to raise up saints who will surpass in holiness most other saints as much as the cedars of Lebanon tower above little shrubs.Know of my heartfelt prayers for each of you on this Good Friday. May we pray continually as Mary calls us:
These great souls filled with grace and zeal will be chosen to oppose the enemies of God who are raging on all sides. They will be exceptionally devoted to the Blessed Virgin. Illumined by her light, strengthened by her spirit, supported by her arms, sheltered under her protection, they will fight with one hand and build with the other.
With one hand they will give battle, overthrowing and crushing heretics and their heresies, schismatics and their schisms, idolaters and their idolatries, sinners and their wickedness. With the other hand they will build the temple of the true Solomon and the mystical city of God, namely, the Blessed Virgin. ...
They will be like thunderclouds flying through the air at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God's word and of eternal life. They will thunder against sin; they will storm against the world; they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life and for death, they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God's word all those against whom they are sent by Almighty God.
They will be true apostles of the latter times to whom the Lord of Hosts will give eloquence and strength to work wonders and carry off glorious spoils from His enemies. They will sleep without gold or silver and, more important still, without concern in the midst of other priests, ecclesiastics and clerics. Yet they will have the silver wings of the dove enabling them to go wherever the Holy Spirit calls them, filled as they are, with the resolve to seek the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Wherever they preach, they will leave behind them nothing but the gold of love, which is the fulfillment of the whole law.
They will have the two-edged sword of the Word of God in their mouths and the bloodstained standard of the Cross on their shoulders. They will carry the crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, and the holy names of Jesus and Mary on their heart.
Mary scarcely appeared in the first coming of Christ. ... But in the second coming of Jesus Christ, Mary must be known and openly revealed by the Holy Spirit so that Jesus may be known, loved and served through her.
Pray, Pray, Pray - Pray until it becomes a joy for youFor it is only in prayer that we can come to know to the depth of our being:
O, Jesus, O, how You love us!
O, Father, O, how You love us!
O, Spirit, O, how You love us!
It is this love for each soul He has created that compels Him to send us His Mother to help save us,
for the "The loss of each soul brings me to a mortal sadness"....
it is this love for each one of us that brought Him to reveal Himself as Divine Mercy
and it is for this reason He asks us to begin to pray the Divine Mercy Novena today.
May we live this Good Friday in love of Him - offering up ourselves in fasting and prayer and in thanksgiving for His Unfathomable Love for us -
and praying for one another -
as well as praying always for the conversion of souls!
© Janet Moore. 2019. All Rights Reserved.
