Prayer

to hasten the hour of

salvation for the Church and

the world

by Father Mathurin of the Mother of God Good Eternal Father, we are happy to gather together at the dawn of this year to wish You a “Happy Feast Day!” 1 What joy and gratitude we feel over having you as our Father! How could we ever express the immense happiness we feel over being your children? We, poor humans, even sinners, we can call You “Our Father,” just as Jesus, Your beloved Son, taught us. On several occasions in the Gospel, God the Father manifests Himself directly. After Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, He withdrew to the shore and began to pray. Suddenly the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended visibly in the form of a dove and rested upon Him. At the same time, a voice from heaven was heard, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” 2 On another occasion, Jesus was on Mount Tabor with three of His Apostles: Peter, James and John. The Gospel relates: While He was praying, He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, His garments became radiant as snow when it reflects a dazzling light. Peter and his two companions were heavy with sleep. When they awoke, they saw Jesus radiant with glory. Saint Peter, delighted with this manifestation, exclaimed, “Let us set up three tents here and remain.” A cloud surrounded Jesus, and from out of the cloud came a voice, saying. This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him! 3 On Palm Sunday, the crowd ran ahead of Jesus with palm boughs and olive branches to acclaim Him: “Hosanna! to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” This upset and enraged the Pharisees who vociferously expressed their displeasure. A few moments after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus once again announces His impending Passion, and then He added: Now My soul is troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour! But, it is for this hour that I have come. O Father, glorify Thy name! Again a voice from heaven was heard: I have glorified it and I will glorify it again. 4 You have noticed that on each of these occasions, the voice of God the Father was heard as Jesus was praying. My dear brothers and sisters, We give you as a watchword PRAYER, so that God may manifest Himself and that His voice may be heard. “Good Heavenly Father, we wish that through prayer, the Spirit of Thy Divine Son and His sentiments, His examples and His Will which are Thine, may permeate us, so that Thy Kingdom may come in us.” My brothers and sisters, if the voice of God makes itself heard in your heart, if you really listen to Jesus, the Kingdom of God will be established in you. And if God reigns in you, then infallibly His Kingdom will also be established over all the earth. Jesus said to His Apostles: It is the glory of My Father that you go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain. 5 Every person who wants to follow this path - who wants to contemplate Jesus, pray to Him, study Him, draw near to Him so that He may reign in him - bears fruit, and that fruit remains.

Let us pray with the Gospel

My brothers and sisters, this year we ask you for prayer, and especially prayer while studying Jesus and contemplating Him in His Gospel. Read the Gospel in humble prayer, entreating Jesus to manifest Himself to you. Jesus says to us: I have kept My Father’s commandments and I abide in His love. 6 I have come down from Heaven not to do My own will but the Will of Him who sent Me. 7 The Father is always with Me, He does not leave Me alone, because I always do the things that are pleasing to Him. 8 While you contemplate Jesus, turn His words into a prayer. We dream of seeing the Kingdom of God finally established over all the earth. May evil cease, bold, shameless evil, generalized evil everywhere. In order for the Kingdom of God to come, His Will must be established in us first. Turn to Jesus in prayer: “My Jesus, You who, being God, said to me that You came to do the Will of Your Father, I want to follow You in doing the Will of God.” One day the Apostles asked Our Lord Jesus Christ, “Lord, show us how to pray.” Jesus answered them: When you pray, say: “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come!...” 9 These first words of the prayer taught by Jesus Himself are our first intention: That the holy name of God may be sanctified and His kingdom come! May each one of us sanctify the Name of God in our life. Thus it will be sanctified around us. We are grieved on seeing that God does not reign on the earth, we suffer over it. Let us pray! Let us implore God to convert us, to transform all our brothers on earth. May He intervene in His omnipotence to touch the hearts of His children. It is not easy to touch the hearts of men. In some circumstances it is mission impossible. To bring hearts back to the path of the good, to detach them from the earth and turn them to God is mission impossible. And yet, God is asking His child to be united to Him. How can we do this? Jesus says, Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give it to you, 10 especially if your prayer seeks His glory, His interest. If you ask that He be known, loved and served, God will absolutely answer your prayer. Jesus says, I say to you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you shall receive, and it shall be granted you. 11 The world needs prayers more than words or comments. Let us pray this prayer, the prayer of the Church, that the name of God may be sanctified! I give you a very urgent invitation, a watchword. That the name of God may be sanctified, that our God may finally be glorified, that our Father in Heaven may manifest Himself. He is almighty, He knows how, we have no advice to give Him. But we have a lot of praying to do! Until now, you have not asked anything in My name. Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full, 12 for God is going to reveal Himself to your hearts.

Union with God

Our hearts ache to see God flouted, scorned, derided, set aside. People are turning to the earth, to idols. You deplore the fact that even in your own life, so many things set an obstacle to this love of God, His honor and His glory. What is sin? It is disobedience to God. It is thinking and living like earthlings. 13 Instead of bearing in mind the perspective of our eternal destiny, we say like worldlings: “There’s no harm in that. There’s no harm in this, no harm in that, there’s no harm in all sorts of things.” We indulge all our whims, we enjoy ourselves and have fun on earth, we do not sacrifice ourselves, because “there’s no harm in that!” Religion does not consist uniquely in not doing evil, but above all in uniting ourselves to God. To make up a religion based on the principle: “There’s no harm in that!” is a false religion. It is not a religion. We must insist on union with God. Our attachments, our lack of sacrifice, our earthly ambitions - all of these prevent us from uniting ourselves to God. That is the real evil: not to be united with God, the only goal of our life. To live only for the earth, like an earthling, without an eternal destiny: that is evil. That is what we have to say, and we must be convinced of it. Evil is not in one thing or another. You might even say: “Jesus made a miracle, He turned water into wine. There’s no harm in drinking!” That is true! But to be attached to alcohol is evil - and not only in excess, but even being attached to it. Being attached to the things of the earth, being attached to anything is wrong. To say there’s nothing wrong with it is wrong. We must detach ourselves from everything on earth. We must live on the earth as strangers. Our sole attachment must be to Jesus. Our goal is union with Him. We must understand this. When you understand this, everything else becomes luminous. The more a soul is detached from the earth, the more it can truly enter into prayer. To become souls of prayer in the full force of the word, souls truly united to God, we must be souls that sacrifice themselves. We must strive for this, work for it, desire it. To truly contemplate God, we must detach ourselves from the earth. The two go hand in hand. To be a soul of prayer, we must sacrifice ourselves. And to arrive at sacrificing ourselves, we must pray, we must ask God for strength. My Father is always with Me, says Jesus, for I always do what pleases Him. What is the purpose of prayer if not union with God? Through prayer, a sinful, feeble man unites himself to his God! My brothers and sisters, if I ask you to pray, it is because I would like each one of you to be united to God. Prayer unites you to God, makes you enter into His intimacy, His Will. Through prayer you contemplate Jesus, you beg Him to be like Him.

Obedient Jesus

One of the things that Jesus manifests to us as a centerpiece in His Gospel is obedience to His Father. He never gets tired of teaching this to us. Son of God, equal to His Father, with what humility Jesus speaks to us, with what docility, what obedience! The words that I speak to you, I do not speak of Myself: it is My Father who has sent Me. For I have not spoken of Myself, but the Father who sent Me has prescribed to Me what I should say and how I should speak. 14 The things I do I do not do of Myself My Father has sent Me to do them. What My Father has commanded Me, I do. What I make known to you, I have learned from My Father. 15 Jesus says it again and again in every way. I came down from Heaven, not to do My will but the Will of the One who sent Me. 16 These words which Jesus repeats unceasingly irritated me for a long time when I was a young religious. I said to myself: “Jesus, You give us Your teaching in the Gospel. You are God, I believe it. Second Person of the Holy Trinity, incarnate, You came to show us the way to Heaven. I believe in Your word, it is enough for me. Why do You who are God always repeat in so many ways that what You say and do, it is Your Father who told You to say it and do it this way? My Jesus, You make me feel like You are an errand boy, like a little boy to whom his father would have said: ‘My son, my little boy, go to the grocery store and get a quart of milk. Go get me a loaf of bread. Go take this to the neighbor and tell him this for me.’” The little boy goes and repeats, “Daddy told me to tell you this” The child had nothing to do with it, it was his father who spoke. This really annoyed me, until one day God showed me mercy. I finally understood that Jesus formulated these words so many times to confound my pride, offended by this extreme humility of the Son of God incarnate who says and repeats untiringly: What I say, it is My Father who told Me to say it. What I do, it is My Father who tells Me to do. Let us unite ourselves to Jesus with the supplication: “My Jesus, I want to resemble You in Your obedience. I want to do the Will of the Heavenly Father as You do. I want to do it so that Your Kingdom may come.” Father, says Jesus, glorify Your Son! 17 The Son is glorified by His Father when a child, a Christian, unites with Him in prayer and follows His examples.

Humble Prayer

Let your prayer be humble! Let it not be the prayer of the Pharisee: “I am not like other sinful men. 18 I thank you, Lord, that I am not like that.” Let us say instead: “Lord, convert me! May Your kingdom come in me. May Your name be sanctified in my life, in my conduct, in all my words, my thoughts, in everything. My God, I beg You...” If you pray like this with humility, God will reveal Himself to your heart, I assure you in His name. It is God Himself who assures us of this. You have just heard it in the Gospel of today’s Mass: I bless You, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, for having hidden these things from the wise and prudent and for having revealed them to the little ones. And Jesus continues: Yes, Father, I bless You that You have willed this. 19 It is an unavoidable will of God. God reveals Himself to the little ones. The little one prays with humility, he cries before God and wants so much to be pleasing to his heavenly Father. He moans and begs when he sees universal desolation, he offers his prayer for all his brothers and sisters of the earth: “My God, help! Help me! Convert me! Convert us! Change this world so that Your name may be glorified! Your kingdom come!” God speaks to the heart of this little one in prayer, while He voluntarily hides Himself from the haughty, the proud, the puffed-up heart, the wise of this world. And if God voluntarily hides Himself, you will never find Him. It is impossible! He hides His secrets from the proud and reveals them to the little one who prays humbly before Him. What power, what wonder! God manifests Himself to humble prayer. But persevere in prayer, do not grow weary. 20 We would like to be answered instantly when we pray. “Lord, I am a little proud, I need You to transform me. I am conceited, disobedient, sensual, carnal, greedy, lazy, full of myself, selfish. I think only of myself. I seek my whims, my pleasure on earth. Please change that, my God! Ta da! Thank you!” Once the prayer is done, we move on, we have fun, we distract ourselves. Then we say to ourselves, “I asked humbly and I didn’t get it!” The prayer you prayed is good, but persevere in prayer! Pray without ceasing and never grow weary, and you will receive. You who wish to know God in order to love Him, to serve Him, you must pray humbly. Otherwise, you will never know God, you will not truly love Him. We are never mistaken when we pray by humbly striking our breast, praying to God to manifest Himself to us. When God manifests Himself, man infallibly falls in love with Him. When man loves God, he serves Him. Then everything changes. A Saint, a servant of God can change the world. We have seen this in history. Look at Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the lasting mark she made in the Church. God manifested Himself to the soul of this little nun who prayed, who united herself to Him in the humility of her heart. She begged God, she contemplated Him in prayer.

Let us

contemplate

the Prayer of

Jesus

Prayer can take many forms. There is public prayer. There is the time when we gather to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the greatest prayer of Jesus. On the altar, Jesus immolates Himself to His Father as on Calvary. Let us contemplate the prayer of Jesus in the womb of His Mother, the Virgin Mary. What must have been the prayer of this Little One in the grotto at Bethlehem, in the cold night, in silence, in this place forsaken by humans, a refuge for passing animals? What was the prayer of our God incarnate, a little Child? You contemplate this prayer of Jesus, you unite with His prayer in His Mother’s arms, in a food trough for animals. This is how Jesus begins: in a manger for animals! Contemplate the prayer of this Little One. What was the prayer of Jesus, who was pursued because a proud potentate had decided to kill all the little children in order to be sure of eliminating Him? What was the prayer of this Little One in view of the Holy Innocents who were being slaughtered for Him? He goes into exile to Egypt, a reject, in His Mother’s arms, led by Saint Joseph. He is exiled from His Heaven, exiled from His homeland. You contemplate His prayer: Jesus is a stranger in the most absolute sense, with the most total privations. You contemplate Him and you pray. You tell Him that you too want to become a stranger on earth, because you want so much to be like Him. “It is difficult for me, my Jesus. I let myself be seduced, I let myself get caught by so many things. I get attached to everything. I let go of one thing and five others cling to me! My Jesus! And You, You were a stranger...” After seven years of exile in Egypt, He returns to Nazareth and remains unknown. You ask Jesus: “What was Your prayer during those thirty years? What a silent prayer, the union of Your soul with Your Father in Heaven, seeking only His Will! During Your public life, how often we see You withdraw to a mountain at night to pray.” What was this silent prayer of Jesus at night, on the mountain, in a secluded place, alone with His Father, without any witnesses? The Son of God praying!

The Prayer

of the Virgin

Mary

Let your prayer be in imitation of Mary. Think of little Mary, entrusted to the Temple from the age of three until She was fourteen. Contemplate Her praying for the Kingdom of God to come. For years, She entreated God with tears: “O Lord, come! Come! We need You! Things are not going well, come! Come and save this poor world, we are all lost” As a little girl, She prayed, She implored God. God received the prayer of this little girl with so much joy and pleasure. From the prophecies, little Mary knew that the hour of Redemption, the coming of the Messiah, was near. She prayed to hasten that day. However, She did not know that She was to become the Mother of God. Some might say that in any case the divine plans were fulfilled at God’s desired hour. Undoubtedly, but the prayers of little Mary were necessary for them to be fulfilled. So it is with us now: we must make this supplication to God. Following the example of little Mary praying in the Temple, our prayer must be a supplication to God to hasten His Kingdom, to hasten the hour of salvation. This is the intention of the watchword. This is the prayer we will make together. We will implore God to hasten the time of salvation for humanity. The time is counted, the hour is near for the fulfillment of God’s designs, but God wants this prayer; He is waiting for it. Wherever you are, pray with us as much as you can, as much as human frailty allows. Unite with the Church in this prayer to hasten this hour. You are already asking for it a great deal. I know that you are suffering in your soul. God sees it; continue to pray, to implore. God is waiting for your supplication. In Cana, when the Blessed Virgin asked Our Lord to intervene, He answered, My hour has not yet come. 21 By Her prayer, the Virgin Mary hastened the hour of God. God is waiting for these supplicating prayers, more than you might think: “Lord, hasten Your designs!” We sang throughout Advent, “Come, Divine Messiah!” We must continue the same supplication: “Lord, hasten this moment of salvation! Compensate and come to perfect what is lacking in us. Sanctify us so that we may be fit for Your plan. Detach us from the earth!” Let us repeat this wonderful prayer to the Mother of Salvation: “Detach us from the earth, purify our hearts, unite us to You in order to ask for mercy, to hasten the moment, to hasten this blessed day of redemption and salvation of the world.”

Intervention of Heaven

You see the intervention of Heaven that took place through the mission of Saint Joan of Arc. This is what is happening with the Renewed Church. It is an intervention of Heaven; this time it is for the Church, for humanity. God will have mercy on men as He had mercy on France. Although the French were not innocent or holier than the others, God had mercy on them. It was a decision of Heaven. What is coming is a decision of Heaven to make hell tremble, to lower Satan’s head. The devil has been mocking God for too long. The Kingdom of God is coming! Do not doubt it. Let your prayer be almost habitual, day and night. Pray in your comings and goings, in your occupations; but above all, reserve for yourself personal moments of tranquility and solitude, alone with God. Devote some time to make this supplication to God, calmly, beneath His gaze, striking your breast, annihilating yourself before Him: “Lord, if Your help does not come, it is my fault. Do not delay salvation because of my negligence, my offenses. Please purify me, detach me from the earth, please! Remove the obstacle from me so that salvation may come, because it is urgent! Do Your work, accomplish our salvation. We need it. It is for Your glory.” This humble prayer touches the Heart of God.

The revenge of Infinite Love

We hoped for the establishment of the Kingdom of God this past year. Did you see how it ended? With a cult of idolatry before the face of the world. 22 This shows you the urgency of the hour. Churchmen find all sorts of formulas to justify this apostasy. This idol worship is an unspeakable abomination! Alas, things are going to get even worse! It is not God who rules the world today, but the devil. Yet soon, soon, God’s hour will come. Jesus says, Now is the hour of the powers of darkness. 23 But soon it will be His hour, the hour of His sweet divine vengeance, the sweet vengeance of His Infinite Love. Soon will come the moment of the vengeance of Infinite Love, by those that He Himself has placed in reserve all over the world, who will be meek and humble in their heart, who will intercede in favor of humanity. This is our role. Before God, let us purify ourselves and implore Him: “Fulfill Your plan. Purify what needs to be purified. Remove all that stands in the way of Your grace. But do not delay Your designs, please!” God loves the supplicating prayer that rises up to Him, and all of Heaven listens to that prayer with admiration. If you knew this, you would always be in that state of prayer which makes Heaven rejoice and forget the reign of Satan to some extent. Good heavenly Father, we are going to offer for Your glory this Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which will take place beneath Your divine gaze. We implore You to look closely at Your Son, who is going to sacrifice Himself on this altar and who is praying to You as He sacrifices Himself. Jesus is praying for us and entreating You to have mercy on this poor world which is so far from You. We implore You to receive this sorrowful prayer of Jesus on Calvary and let it touch You. Even though we are such cowards, so fearful, we unite with His sorrowful prayer to implore You that Your name be sanctified on earth, to beg You that Your kingdom come! Well, my brothers and sisters, we are going to try to penetrate ourselves with the thought of Jesus through prayer. May He help our brothers of the earth. We ask Him for His kingdom to come. We have a beautiful role. Heaven is counting on us. Let us multiply our prayers, our supplications to God together! Thy Kingdom come!