Msg 374
Recife (Pernambuco, Brazil); February 17, 1988 Ash Wednesday
a "From this land, so ensnared by my Adversary, where,
especially in these last days, many of my
children have become instruments of the reign of Satan, who is seducing all
the nations of the earth with the cup of impurity and of lust, I direct to you
my repeated and concerned invitation to conversion.
b Be converted, and return to the Lord along the road of sincere repentance and of personal
confession of your sins to the priests.
c Be converted, and return to the Lord along the road of a conscious and serious resolve to flee
sin and to keep far away from every occasion that can lead you to fall into
sin.
d Be converted, and return to the Lord along the road of mortification of the senses, of penance and of fasting.
e There begins today the season of Lent
of this MarianYear: a
period when the Church entreats everyone to carry out
works of charity and of penance. I, your heavenly Mother, am calling well
upon you to live the
time of Lent of this year which is consecrated to me.
f The period of time granted by the
Lord to humanity for its conversion is
about to come to its end, and so, respond to my anxious call which is urging you to do what I am now asking of you
for the salvation of all humanity.
9 First of all I desire that each one of you take upon
himself, with greater force, the obligation
of living in the grace of God, renouncing Satan and all evil works and the
world and all its numerous
seductions. Walk always along the road of purity, of love and of a
greater holiness.
h —And then I am asking of you personal
works of mortification and of penance.
Offer to my Immaculate Heart each day a crown made up of many little and
hidden mortifications, accomplished for
the salvation of many of your brothers, who are habitually living in sin
and are bound slavishly to Satan.
i — Lastly, I ask you to remove
yourselves far from anything that
can contaminate the purity of your heart and the chastity of your life. Do not take part in
profane shows. Do not waste time before the television set, which is the most powerful
instrument in the hands of my Adversary in spreading everywhere the darkness of sin and of impurity.
Television is the idol spoken of in the book
of Revelation, built to be adored by all the nations of the earth, and to which the Evil One gives shape and
movement so that it might become, in his hands, a terrible means of seduction and perversion.
j If you do what I am asking of you today, you put in my hands a powerful force of intercession and of reparation. And thus I am able to present myself before the throne of the Lord, great and terrible, just and holy, to implore for you his divine mercy: `Pardon, 0 Lord, the iniquity of your people, whom You have acquired at the price of your most precious blood. '
j If you do what I am asking of you today, you put in my hands a powerful force of intercession and of reparation. And thus I am able to present myself before the throne of the Lord, great and terrible, just and holy, to implore for you his divine mercy: `Pardon, 0 Lord, the iniquity of your people, whom You have acquired at the price of your most precious blood. '
k And before that time which has been conceded to you for your conversion has come to an end, you will already be able to see the signs of the triumph of the merciful love of Jesus in the first extraordinary interventions of the Immaculate Heart of your heavenly Mother.
