Christ to the world

Father Brent Bowman shares Eucharistic experience during Mass | Hopkins, MN

2026-09-18T16:54:56.179+10:00

Statement from Father Brent Bowman Regarding Eucharistic Experience During Mass:

To the good people of God:

Praise be Jesus Christ, now and forever!

On Monday, September 14, I celebrated the Holy Mass for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross at St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church in Hopkins, MN. Present were Chesterton Academy students, faculty and staff and parishioners of the parish. During the Mass, I had a private spiritual experience while praying the Eucharistic prayer over the bread and wine and I want to humbly share and clarify what I experienced all for God’s glory and praise. In doing so, I also want to correct any misinformation as the Mass recording is being shared online.

To clarify up front, my experience was NOT what the Catholic Church considers a “Eucharistic miracle.” The forms of bread and wine retained their accidents (i.e., their appearance and taste) during this entire experience. Never did I see real blood or human flesh with my eyes.

My experience was this:

During the consecration prayer over the wine at the altar, as I spoke the words, I was given what I believe to be internal knowledge of the power of these words being spoken and the reality of their effect to the point that I had difficult speaking. With each word, I became more physically overwhelmed as seen in the video. At the same time, I was given sensory knowledge of the weight of God’s power coming down upon the altar, and I felt the heaviness of Jesus’s substantial presence in the chalice in my hands. The chalice became too heavy to hold as I felt it pulled down to rest upon the altar. I felt my hands fixed to the chalice of the Precious Blood, and I could not physically move it. Attempting to elevate the Precious Blood, which I was not able to do for a period of time, I believe I was given grace to understand more deeply the bitter sweetness of Our Lord’s Passion and how much blood Christ shed for the immense weight of all our sins. I believe I experienced this weight in the chalice. This spiritual experience emotionally and physically overwhelmed me as evident in the Mass recording.

Lastly, private spiritual encounters with God like these are completely unmerited gifts and signs of God’s abundant love for all his people. They are not necessarily signs of any person’s holiness.

I pray this brief testimony moves all our hearts to contemplate more deeply the mysteries of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and the Precious Blood.

Peace in Christ,

Fr. Brent Bowman

Statement from Father Brent Bowman Regarding Eucharistic Experience During Mass - Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Link to the Video : A Priest's Recent Mystical Eucharistic experience caught on camera | Brought him to tears

Near Death Experience | The Testimony of Gloria Polo | “I was at the gates of heaven and of hell”

2026-08-18T19:41:57.020+10:00

The Testimony of Gloria Polo

“I was at the gates of heaven and of hell”

Table of contents

Notes from Rev. Dwight

Declaration

From the preface of the Portuguese edition

Introduction by Father Leone Orlando

Testimony of Gloria POLO by Father Joseph Dwight

The Other World

The First Return

At the hospital

The souls of Purgatory

I saw my Parents

My judgement

Pray for the Priests

The Sacraments

Matrimony

Honor the Father and the Mother

Satan and his Strategy

The Lies and the First Confession badly made

The Abortion of the Girlfriend

The Lose of Virginity - What abortion is

Abortion is the Gravest Sin; it is the Most Terrible of All

Bad Counsels

Atone For Our Sins

My Lack of Love of GOD

The Sixth Commandment: Adultery

The Seventh Commandment: Do Not Steal

Love Neighbor

The Book of Life

The Talents

The Spiritual Treasures

The Return

Physical Recovery

Conclusion

About the translator Rev. Joseph Dwight

The Testimony of Gloria Polo

If you would like to see the other web sites and articles of Rev. Joseph Dwight, go to the following WEB-Site:

Rev. Joseph Dwight

If you would like something nice and spiritual each month, send me an Email. Rev. Joseph Dwight: josephdwight57@gmail.com.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am publishing this copy of the testimony of Gloria Polo so that it might arrive to as many people as possible. The title of this booklet is:

“From Illusion to the Truth”

There are many people, like Gloria Polo, that are under the illusion to be OK according to their own conscience formed by their own personal criteria, or according to the criteria of the world and those around them, o according to the criteria of the devil, BUT NOT ACCORDING TO THE CRITERIA OF GOD, that is, according to THE TRUTH!

This is the fundamental deception of Satan from the beginning of humanity and always (Gen 3:4-5)!

We human beings are truly adept and ingenious in deceiving ourselves, WILLINGLY, and then forgetting about it so easily!

Popes Pius XII and John Paul II said that the greatest sin is to believe that there is no sin, to have lost the sense of sin! This is the great trap of today for countless souls.

Today few people go to Mass every Sunday and among these, few go to confession regularly. I prefer to know the truth while I am still alive even if the truth is very strong to provoke in me a great uneasiness or to even cause me to enter into crisis (holy!?!?).

If God offers me this great gift of the truth while I am alive, even in a brusque way like a shock (a lightning bolt!?!), I am still in time make a good confession and change my life. After death one cannot change anything for all eternity, just as for the angels one instant after their creation and eternal decision!

I think that this testimony is a gift from God precisely for our times so extraordinary. I believe that this testimony will help many people of good will, who are not afraid to confront themselves with the truth, so as to convert themselves to the Truth and begin to live a new and fulfilling life with Jesus Christ. For us Catholics it will help us to make a good examination of conscience and then a good sacramental confession.

There is already translated into English a short testimony that Gloria Polo gave to Radio Maria in Colombia (see: www.gloriapolo.net).

The following testimony, instead, was given on May 5, 2005 in Caracas, Venezuela. It is much more complete than the one given to Radio Maria in Colombia and so one is able to enter into and to understand better this special experience of Gloria Polo, which I believe is a true gift from God for so many people today who, like Gloria Polo before her unpleasant incident, have fallen into the fundamental trap of Satan to believe they are good and holy, according to their freely embraced illusion and criteria from themselves, the world or Satan, but not according to the truth. Perhaps one could summarize this trap with the words of Pope Benedict XVI: “The tyranny of relativism.”

Father Joseph Dwight

If you would like to read a letter that I sent to a priest who forbid me to offer to the people, in his parish church (in Italy, 2009), printed copies of the Testimony of Gloria Polo when I substituted for him at a few Sunday Masses, see below, or visit: “An Open Letter to a Fellow Priest”:

(Open letter to fellow priest)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For further clarification and also to be able to download a copy of this document in MS Word, visit the web site on the Internet will all the information, in various languages:

www.gloriapolo.net (Many languages)

www.gloriapolo.in (English)

www.gloriapolo.com (Spanish)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FROM ILLUSION TO THE TRUTH

This is the live testimony of Gloria Polo, medical dentist, in a church in Caracas, Venezuela, May 5, 2005.

“I was at the gates of heaven and of hell”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Declaration

After the abrogation of canons 1399 and 2318 of the Canon Law, by Pope Paul VI in AAS 58 (1966), ecclesiastical permission is not required for the publication of revelations, visions, miracles or for the frequenting of non-recognized places of apparitions. Of course these publications must not put in danger Faith or Morals: this is the general rule which every Catholic must follow in all his actions, even journalists, especially journalists.

In compliance with the decree of Pope Urban VIII, we declare that, to the facts narrated and presented, no supernatural value is given officially, until the Ecclesiastical Authorities might express their judgment.

With the publication of this testimony, it is not intended in anyway to anticipate the definitive judgment of the Church, thus all is fully subject to the Church’s official decisions.

Furthermore, canon 623 #1 of the current Code remains in force:

“The Pastors of the Church have the right to demand that writings to be published by the Christian faithful, which touch upon faith or morals, be submitted to their judgment”.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the preface of the Portuguese edition:

This testimony of Gloria Polo fell into my hands by way of a friend, of whom I am a good friend. When I read this story, I felt the obligation to put it in writing: the realities of faith which one finds here recounted, were already part of my knowledge. But I did not want to let fall so much truth, and so I decide to ask the protagonist of the story permission to write this experience.

The booklet that you are about to read does not contain anything more, or nothing less, than that which one finds in Sacred Scriptures: but, given the fact that many do not succeed in seeing the truth of after death, God causes someone to experience and to live this “more”, of which the Bible speaks.

This someone is Gloria Polo, who returning in this life became like a light of a reality which regards everyone.

I hope that this testimony of Gloria Polo might help you in your search for the Truth.

This booklet wants to simply show you a live reality that you might ignore, even though you might know about it, at least in part, if in some way you might practice the Word of Truth called the BIBLE. (…).

Father Macedo, SCJ

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Introduction

If someone might doubt, or think that God does not exist, that life beyond is something from the films, or that with death all ends, do yourself a favor and read this testimony! But read it from the beginning to the end! Surely your opinion, perhaps the most skeptical, will change! We are dealing here with something that really occurred! Gloria Polo is a woman that “died”, she passed to the other world and returned precisely to give her testimony to the incredulous. God gives us many proofs, but we always deny His existence.

Gloria Polo actually lives in Colombia, she continues to exercise the same profession that she had before this event. She remained with enormous scars, but she has a normal life; this difference is that now she is a woman with great faith! She travels a lot, in order to give her testimony to thousands of people, fulfilling the mission that God confided to her (she has the authorization from the part of the Church for this).

This is a transcription of one of her testimonies, given in a church in Caracas (Venezuela), May 5, 2005, and it is translated from the Spanish original version. It is authentic! IT IS NOT A FAKE!

Padre Leone Orlando

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This English version was translated from the Italian translation of Padre Orlando, with the acknowledgement and encouragement of Gloria Polo, by Father Joseph Dwight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE TESTIMONY OF GLORIA POLO

Good morning, brothers. It is wonderful for me to be here, to share with you this gift so beautiful that the Lord gave me.

That which I am about to recount to you happened May 5, 1995 at the National University of Bogotá, starting from 4:30 pm.

I am a dentist. I and my 23-year-old cousin, who is also a dentist, were studying in order to get the specialization. On that day, which was a Friday, about 4:30 pm, we were walking together with my husband toward the Faculty of Dentistry to find some books that we needed. With my cousin I walked under a small umbrella while my husband wore a rain coat and to shelter himself better he was walking near the wall of the General Library. We two were jumping from one side to the other in order to avoid the puddles while staying close to the trees. When we jumped over a rather large puddle we were hit by a lightning bolt which left us both carbonized.

My cousin died immediately. The lightning bolt entered from behind, burning him inside totally, and came out through his feet, leaving him intact externally. Not withstanding his young age, he was a very religious young man. He had a great devotion for Baby Jesus and he always carried around his neck His image, a quartz medal. The authorities said that it was the quartz that attracted the lightning bolt to my cousin, because it entered into the heart burning everything…

Remaining intact externally, he immediately had a cardiac arrest which did not respond to the attempts of reanimation by the doctors, and he died on the spot.

As for me, the lightning bolt entered from my shoulder, burning terribly the whole body, inside and out; in short my flesh disappeared including my breasts, especially the left one, leaving a hole. It caused to disappear the flesh of my abdomen, of my legs, of the ribs; it carbonized the liver, it gravely burned the kidneys, the lungs, the ovaries… and came out through the right foot.

For my contraceptive, I was using a spiral (an intrauterine devise in the form of a T), and because of the material with which it is made (copper) it is a good conductor of electricity; the lightning bolt carbonized and pulverized also the ovaries which became like two raisins.

I remained in cardiac arrest, just about without life, with the body that was jumping due to the electricity that was still present in that place.

This body that you see here, now, this reconstructed body, is the fruit of the mercy of Our Lord.

The Other World

But this is only the physical part…

The good part is that, while my body laid there carbonized, in that same moment I found myself inside a beautiful white tunnel of light, a wonderful light, which made me feel a joy, a peace, a happiness that I do not have words to describe the greatness of that moment. It was a true ecstasy. I looked, and in the end of that tunnel I saw a white light, like a sun, a beautiful light… I say white to tell you a color, but we are talking about colors that cannot be compared to those that exist on the earth. It was a splendid light; I felt from it a source of peace, of love, of light…

When I went up in this tunnel toward the light, I said to myself:

“Caramba, I’m dead!”

And so I thought about my children and I sighed:

“Woe is me, my God, my little children! What will my children say? This mother so occupied, that she never had time for them…”

In fact, I left early every morning, and I did not return before eleven at night.

And so I saw the reality of my life, and I felt much sadness. I had left my home determined to conquer the world, but at what price! …

Putting in the second place my home and my children! … In that moment of emptiness due to the absence of my children, without feeling anymore my body, nor the dimension of time or of space, I looked, and I saw something very beautiful: I saw all of the people of my life… In one single moment, in the same moment, all the people, those living and those dead. I was able to embrace my great grandparents, grandparents, parents (who were dead)… everyone! It was a moment of fullness, wonderful. I understood that I had deceived myself with the story of the reincarnation: they had told me that my grandmother had been reincarnated, but without telling me where. Since the information cost me too much money, I let it go and I did not delve into the research in order to know in whom she might have been reincarnated. You know, I defended the theory of reincarnation… And now, there, I had just embraced my grandmother, my great grandmother…

I embraced her well, as I could do with all the people who I knew, living and dead. And all in one single instant. My daughter Dolly, when I embraced her, became frightened: she was 9 years old, and she felt my embrace, because I could also embrace the living (only that, normally, we do not feel this embrace).

I almost did not realize the passage of time during that moment so beautiful. And then, now that I no longer had the body, it was stupendous to see the people in a whole new way. Before, in fact, I only knew how to criticize: if one was fat, skinny, ugly, elegant, not elegant, etc.

When I spoke about others, I had to always criticize something. Now no: now I see people from within, and how beautiful it was… While I embraced them, I saw their thoughts, their sentiments…

So I continued to go forward, full of peace, happy; and the more I went up, the more I felt I was about to see something very beautiful. In fact, toward the bottom, I sighted a beautiful lake… yes! I see a stupendous lake, trees so beautiful, but so beautiful, wonderful… And very beautiful flowers, in all colors, with an exquisite perfume, so different from our flowers… Everything was so beautiful in that stupendous garden, so wonderful… Words do not exist that can describe it, all was love.

There were two trees, to the side of something that seemed to be an entrance. It is all so different from what we know down here: you can not find in the world similar colors, up here it is all so beautiful! … It was in that moment that my cousin entered in that wonderful garden.

… I knew! I felt that I must not, I could not enter there...

The First Return

In that same instant I hear the voice of my husband. He laments and cries with a profound sentiment, and cries: “Gloria!!! Gloria! Please, do not leave me! Look at your children, your children need you! Gloria, go back! Go back! Do not be a coward! Return!”

I heard everything, and I saw him cry with much pain... Alas, in that moment Our Lord granted me to leave… But I did not want to return! That peace, that peace in which I was wrapped, fascinated me! But, slowly slowly, I began to descend again toward my body, which I found without life. I saw it lifeless on a stretcher of the National Nursing University. I saw the doctors who were giving me electric shocks to my body, to pull me out of cardiac arrest. I and my cousin remained more than two hours laid on the ground, because our bodies were giving off electric discharges, and they could not be touched. Only when the electric charge was completely discharged, they could help us. And then they began the attempts to reanimate me.

I looked, and I rested the feet of my soul (also the soul has a human form), my head made a spark and with violence I entered, because the body seemed to suck me inside. It was an immense pain to enter: there came out sparks from all over and I felt myself jammed into something very small (my body). It was as if my body, with this weight and stature, suddenly entered into a baby’s outfit, but of iron. It was a terrible suffering, I felt the intense pain of my burned flesh, the body totally burned caused an indescribable pain, it was blazing terribly and gave off smoke and vapor… I heard the doctors cry out: “She is coming back! She is coming back!”

They were very happy, but my suffering was indescribable! My legs were frightfully black, there was live flesh on the body and on the arms! The problem of the legs was complicated when they considered the possibility of amputating them!

… But for me there was another terrible pain: the vanity of a worldly women, and enterprising woman, intellectual, the student… Slave to the body, to beauty, to the fashion, I dedicated four hours every day to aerobics; enslaved to having a beautiful body, I underwent massages, diets, injections… Basically everything you can imagine. This was my life, a routine of slavery in order to have a beautiful body.

I always used to say:

„If I have beautiful breasts, they are to show them; why hide them?“

I said the same thing about my legs, because I knew I had spectacular legs, nice abdominal muscles… But in an instant, I saw with horror how my whole life had been only a continual and useless care of the body… Because this was the center of my life: love for my body.

And now, I no longer had a body! In the place of the breasts I had startling holes, especially the left one, which was practically gone. The legs were a sight to be seen, like fragments, but without flesh, black as coal. Note: the parts of the body that I took care of and esteemed the most, were the ones that were completely burned and literally without flesh.

At the Hospital

They then brought me to the “Social Seguro”, where they operated on me immediately, and began to remove all the burned tissue. While they were anaesthetizing me, I again came out of my body, worried about my legs, when all of a sudden, in that same moment, terrible and horrible…

But first I must tell you something, brothers: I was a “dietetic (cafeteria) Catholic”, I was for my whole life, because my relationship with God was taken care of in a 25 minute Sunday Mass, and that’s all. I went to the Mass where the priest spoke less, because I got tired! What anguish I felt, with those priests who spoke a lot! This was my relationship with God! For this all the worldly currents drug me along: I lacked the protection of prayer well done with faith, even in the Mass! One day, when I was studying for the specialization, I heard a priest affirm that hell does not exist, and not even the demons!

It was precisely what I wanted to hear! I immediately thought to myself:

„If the demons do not exist, and there is no hell, then we all go to Heaven! And thus, what is there to fear?!“

What makes me most sad now, and I confess to you with great shame, is that the only tie that still held me in the Church, was the fear of the devil. When I heard that hell does not exist, I immediately said:

„Very good, if we all go to Heaven, it is not important what we are or what we do!“

This determined my total moving away from the Lord. I distanced myself from the Church and I began to speak badly, with cusswords, etc. I no longer had any fear of sin, and I began to ruin my relationship with God. I began to say to everyone that the demons do not exist, that they are the inventions of the priests, that they are the manipulations on the part of the Church, and finally… I arrived to the point of saying to my colleagues at the University that God does not exist, that we were products of evolution, etc. etc., succeeding in influencing many people.

Let us return now to the operating room: when I saw myself in that situation, what terrible fright! I finally saw that the demons existed, and how, and they came to seek precisely me! They came to present to me the bill, one could say, since I had accepted their offers of sin! And these offers are not free! One pays!! My sins had their consequences...

In that moment, then, I began to see come out, of the wall of the operating room, so many persons, apparently common, normal, but with a look full of hate, diabolic, frightening, who made my soul tremble: I immediately perceived that we were dealing with demons. I had in myself a special awareness: I understood in fact that to each one of these I owed something, that sin is not gratuitous, and that the principle lie of the devil is to say that he does not exist: this is his best strategy in order to work as he pleases with us. I realized that yes, he exists, and that he came to surround me, to seek me! Just imagine the fright, the terror!!

My scientific and intellectual mind, now did not help me at all. I went around in the room, I was trying to get back into my body, but this flesh of mine did not receive me, and the scare was terrible! I ended up fleeing as fast as I could, I passed through, I do not know how, the wall of the operating room, hoping to be able to hide myself in the aisles of the hospital, but when I passed the wall… Down! I made a jump into emptiness…! I headed toward several tunnels which went down toward the bottom. At the beginning there was still a little light, like beehives in which there were so many people: young ones, old ones, men, women, who were crying, and with frightening screams they were grinding their teeth… And I, ever more terrified, continued to descend, seeking to get out of there, while the light was going away diminishing…

I carried on roaming in those tunnels in a frightening darkness, until I arrived to an obscurity that cannot be compared to anything else… I can only say that, in comparison, the darkest obscurity on earth is not even comparable to the full sunlight at midday. Down there, that same obscurity generates pain, horror, shame, and stinks terribly. It is a living obscurity, yes, it is alive: there the mind is dead or inert. At the end of my descent, running along all these tunnels, I arrived to a level place. I was frantic, with a will of iron to get out of there: the same will that I had to ascend in life, but now it did not help me at all, because there I was and there I remained.

At a certain point I saw the ground open up, like a great mouth, enormous! It was alive! Alive! I felt my body empty, empty in a startling way, and under me an incredible frightening abyss, horrible; that which chilled me the most was that, from there down, you did not feel even a little Love of God, not even a little drop of hope. That chasm had something that sucked me into it. I cried out like a mad women, terrorized, feeling the horror of not being able to avoid that descent, because I realized that I was irretrievably sliding inside…

I knew that, if I might enter, I would not at all have remained there, but I would have continued to descend, without ever being able to come back up. It was this, the spiritual death for my soul.

The spiritual death of the soul: I was irretrievably lost forever. But in this horror so great, precisely while I was about to enter, St. Michael the Archangel seized me by the feet… My body entered in that abyss, but the feet remained held on high. It was a terrible moment and truly painful. When I arrived there, the light that still was left in my spirit annoyed those demons; all the horrifying unclean beings that dwell there, immediately attacked me. Those horrible beings were like larva, like bloodsuckers that were trying to block off the light. Imagine the horror in seeing myself covered by such creatures…

I was crying out, I was crying out like a mad women! Those things were burning! Brothers, they are living darkness, it is a hate that burns, which devours us, which makes us naked. There are not words to describe that horror!

The Souls of Purgatory

Note that I was an atheist, but there I began to cry out:

“Souls of Purgatory! Please, pull me out of here! I beg you, help me!”

While I was crying out, I began to hear crying thousands and thousands of persons, youth… Yes, above all youth, with so much suffering! I perceived that there, in that horrible place, in that quagmire of hate and of suffering, they were gnashing their teeth, with screams and laments that filled me with compassion and that I will never be able to forget…

(Already 10 years have passed, but I still cry and suffer, when I remember the suffering of all those persons)…

I was saying, I understood that in that place there were those persons who, in one moment of desperation, they committed suicide… Now they are in those torments, with those horrible beings near them, surrounded by demons that torment them. But the cruelest of these torments was the absence of God, because there one does not feel God. I understood that, those who in one moment of desperation took their lives, had to remain there, within those torments, until all the time that they might have spent on the earth had passed: because all those who kill themselves, go out of the Divine Order.

Those poor persons, above all so many youth, many, many… They cry and suffer much… If man might know the suffering that awaits him, never would anyone make the decision to take his life!

Do you know what the greatest torment is, there?

It is to see how one’s own parents, or relatives, who are alive, are crying and suffering with a tremendous sense of guilt: if I would have punished, or if I would not have punished, if I had said to him, or if I had not said to him, if I had done this or that… In the end, these regrets so terrible, - a true hell for those who love them and remain in this life - , they are what makes them suffer the most. It is the greatest torment for them, and it is here that the demons rage, showing these scenes:

“Look how your mother cries, look how she suffers, look how your father suffers, look how they are desperate, how they are distressed, how they blame themselves and discuss, accusing each other reciprocally, look at all the suffering that you caused them. Look how they rebel against God. Look at your family… All this because of your fault!”

That which these poor souls need, is that those who remain down here might begin a walk of conversion, that they might change their life, that they might do works of charity, that they might visit the sick… And that they might offer Masses in suffrage for the soul of the dead. These souls benefit enormously from all of this. In fact, the souls who find themselves in Purgatory can no longer do anything for themselves. Nothing! But God yes, through the Mass. Also we must help them in this way.

I thus understood that those poor souls could not help me, and in this suffering, in this anguish, I began again to cry out: “But here there is an error! See I am a saint! I never stole! I never killed! I never did anything evil to anyone! On the contrary, before failing in my business, I imported the best products from Switzerland, I extracted and adjusted teeth, many times I did not require the clients to pay if they were unable. I bought things and I gave them to the poor! What am I doing here?!...”

I was vindicating my rights! I, who was so good, who would have to go straight to Heaven, what was I doing here?!

I went every Sunday to Mass, even though I considered myself an atheist and I did not pay attention to what the priest was saying, I never missed Mass. If I missed Mass five times in my whole life, it was a lot! What is it that I was doing there?!

“But what am I doing, here? Pull me out of here! Take me out of here!” I continued shouting terrified, with those horrible beings hanging on to me!

“I am Catholic! I am Catholic, please, get me out of here!”

I Saw My Parents

When I shouted out that I was Catholic, I saw a little light: and you see that a small light even very small, in that darkness, is the maximum, it is the greatest gift that one can receive. I saw some steps at the top of this chasm, and I see my father (who died 5 years before) almost at the entrance of the abyss.

He had a little bit of light; and four more steps up I saw my mother, with much more light and in a position like this, as in prayer. As soon as I saw them, I experience a joy so great that I began to cry out:

“Dad! Mom! What joy! Come and take me! Come and take me out of here! Dad, Mom, please, get me out of here! I beg you, carry me out of here! Carry me away!!”

While all this was happening, my body was in a deep coma: I was intubated, connected to the machines, and agonizing. Air was not entering into my lungs, the kidneys were not working… If I was connected to the machinery, it was only because my sister, who is a doctor, had insisted with her colleagues, invoking the motive that they were not God. In fact, they thought that it was not worth while to keep me alive, and they spoke in these terms to my relatives: they said it was not the case to keep going relentlessly, that it was better to let me die tranquilly, because in any case I found myself in agony. My sister insisted so strongly, that they…

Do you know the incoherence? I defended euthanasia, the right to die in a dignified way!

The doctors did not let anyone enter where I was, except this my sister doctor, who remained continually next to me.

When my soul, which was in the beyond, saw my parents, my sister, who was near my body in coma, she heard me clearly crying out to them, so happy, that they might come to take me.

Perhaps it might have happened to one of you to have heard a person in the state on unconsciousness to cry out, or pronounce some words: this is what happened with me. I almost cause my sister to die of fright! In fact, I began to cry out with joy when I saw them, asking them to come to take me; and so my sister, who heard all of this, shouted: “Now it is that she is dead, my sister! My mother and my father have come to take her! Go away, do not take her! Go away, Mom, please; go away, Dad, please: do not take her! Do you not see that she has small children! Do not take her away! Do not take her away!”

The doctors had to pull her out of there, thinking that my poor sister was delirious, that she might be in a state of shock; which would have been normal, because it was not a small thing that was happening: the death of my cousin, to go to take the corpse to the mortuary, the sister who dies, does not die, but will not live more than 24 hours, according to the opinion of the doctors…

It was by now three days that she went forward in this anguish, and this without any sleep. Do not be surprised that they believed her to be exhausted and prey to hallucinations…

For my situation, imagine what joy when I see my parents! In that place, in that situation so horrible in which I found myself, I see my parents!

When they looked toward me and they saw me there, you cannot imagine the immense pain that their faces revealed. Since there we perceive and we see the sentiments of the others; I saw the pain that they felt, that suffering of theirs so great. My father began to cry so, so much, and he cried out:

“My daughter! Oh, no! My God, my daughter no! My God, my little daughter no!”

My mother was praying, and when she looked toward me and saw my sorrow in my eyes, but at the same time nothing took away the peace and the sweetness of her face, not even a tear! Instead of crying, she lifted up the eyes, then turned to look toward me. I understood with horror that they could not pull me out of there! This augmented my suffering, seeing them there sharing my pain without being able to do anything for me! I understood also that they were there to give an account to the Lord of the education that they had given to me. They were the tutors, to which was confided the job of looking after the talents that God had given to me. With their life and their testimony, they had to protect me from the attacks of Satan. And they had to nourish the graces, that God had put in me by way of Baptism. All parents are the guardians of the talents that God gave to the children.

When I saw their suffering, above all that of my father, I cried out again, desperate:

“Take me out of here! Take me out of here! I do not have fault to be here, because I am Catholic! I am Catholic! Pull me out of here!”

My Judgment

When I cried out again that I was Catholic, brothers, I heard a Voice, so sweet, but so sweet… So beautiful, that it filled everything with peace and love, and made my soul jump. Those horrible creature that were clinging to me, at hearing it, immediately prostrated themselves in adoration, and asked permission to withdraw themselves, because they could not stand the sweetness of that Voice: then something was opened, like a mouth hanging down, and they fled with fear. Just imagine this! When I see those beings, those horrific demons, there prostrated… At the mere hearing the Voice of the Lord, (notwithstanding the pride of Satan, and thus they hear it as something very unpleasant), they throw themselves on their knees!

Then, I saw the Most Blessed Virgin prostrated, when the priest elevated Our Lord in the Host, during the Mass that was celebrated for the soul of my cousin. The Virgin Mary interceded for me! Prostrated at the feet of Our Lord, she gathered all the prayers that the people of my earth made for me, and she presented them to Him.

You know, at the moment of the elevation, when the priest lifts up the Host, one feels the presence of Jesus, everyone prostates themselves on their knees, even the demons! … And I, who went to the Mass without the least of respect, without giving any attention, with gum to chew in my mouth, sometimes dozing off, looking around, lost in a thousand banal thoughts…! And then I had the guts to complain, full of pride, that God did not listen to me when I asked something from Him!

Believe me, it was staggering to see how, at the passing of Our Lord, all those creatures, all those frightening beings, threw themselves on the ground, in an impressive adoration.

I saw the Virgin Mary, graciously prostrate at the feet of the Lord, praying for me, in adoration before Him. … And I, a sinner, with my rubbish, treating Him without any respect, and saying that I was good… Yes, miserably good! Denying and blaspheming the Lord!

Imagine what a sinner I was, when even the demons prostrated themselves on the ground, at the passing of the Lord Jesus Christ…!

* * * * * * *

That Voice, so beautiful, says to me:

“Very well, if you are Catholic, tell me which are the commandments of the Law of God!”

… Think of the fright! ... That question I just did not expect! I only knew that there were 10! And then… nothing more!

“And now, how do I cope with this?”, I was thinking, afflicted. I remembered then that my mother used to say that the first commandment was love, she spoke of it always… Love of God and love of neighbor. In the end, the discourses of my mother were useful for something, I said to myself. So I chose this answer, hoping that it would suffice and that the rest might not be noticed…! I was thinking to get by in this way, as I always did when I was in life: in fact, I always had the answer ready, the perfect answer, I always succeed in justifying myself and in defending myself in such a way, that no one discovered that which I did not know. Now I thought to manage in the same way. And I began to say:

“The first commandment is: to love God above everything else, and… the neighbor as myself.”

“Very well: - he said to me – and you did this? Did you love?”

Totally confused, I replied: “I… yes! Yes, I yes. Yes!”

But that wonderful Voice said: “No!!!”

I assure you that when he said to me: “No!”, then it was that I felt the strike of the lightning bolt! In fact, I still did not feel on which side it had struck me…

But when I heard that “No!”, I felt all the pain of the lightning bolt!... I felt naked, all my masks fell, and I remained uncovered.

That soft Voice continued to say to me:

“No!!! You did not love your Lord above all things, and even less did you love your neighbor as yourself! You made of yourself a God that you modeled on yourself, on your life! Only in moments of extreme necessity, or in suffering, you remembered your Lord. And then yes, you knelt down, you cried, you asked, you offered novenas, you proposed to yourself to go to Mass, to prayer groups, asking for some graces or a miracle… When you were poor, when your family was humble, when you still desired to become a professional, then yes, everyday you used to pray on your knees, whole hours, beseeching your Lord! You would pray, asking me to pull you out of that poverty, that I might permit you to become a professional and to be someone! When you found yourself in need and you needed money, then yes, you promised: I pray the Rosary, but You, Lord, grant me a little money! This was the relationship that you used to have with your Lord! Never, did you keep one promise made, not even one! And beyond not keeping the promises, you never thanked me!”

And the Lord insisted on this:

“You gave your word, you made a promise to your Lord, but you never kept them!”

The Lord showed me one of my many prayers: when I asked Him the grace to have my first car, I would pray, and very humbly I would ask that please, he might grant also only a little car, even an old one, it is not important… just so it works. But as soon as I obtained what I desired, I did not even say a “thanks” to the Lord; and eight days later, not only did I not thank Him, but already I denied Him and I spoke bad about Him. He showed me how, in all the graces that He granted me, not only was I lacking in regards to the made promises, but I did not even give thanks.

I saw the Lord in a truly sad way. You know, my relationship with God was like a “BANK CASH DISPENSER”: I put in a Rosary, and He was supposed to give me money… and if he did not give it to me, I rebelled. The Lord showed me all of this. Just as soon as he permitted me to have my profession, - and in consequence, to begin to have a certain prestige and also money - , the name of God was already not comfortable to me… I began to feel I was great, without ever having for Him the least expression of love, or gratitude.

To be grateful? Never! Not even a ‘thank you’ for the new day that he gave me, or for my health, or for having a roof where I lived... Or even a prayer of compassion for those poor little ones who do not have a house, nor something to eat. Nothing!!! Ungrateful to the max! More than anything else, I became more incredulous in regards to my Lord, while I believed in Venus and Mercury for fortune, I went blindly after astrology, saying that the stars direct our life. I began to believe in all the doctrines that the world offered me. I believed, for example, in reincarnation: I convinced myself, simply, one would die and would re-begin from the top… and I forgot it cost a price of Blood to my Lord Jesus.

The Lord continued:

“All that you had, it was not given to you because you had asked for it, but it was a blessing that you received from Heaven: you, instead, said to have obtained all by yourself, because you were a worker, a fighter… That everything you had conquered with your hands, and by the force of study. No! Look: how many professionals are there, more qualified than you, who work as much or more than you?”

The Lord gave me an examine of the 10 Commandments, showing me that which I was: that what in words I said to adore and love God, but on the contrary I adored Satan. In my outpatients’ clinic a lady who read the cards would usually come, and she did some magic in order to set free from bad influences, and used to say: “I do not believe in these things… But do it anyway, because one never knows…” And she did her devilment. In a corner where no one saw, she put a horseshoe and an aloe plant, in order to keep away bad fortune, and other such things. Do you know what I did, permitting this? I opened the doors to the demons, so that they could enter at their pleasure, and to circulate freely, merrily, in my outpatients’ clinic and in my life. You see that all this is shameful. God made an analysis of my whole life, in the light of the 10 Commandments, he showed me that which I was in my relationships with the neighbor, and with Him. I criticized everything and everyone… And everyone pointed with their finger, “holy Gloria”…! He showed me when I said to love God and neighbor, but on the contrary I was very envious. Now I saw that, when I deceived someone or lied, it was like committing perjury, because in the moment in which I said: “I am Catholic”, I declared that Jesus Christ was my Lord and at the same time I gave testimony to lies and deception! How much evil I did to so many people! As for the rest I was never grateful to my parents, for all their sacrifice and commitment so that I might have a profession and to triumph in life; for all the sacrifices and the efforts that they did… But I did not see them, I ignored them, and as soon as I had my work, they even diminished in my eyes: to the point to be ashamed of my mother, for her humility and poverty.

Jesus continued, showing me what a spouse I was: I passed the whole day grumbling, from when I awoke. My husband said: “Have a nice day!”. And I: “maybe it will be for you!! Look at the rain!”. I always grumbled and contradicted everything.

… As fare as sanctifying the holy days? What fright! What sorrow I felt! Jesus made me see how I would dedicate four and even five hours to my body with gymnastics, and not even ten minutes a day for my Lord, not even a thank you, or a nice prayer… no, nothing! On the contrary, sometimes I even recited the Rosary beginning it real fast, during the interval of the soap opera. I thought to succeed in praying it during the commercials. I began rapidly, without giving attention to what I said, more worried if the soap opera might had already begun or not, and to what point I had arrived. In short, without elevating the heart to God.

Jesus continued to show me how I was in no way grateful in regard to Him, and the laziness that I had in going to Mass. When I still lived with my parents, and my mother obliged me to go, I said to her: “But, Mom, if God is everywhere, what need do I have to go to church for the Mass?” Clearly, for me it was very convenient to talk like this… And Jesus showed this to me. I had the Lord twenty-four hours a day for me, all my life God took care of me, and I so lazy to dedicate to Him a little time on Sunday, to show Him my gratitude, my love for Him… But the worst thing was to know that, to frequent the church, meant to nourish my soul. I, instead, dedicated myself totally to the care of my body, I became a slave to my flesh, and I forgot this particular: that I had a soul! And never did I take care of it.

Regarding the Word of God, I even said, impudently, that the one who read the Bible a lot, became crazy. I arrive to the point to be a blasphemer, and the incoherence of my life brought me to say: “But what Most Holy? And God would be present there? In the ciborium and in the chalice? … The priest should add brandy, to give it good flavor!”

To what point did I arrive in degrading my relationship with God! I left my soul without nourishment, and as if that were not enough, the only thing I did was to criticize the priests. If you knew, brothers, how bad I felt about this, before Jesus! The Lord showed me how my soul was reduced due to all these criticisms. Beyond everything else, consider the fact that I declared a priest to be homosexual, and the whole Community came to know this… You cannot imagine the evil that I did to that priest! No, you cannot imagine it! I cannot tell you about it, because it would be too long. I tell you only that, one word only, has the power to kill and destroy souls. Now I saw all the evil that I had done! My shame was so great, that there are no words to describe it! Can I only beg you to not do the same: do not criticize! Pray! I saw that the gravest faults which stained my soul, and that drew more curses in my life, was to speak evil about the priests!

Pray For The Priests

My family always criticized the priests. From when we were small, my father, and everyone in the house, used to criticize and say:

“These priests are womanizers, and have more money than us... And they are this, and they are that…”, and we would repeat this.

Our Lord said to me almost shouting:

“Who did you think you are, to make yourself god and judge my consecrated ones?! They are of flesh, and the sanctity is to them given for the benefit of the communities in which I put there as a gift. And the communities have the obligation to pray for him, to love him and to support him”.

Might you know, brothers, that, when a priest falls, it will be the community to respond regarding his sanctity. The devil hates Catholics, immensely more the priests. He hates our Church, because where there is a priest who consecrates…

I open a parenthesis: you must all know that the priest, even though remaining a man, is a consecrated one of the Lord, recognized by the Eternal Father, so that in a piece of bread happens a miracle, a transubstantiation: by the hands of the priest, it becomes the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ… And these hands, the devil hates them intensely, terribly. The devil detests us Catholics due to the Eucharist, because the Eucharist is an open door for Heaven, and it is the only door! Without the Eucharist, no one enters into Heaven. When a person is agonizing, God comes beside this person, independent of the religion that he belongs to or his beliefs; the Lord reveals himself and says to him affectionately, with Love and Mercy: “I am your Lord!” And if the person asks for pardon and accepts this Lord, something happens that is difficult to explain: Jesus immediately brings this soul to where the Mass is being celebrated in that moment, and the person receives Viaticum, which is a mystical communion. Because only the one who receives the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, can enter into Heaven. It is something mystical, it is an immense grace that we have in the Catholic Church, a grace that God has given to our Church; and many people speak badly about this Church, and yet by way of Her they receive salvation and go to Purgatory, and there they continue to benefit by the grace of the Eucharist. They save themselves. They go to Purgatory, but they are saved! Because of this the devil hates very much the priests: because where there is a priest, there are the hands that consecrate the bread and the wine, making them to become for us the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ. Thus we must pray very much for the priests, because the devil attacks them constantly.

Our Lord showed me all of this.

The Sacraments

Only by way of the priest do we have the sacrament of reconciliation, for example! Only by way of him do we obtain the pardon of our faults. Do you know what the confessional is? It is the “bathing of souls”! Not with water and soap, but with the Blood of Christ! When my soul was filthy, black due to sin, if I would have confessed, it would have been washed with the Blood of Christ, furthermore I would have broken the strings that held me tied to the evil one. Would he not therefore have reason, the devil, to detest the priests?! Also those who might have been great sinners, have the power to absolve sins. And the Lord showed me how: in the Wound of His Heart…

Yes!

You know, there are things which surpass the intellect of man because they are spiritual realities, and yet we are talking about truths more real than ours… Through this Wound, I was saying, a soul rises up to the Divine level, to the level of the Divine Mercy, to the door of Mercy, it rises up to the Heart of Jesus, eternal Priest; and there, Jesus places His Cross, bleeding in His Eternal Present… And that soul returns clean. Now I see how my soul returned clean in the confession, and in every sin that I confessed, Our Lord breaks the stings that united me to Satan. (And I, unfortunately, stayed away from confession!)

… But all this happens only by way of the priest. Thus we have the obligation and the duty to pray for them, so that God might protect them, might enlighten them, and might guide them.

For all these motives the devil hates terribly the Catholic Church and the priests.

Matrimony

I would like to speak to you about the great grace that is the sacrament of matrimony. When we enter into church the day of our wedding, at the moment in which we say our “yes”, promising to be faithful for ever, in joy and in sorrow, in health and in sickness, etc., do you know to Whom we promise? Nothing more, nothing less than to God the Father! Our God is enthralled with matrimony! He is the only Witness, when we say these words. Each of us, when we will die, will see this moment precisely in the Book of Life. Then we will catch sight of an indescribable golden light, an intense splendor: God the Father writes these words in the Book with letters of gold, so beautiful.

In the moment in which we receive the Body and the Blood of Jesus, we form a pact with God, and with the person whom we have chosen to share together a life. When we pronounce these words, we say them to the Most Holy Trinity.

I saw that on the day of my matrimony, when myself and my husband received the Most Holy Eucharist, we were no longer two, but three! We two, and Jesus! In fact, as soon as we communicate with Jesus, He unites us as one thing only! He places us in His Heart and we become ONE, forming with Jesus a holy trinity! “Let man not separate what God has united”.

Now I ask: who separates this ONE? No one! No one, brothers, can separate it! No one, after the matrimony has been consummated! And if the two spouses arrive virgin to the matrimony, you cannot imagine the blessings that are poured on this matrimony!

I saw also the matrimony of my parents. When my father slipped the ring on the finger of my mother, and the priest declared them husband and wife, Our Lord consigned to my father a staff of wood, shining with Light, which seemed a little bent. We are dealing here with a grace that God gives to the man: it is a gift of authority of God the Father, so that this man might be able to guide this little flock who are his children, born in matrimony, and also to defend the matrimony and the children from so many evils that attack the families.

To my mother, God the Father placed in the heart something that seemed like a sphere of Fire, so beautiful: it signifies the Love of God, the Holy Spirit. I knew that my mother was a very pure woman. God was happy, joyous. You cannot imagine how many unclean spirits seized my father in that moment. These spirits seem like larva, bloodsuckers. You know, when someone has relationships outside of marriage, the evil spirits immediately attach themselves to all the parts of the person; they begin with his sexual organs, they take possession of the flesh, of the hormones; they occupy the brain, they take the pituitary gland and all the neurological parts of the organism of the person, and they begin to produce a quantity of hormones that bring the instincts lower. They transform a child of God into a slave of the flesh, of his own instincts, of his sexual appetite, that which brings the person to be that which, as they say, “they enjoy life”.

When a couple is virgin, it gives glory to God. A sacred pact happens with Him, who sanctifies this sexuality. In fact the sexuality is not sin! God has given it as a blessing, because sexuality is God and the couple. Where there is the sacrament of matrimony, (also if the spouses did not arrive there virgins), God is present in this sacramental bed! Because in the wedding bed, blessed by the sacrament of matrimony, there is the Holy Spirit; even in the meals of this couple there is the presence of the Lord God, who blesses the food. God remains enraptured before matrimony; He is happy to accompany the spouses in their new life, in this beginning of a new life together. The couple and the Lord form a Trinity. Unfortunately many spouses do not know this, they do not have this notion… And they do not even think about God: they marry only because of tradition, and not for faith… They think only to go out of the church to go to have a party, to eat, to drink, to take off on the honeymoon…

Keep in mind that in this there is no evil: the evil lies in leaving the Lord outside of all of this. As I did, who left the Lord on the street; it did not even enter my head to invite Him in my new life, in our new house. He, in fact, has pleasure that we invite Him to enter and to be with us forever, in the joys and in the moments less good; He desires that we feel His presence… Certainly, in the sacrament of matrimony the Lord is present also without being invited…

But how much more beautiful it would be if of this presence we might be conscious…

In the matrimony of my parents, the most beautiful thing was that God gave back to my father the gifts and the Grace that he had lost: this because he married my mother, who was a woman very pure in sentiments, and virgin. I looked at my father, his disordered and filthy sexuality. But because he was very “macho”, and his friends having begun to put into him poison, telling him not to let the wife charm and dominate him, and that he had to continue his life as before, and so two weeks after matrimony he ended up in a whorehouse, in order to show his friends that he was continuing to be the same, that he did not let himself be dominated by the wife…

Do you know how his staff of authority and protection, that God gave him, ended up? The devil took it away from him! And all those evil spirits, those unclean beings, returned to take him to themselves. From pastor of his flock, my father transformed himself into a wolf of his own family and of his home!

When one is unfaithful to his wedding, he is unfaithful to God. He is lacking in his word, to the oath that he made, to God and to the person that he married, in the day of his matrimony. He does not do what he promised. If someone has the intention of not being faithful to his own marriage, it is better not to get married. The Lord tells us: if you are unfaithful, you will condemn yourself! If you will not be faithful, do not get married! Son, daughter, ask me the grace to be faithful to your wife, to your husband, and to God.

How many evils come into a marriage, due to infidelity?! A husband, for example, goes to a whorehouse, or is unfaithful with the secretary. Notwithstanding the precautions, he contracts a virus; and even washing himself afterwards, that virus does not die… So, when later he has relations with the wife, the virus enters the vagina of the woman and it remains there in the bottom, and arrives to the uterus. In time it forms an ulcer, of which often the women does not notice. And when, years later, the wife goes to the doctor suffering very much, it is diagnosed cancer. Yes! Cancer! And then, who says that adultery does not kill? Moreover, how many abortions are done due to adultery? For example, how many women, who had been unfaithful and became pregnant, have recourse to abortion so that the husband might not discover it? They kill an innocent one that is not able to speak, nor defend himself! And this is only some examples. Adultery kills in so many and diverse forms! Then, we still have the courage to protest against God, when things do not go well, when we have problems, when sicknesses arrive: while it is we who procured these things with our sins, drawing evil on our life. Behind sin, there is always the evil one! We open the doors to him, when we sin so gravely! And then still we lament that God does not love us. Where is God, who permits this or that?! What nerve we have! May you know that God is the rock that protects marriage. Woe to the one who tries to destroy a matrimony! When someone tries, he collides with this Rock who is Jesus. God defends matrimony, do not ever doubt it!

I desire also to inform you to be very careful with regard to those mother-in-laws who interfere in the marriage of the children, to disturb them, causing problems in their relationships. Also if the son-in-law or the daughter-in-law, in the right or in the wrong, that they might not be to her liking, they are already married, and there is nothing more to do. The only thing is to pray for them: that they might pray for that marriage, and put it aside! Many women have condemned themselves for having interfered in the marriage of their children! This is a grave sin! If you see that something is not going right, that one of them or both are sinning, supplicate God for them, ask help from God. You can also call the couple and speak to the two, inviting them to save the marriage, to think about the children, and reminding them that marriage is for love, to give and to forgive reciprocally. One must fight in favor of the marriage, this yes: but never interfere in another way, and even less to take a position in favor of one or the other.

Honor the Father and the Mother

Jesus continued to show me everything… I already recounted to you how I was ungrateful to my parents, how I was ashamed of them; I spoke bad about them and I disavowed them because they were poor and could not give me all that my rich friends had. I was an ungrateful daughter, to the point of saying that that one was not my mother, because she seemed inferior to me. It was frightening to see a summary of a woman without God. She destroys all that she draws near to. And beyond all this, and this is the worst thing, I felt and I believed to be a very good person!

I thought that regarding the 4th commandment I would have passed through well, because my parents had cost me a lot: I spent a lot of money for them, due to their sicknesses, (all the analysis, in fact, were done by payment), because both of them had grave sicknesses before dying. It was my husband who covered the expenses, and would say: “Look after a little bit these two shameless ones, they do not leave a penny in heredity and even more it is necessary to spend a fortune for them. The parents of my friends, instead, leave goods and…”. And the Lord showed me how I analyzed everything from the point of view of money, because I manipulated even my parents when I had money and power, I even profited from them.

With money I made myself god, and I trampled on even my parents. Do you know what grieved me the most? To see them there… My father was crying, seeing that he had been a good father, that he had taught the daughter to be a worker, a fighter, an entrepreneur, to be respected, because only those who work go forward… But I forgot a particular: that I had a soul, and that he was my evangelizer, with his witness. My life began to sink, with the example that he gave me. He saw now, with profound sorrow, the responsibility he had before God, since he was a womanizer, and he used to say happily, boasting to my mother and to everyone, to be very “macho”, because he had many women and he could conquer all of them. Moreover he used to drink and smoke. He was also a good person, but had these vices, which according to him were not such, on the contrary he believed them to be virtues. He was very proud. I, who was just a baby and saw how my mother would cry when he spoke about the other women, began to fill myself with anger, with resentments of rage. The resentment begins with the spiritual death: I felt a frightening anger in seeing how my father humiliated my mother before people, and how he caused here so many tears… And she, did not say anything. There I began my rebellion.

When I was adolescent, I used to say to my mother: “I will never do like you. You throw the dignity of women underfoot. For this we women are not worth anything: the whole fault is due to woman like you, without dignity, without pride, who allow themselves to be trodden underfoot and to be humiliated by men!” And to my father, I used to say:

“Dad, listen well: I will never permit a man to do to me what you do to Mom! Never! If one day a man might be unfaithful to me, I will vindicate myself! I do the same thing, so that he might learn!”

My father beat me shouting: “How dare you, little girl?!” I do not know why my father was so chauvinist. I said to him:

“OK, you can even beat me… But if one day I will marry, and my husband betrays me, I will vindicate myself, I will repay him with the same coin, so that men might understand and experience how a woman suffers, when a man tramples her and humiliated her is such a way!”

I filled myself with all this hate and resentment. You know, I felt so much rage, that this made of my life a rebellion: I began to live with the desire to defend the woman. I began to support abortion, euthanasia, divorce, and I counseled all the women who I knew, to vindicate themselves if their husband betrayed them! I was never unfaithful physically, but I did much harm to so many people with these counsels.

When I was finally economically well off, I began to say to my mother:

“Mom, get separated from Dad, because it is impossible to put up with such a man! Have a little dignity, give worth to yourself, Mom!”

Even though he was like that, I liked my father: do you know that I loved him, despite everything? Because my mother was truly a good woman, who never, never, taught us to hate, neither my father, or anyone else! … And I, you can imagine a little bit! I wanted to get my parents to get divorced! But my mother used to say:

“No, my daughter, I cannot; I suffer, it is true, but I sacrifice myself for you, my children. You are seven and I am only one. I sacrifice myself because yours is a good father: I would be incapable of separating myself from him and leaving you without a father. And then, if I separated myself, who would pray so that your father might save himself? It is I that can beseech the Lord for him, so that he might find salvation: in fact, the pain and the suffering that he procures for me, I unite them to the pains that Jesus suffered on the Cross. Everyday I go to church, and before the tabernacle I say: ‘Lord, this suffering is nothing; I unite it to that of Your Cross, so that my husband and my children might save themselves.’ I entrust your father to Jesus, together with the Rosary. The devil pushes him toward the bottom making him sin, but I push him up with the Rosary, I bring him before the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle and I say to Jesus: ‘Lord, he is here: I confide that you will not let me die without seeing him converted. Lord, I do not pray only for my husband, but also for all the women who are in the same situation, especially for those who, instead of kneeling down to beseech you for their husband and for their children, put themselves into the hands of the enchanters and of the fortune-tellers, or else they betray them, consigning their own soul and the family into the claws of the evil one. Lord, I pray for these women, for these families.’ “

You know, eight years before dying, my father converted! He repented, he asked pardon from God, and the Lord pardoned him. He was in Purgatory, in the lowest part, in great suffering, so that he made reparation for his sins. To make reparation for sin is something that we do not take very seriously, we do not think about it. Certainly, often it is not possible, but precisely for this the Lord grants us the grace to make reparation for our errors through the Eucharist. Every time we participate at a Mass, the Lord gives us the grace to make reparation for the evil that we have committed. God shows us, in the life after, the consequences of our sins, of the evil that we have done to neighbor. Even a bad look, an ugly word… If we could see how terrible it is!

And how we cry, there, all these errors!

In the case of my father, my mother said to him to counsel my brothers that they might abandon the life of sin that they were leading. In fact, they were following the footsteps of the father, in infidelity, in drinking… They were his copy. If he might have done as the wife said to him, this would have been reparation. But he always responded to let the kids have fun, that they were only engaged, and that latter they would have time to change! He gave a bad example to my brothers, and he did not repair for his sins. He was crying, there in Purgatory, and he said: “I saved myself thanks to 38 years of prayer of this holy woman, that God gave me as a spouse!” My mother passed 38 years of her life praying for him!

Satan and His Strategy

Those who saw the film of the Passion of Christ, will remember that while they scourged Jesus, one sees a devil with a little child, (also he a devil), who looks at Jesus and smiles. Well, may you know that today he is no longer a baby, but a malefic genius, enormous and perverse, who keeps in slavery many peoples, with the pleasures of the flesh, with magic, with erroneous theologies, as for example those which affirm that the devil does not exist. Imagine the astuteness of the devil, who denies himself! He makes us believe that he does not exist, in order to be able to act undisturbed! Yes, he guides the instructions of men in order to make them believe that he does not exist, and so to bring us to destruction. He finds a way to confuse even those who believe in God; when there are true apparitions, for example, he makes to believe that they are false. He confuses the people in thousands and a manner, taking advantage of the weak side of each one. Many Catholics, believers and practicing, go to Mass and to the magician at the same time. Because the evil one makes to believe that there is nothing evil here, and that we go to Heaven all the same, because we certainly do not use magic to do evil to someone! The devil guides, uses and directs all of this with a very well prepared strategy. You know therefore that, when we have recourse to magic, it does not matter for whatever, the beast imprints his seal. When we go to some enchanter, or diviner, or fortune-teller, or astrologer, or to one who invokes the spirits, in all of these places the devil places his seal, his stamp.

I found myself in one of these places when I went with a friend, who brought me to an enchanter to consult her, to predict my future: there I was marked by the beast. The evil one put on me his seal. The worst thing was that, beginning from that day, in which by way of that lady I received the stamp of evil, I began to have disturbances: nocturnal agitation, nightmares, anxieties, fears, and even a profound desire to suicide! I did not understand the why of these desires! I cried, I felt unhappy, and never again did I feel in peace. I prayed, but I felt the Lord far from me: never again did I sense that nearness with Him, that instead I had when I was little. Of course! I had opened the doors to the beast, and the evil one had entered with force into my life.

The Lies and the First Confession Badly Made

When I was still little, I learned unfortunately that, in order to avoid the punishments of my mother, rather severe, lies were perfect: so I began to go with “the father lies”; I formed an alliance with him, and I became such a great liar that, to the measure in which my sins grew, increased also the size of the lies… I knew, for example, that my mother had a great respect for the Lord. For her, the name of the Lord was sacred, it was most holy, so I thought I had the perfect weapon! I used to say to her: “Mom, for beautiful Christ, I swear that I did not do this!” In this way I finally succeeded in avoiding the punishments. With my lies, I put the Most Holy Name of Christ in my rubbish, in my wickedness, in my garbage, filling myself with so much filth and so many sins… I learned that the wind carried them away, and when my mother strongly insisted, I said: “Mom, listen! That a lightning bolt might strike me if what I say is a lie!” These words I used many times… And you see! A lot of time passed, but truly a lightning bolt ended up striking me! And if now I am here, it is only because of the Mercy of God.

One day, my girlfriend Estela said to me:

“But look a bit, you are already 13 years old and you still have not lost your virginity?!“

I looked at her frightened! „How would this be…? What do you mean by this phrase?!“

My mother always spoke to me on the importance of virginity; she said that we are dealing with the ring of Matrimony with the Lord. But my girlfriend, with an air of superiority, said to me:

“My mother, as soon as I began to menstruate, she took me to the gynecologist, and now I take the pill!” I did not even know what it might be, at that time! And so she explained to me what are contraceptive pills to not have a pregnancy, and she added that she already slept with the cousin, with the friend, with this one and that one… An enormous list! She affirmed that it was a very beautiful thing! My friends said to me: “You really do not know anything?” Since I replied no, they promised to bring me to a place where they all had learned. I was worried: I knew where they would have led me! I began to peep into a new world for me; new and completely unknown.

They brought me to a cinema, rather ugly, which was at the center of the city, to see a pornographic film. Just imagine the fright?! A girl of 13 years, which at that time did not even have a television at home! You can imagine how it was to see such a film! I almost died of fright! It seemed to me to be in hell! I would have wanted to flee at full speed, from there… But I did not, for shame before my girlfriends… But I wanted so bad to get out of there, I was very frightened!

On the same day I went to Mass with my mother. I was so frightened, that I wanted to go to confession. She remained before the tabernacle to pray. In the confessional, I said my usual sins: that I had not done my duties at home, at school, that I was disobedient… These were more or less my habitual sins. I always went to the same priest, thus he knew more or less already my faults; but that day, I also said that I went to the cinema hidden to my mother. The priest, surprised, almost shouted: “Hidden from who?! Where did you go?!” Dejected, I looked toward my mother and I saw that she was tranquil, at her place… Fortunately she did not notice anything! Imagine if she had heard…! I got up from the confession, angered with the priest, and naturally I did not say what type of a film I had seen! If only to have said to had gone to the cinema in a hidden way, the priest was so scandalized, imagine if I would had said what I saw, what would he had done to me…! … He would have beat me?!

It was then the beginning of the astuteness of Satan! In fact, from that time, I began to make bad confessions. From then on, I selected what I would say in confession: “This I confess, but not this; this sin I tell the priest, but this other one no!” … My sacrilegious confessions began! I went to receive the Lord knowing that I did not confess everything! I received Him unworthily! The Lord showed me how terrible was the degradation of my soul, as was grave this process of spiritual death… To the point that, at the end of life, I did not believe anymore in the devil, or in anything. He showed me how, in infancy, I walked hand and Hand with God, I had a deep relationship with Him, and the sin did such that I let go, a step at a time, His hand. Now the Lord said to me that, those who eat and drink His Body and His Blood, eat and drink their condemnation: I ate and I drank my condemnation! I saw, in the Book of Life, how the demon was desperate because at 12 years old I still believed in God, I still went to Eucharistic adoration with my mother… It was terribly despairing, in seeing this.

When I began my life of sin, the Lord made me feel that I was loosing the peace in the heart. There began a battle with by conscience, and what did my girlfriends say to me? They told me: “What?! Go to confession?! You are stupid, you are out of fashion! And with who, then? With these priests, greater sinners than us?!” None of them went to confession, I was the only one who still went. I began a war between that which my girlfriends told me and that which my mother and my conscience told me… Slowly, slowly, the balance began to tilt, and my girlfriends won. So I decided to no longer go to confession: I would no longer confess to those old men, who were scandalized just because I went to the cinema!

See the astuteness of Satan! I distanced myself from confession at 13 years old. He is an expert, you know? He puts mistaken ideas in our head! At 13 years old, Gloria Polo was already a living corpse, in spirit. But for me it was important, it was a motive of pride, to belong to that little group of girlfriends, of refined and expert girls… When we are 13 years old we think we know everything, and everything that has to do with God is out of fashion, or idiotic. What the “in thing” is, instead, is to exploit…

I have not yet told you that, when the Voice of Jesus was heard, and the demons left from there because they could not stand that Voice, one of them remained. He had authorization from the Lord to remain. This demon, enormous, shouted with horrible screams: “She is mine! She is mine! She is mine!” Only he remained, because it was that one which led, manipulated, and with his strategy guided, my weaknesses so that I might sin! It was he who pulled me away from confession! For this, the Lord permitted him to remain next to me, and this is why that horrible demon shouted that I belonged to him, and he accused me. He had permission to stay, because I died in mortal sin! From 13 years old when I no longer went to confession, up to then, many times I made bad confessions. I therefore belonged to that demon, and he could remain during my judgment! Just imagine my shame, in seeing with horror my sins so numerous, and even more with that horrible thing to accuse me and to say that I was his! It was horrible!

The devil drew me away from confession, and so in this way he took from me the cure and the cleaning of soul; it was not gratuitous the sin that I was committing. On the spotlessness of my soul, the evil one put his mark, a mark of darkness… And this white soul began to fill itself with darkness. Never did I receive Holy Communion well: only for the First Communion did I make a good confession. From then on, never again: and I received my Lord Jesus Christ unworthily. When we go to confession, we must always, always, ask the Holy Spirit that he might illumine and send His holy Light on the darkness of our mind: because one thing the evil one does, is to obscure our mind, so that we think that nothing is a sin, that all is well, that there is no need to go to the priest to confess ourselves, - and even more, they are greater sinners than we are - , that confession is out of fashion. Clearly, it was more convenient for me not to go to confession.

The Abortion of the Girlfriend

At 13 years old, my girlfriend Estela became pregnant. When she told me, I asked her: “But were you not taking the pill?” “Yes – she replied – but it did not work!” “And now…? What will you do?” She told me that she did not know. She did not know if it happened in that party, or in that walk, or with the fiancée!

In the month of June she went on holidays with the mother. She was already five months pregnant. When she returned, she was surprised: she did not have any panic, and seemed to be a corpse! She was very pale, and of that extroverted girl that played with everything, nothing was left. By now she was no longer the same.

You know, neither of us liked to go to Mass. But, since our school was run by Religious Sisters, we had to go with them. There was an old priest, who prolonged the celebration, and to us these Masses seemed like eternity, they never would end. For the whole time of the Mass, we played, laughed, without giving the least attention to the celebration… But one day arrived a new priest, very young and nice looking. Our comments were that a young man so attractive was wasted by becoming a priest… We agreed to see which one of us would have succeeded in conquering him! Think about it a little bit!

The Sisters were the first to go to Communion, and immediately after we came up, all of us without going to confession! We went as agreed, to see who would have conquered the priest! We had to unbutton our blouse in front of him, at the moment in which he would give us the Communion, and that the one which might have succeeded in making him tremble his hand, would be the one who had the better breasts. That was the sign to understand that she had attracted the attention of the priest.

… The diabolical things that the evil one made us do! ... And we to believe that it was pranks! To what point we were…!

And so, when my girlfriend Estela returned from vacation, she was no longer the joking one, always playful and cheerful. Now her face was off, sad, very sad. She did not want to tell me anything; but one day when I was at her house, she said to me, lowering the skirt: “When my mother found out that I was pregnant, she got so mad, so much, that she took me immediately by the hand, she put me in the car, and she took me to the gynecologist. Having arrived there, she said to the doctor: … She is pregnant! Do me this favor, ask whatever price you want, but I need that you operate on her immediately and resolve for me this problem!” My girlfriend opened the closet of her room, and I saw a glass bottle, with a red cap, full of liquid… There inside was a baby completely formed! I will never forget it! Above the bottle cap, the box of contraceptive pills! Just imagine…

See how sin blinds a sick person, and a spiritually infirm mother, to the point of bringing the daughter to abort, and even to put the fetus in a bottle so that never again one forgets to take the pill… And to leave it in the closet, so that, as soon as she opens the door, she might immediately see that macabre container, and over the cap, the box with the pills! Simply macabre and absurd! It is this what the demon does, when we open the doors with sin, and we do not wash ourselves in confession! When I asked my girlfriend if she suffered from all this, and if she was sad, she replied ironically: “And why should I be sad? On the contrary, it is better now that they have freed me from this problem!”

But it was a lie, because she never returned the same! A little while after, she entered into depression! A terrible depression! … Then she began to use LSD, and naturally, I being her best friend, she offered some to me, but I became frightened. On one hand, I would have liked to try it, because she told me that the drug makes you feel very good, that you seem to fly, to be on the clouds, and so many other wonderful things that enticed me to try… But I could not! I remained frightened and I told her no, because certainly the odor of the drug would have remained on me; so my mother, who had a good sense of smell, would have discovered this… and would have killed me!

I did not try it! The Lord showed me, now, that it was not for fear of my mother that I did not try it, but for the Grace of God, because I had a mother who prayed, and her prayer with the Rosary sustained me, and inhibited me from descending so low.

But my girlfriends were not happy, they began to talk with me, they screamed, and were disgusted for my refusal… But I could not, I could not! This was one of the many graces that I received merited by a mother full of God, who prayed for me, who lived united to the Lord.

The Lose of Virginity - What Abortion Is

13 years went by, 14, 15, and I arrived to 16. Unfortunately, at this age I came to know my first fiancée and I went with him! The pressure from my girlfriends began. I was considered the black sheep, for the fact of being still virgin. Now that I had a fiancée, there began the psychological pressure! I had promised them that, when I would have a boyfriend, and then yes, I would have had relations; but before, no! … Now, I no longer had excuses! I said to my girlfriend Estela: “But… And if I get pregnant like you?” She replied that no, do not go and talk about this, because by now there were other methods, like for example condoms. In her time there existed only the pill, but now I would not have problems. She told me that she would give me 5 pills to take all on the same day, and to use the condom… And nothing would happen to me.

I felt bad at the thought of having to maintain this promise, but I did not want to make a scene with them.

When it happened… I realized that my mother was right, when she said that a girl who looses her virginity burns out. I felt exactly this, that something died in me… As if I had lost something, that I could no longer recuperate. This was the sensation that remained with me, together with an enormous sadness. I do not know why they say that sex is beautiful! I do not know why the youth say they experience pleasure! I do not think it is so good! In my country, Colombia, one sees on the TV so much publicity that speaks of secure sex, with the condom, and it encourages the use of it. There is so much exploitation of sexuality... I feel so much sadness in seeing this! If they only knew! If they only knew…

In my case, I assure you that I felt very sad, and I had a tremendous fear to return home, and that my mother might realize what had happened! Never again would I be able to look at her in the eyes, with the fear that she might see, in mine, that which I did! I felt anger and rebellion, about myself and toward my girlfriends, for having been weak, for having done something that I did not want to do, and that I did it only to please them…

You must know that, notwithstanding the counsels of my girlfriend, and despite all the precautions, during my first relationship I became pregnant!

Try to imagine the fright of a girl of 16 years being pregnant! (She cries). I began to note many changes in my body… Even in the midst of the fear, all the same I began to feel tenderness for this creature that I carried in my womb!

I spoke with my fiancée - later he became my husband - and I told him about this. He was surprised. I hoped that he might say that we would be married! I was 16 years old and he was 17 years old. But he said to me that we could not upset our life, and that I had to abort! Very worried, sad, very sad, I went to my girlfriend Estela, and she said to me: “Do not worry! It is nothing! Remember that I have already gone through it several times! I was a little sad the first time, the second time it was already easier, and the third time by then you do not feel anything!” “But can you imagine when I arrive home, and my mother sees me with such a wound? She will kill me!” “Do not worry, now they do not make wounds so big. The incision that you saw on me was enormous because also the baby was already very large, but in your case it is still very small, do not worry! Nothing will happen to you, your mother will not even notice!”

Oh, brothers, what sadness! What a great pain! How the devil makes us see things! … As if it were nothing, as if it were something without importance! …

As if an abortion provoked the most natural thing in the world! On the contrary, stupid people feel bad! That sex is to be consumed, without remorse, without fault! But do you know why the evil one does this? Why he leads people to this? Because, among other reasons, he needs human sacrifices! In fact, for every abortion provoked, Satan acquires ever more power.

No one can imagine the consternation, the fear and the sense of guilt when I arrived in that hospital, (a good distance from my house), in order to abort! The doctor gave me an anesthetic. But when I woke up, I was no longer the same! They killed that creature, and I died with her! (She cries).

You know, the Lord showed me in the Book of Life that which we do not see with the eyes of the body, and what happened when the doctor did the abortion. I saw the doctor who, with a type of pincers, grabs the baby and breaks him into pieces. This baby shouts, with so, so much force! Even though there has not passed even a minute from the moment of fecundation, it is already an adult soul. We can use the pill of the day after, or whatever kind of means, but we are always dealing with killing a baby with an adult soul, completely formed: because it does not grow like a body, but is created by God in the same instant in which the ovum and the sperm meet, in that precise moment! I saw in fact, in the Book of Life, how our soul, as soon as the two cells touched, form a spark of beautiful light, and this light seemed to be a sun that comes from the Sun of God the Father. In an instant, the soul created by God is adult, mature, in the image and likeness of Him! That baby is immense in the Holy Spirit, who comes out of the Heart of God!

The womb of a mother, immediately after the fecundation, illuminates suddenly from the splendor of this soul, and of it’s communion with God. When you tear out this baby, this life… I saw how the Lord jumps, when this soul is ripped from His hands. When they kill him, the baby cries out so much; all of Heaven trembles! In my case, when I killed my baby, I heard him cry out a lot, but so strong! I saw Jesus on the Cross who cried out and suffered for this soul, and for all the souls that are aborted! The Lord cries from the Cross, with so much pain, to much sorrow…!!! If you might have seen, no one would have the courage… to provoke an abortion (She cries)

Now I ask you, how many abortions are done in the world? How many in one day? In one month? … Do you understand the dimensions of our sin? The pain, the suffering that we procure for our God? … And how much He is merciful, how much he loves us, notwithstanding the monstrosity of our sins? Do you understand the suffering that we procure to ourselves, and how evil takes possession of our life?

Abortion Is the Gravest Sin; It Is the Most Terrible of All

Every time that the blood of a baby is scattered, it is a holocaust to Satan, who acquires in this way still more power. And this soul cries out. I repeat, we are dealing with a mature adult soul, even though it does not yet have eyes, nor flesh, nor a formed body… It is already completely adult. And this his cry so great, while they kill him, devastates all of Heaven. On the contrary, it is a cry of jubilation and of triumph in hell. The only comparison that comes to my mind is the finals of a world soccer championship: imagine all that euphoria, but in an enormous stadium, so immense so as to loose sight of the boundaries, full of devils who cry out like crazy beings their triumph.

They, the devils, threw on me the blood of those babies that I aborted or that I contributed in killing, and my soul became black, completely black.

After the abortions, I thought by now that I no longer had sins… The saddest thing was, instead, to see that Jesus showed me how, also in my family planning, I was killing… Do you know why? I was using the IUD (intrauterine device) as a contraceptive. From 16 years old, up to the day that the lightning bolt struck me! I took it out only when I wanted to get pregnant, (once married), to then put it immediately back afterwards.

I want to say to all the women who use these intrauterine devices: yes, they provoke abortions! I know that it happens to many women, - because it happened also to me - , to see often clots of blood rather large during the menstrual period, and to feel pain much stronger than normal. We go to the doctor, who does not give much importance to the fact: he prescribes a painkiller, an injection if the pains are too strong, telling us to not worry, that it is normal, because we are dealing with a foreign body, but there is no problem. Do you know what it is, instead? It is a micro abortion!!! Yes! Micro-abortion! The intrauterine devices provoke micro-abortions, because as soon as the ovum and the sperm unite, as I already told you, right from that moment is formed a soul, that does not need to grow, being already adult: these devices do not let the fertilized ovum to implant itself into the uterus, which thus dies. That soul is expulsed! For this we are dealing with a micro-abortion. A micro-abortion is an adult soul, completely formed, which was not permitted to live. It was very painful to see how many babies were fertilized, but then expulsed. These little suns, originating from the Sun of God the Father, these divine sparks, could not grab on to the uterus due to the IUD. How they cried out, while they were torn out from the hands of God the Father because they could not implant themselves!!! It was a dreadful scene…! And the worst is that I could not say that I did not know!

When I would go to Mass, I would not pay attention to what the priest said. I did not even listen, and if they might had asked me which verses of the Gospel had been read, I would not have known what to respond. You must know in fact that the devils are present even at the Mass, in order to distract us, to make us fall asleep, to impede us to listen. Well, in one of these Masses during which I was totally distracted, my Guardian Angel gave me a jolt and she uncorked my ears, so that I might listen to what the priest was saying in that moment: I heard him precisely speaking about intrauterine devices! He said that they provoked abortion, and that all the women who used them to control the births, actually were aborting; that the Church defends life, and that anyone who does not defend life cannot receive Communion! Hence, all the women who are using this method, cannot take Communion!

How I heard those words, I became infuriated with the priest! But what kind of things do these priests have in their heads? With what right?! For this the Church does not go forward! It is for this and for that, that the churches are empty! Of course, because it is not with science! But who do they think they are, these priests? Do they think that they will give food to eat to all of these children that we might have?... I left the church infuriated!

The bad thing was that, while I was being judged before God, I could not say that I did not know! In fact, notwithstanding the words of the priest, I did not give heed, and I continued to use the IUD!

How many babies I had killed? … Here is the motive for which I was living so depressed! Because my womb, instead of being a font of life, it was transformed into a cemetery, in a “slaughterhouse” of babies! Think about it: a mother, who God conceded the immense gift of giving life, to take care of her own baby, to protect it from everything and everyone, precisely that mother, with all these gifts, kills her little child…!

The devil, with his malefic strategy, has brought humanity to the point of killing their own children. Now I understand the reason why I lived in continual bitterness, depression, always ill tempered, ill-mannered, with ugly ways of doing things, with a bad face, frustrated with everything and with everyone. Of course! I had transformed myself, without knowing it, into a machine to kill babies, and for this reason I was sinking ever more into the abyss. Abortion is the worst of all the sins (those provoked, not when it is spontaneous), because to kill the children still in the womb of the mother, to kill a little innocent and defenseless creature, is to give power to Satan. The devil commands from the depths of the abyss, because we are scattering innocent blood! A baby is like an innocent lamb and without stain… And Who is the Lamb without stain? It is Jesus! In that moment, the baby is the image and likeness of Jesus! The fact that it might be the mother herself to kill her own child, determines a profound bond with the darkness, permitting that more devils from hell might come out to destroy and strangle humanity. It is as if one might open the seals… Seals that God has put to impede evil to come out, but that, for every abortion, it opens… And so horrible larvae come out, so that there are more and more devils… They come out to chase and persecute humanity, and then make us slaves of the flesh, of sin, of all the bad things that we see, and we will see always more. It is as if we might give the key of hell to the devils, to let them escape. And so escape more devils, of prostitution, of sexual aberrations, of Satanism, of atheism, of suicide, of indifference… Of all the evils that we see around us. And the world is getting worse every day… Think how many babies are killed every day: it is all a triumph of the evil one! That you might know that for the price of this innocent blood, the number of devils outside of hell grows; they circulate freely in our midst! Let us take shelter! … We sin without even realizing it! And our life transforms itself into an inferno, with problems of every type, with sicknesses, with so many evils that afflict us; all of this is the pure and simple action of the devil in our life. But it is we, we alone, that open the gates of evil, with our sin, and we permit him to freely circulate in our life. It is not only with abortion that we sin! … But it is among the worst sins. And then we have the nerve to blame God for so much misery, so much disgrace, so much sicknesses and so much suffering!

… But God, in His infinite Goodness, still gives us the sacrament of Reconciliation, and we have the opportunity to repent and to wash our sin in confession, breaking in this way the strings that tie us to Satan, and his influence in our life. In this way we can wash our soul. … But in my case, I did not do it!

Bad Counsels

How many times we kill, also spiritually?! How many of us worry about that our own children have cloths to wear, to adequately eat, that they can study…? And if they get sick, we run immediately to the doctor… But how many of us, often, kill our children? So many are sad, or full of anger, bitter, because they do not have near them the father or the mother, they do not have the love of the parents. Just imagine a women who presents herself in church, for example, and says: “I thank you, my God, for these children so good that you gave me; they are so good, but so good, that from the time that the father left me, they hate him, and they love only me!” Do you know what this mother did? She killed her children spiritually. Because to hate is to kill! How many times we poison our children?! You do not imagine how it makes God sorrowful our upsetting, poisoning the children against the father or the mother! God does not permit it!

Jesus showed me that I was a frightful assassin, because not only did I sin when I aborted, but I also financed many abortions. Here is the power that money gave me! I made myself an accomplice. I used to say, in fact: the woman has the right to remain pregnant or not! … I looked at the Book of my life… And how it pained me to see that which I did years later, when I was by then adult! When we have poison inside of us, we cannot give to others anything good, and all those who come to us become ruined. Some girls, three of my cousins and the fiancée of my cousin, came often to my house. Being the one who had money, I invited them, and I spoke to them about fashion, about “glamour”, to how to exhibit their body to be attractive, and I ladled out counsels. See how I prostituted them! I prostituted the little ones! This was another horrible sin, after abortion. I prostituted them, because I gave them these counsels: “Do not be foolish, girls, do not give heed to your mothers, who speak to you about chastity and about virginity: it is old fashioned stuff. They speak about the Bible, which is 2000 years old… And then, these priests, who do not want to update themselves, they speak to you about what the Pope says, but the Pope is also out of fashion”. Consider the poison that I transmitted to these girls. I told them that they could arrange their own body, only they must pay attention not to get pregnant… And I taught with which method.

The fiancée of my cousin, who was 14 years old, arrived one day to my outpatient clinic, crying a lot. He said to me: “Gloria, I am a young girl, I am a young girl, and I am pregnant!” I almost shouted at her: you stupid thing, did I not teach you how to do these things?!” And she replied: “Yes, yes, but it did not work!”

Do you know what God wanted from me, in that moment? That I might have supported that girl so that she might not have fallen into the abyss, that she might not have aborted. Abortion is a current that draws one in, that causes suffering, because you will always feel emptiness, pain, to be the assassin of your child. The worst, for this girl, was that, instead of speaking to her about Jesus and helping her, comforting her and supporting her, I gave to her the money to abort! Certainly, in a secure place, to not be harmed physically…

But it remained spiritually, and for the whole life.

Like this, I financed so many other abortions. But I still had the courage to say that I did not kill, that I was good, that I was Catholic, that it was not right, that I could not remain in that horrible place…!

Moreover, the people who I did not like, I hated and detested them, and I spoke badly about them. I was a false person, hypocrite, and also an assassin: because it is not only with weapons that one kills a person. To hate, calumniate, to envy, do deride, to do evil, also this is killing.

Atone For Our Sins

As I already said, abortion is the gravest sin before the eyes of God. So many people ask me how to atone for abortion. In fact, we cannot restore the life to the baby; but in the Catholic Church we have a blessing so great! The sacrament of Reconciliation. In confession, God forgives us, and that which the priest looses on earth, is loosed also in Heaven. Glory to God, for this! Blessed be the Lord for His Goodness! … The Lord forgives us, but remember that which Jesus said to the adulterous woman: that she go in peace, but that she not return to sin! “Go in peace and sin no more”.

Another act of reparation is “Baptism of intention”. To baptize babies, as the priest did today, in this celebration, so that they can come out of Limbo . See the wisdom of the Catholic Church! These babies enter into the Glory of God! Now they are little Angels, who pray and intercede or our salvation. See the beauty of the “economy” of God! See how God transforms all for our good! Nothing is lost! And when one evangelizes on abortion, and a baby is saved, also this is atonement! When a woman aborts, beyond asking pardon of God in confession, and to not abort ever again, she can also contribute to avoid other abortions, of other women: doing this, she atones for her sin, enormously! This is reparation!

My Lack of Love of GOD

My relationship with God was very sad. For me, God was the One who I sought out only if I had a problem. Many times, when that happened, I ran to Him to ask help. Almost always it was an economic problem! It was a totally economic relationship, that between me and God! It was a type of “Bank Cash Dispenser”! I put in prayer and supplication, so that God might send me money! I wanted that God might love me and give me everything, but really everything, but on my terms! And that no one might come to tell me that doing like that I was sinning, because I did not appreciate him! The devil put to sleep my conscience! Often, when I found myself in economic difficulty, I would pass before an image of Baby Jesus, while I was going out of church, and I would touch his little hand saying to Him: “Listen to me! Give me money, that I have need of!”

Like some do with Buddha: they scratch the stomach, telling him to give them money! That is how I did with Baby Jesus! Imagine my nerve! What great lack of respect! And the Lord showed me how much my disaffection and my lack of respect pained Him! How much sorrow and shame I felt, now! Money did arrive, yes, but disappeared immediately! It was as if, the more depressed I arrived, the more depressed I remained without anything! In the end I found myself in an economic situation always worse.

Things being like this, a lady recounted to me to have gone through a similar situation, but she went to a protestant pastor that someone had recommended, and everything got better! As soon as I heard this, I asked her immediately where he might be, because I wanted to go there immediately! … Look at my infidelity!

I thus went to that pastor, and he prayed for me laying his hands on me, and he made me communicate in their manner. Think about it, I would receive the Body and the Blood of the Lord, in my Catholic religion. I go there, and they make me do the communion as if it were the first time!

Their celebrations were very animated: they would jump, applaud… I said to myself: what a bore those Catholic priests so dull and disgusting, those Masses so annoying… There is no comparison with these, that they make us feel so good, so joyous!

There they do not believe in images, and they say that that of the images is idolatry. Thus, I no longer knelt down before a Crucifix, because it was idolatry. When I began to go to these evangelic churches, I had a neighbor, an old lady very poor, who lived in front of my house; I helped her by giving the money needed to pay for the light bill, water bill, and at times I did some shopping for her, so that she could eat. As you can imagine, this old lady was very attached to me!

But when we do not have God inside of us, even the good works become rotten, like our sins.

As I said, when I began to go to them, I liked the evangelical churches a lot; in fact, more than being joyous their celebrations, they said to bind the ruining spirits, and similar things.

Now, that old lady was Catholic, but I used the friendship that she felt for me, and I succeeded in convincing her, beginning in this way to destroy her faith. In a few words: due to my counsels and ideas that I put in her head, she died without receiving the sacraments. She did not want to receive them, because she no longer felt they were important. See how we influence those who are near us! When inside of us there is evil, we end up leading others, those who draw near to us, into our same errors. It is enough to see what I did to that old lady!

But when that protestant pastor asked me for the tenth, I became infuriated; in fact, in that period I was already bankrupt and they, to complete my ruin, even asked me for 10% of my earnings! … It was like this that the “crush” for Protestantism passed for me completely!

The Sixth Commandment: Adultery

On this commandment I thought, still full of pride: here they will not catch me in fault, because I never had a lover, I was always faithful!

As a matter of fact, after matrimony, I never even gave a kiss to others, only to my husband. But the Lord showed me that I exhibited too much of my body, when I went around with my breasts exposed, with the skintight stockings, with the cloths that I used… I thought that men looked at me, simply to admire me… But the Lord showed me how they sinned with me: because we are not dealing with admiration, as I believed, but with provocation, and they were provoked due to me. I committed adultery, for having exhibited my body. I did not understand the male sensibility. I believed that they thought like me, that looking at me they would say: “What a nice body!” Instead they sinned due to my fault. Never was I unfaithful for having thrown myself into the arms of a man, but it was as if I was a prostitute in spirit. More than everything, I thought to vindicate myself, if my husband might had been unfaithful to me, and I counseled other women to do so, when they discovered that the husband had betrayed them. “Do not be a fool! Vindicate yourself, do not forgive. Show your worth! It is for this that we women are so put down by men, so trampled on!” You know, with these counsels, I and my girlfriends succeeded in separating one of our girlfriends. She had surprised the husband in the office while he was kissing the secretary. We, with our counsels, did not let her reconcile, even though he asked her for pardon, truly repentant. She even wanted to forgive, because she loved him: but we did not permit forgiveness to him. In the end they got divorced, and two years later she got married civilly, with an argentine. Do you understand? When I counseled in this way, I was inside an adulterer. Jesus showed me, and I saw well, how sins of the flesh are abominable, because the person condemns himself, even if the world affirms that all is well.

In all my life I had only one man, my husband; but the sins are also in the thoughts, in the words, in the actions: it was very sad to see how the sin and the adultery of my father did so much harm to us. In my case, it transformed me into a resentful person; I sunk into rancor against men, while my brothers became faithful copies of my father. Do they think to be happy in feeling themselves very masculine? They are womanizers, they drink, and they do not realize the evil that they do to their own children. For this my father was crying with great suffering, in Purgatory, seeing the consequences of his sin and of his example that he gave them.

We condemn ourselves, with promiscuity, because it is to live as if we were animals: mice, dogs… here and there…

The Seventh Commandment: Do Not Steal

Also to calumniate is to steal. Just imagine that I said to had never stolen. I considered myself honest: but I stole from God! Yes, I stole from God. I was created and I was born in order to help create a better world, to contribute to extending the Kingdom of Heaven on the earth. But, more than not having fulfilled this mission, I gave bad advice and I damaged a lot of people. I did not know how to use the talents that God gave to me. Thus I stole, clearly I stole! How many people I stole their good name, giving rise to calumnies and spreading them? You cannot imagine how terrible are the sins of our tongue! … And in what way one repairs…!

How to repair the honor of someone, after having spread gossip, or calumny?! How to restore the good name to that person?! Yes this is difficult! This is why in Purgatory, those who have done evil to someone with words, have much to suffer. Almost everyone uses the tongue to criticize, to destroy, to offend, to devastate the good name of people. These tongues, down there, are the cause of great suffering! They burn!!! How they burn! You cannot imagine! The Lord showed me how we deceive ourselves, in the judgments that we make about others. While we, for example, look with contempt at a prostitute, the Lord looks at her with infinite Love, with infinite Mercy. He sees inside her, he knows her whole life, and knows what led her to prostitution. Might you know that many of them live this way because of our sins, also because of our contempt and because of our lack of love for neighbor. Has anyone ever lent his hand to help a prostitute? Or toward someone caught stealing? We go through life judging and seeing the defects of others, their errors, and condemning. But when we see someone do something mistaken, at least let us shut the mouth, let us bend our knees and pray for that person. At times we are not able to do anything more: but God can. Let us not judge her, let us not criticize her, otherwise we sin more than her. We absolutely cannot give rise to false witness, or collaborate so that it is spread, nor judge, nor lie, because doing like this we rob the peace from the neighbor. And be careful, because a lie is always a lie, there is not big ones or small ones, green or yellow, or red color: to lie is always grave, and the father of the lie is Satan.

In my case, so many lies for what? My life was put in the open, to the Light of God. And you? … But may you know that on the other side, no one steps up to argue or to demand… There, there is only your conscience and God!

In my judgment, for example, my parents were there to see my lies, but my mother did not accuse me. Only, she looked at me with infinite tenderness. My worst lie, then, was to lie to myself when I said that I did not kill, I did not steal, that I was a good person, that I never did evil to anyone, and that God does not exist; and that I would go to Heaven all the same! What a tremendous shame, I experienced now!

The Lord continued to show me that, while in my house food was wasted, in other houses of the world there was hunger, and he said to me: “Observe: I was hungry, and look what you did with what I gave you, you wasted it. I was hungry, and look what you did, slave of fashion, or of what people said about you, about appearances: you bought brand-name goods, jewelry, you came to the point to spend 150,000 pesos for every injection, to be thin, slave of your body… To the point of making of it a god. Look how many do not have anything to cloth themselves, or to eat, or do not know how they can pay the bills”.

… Jesus showed me the hunger of my brothers, and how I too was responsible for the hunger and for the conditions in which my Country and the world found itself in… Because we are all responsible! He showed me how I had something to do with all this, because when I spoke badly about someone, this person had lost his work and the sustenance for his family, and I robbed from him the honor and good name. And afterwards, how would I be able to restore it to him?! He showed me that it was easier to give back stolen money, because one could give it, and thus repair the sin. But when you rob the good name of a person, after the calumny is already propagated, who can render the honor to this person? One does so much evil to him, in work, or in the relationships with the other people! Marriages are destroyed! So much evil! So much evil!

And still, I stole from my children the grace to have a mother at home, a tender mother, sweet, that might have loved them and accompanied them! Instead…! The mother away, the children alone, with the “Mom” television and “Dad” computer, and the video games… And I believed to be the perfect Mom. I left home at 5:00 o’clock in the morning and did not come back before 11:00 pm.

In order to satisfy my conscience, then, I would buy for them brand-name signed things and everything that they wanted.

I was terrified when I saw my mother asking herself where she went wrong…

What was she supposed to do or not do, regarding my education! She was a holy woman, who gave us and planted in us the principles according to the Lord; and my father was a good man, with us. So I said to myself: what will become of me, who does not do any of this for my children? Chilled, I asked myself: what will be, when God will judge me in regards to my children? What fright! What an immense sorrow! I robbed the peace from my children: now I see it in the Book of Life. I experienced a great shame! … In the Book of Life we see everything, all of our life like a film. What a pain it was to see my children who were saying: “Let us hope that Mom arrives late! Let us hope that there might be a lot of traffic and she arrives later! Because she is so boring, unpleasant, and when she arrives she always grumbles and shouts the whole day!” What sadness, brothers! A baby of three years, and the other a little bit bigger, to say these things! To hope that the mother might not arrive! I stole from these babies a mother, I robbed from them the peace that I should have given at home, I did not do in such a way that they might know God by way of me, and love the neighbor. But, on the other hand, I could not give what I did not have: I did not love the neighbor! And if I do not love the neighbor, I do not even love the Lord. Because God is Love…

Also to lie is to steal. In this I was an expert, you know? Because Satan became my father. In fact, you can have for father God, or Satan. If God is Love, and I was hate, who was my father? If God speaks to me of pardon and of love for those who do evil to me, while I said that “those who do that to me must pay”, I was vindictive, a liar, and if Satan is the father of lies, then who was my father? Lies are lies, and Satan is the father of this. The sins of the tongue are terrible! I saw all the evil that I had done with my tongue, when I criticized, when I derided, when I gave nicknames to someone. How she felt, that person! How the nickname with which I derided hurt the person, creating for her tremendous inferiority complexes, capable of destroying her! For example, I called fat a person who was fat, making her suffer, and because of this word, she ended up destroying herself.

I recount this to you better. At 13 years old, I was part of that little group of girlfriends, to which it was an honor to belong to… a little group of refined and expert girls. The Lord showed me how this company of “very good girls”, spiritually killed a school companion. There was in class a fat girl, obese. My girlfriends began to torment her, to make fun of her, calling her with offensive names, like fat seal, elephant, and others. We made fun of her. I did the same, in order not to seem out of step with them. Now, in the Book of Life, I saw how this poor creature always had more complexes because of her obesity. She looked at herself in the mirror, and every time she saw herself as more ugly. So she began to hate us, and to hate herself; and the more she looked at herself, the more she hated herself. And hate is death, it is death for the soul. In the jaws of this desperation, the girl one day drank a bottle of iodine, to see if she might loose weight! But do you know what happened? Do you know how she ended up, due to the iodine? Almost blind! She had a strong intoxication, and remained almost blind! For this she did not return to school! We did not care to know about it! We did not see her anymore, and we were not interested in knowing why!

For this I tell you, brothers, that collective sins are very grave, the gravest. Because they are our sins, personal! The sin of that girl, was our sin. The sin of the community is also your sin, because you did nothing to avoid it! And this is true not only for individual sin, but also for those of humanity, for which you did nothing so that it could be avoided.

The power of the word…! We destroyed that girl, putting on her nicknames; the devil entered and ruined her, and now she can, in her turn, destroy others, with her hate, in this way the currents of evil go forth forming themselves. Where there is hate, there is the evil one. This is how we assassinated a school companion. We killed her soul!

Twenty years later… I had a very nice looking cousin; I taught her, I counseled her how to dress, how to give value to her body, to use makeup, etc. One day she gravely burned herself, more than 70% of her body. Only the face was not burned. But it was very grave, she could have died.

I became infuriated, I became enraged with God; I went into the chapel of the hospital and said: “God, if you exist, prove it to me! Show me that you exist, save her!” Just imagine my pride! Well, my cousin survived. But she remained completely burned, with grave scares. Her hands remained deformed… A sadness. In that period I was already well off economically, and I took walks with her, at times in the swimming pool. But when I put her in the water, all the people left and protested and said: How gross! But why do you leave home with this creature? She comes to ruin our vacation!”

They said this, the people who saw her! People are bad, perverse, egoists, when they speak like this, seeing the disgrace of others. Consequently, my cousin began to not want to leave home. She came to the point of having fear of people! And in the end hated them! (She cries). The Lord shows, to each of us, when we have made ridiculous a brother, without a drop of compassion. What right do you have to cause someone to suffer, to give nicknames, and to call with offensive names, without knowing what the person is going through? What right do you have to be so cruel? God will show you how many people you assassinated with the word only! You will see the terrible power that the word has, to kill souls.

And yet, if I would go before the Most Blessed Sacrament, to ask for the grace of atonement for my sins, God would heal the soul of my cousin. Because ours is a God in love, and to the measure in which we close the doors of evil, he opens to us the doors of blessing. When the Lord gave me the examine of the Ten Commandments, he showed me that I said that I loved and adored God, by words, but in reality I adored Satan. I criticize everything and everyone; and everyone pointed with the finger, “holy Gloria”!... He showed me when I said that I loved God and neighbor, but I was false and envious… He showed me how I was never grateful to my parents, nor did I ever thank them for their commitment in giving me a profession and to be able to succeed in life, all the efforts and the sacrifices that they did… All this I did not see. As soon as I began my profession, they even became inferior in my eyes… So much so as to be ashamed of my mother, for her humility and poverty. Look how this is base-minded.

God gave me an analysis of my whole life, in the light of the Ten Commandments: he showed me how I was in regards to the neighbor, and in regards to Him.

Love Neighbor

Never, never, did I have love, nor compassion, for the neighbor, for my brothers outside. I never thought, in the most absolute way, about the sick, about their solitude, about children without a mother, about the orphans… With so many babies who suffer, so much suffering, I could have said: Lord, let me accompany them in their pains… And instead no. Nothing! My heart of rock, never remembered the sufferings of others. The worst thing was I never did anything for love of neighbor! … For example, I paid the expenses at the supermarket for a lot of people, who did not have the money and were in need, but I did not do it for love: I had money, and it did not cost me anything. I did it because I liked that all might see my gesture, and that they might say I was good, that I was a saint. And how I know how to profit from the needs of people! I did not give anything gratuitously! In fact I would say: “I do this for you, but you in exchange do me the favor to go, in my place, to the school of my children, to the meetings, because I do not have time… Deliver for me the envelopes of the car bills… Do this for me, do that for me…” In this way, I manipulated everyone: I did charitable works in order to have in exchange favors, and never because the person was in need. Moreover, I adored having behind me lots of people, who would say I was good and generous, even a saint: because there were those who even said this, and they were people who knew me well! In the examine that Jesus gave me on the Ten Commandments, I saw how from greed came forth all my evils. I was blinded by this desire to have money, a lot of money, because I thought I would be happy the more I had money. It is too bad that, precisely the period in which I had a lot of money, was the worst for my soul, to the point that I wanted to commit suicide. In spite of my richness, I felt alone, empty, bitter, frustrated. This avidity, this desire for money, was the way that led me, by the hand of the evil one, to distance myself and to detach myself from the hand of the Lord. He said to me: “You had a god, and this god was money, and due to it you condemned yourself. Due to it, you sank into the abyss, and you went away from your Lord”.

When he said to me “god money”… We had arrived, yes, to having a lot of money, but more recently we were in the red, full of debts, and we no longer had a penny. And so I cried out: “But what money?! That which I left on earth, are nothing more than debts!...”

In my examine on the Ten Commandments, I did not pass one of them! Terrible!!! What fright!!! I was living in an authentic chaos! ... But how? ... Me?! I, who had never killed?! Who never did harm to anyone?! This is what I thought... And instead yes, I had killed so many people!

The Book of Life

After the examine of the Ten Commandments, the Lord showed me the “Book of Life”. I would like to be able to have the words in order to describe it. What a marvel! We see our whole life, our actions and their consequences, good or bad that they might be, to ourselves or to others. Our sentiments and thoughts, and those of others. Everything like a film. It begins from the moment of fecundation: we see our life to begin from that moment, and from there we are taken by the hand by God, who shows us our entire existence. In the same instant of our fecundation, there is like a spark of Divine Light, a beautiful explosion, and a soul is formed, white… But not like the white that we know! I say this color because it is the one most similar, but it is so stupendous that it is impossible to describe it in words the beauty, the splendor… The soul is so beautiful, full of light, enchanting, radiant and full of Love of God… A startling Love of God. I do not know if you ever noticed how newborns, often, laugh by themselves, and emit those sounds and babblings. Do you know? They are talking with God! Yes, because they are immersed in the Holy Spirit. Also we are immersed, but the difference is that they, in their innocence, know how to profit of God and of His Presence.

You cannot imagine what a wonderful thing it was to see the moment in which God created me, in the womb of my mother. My soul carried in the Hand of God the Father! I discover a God the Father so beautiful, wonderful, tender, attentive and affectionate, who cares for me 24 hours a day; who loved me, protected me, and always came to seek me when I distanced myself, with infinite patience. I saw only punishment, while He was only Love, only Love, because He looks not at the flesh but at the soul, and he saw how I was going farther away from salvation.

You know, my mother had been married for seven years and still did not have children. In that moment she was very troubled, due to the unfaithful life of my father: she was very worried and distressed, when she realized she was pregnant. She cried with great affliction. That had such an effect, that it signed me interiorly, so much so that in life I never felt loved by my mother! And yet she was always so affectionate, so good with me; she always gave me love and affection, but I would say and insist that she did not love me, and I always lived with this complex. For this, only the Sacraments are the Grace of God that takes care of us. When they baptized me, you must see the party that there was in Heaven! It is a little creature that receives on the head a seal, the Seal of the children of God! It is a fire! The fire of belonging to Jesus Christ.

But I saw in the Book of Life how, already as a baby, I began to fill myself with the consequences of the sin of my father in matrimony, of the sins that I began to know, for example his lies, the vice of drinking, unfaithfulness, and the suffering of my mother. All of this signed me, and caused in me bad sentiments, emotive and behavioral limits.

The Talents

The Lord said to me: “What did you do with the talents that I gave you? …

Not those on the outside, it smelled wonderfully, with costly perfumes, with clothing never used!” … Talents?! I came into the world with a mission: that of defending the reign of Love. But I forgot I had a soul, not to mention to have talents, and even more to be in the Merciful Hands of God. I did not even know that all the good that I had neglected to do, had caused so much sorrow to Our Lord. I saw the talents truly wonderful that God had placed in my life. All of us, brothers, are worth very much to God. He loves all of us, and each one in particular. We all have a mission in this world. I saw the devil very worried because these talents that God has placed in us, were at the service of the Lord.

Do you know what the Lord asked me the most to render an account for? For my lack of love and charity for neighbor, and he said to me: “You spiritual death began when you let yourself to not be moved by suffering; and yet you too experience it. You were alive, but dead”. If you could see what spiritual death is! A soul that hates is frightfully horrible, ugly, embittered, disgusting, it gives annoyance and hurts everyone. It is painful to see our soul, when it is full of sins… I saw mine: signed… But inside, a tremendous stink, and sunk in the abyss. This is why there was so much depression and bitterness. The Lord said to me: “My spiritual death began when you did not let yourself to be taken up with compassion for your brothers. It was a notification, when you saw the tribulations of your brothers everywhere, or when you heard by way of the mass media killings, sequestrations… But you remained like a rock! Only you would say, with the mouth: oh, poor people. But you did not grieve, in the heart you did not feel anything, you had the heart of stone, and it was sin that hardened it”.

Now I recount to you how the Lord showed me the talents.

You must know that I never watched the news on the TV, because it did not go well with me to see so many deaths, so many unpleasant things… I was interested only in the last parts: diet, horoscope, mental power, energies, and messages on these types of things… All the stuff that the devil uses to divert us, to confuse us… Now the Lord showed me, in the Book of Life, how one day, in His Divine strategy, he retarded the programs, and I turned on the TV when the news had not yet finished: I saw a humble peasant woman, who was crying over the body of the husband.

I must tell you, brothers, that the devil habituates us to the sorrows of others, to see the suffering of others thinking that that problem does not regard us: those who are in difficulty might take care of themselves, because it is not my problem. Well, the Lord showed me how it hurts Him when journalists are only preoccupied that the news might make an impression, without being moved; they think only about selling the news, without worrying themselves, in that case, of that woman! When I turned on the TV and I saw that peasant woman crying, I experienced a deep pain for her suffering; I was really grieved, that poor woman. It was the Lord that permitted this! I gave attention to what was being said, and I realized that the place where these events took place was at Venadillo, Tulima: my birthplace…! But immediately afterwards, began the daily programs, where they spoke about a phenomenal diet, and I completely forgot about the peasant woman, because I was more interested in diet. … I never thought about her again!

The one who did not forget the peasant woman, was Our Lord! He made me to feel the pain and the suffering of that woman, because he wanted that I might help her. That was the moment to use the talents that He had given me. He said to me: “The pain that you felt for her, was I, who cried out to you to help her. It was I to retard the news, so that you might be able to see: but you were not capable to bend the knee and pray for her, not even for one minute! You let yourself to be clouded by the diet, and you did not remember her any more!”

The Lord showed the situation of that woman. It was a family of humble peasants. The first thing was, they had asked the husband to abandon the house in which they lived. To which, he replied no, that he would not leave there. And so some men came, to chase him away. That peasant man saw them coming toward him, to send him away, and he realized that they were armed and had the intention to kill him. I saw the whole life of that man: I saw and felt the fright and the anguish that he felt; I saw how he ran to hide his babies and the wife under some things, which seemed like enormous earth ware. I saw him running away from there, but these men followed him. Do you know what his last prayer was? “Lord take care of my wife and my small children: I commend them to you!” And they killed him! He fell dead to the ground. When they shot, the Lord made me feel the pain of that woman and of his small children, who could not cry out. (She cries).

In this way the Lord shows us the pain that He feels, and the suffering of the others. But we, often, we interest ourselves only in our things, and we do not worry even a little bit about our brothers and their needs! (She continues to cry). Do you know what the Lord wanted? He wanted me to kneel down and supplicate Him for that family, for that Mamma and her children! God would have inspired me how I could have helped them! And do you know how! It was enough to take a few steps and go to a priest, who lived in front of my house, and tell him what I saw on TV. This priest was a friend of the pastor of that village, (Venadillo, Tulima), and he had a guest house at Bogotà; he would had helped that woman.

You know, the first thing that we render account to God, even before the sins, are the omissions! They are so grave! You do not imagine how much! One day you will see, as I saw it! These sins make God cry! Yes, God cries, seeing his children suffer for our indifference and lack of compassion for neighbor; for the fact that so many suffer, and we do not do anything for them! The Lord will show us, he will show everyone, the consequences of the sin of our indifference before the suffering of others. So much pain, in the world, is owed to our indifference, unconcern, and hard heart.

To summarize a little: that peasant woman, seeing herself persecuted, (in fact, they sought also to kill her), escaped with her children, and sought out help from the priest of that village. The pastor, desolate, said to her: “My daughter, you must flee, because if they find you they will kill you!”

In a great hurry, he did what seemed to him the best for her: very worried, he sent her to Bogotà; he gave her a little money, and a few letters of recommendation!

She left in a hurry; she presented herself, with these letters, in the various places that the pastor had indicated to her, by no one took her in! Do you know where she ended up? Do you know who helped, in the end, that woman? Those who forced her into prostitution!!!

The Lord gave me still an opportunity to help her, when years later I saw her again! It was a day that I had to go to the center of the city. I detested going there, because it is a place where you see more misery, and since I felt myself superior, I did not like seeing poverty, indigence, and things like that. But on that day I really had to go there, and while we were passing there, my son asked me: “Oh! … Mamma, why in the world does that lady dress in that way, and wears the skirt so short?” I answered him: “Do not look, my son! These are contemptible women, who sell their body for pleasure, for money: they are prostitutes, they are unclean.” Just imagine! To speak like this, and even more poisoning my son! I classified without pity a sister, fallen in this situation due to the indifference of a people. The Lord said to me: “The indifferent are the tepid, and I vomit them out! An indifferent person will not enter into Heaven ever! The indifferent person is one who passes in the world and nothing is important to him, nothing regards him, if not his house and his interests! Your spiritual death began when you stopped to interest yourself in that which happened to your brothers, when you thought only about yourself and about your wellbeing!”

The Spiritual Treasures

I was called into existence in order to help to construct a better world, and to use the talents, that the Lord had given to me, in order to contribute to extend the Kingdom of Heaven on the earth. But I did not do it! … On the contrary! How many bad counsels I gave, and how many people I drug down and ruined, with my bad advice and bad example! I did not use ever the talents that God had given to me, I never used them! The Lord also asked me: “What spiritual treasures do you bring to me?”

Spiritual treasures?! My hands were empty! So he said to me: “What use to you were two apartments that you had, the houses that you possessed, the outpatient clinics, which you considered as a professional, with great satisfaction? Perhaps you could have brought here one brick only? What use was it to you so much worship of your body, all the money spent for it, all the obsessions to stay in form? To what did it serve to put it under so much diet that it led you to suffer anorexia, bulimia, torturing your body? You made of your body, of yourself, a god? And what good did it do you, now, here? You were very generous, it is true, but you did it so that they would thank you, to be praised, so that they would say that you were good. You manipulated everyone, with money, so that in exchange they would do you favors. Tell me: what have you brought here? When I saw you with the economic ruin, it was not a punishment as you thought, but a blessing. Yes, that bankruptcy was to strip you of that god, that god that you served! It was to make you return to Me! But you rebelled, you refused to come down from your social level, and you cursed, slave of this your god money! You thought to have obtained all this alone, with your forces, with the studies, because you were a worker, a fighter… Instead no! Look how many professionals there are, with the academic studies better than yours; how many in work commit themselves as and more than you: observe their conditions… To you was given much, and for this motive much is asked of you; for much you must respond”.

Think about it, for every grain of rice that I wasted, I had to render an account to God! For all the times that I threw out food in the garbage!

In my Book of Life, I saw when I was small and my family was poor. My mother often cooked beans; and I hated them, I detested them. I would say: “And again these cursed beans? One day I will be so rich, that I will never eat them again”. I saw that one time I threw out the beans that Mamma had served to me, without her noticing it, and when she sat down to eat she noticed that my plate was empty. She thought that I had eaten in a hurry because I was very hungry, and she served me another time, giving to me the portion reserved for her: so she ended up not eating. You know, the Lord showed me that among the people closest to me, the one who often suffered hunger at that time, was my mother. Having seven children, many times she did not eat so that we might eat, because we were very poor. Well, that day she remained hungry in order to give me, without knowing it, that which I had thrown in the garbage. But it also happened, often, that she did not eat because someone knocked on the door to ask for food, and she gave what she was eating. She suffered hunger, but she never made any kind of a show, she never had an embittered face, much less sad, nor any other sign. On the contrary, she always had a smile and one did not notice anything about her. I have already recounted to you what a jewel of a daughter I was?! I called my father “Peter the rock-breaker” (Fred of the “Flintstones”), and to my mother I said she was old fashion! That she was an old antiquated lady, and other similar things. Even to the point of denying that she was my mother, because I was ashamed. Just imagine!...

And yet, you cannot imagine the graces, the blessings that were scattered over me and on the whole world, due to my mother! Think of the grace to have a mother that goes to church and, before the tabernacle, offers her sufferings and her pain to Jesus, and even more confides! Confides in Him!

The Lord said to me: “Never did anyone love you, and will love you, as your mother! Never! No one will love you so tenderly as her!” Then the Lord showed me all the parties she gave me (after my change in social condition)... In those banquets, in those buffets, half of the food ended up in the garbage, without any thought about it.

The Lord continued: “Look at your brothers, suffering from hunger! I was hungry!”, he said to me almost shouting. You know how it sorrows the Lord hunger, need, and the suffering of His children! How it saddens Him our egoism and our lack of charity toward neighbor!

And he continued to make me see how in my house there were so many refined and costly things. As a matter of fact, at that time, I had stuff in my house very costly, very elegant cloths, very costly. The Lord said to me: “I was naked, and you had a closet full of expensive cloths, that you did not use…” I saw also that, when we lived in a high social level, if my girlfriends bought signed cloths, I had to acquire those even better; if one of them bought a nice car, I had to get a better one… I wanted always something better compared to them, because I was jealous. The Lord said to me: “You were always haughty; you made comparisons with those who were better off than you! Rich people! And you never looked at those who were less economically well off than you. When you were poor, you walked along the way of sanctity, because you even gave that which you were lacking”. And he showed me how much it pleased him my gesture, one time that my mother, notwithstanding our poverty, she succeeded in buying for me brand-name tennis shoes. I was very happy, but I met a child on the street that was barefooted, and I felt such a pain for him, that I took off the shoes and gave them to him. I returned home without shoes, and my father almost killed me! And not without reason: with the poverty in which we were in, so much sacrifice in order to buy them, and I gave them along the way, as soon as they had been bought! But the Lord was content about this! How he was happy about the way by which I was walking! Notwithstanding we were a complicated and poor family, God scattered on us many graces and blessings due to the merits of my mother, of her goodness and of her prayers. The Lord continued showing me that, if I had not been closed to the Grace and to the Holy Spirit, I could have helped a lot of people, with the talents that he had given to me. He showed me all of humanity, and how we respond to God, due to how we have lived, holding the heart closed to Him and to the Holy Spirit, and to their divine inspirations. He said to me: “I had inspired you to pray for these people: if you had done this, the evil would not have entered into them, causing so much damage”. For example: a little girl was sexually assaulted by her father: if I had not closed myself to the Holy Spirit, I would had listened to His Divine inspirations, and I would have prayed for them: so that he evil one would not have entered into that father, protected by the prayer, and that violence would not have happened, nor would have cause so much suffering. Or also, that young boy would not have committed suicide. The Lord continued saying to me: “If you might have prayed, that girl would not have aborted, that person would not be dead feeling herself abandoned by Me, in a hospital bed. If you would have prayed, I would have counseled you, so that you might have begun to help your brothers. I would have guided you! I would have led you to these people. So much sorrow in the world, and you could have helped!”

He showed me how many people suffer in the world, and how much I could have helped. Never did I permit that the Holy Spirit touch me, nor ever did I let myself be moved by the suffering of others. The Lord said to me: “Look at the suffering of my people, look how I needed to wound your family with cancer, so that you might be moved for those suffering the same sickness! You were moved for the sequestered, only after your husband himself was sequestered”. And almost shouting: “But you, of stone!!! Incapable to feel love!”

To conclude, I will try to explain how we see ourselves in the Book of Life.

I was very hypocritical, false. I was one of those who before the person I make eulogies, but behind their back I spoke about them badly; that outside they speak well, but inside you do not hear what they say. For example, I eulogized someone saying: “You are pretty, what a nice dress, it goes very well with you”. But inside I was thinking: how gross, you are ugly, and you believe to be the queen! In the Book of Life you see all of this, with the difference that we see also the thoughts. All of my lies came to the light, to “living red”, so evident that everyone could see. How many times I left in a hidden way from my mother, because she did not let me go anywhere, how many lies I invented: “Mamma, I have group work to do in the library”. She believed me, and I went to see a pornographic film, or to the bar to get a beer with my girlfriends. And there is my mother there, now, seeing everything in the Book of Life… Now nothing was hidden. What shame I felt! What shame! At the time that my parents were poor, I brought to school, for brunch, a little milk and a banana. I ate the banana and I threw the pealing wherever I happened to be; it never came to my mind that someone could hurt themselves due to that banana pealing. The Lord made me to see, as a matter of fact, the consequences: who fell, who was hurt… I could have killed someone, with my recklessness and lack of mercy.

I saw, with great pain and shame, how only one time did I make a good confession, as an adult. It was when a lady gave me 4,500 pesos in change too much, in a supermarket in Bogotà. My father had taught us to be honest, and never to touch not even a penny of someone else’s; I realized in the car the error, while I was going to my outpatient clinic, and I said to myself: “But look at this, that stupid person, that animal (it was like that I would talk), she gave me 4,500 pesos too much! Now I must go back! … But looking in the rearview mirror, I saw the congested traffic, and said: “No! I am not going back, I do not want to be late and loose time! The worse for her who had been such an idiot!” But I had remorse for that money. Regarding this, my father had educated us well. Sunday I went to confession, and said: “I accuse myself of having stolen 4,500 pesos, not having given them back; I kept them for myself!” I did not pay attention to what the priest said to me, but the evil one could not accuse me of being a thief!

… But the Lord said to me: “It was a lack of charity to not give back the money, because for you 4,500 pesos was nothing, but for that woman it was food for three days”. The saddest thing was to see how that woman suffered hunger for a couple of days, due to my fault, together with her two babies; like this the Lord showed me. When I do something, there are consequences of my acts, and those who suffer because of them: because our acts always have their consequences. That which we do, but also that which we do not do, brings consequences for us and for the other! Everyone will see these consequences in the Book of Life. When the moment will arrive to appear before God for the judgment, you will see it, as I myself saw it. When my Book of Life was closed, imagine my sadness, my shame, the immense sorrow…

The Book of my life was closed in the most beautiful way. Notwithstanding my behavior, despite my sins, my trash, my indifference, and my horrible sentiments, the Lord sought me out even to the last instant: he always sent me instruments, people, he spoke to me, he shouted at me, he took things from me, he let me fall into disgrace in order to seek me, and that I might seek Him. He followed after me always, even to the last instant. Do you know Who is our God and Father? He is a powerful God, in love, who begs next to each of us, so that we might convert. Instead, when things went badly, I would say: “God punished me, he condemned me!” Clearly it is not like that! Never does He condemn us: in fact, of my free arbitrary power, I chose freely who might be my father, and it was not God. I chose Satan as my father!

When I was struck by the lightning bolt, before taking me to the “Social Seguro”, they took me to a public hospital, where there were many sick people, so many wounded, so much suffering, and there was not an available stretcher for me. And when those who brought me asked the doctors where they might be able to put me, they just said only: “Down there, down there!” And my rescuers: “But down there, where?” “Down there, on the floor!” But they did not want to leave me on the ground, because I was badly burned, and if I had contracted an infection, I would certainly have died... While I was in a corner, during those hours, the doctors looked at me with a face… It is that they could not leave someone that had a heart attack, for example, or was in a very grave condition, but with more possibility of surviving with respect to me, that I was instead totally burned like a “toast”, and in all probability I would die.

But I was conscious, and very irritated, murmuring because the doctors did not come to me. But there was a moment in which I was calm, without complaining, because I saw Our Lord Jesus Christ, who was bent over and was very near to me, he touched my head with His hands and he consoled me. Are you able to imagine this?! Can you imagine the tenderness?! I thought: is it a hallucination? How is it possible to see Our Lord here?! I closed the eyes, then I reopened them, and I continued to see him there! He said to me, with great tenderness: “You see, my little one, you are about to die! Feel the need of My Mercy”. Just imagine…! And so he said: “Mercy! Mercy!”, but in the mean time I thought: why mercy? What bad have I ever done?

I was not conscious of my errors, but it was clear to me that I was about to die, this yes! About this I was sad… “Alas, I am about to die!!! … Alas, my diamond rings!!!” I immediately remembered my rings. I look, and I see the flesh of my fingers totally burned, as if they had exploded. But I said to myself: “I must take them off, cost what it may cost! Otherwise they will have to break them, and they will loose their value”. I did not think about anything else; I saw my fingers puffed up, and I thought only to take off my rings so that they might not break them! You cannot imagine what an unpleasant smell burnt flesh has. And the more I moved those rings, the more it stank. I felt that I would be crazy from the pain, but I insisted and I said to myself: “No! No and no! I must succeed in this! I must succeed, because to me, nothing can beat me, and this flesh will not swell, no sir! I am taking off these rings from here, cost what it may, I will not die with them”. When in the end I succeed to take them off, I remember suddenly: “Oh, no!!! I am about to die, and these nurses will steal my rings!” In the meantime arrives my brother-in-law. I, very happy: “Save my rings!!!” I handed them over to him, who is a doctor, and it could not be otherwise: because otherwise he would not have touched them, but he would have thrown them away, and far away! In fact they were burned, and with fragments of flesh attached. He said he would deliver them to Fernando, my husband, adding: “Tell my sisters to take my children because, the poor ones, they will be without Mamma. In fact, I will not make it!” The worst thing was that I did not profit from those moments that Jesus offered to me, to ask Him Mercy and pardon. But how could I ask pardon, if I thought I did not have sins?! I believed myself to be a saint! When we feel we are “saints”, it is then that we condemn ourselves.

When I had taken off the rings and had entrusted them to my brother-in-law, so that he might hand them over to my husband, I said to myself relieved: “Finally, now I can die!”, and the last thought was: “Alas, with what money will they bury me, given that my banking account was in the red?...”

God the Father loves everyone and each one, independently of the fact that we are good or bad; and with such an intensity that, even to the last moment, he comes even to us with so much tenderness, he embraces us with all of His Love… He wants to save us, but if we do not welcome Him, if we do not ask Him pardon and mercy, recognizing our faults, he leaves us free to follow that which we have chosen. If ours had been a life without God, most likely in that moment we will refuse Him, and He will respect us. He does not oblige us to accept Him.

And so one closes my Book of Life.

The Return

But when my Book of Life was closed, you cannot imagine how I felt: I was truly terrorized. I see myself with the head down, and I feel as if falling toward a pit. Then that thing is opened that seems like a hole, I fall inside, and terrorized I begin to cry out to all the saints to save me. You would not believe the quantity of saints that I began to name: St. Ambrose, St. Isidore, St. Augustine, etc. I did not even know how to recognize so many, as bad a Christian as I was! But when I finished the list of saints, I remained in silence… I felt an immense emptiness, a pain and an enormous shame, and I realized that no one could help me! And I said to myself: “… And all the people, on the earth, to think that I was a saint… To hope that I might die, in order to ask from me a grace. Where am I going, now?” I lifted up my eyes, and I met those of my mother. I felt so much sadness, a profound sorrow, because she would have wanted so much to carry me into the hands of God. With great confusion and suffering, I cried out to her: “Mamma, what a shame! I have condemned myself! Where am I going, I will never see you again!”

But in that moment, Jesus grants her a very beautiful grace: my mother was motionless, and God permits her to move the fingers, pointing them upwards, and inviting me to look up there: I look, and behold to come out of myself from the eyes of the crusts, frightfully painful. It was spiritual blindness which went away, and in that instant I saw there: a wonderful moment.

One day, one of my patients, said to me: “Doctor, I feel very, very much pain, much sadness, for you. Because you are too much of a materialist. But one day that you might find yourself in some affliction, or in a dangerous situation, whatever it might be, ask Jesus Christ that he might cure you with His Blood, and that you might ask Him for pardon: because never, never, will He abandon you, having paid the price of his own Blood for you”.

And so, with great shame and immense sorrow, I began to cry out: “Lord! Jesus Christ, have compassion on me! Forgive me, Lord, forgive me! Give me a second chance!”

It was the most beautiful moment, most wonderful! I do not have words to describe it. Because Jesus bent down and pulled me out of that pit! He lifted me and brought me to a level place, and he said to me, with much love: “Yes, you will return, and you will have your second chance… Not because of the prayer of your family, because it is normal that they cry and shout out for you, but because of the intercession of all the people unrelated to your flesh and to your blood, that have cried, prayed, and lifted up their own heart with so much love for you”. Do you know what I saw? I saw the great power of the prayer of intercession, brothers! Do you know how to be able to be always in the presence of the Lord? Pray everyday for your children, but pray also for the children of the people of the whole world! Pray for the others! In this way you will be in the presence of God, everyday.

I saw how thousands and thousand of little flames of light went up, so beautiful, to the presence of the Lord; they were little white flames, stupendous, full of love. They were the prayers of so many, so many people, that were praying for me, that had been moved after having seen on TV and in the newspapers what had happened to me, and that they were crying and offering Masses. The greatest gift that you can offer to someone is the Holy Mass. Nothing exists more efficacious, that can help someone, than a Holy Mass. It is also what God appreciates the most: to see His children intercede for their neighbors, and to help their own brother. The Holy Mass is not the work of man, but of God.

Among those little lights, though, there was an enormous one, very beautiful: a light much greater than all the others. You know, brothers, why I am now here? Why I returned? Because in my land exists a saint. I looked with curiosity, in order to know who that person might be that loved me so much, and the Lord said to me: “That man that you see there, is a person that loves you, much, and he does not even know you”. He showed me that it had to do with a poor peasant man, who lived in the mountains, in the Sierra Nevada of Saint Martha. This man was very poor; he did not have anything to eat. All of his harvest was burned, even the chickens that he had, had been stolen by the men of the “guerrilla warfare”. These last ones, wanted even to take into their service his older son. This peasant man went all the way down to the village to go to Mass. The Lord made me pay attention to the words with which he prayed: “Lord, I love you! Thank you for health, thank you for my children! Thank you for all that you give me! Be praised! Glory to You!”

His prayer was only praise and rendering thanks to God! The Lord made me see how in the wallet he had a 5,000 pesos bill, and a 10,000 pesos bill, and this was all that he possessed! Do you know what he did…? He gave the 10,000 bill at the offertory! I would put only a 5,000 pesos bill, and that when someone gave me a false bill, at work!

He, instead, did not give the 5,000 bill, but the 10,000 bill, even though this money was all that he had! And he was not discontented, nor did he grumble due to his poverty, but he thanked and praised God! What an example, brothers! Afterwards, he went out of the church, he went to buy a piece of blue soap (washing soap); he wrapped it in a piece of newspaper (“O Espectador”), of the day before. There was the news of my accident, and the photograph where I appeared totally burned.

When this man sees the news, as he reads it slowly, being moved he cries so much, as if I were someone very dear to him, and prostrate with the face to the ground, he beseeches God with all of his heart, saying: “Father, my Lord, have compassion on this my little sister, save her, save her Lord! Lord, if You save her, if you save my little sister, I promise you to go to the “Sanctuary of Buga” to release the vow, but save her. Please, Lord, save her!” Think about it, that man so poor, who was not cursing, nor lamenting for suffering hunger with his family, but on the contrary was praising and thanking God… And with a capacity to love the neighbor so great that, even having nothing to eat, he was disposed to cross the Country in order to fulfill a promise, in favor of someone he did not even know!

The Lord said to me: “This is true love of neighbor! It is like this that you must love the neighbor…” And it was there that he gave me this mission: “You will go back, to give your testimony, that you will repeat not a 1000 times, but a 1000 x 1000. Woe to the one, listening to you, who will not change, because he will be judged with greater severity. And this applies also to you, in your second return, for the religious who are my priests, and for whoever else that does not listen to you: because there is no greater deaf person than the one who does not want to hear, nor a worse blind person than the one who does not want to see”.

This, my dear brothers, is not a threat, on the contrary! The Lord does not need to threaten us. This is a second chance that I have, and it is also for you. This shows that God is in love with us, and puts before our eyes this mirror which is I, Gloria Polo. Because God does not want that we condemn ourselves, but rather that we live with Him, in Paradise. But for this, we must let ourselves be transformed by Him. When our hour will arrive, to leave this world, also to each one of you will be opened the “Book of Life”; when you will die, all of you will pass through this moment, just as I passed through it. There, we will see exactly as now, with the difference that we will also see our thoughts and our sentiments, our acts and their consequences, our omissions and consequences of them… All in the presence of God. But the most beautiful thing is that each one will see the Lord face to Face, that he asks us to convert ourselves: up to the last moment he asks us this, so that in truth we begin to be new creatures with Him, because without Him we could not do it!

Physical Recovery

When the Lord made me return, my kidneys did not function, nor did they do for me the dialysis because it was not worth the effort, from the moment that I was about to die… But suddenly, they began to function; the same for the lungs, and also the heart began to beat strongly. You can imagine the astonishment of the doctors! By then I did not need the machines!

I began my physical recovery, but I did not feel anything alive below, and after a month the doctors said to me: “Gloria, God is doing a miracle with you, because your skin has grown back over all the wounds… But as for your legs we cannot do anything. We must amputate them!” When they said this to me, I, who was a sportswoman, I remembered: 4 hours of daily acrobatics, for what? … I thought only of fleeing from there, but I did not succeed, because the legs did not hold me up, and I fell. I was hospitalized on the 5th floor, and they took me to the 7th floor to stay there until the surgery; I found there a lady who had her legs already amputated, but they had to amputate them again, higher up. Seeing her, I thought that not even all the money in the world was sufficient to buy those wonderful things which are the legs. When they told me that they would amputate them, I felt a great sadness! Never had I thanked God for my legs, on the contrary: with the tendency that I had to get fat, I suffered hunger as a fool and I spent fortunes to be elegant… And now, I see my black legs, burned, without flesh, but for the first time I thank God to have them yet. “Lord, I thank you for my legs, and I ask you for the grace to leave them for me, so that I might be able to walk. I beg you, Lord, leave to me the legs!” And I immediately began to feel them: they were very black, without circulation, and from Friday to Monday, when they arrived, the doctors were surprised, because they were red and the circulation was back in place! Astonished, they touched me and they did not want to believe. I said to them: “Doctors, my legs hurt terribly, but I believe that there is no one in the world, so happy to feel pain in the legs, as I am in this moment!” The doctor on the 7th floor replied to me that never, in 38 years of service, had he seen anything similar.

The other two miracles that the Lord did for me, was the breasts and the ovaries. The doctor had said that I could no longer have babies. I was happy, because I thought that God had given me a natural method to not get pregnant. But, one and a half years later, I see that my breasts began to grow, to expand and to be reformed. I was amazed, and when I went to the doctor, he said to me that I was expecting a baby! And with these breasts I nursed my daughter!!!...

To God nothing is impossible!

Conclusion

May the Lord bless everyone, immensely. Glory to God and glory to Our Lord Jesus Christ. May God bless you!

I present to you my daughter. This child is a miracle! She is the daughter that God gave me, with the burned ovaries! That which for the doctors was totally impossible! But for God, nothing is impossible!!! Here she is, her name is Maria José!...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gloria Polo actually lives in Colombia, and continues to exercise her profession. She was left with enormous scares, but she leads a normal life, and now she is a woman of great faith! She travels much; she transmits her testimony to thousands of people, and fulfills the mission that God had confided to her. (She has the authorization of the Church to do so). This is a translation from the Italian translation of this testimony. The Italian translation is a translation of a CD (in Spanish), in which is engraved the testimony that she gave in a church in Caracas (Venezuela), May 5, 2005.

Near-Death Experience Fr. Steven Scheier — A Catholic Priest Who Says He Stood Before the Judgment Seat of Jesus

2026-08-18T19:32:57.093+10:00

Introduction

October 18, 1985 will be a date that I will remember until I take my dying breath. At this time, I was a Diocesan priest in the Diocese of Wichita and was stationed in a small town in Southeast Kansas by the name of Fredonia. I was pastor of a parish named Sacred Heart. On that particular day, I decided to go to Wichita, Kansas, about eighty-six miles away to get some advice on a parish problem from one of my brother priests. I didn’t have any appointments that day or that evening and I recall that going to Wichita was a first in my stay in Fredonia.

The Accident

I had to travel to Wichita by way of a State highway called Highway 96. This particular highway was one that had no shoulders, was very, very hilly and went through the Flint Hills. It was traversed by big trucks and semis and was very dangerous, to say the least. I remember returning from Wichita late in the afternoon; and that is the last thing I remember. I was involved in a head-on collision with a truck from Hutchison, Kansas. There were three persons in that vehicle. Nobody was killed in the accident thank God! As a result of the collision, I was thrown out of my vehicle (I was not wearing my seatbelt at the time) and landed on the ground outside my car. I suffered a major head concussion at the time and the scalp on the right side of my head was ripped from my skull. That is, as far as I remember, and I don’t clearly remember anything.

Not Expected to Live

Behind me, traveling on the same highway was a Mennonite nurse from Fontenac, Kansas, who stopped and stayed with me until the ambulance came and picked me up. It was because of her expertise that it was discovered that I had suffered a broken neck. She informed the drivers of the ambulance when they arrived to treat me accordingly. Had my head been turned either way at the scene of the accident, I would have died of asphyxiation. I later learned that I had suffered a C-2 break of the vertebrae of the neck which they refer to as the “hang-man’s break”, because this is the break of the neck that occurs when a person is hung by the neck. I was taken by ambulance to a nearby town called Eureka, which had a small hospital. The doctor in charge sewed my scalp back on my skull and then, realizing that he couldn’t do anything else for me, called the Lifewatch helicopter from Wesley Hospital in Wichita, Kansas to come and pick me up.

As the helicopter was lifting off the hospital grounds in Eureka, the doctor said to his sister, who was a nurse, that he didn’t expect me to survive the trip between Eureka and Wichita, which was not that far away.

Upon arrival in Wichita, the helicopter landed on top of Wesley Hospital, a Methodist hospital, and I was rushed to the Trauma Center. I was treated there and then admitted to the main hospital in the Intensive Care Unit. I was only about five blocks from my home in Wichita, so my mother, who was still living at the time, came up to the hospital that night and stayed with me. I was assigned to a neurosurgeon who worked at the hospital and had his office in Wichita; and he treated me according to the damage that I suffered. I did not have to have surgery for fusion; I was put into traction and was also fitted for what is normally referred to as a “halo”. The technical term for this orthotic device is called a cervical thoracic orthosis. This orthotic device is used to treat a lot of neck injuries. The “halo” was around my head with four screws, two in the front and two in the back, screwed into my skull, so that I could not bend or move my neck in any way. This device was fitted onto a “jacket” which was irremovable also. I wore these two devices for a period of almost eight months. I do remember that at one time, during visitation hours at the hospital, the screw came out of the head. I have never felt pain like that before or since. Apparently, along with this orthotic device, I was also put in traction so that the bones of the vertebrae could be aligned and start the healing process. I don’t remember this procedure at all! The doctors told me that since I lived through this accident they expected that I would be laying on my back, looking up at the ceiling for the rest of my life, completely paralyzed from the neck down. Apparently, God had other plans!

Prayers of the Faithful

The evening of the accident, a phone call came into the hospital from one of the parishioners at Sacred Heart in Fredonia asking a nurse on my floor about my condition. This person was told by the nurse on duty that evening that the doctors were giving me a 15% chance to live. That was pretty serious! I later heard that on the evening of the accident the doors of my church, Sacred Heart, were opened for people to come in and pray for me. The Christian church and the Methodist church in Fredonia also opened their doors that night so people could come in and pray for me. The Assembly of God Minister later told me that he spent the entire night in prayer for me. I was also on the Mennonite prayer line. So I had a lot of prayer support. I later heard that my parish prayed the Rosary twice a day for me: once in the morning and then again in the evening.

Toward the end of my recovery period in the hospital, my neurosurgeon assigned me to a Clinical Psychologist for treatment called Concussive Head Syndrome. This therapy was greatly needed and appreciated. I could stand very little emotional trauma and very little sound. It was good to talk to a person who seemed to know what I was going through and what I needed. I was released from the hospital December 2, 1985 and then went home to recuperate as best I could with my mom and my younger brother who lived not too far away in Wichita. One of my other brothers was home on leave from the Navy, and so he was in the house night and day – to my benefit. My doctor informed me that I made record time in recovering from my injury and that in the report he could not use the word "miracle" but that anyone reading my report would have to come to that conclusion on their own.

My bishop, who was the Bishop of the Wichita Diocese, left my parish in Fredonia vacant as far as a permanent pastor was concerned. A priest was sent to the parish to have weekend liturgies there and at Neodesha until I was completely recovered. I was sent back to the parish in Fredonia in May of 1986. I remember having to shop for another automobile and then travel the same highway back to my parish. I am glad that I had to do it, but I recall that it was a difficult experience at the time. I had gone back to the parish previously in April of the same year for First Holy Communion. Another priest of the Diocese took me down that particular weekend so that I could be there for this special event.

I was treated very well upon my return to Sacred Heart Parish and the city of Fredonia. My parishioners were quick to tell me of their concern and their prayers for my recovery and my return. The people of Fredonia, Kansas, and especially Sacred Heart Parish, are a God-fearing, Catholic people who take their religion very seriously. When I returned, it was noticeable that they did not demand much from me because of my previous condition. This fact was very much appreciated by myself and made a big difference on my performance at the parish there and in Neodesha at St. Ignatius Parish.

One day, not too long after my return to the parish, I was saying morning Mass as I was accustomed to, when something extremely supernatural happened. I was about to read the Gospel for that day, a Gospel that we have heard many times throughout the years. It is from the Gospel according to Luke. To be exact, it was Luke 13:6-9 and it read this way: “And he told them this parable: There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, ‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. (So) I cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.’”

When I read this passage from the Scripture, it was as if I was remembering a conversation. Besides this, the page itself, from the Lectionary, became illumined, enlarged and actually came off of the Lectionary toward me. I had to finish Mass as normally as I could and when I was finished, I went to my rectory, sat down in my lounge chair with about four cups of coffee and tried to remember why this particular gospel brought back so many memories – and memories concerning what?

The Illumination

It did not take long before everything seemed to come back to me. The following seemed to happen immediately after the accident. I was before the Throne of Judgment! Jesus Christ was the Judge. I didn’t see Him, I merely heard Him. What took place was instantaneous as far as “our time” is concerned. He went through my entire life on earth and accused me of sins of commission and omission that were unconfessed and therefore unforgiven and unrepented sins. To each offense, I said, “Yes, Lord!” I had planned that when this would happen I would have all kinds of excuses to say to the Lord. For example, “Well, Lord, you know, she was a pretty feisty woman, and one lost his patience very easily with her all the time!” Well, when you are talking to Truth personified, you don’t have any excuses; so all you say is “Yes, Lord!”

Mother – He’s Yours

He reached the end of my judgement and said to me, “Your sentence is hell!” Again, I said, “Yes Lord, I know!” It was the only logical conclusion that He could have come up with. It was not a shock to my system! It was as if He were honoring my choice, my decision. I had chosen my sentence; He was merely honoring my choice. It was then, after He had said this that I heard a woman’s voice, “Son, would You spare his life and his immortal soul?” The Lord said, “Mother, he has been a priest twelve years not for himself and not for me; let him reap the punishment he deserves!” She, in reply said, “But Son, what if we give to him special graces and strengths and then see if he bears fruit. If not, Your will be done!” There was a very short pause and then I heard Him say, “Mother, he’s yours!” And I have been hers both naturally and supernaturally now for the past twelve years. I don’t believe that I could have been without her for the length of time that she was absent from my life and my spirituality.

He Got My Attention

Now, many will say to me, “But Father, you must have had a special devotion to the Blessed Mother before this happened. No wonder she interceded for you!” To this, I have to say no! This is an indictment against me as a priest, but I have to say that as far as my belief in the angels, the saints, the Blessed Mother, I believed all right, but with my head – ‘head’ knowledge, not with my heart, a heart knowledge. The angels and saints were to me like imaginary playmates. I believed in them, but they were not real! I discovered by this accident just how real they are! It took this accident to focus my attention on the Lord! One has to remember the day that Jesus died on Calvary. Mary, his mother and the disciple whom He loved, John, were at the foot of the cross when Jesus looked down upon them and lovingly said, “Woman, behold your son! Son, behold your mother!” It was at this juncture that Jesus gave to His mother all of us, her sons and daughters, as her children. She takes this very seriously! She would come to the aid of anyone and intercede for him or her as she interceded for me; I was not special! I have learned since the accident, a very important truth concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To whatever the Blessed Mother wants, God – Father, Son, or Holy Spirit – cannot say ‘no’ to her! It is impossible for them to say this!

Hell Exists

Another fact that I have learned since the accident is that I was saved from physical and spiritual death for two reasons. The first reason is: hell exists; and secondly, and just as important is the fact that: priests are liable to hell also! In this age, a lot of people tend to dismiss the fact that God is all just. They think, and wrongly so, that God is love and that He wouldn’t punish anyone for eternity. This is a fallacy! We are, all of us, liable to keeping God’s Commandments and making use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation to have our sins forgiven. If we think we don’t sin, then maybe we had better do more complete examination of conscience. One of the truths that I learned in my experience is the fact that God doesn’t send anyone to Heaven or Hell, we choose that, we make that decision; He merely honors and confirms our choice.

One must be attuned to the reality that because a priest wears that piece of white plastic in his collar he is not guaranteed heaven. The matter is quite the opposite; a priest is just as accountable (and maybe even more so) as any layperson to keeping God’s Commandments and brings the type of priest that he is ordained to be for the people and for Jesus Christ. The Blessed Mother, Mary, has said many times that we are to pray for priests and not criticize them. Now, more than ever, in the age in which we live, it is easy to criticize a priest or bishop whom we feel is off the orthodox track. We have to remember the Blessed Virgin’s mandate to us!

The Experience Changed Me

I have been asked many times: How has this experience changed me? There is really no way I can answer this question completely. I have to say that, as a priest and a pastor, I shepherded and pastored myself those years. Father Steve Scheier was number one and was of major concern. I never “got into” the priesthood, as such! I was not very spiritual and my prayer life was practically nil. Of course, many others (parishioners and fellow priests) believed quite the opposite; I did not show these problem areas very readily to anyone. I was very much surprised during my judgment that Jesus did not take a popularity poll. It was strictly He and I, and He knew me better than a thousand other people. I realized then that I had only Him to please and that my concern in pleasing (or trying to please) countless others, was a total waste of time and energy. I am now t-r-y-i-n-g to be a better priest than I was before. I thank the Lord and His Blessed Mother constantly for giving me a second chance. I try to keep in focus the only thing that matters and that I almost lost for all eternity – the chance to get to Heaven and be with God, the Angels and Saints for eternity!

I would like to preface my remarks from here on by saying to those for whom the following applies, that I love you as my brother priests and as my brothers and sisters in Christ. What I will say does not mean that I was never guilty of such actions, intentions or omissions, it rather points to errors that are still being made today in Jesus’ Church by His ministers and by His followers. I see many areas to be addressed today and I can truthfully say that I owe my expertise to the fact that I was judged by Almighty God and was spared in His Divine Mercy. The following is the second part, and the most important part of my experience that I have to address to the Catholic Church worldwide.

Importance of Confession

The first area that needs attention all over the world is the matter of confession. One only has to go to a parish on a weekend to see the downfall and collapse of this great sacrament that was instituted by Christ Himself. Jesus instituted this sacrament with His first appearance to His Apostles after He rose from the dead. The first words He said after He came through the bolted door was, “Peace be with you.” Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” (John 20:21-22). This is why confession takes place (thus the Sacrament of Reconciliation) and why priests are the recipients of such power to forgive or to withhold forgiveness. So, what’s the problem? The problem is that there are fewer and fewer who feel any sense of guilt and consequently, feel that they have not sinned! If one does not feel any guilt, there is no need to go to confession – one (in his or her mind) has not sinned. So, where does society get this notion? I blame a great deal on psychologists and psychiatrists who have told people (and sometimes publicly) that they don’t have to feel guilty about this or that, they should put the blame on their parents in bringing them up the way they did, or blame the environment which contributed to the problem facing the client – the task or solution is to completely eradicate guild in a person. This is one of the greatest phenomena that have contributed to the decline in confessions today.

Another reason for the decline is the fact that “some” priests, as well- intentioned as they are, advise the penitent that he or she does not have to go to confession “often” and then, when the penitent verbalizes a sin or number of sins, the confessor is quick to tell the penitent that such- and-such is not sinful, but a result of tension, anxiety or over tiredness. Consequently, the penitent is made to feel or think that most of all of his or her sins are really not sinful at all, but merely human weaknesses that are due to some physical abnormality or phenomenon.

Most Catholics do not have a choice in confessors. Some go to other parishes where there is a priest who is more traditional in his treatment of the penitent. But some feel that they cannot leave parish boundaries to attain the peace of mind and soul that they are so desperately looking for. The results of the encounters are that people no longer feel a need to go to confession; plus they feel that the confessor is not as compassionate and understanding as priests used to be.

One of the biggest atrocities of the priesthood today, and raging rampant in all parts of the United States at this time, is the verbalization of opinions by priests to laity about matters of Church doctrine. Priests sometimes forget that they are ordained as representatives of the Church, and therefore, should preach what the Church teaches. If a priest wishes to give his own opinion on a matter that has been strictly defined by the Magisterium of the Church, then he should take off his collar and tell those whom he addresses that the following is his opinion regarding the matter. This goes for confessional practice and for the pulpit as well. Priests are ordained ministers of the Church!

One of the greatest omissions in parish life the past twenty-five or twenty-six years, is the fact that priests have not mentioned or directed in their homilies the subjects of “hell” and “eternal damnation.” If this is the fact, and it is, then the idea of a parishioner feeling or coming to terms with the fact that they should go to confession is totally missing. We have not wanted to upset parishioners! We especially do not want to upset wealthy parishioners who write large checks to the parish and are “good givers.” Consequently, what has been addressed in sermons has been peace, love, and joy; these, to be sure, will not upset anyone and consequently, the priest will have given a “good” sermon that weekend! Here again, if there is no guilt, then there is no sin; so why should a parishioner go to confession? The reality, too, is that Father wants to be “popular.” He wants people to go away from his parish feeling good, not guilty; and he wants most of all for people to say on their way out of church, “Father, that was a fantastic sermon you gave!”

The second area that has to be addressed in our discussion of the misfortunes of the Church today is the area of prayer or non-prayer! The obviously “with it” parish is the one that you can pick up a document from which informs you of all of the organizations in the parish that are there to facilitate healing processes and generally, whatever area of interest or problem area that one is encountering. Organizations for the recently divorced or widowed; for singles, for parents, etc…..and the fact is that most of these organizations are nothing more than “socials” where a person is made to feel like he or she can be helped in their situation because there are other people encountering the same situation.

Whatever Happened to Prayer

Whatever happened to prayer? Ever since Vatican II, which was greatly misinterpreted and misunderstood, a lot of para-liturgical services have been unduly dismissed from parishes all over the world – at the discretion of the pastor! Prayer vigils such as novenas and Holy Hours, Benediction and even Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament [in the past were often deleted from parish activities.] It seems as if we were proclaiming, “Prayer is useless, let’s have a problem-solving situation or organization to remedy the situation!” Prayer was “needed” in the past, why not now? And then too, there might be another reason for the demise of prayer situations. These services take “TIME” and that’s one thing the priest doesn’t want his parishioners to think he has too much of. And too, a prayer service may take away from the priest’s TV time or going-out-to-relax time with friends who are parishioners or who might be other priests. The “sign” that a lot of priests wear is the sign which tells parishioners, “I’m exhausted, please don’t ask me to do anything else!” Consequently, the parish priest has more and more and more time to do absolutely nothing.

Church Being Stripped

Another area where we are seeing a definite decline in traditional spirituality is seen in what is happening or what has happened to many of our churches on the inside. In the name of “ecumenism” a lot is being done that strips us of our Catholic faith and makes us something less than whom we have been baptized to be. Many churches now do not have kneelers – theatre seats are sufficient! There are no stations of the Cross, no statues, no vigil lights or candles, no pictures of Jesus, Mary or one of the saints, and no crucifix (there may be a cross but the crucifix is definitely out). Also, the “presidential chair” has replaced the tabernacle at the center of the sanctuary. Father is now the focal point, not some non-descript vault that just has “wafers of bread” in it. The tabernacle is now “off to the side” or, unfortunately, in another room in the church, but definitely out-of-sight! The actions of “believers” are concomitant with the atmosphere, or lack thereof, of the inside of these churches. Instead of genuflecting in front of the Blessed Sacrament, Father or the parishioners give a little bow. The parishioners have been encouraged, and/or forced, to remain standing for the Consecration. Kneeling is so old-fashioned, don’t you know?

One too, might look at how parishioners dress for Mass these days – very casual, if not slovenly!

One might mention also that the more fastidious of parishes today have lay ministers who have been commissioned to do almost everything in a parish except say Mass, hear confessions, marry and bury. I know of a certain parish in Washington State where the pastor has a laywoman give the homily at Masses during the weekend for three weekends out of four.

At some parishes, the priest will sit in the chair at communion time while an extraordinary minister distributes Holy Communion under one of both species. This is forbidden! But it seems that the less Father has to do, the better!

In the 1950’s, one heard the comment that there was no greater fraternity than the fraternity of priests. At that time, that was probably a true statement of where the priesthood was and what priests meant to each other. But things have changed since then and it is a whole new “ball game.” Priests now are not so supportive of fellow priests. In one diocese in the United States, and I suspect that the same holds true to some extent for every diocese throughout the world, there are generally two ways of looking at one’s fellow priests: one, is that Father is doing a magnificent job and is really trying and his fellow priests are saying “What is he trying to prove?” The other is the fact that Father may have made some error grave or minute, and his fellow priests say: “See, I told you so. What else could you expect from someone like that?” This is sad, to say the least! Where is a priest to turn for help? If one goes to a fellow priest for help spiritually or otherwise, the invitation will come automatically to “have a drink” or to “discuss football or basketball” teams and scores. After all, when priests get together, they shouldn’t talk “shop”, they should enjoy their golf game or their dinner out and not turn the situation into some counseling session. But, ironically enough, we still have in our dioceses priests who are referred to as “a priest’s priest.” Other priests see these men as holy and gifted and priests one could go to if needed by any priest who was having difficulties with almost anything.

The final area of concern of our purposes is that of CCD classes. At least since the beginning of the 70’s, our CCD texts have been void of Catholic doctrine and dogma. I have seen primary CCD class texts that have a picture of a smiling Jesus on one page and then on the other is the bold-type sentence that says: JESUS LOVES YOU! That is what our children have been learning all these past years. They have been left out in learning the commandments, the laws of the Church, mortal and venial sin and the difference between the two. They have been denied learning how to make a good confession by examining one’s conscience. They have been denied learning what is possible short of faith concerning the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The ultra-casual way of receiving Holy Communion by the faithful has added to this dilemma. Many parents do not go to Confession, so their children do not go either. And many parents do not make their children go to either Confession or to CCD anymore. Parents, after all, want their children to love them; consequently, they don’t make their children do anything they don’t want to do!

The list of monstrosities could go on and on, but this gives to the priest and the layperson some idea of the direction that the Church is now heading. Where will all of this lead us? I am not a prophet, but I do know that this most assuredly is not what Our Lord intended His Church to do or to be! Is it too late to change? Again, what Jesus is saying to us and has always said is that it is never too late to change. He states that we should take advantage of His mercy while we still can, because when He comes as Judge, it will be too late for His mercy! He is patient, He is merciful and He is loving!

December 17, 2015

From My Encounter with Jesus to a Book About Marriage

2026-08-12T22:37:31.677+10:00

In 2007, on Holy Thursday, my life took a profound turn. During the Most Holy Mass, I personally encountered Jesus Christ. That encounter was not simply a moment of emotion; it became a defining moment in my faith journey. From then on, I began seeking to remain close to Jesus each day through prayer and by learning to listen to and follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Over the years, God has blessed me with the gift of marriage and children. Through family life, I have experienced both the beautiful joys and the realities that come with loving, forgiving, sacrificing, and growing together. These experiences have deepened my understanding of why marriage needs God's grace and what Jesus can do when we place our families into His hands.

Today, I am grateful to share that my first marriage book has been published on Amazon in both Kindle and Paperback editions: Marriage That Endures & Thrives Every Season: 16 Inspiring and Reflective Stories of Catholic Married Saints and Holy Couples: Discover What God Can Do When Hearts Are Open to His Grace.

This book grew from my desire to share the beauty of marriage through the lives of couples who allowed God to work through their ordinary lives, struggles, sacrifices, love, and faith.

The book brings the stories of sixteen Catholic married saints and holy couples to life through engaging narratives designed to invite the reader to pause, reflect, pray, and look at marriage through the eyes of faith. Among them are Mary and Joseph, whose lives provide an extraordinary model of trust, obedience, self-giving love, and family life; Félix and Elisabeth Leseur, whose very different spiritual journeys became part of a remarkable story of conversion; Saints Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who transformed the ordinary responsibilities of family, work, prayer, and love into a path toward holiness; Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, the first married couple to be beatified together; and Saint Gianna Beretta Molla and Pietro Molla, whose marriage reveals both the beauty and the cost of sacrificial love. Eleven additional holy couples offer their own stories of courage, virtue, perseverance, suffering, forgiveness, and hope.

What makes these stories especially meaningful is that these couples were not perfect people living without difficulties. They were real people who faced real human challenges. Their holiness did not come from having trouble-free marriages; rather, they learned to invite God into the realities of everyday life. Their stories remind us that ordinary marriage, with its responsibilities, joys, disappointments, sacrifices, misunderstandings, and moments of grace, can become a place where God forms our hearts and leads us closer to Him.

Each chapter therefore goes beyond simply telling a story. The narratives are accompanied by reflections that help the reader recognise the realities these couples experienced and consider how those lessons might speak to their own circumstances. Thought-provoking questions are included to encourage personal reflection and meaningful conversations between husband and wife, while also offering something valuable to singles discerning their vocation or hoping to marry. Spiritual practices invite readers to bring the wisdom of these holy couples into their own lives, while specific prayers encourage them to place their marriages and families into the hands of God.

A particularly important part of the book is the invitation to surrender specific burdens. Every marriage carries its own story, and some seasons can be extraordinarily difficult. There may be wounds, misunderstandings, family struggles, separation, uncertainty, disappointment, or situations that seem beyond human ability to resolve. Rather than pretending that these difficulties do not exist, the book encourages readers to bring them honestly before Jesus and entrust them to the Holy Spirit. Through prayer, surrender, and reflection on Christ's finished work on the Cross, we are invited to recognise that God's grace is not limited by what appears possible to us.

This book is for married couples who want to strengthen their relationship, couples walking through a difficult season, those experiencing separation or family struggles, and engaged couples preparing for marriage. It is also for singles discerning their vocation, Catholic marriage groups and retreats, homeschool and religious education settings, and anyone looking for a meaningful Catholic gift for an engagement, wedding, anniversary, birthday, Christmas, or Easter.

The lives of these holy couples have left me with three simple but profound truths. First, holy couples were real people, not perfect people. They experienced weaknesses, difficulties, suffering, and challenges just as we do. Second, God can take an ordinary marriage and transform it into something extraordinary when hearts are open to His grace. And third, Christian marriage has a destination that reaches beyond this earthly life: eternity with Jesus.

That final truth is at the heart of everything I hope this book communicates. Marriage is not merely about finding happiness or surviving difficult seasons. It is a vocation in which two people can help one another journey toward God. Through the grace of the Holy Spirit, the example of Mary and Joseph, and the intercession of the saints, our homes and marriages can become places where faith is lived in the midst of ordinary circumstances.

Perhaps you are reading this while carrying a situation in your marriage that feels impossible. Perhaps you have prayed for an answer and still cannot see a way forward. Perhaps you are wondering whether anything can change. I believe that these are precisely the moments when we are invited to bring everything to Jesus. We cannot control another person's heart, predict the future, or force an outcome, but we can surrender what we carry to God and ask Him to lead us one step at a time.

My own journey began with a personal encounter with Jesus during Holy Thursday Mass in 2007. Since then, I have continued learning what it means to remain close to Him, to pray, to surrender, and to trust the Holy Spirit.

This book is one small fruit of that journey, and my prayer is that it may encourage others to look at their own marriages with renewed faith and hope.

Because Jesus is alive. Marriage is part of His vision for family life. His grace is available even in the seasons we find hardest to understand.

Your marriage has a destination.

Heaven.

Available Now on Amazon

Marriage That Endures & Thrives Every Season: 16 Inspiring and Reflective Stories of Catholic Married Saints and Holy Couples: Discover What God Can Do ... His Grace (Marriage: Foretaste of Heaven) - Kindle edition by Sequeira, Parry, Sequeira, Steffi. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

The 12 Promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for Married Couples

2026-06-16T21:35:55.337+10:00

The Sacred Heart and the Vocation of Marriage

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is ultimately about one profound truth:

Jesus loves every person with a personal, faithful, sacrificial, and merciful love.

The Twelve Promises of the Sacred Heart are not rewards for completing a religious checklist. Rather, they are expressions of Christ's desire to draw souls closer to Himself, heal their wounds, forgive their sins, strengthen their families, and lead them to eternal life.

For married couples, these promises hold special significance. Marriage is not merely a human contract—it is a sacred vocation. Just as Christ gives priests the grace to be faithful shepherds and parents the grace to raise their children, He gives husbands and wives the grace needed to live their vocation faithfully.

A spouse can confidently read the First Promise this way:

"Jesus will give me every grace I need to be the husband or wife He is calling me to be."

This does not mean every marriage difficulty will disappear. It means Christ promises sufficient grace to help spouses love faithfully, persevere through trials, and grow in holiness together.

Let us explore each of the Twelve Promises through the lens of Christian marriage.

1. I Will Give Them All the Graces Necessary for Their State of Life

Marriage requires daily sacrifice, patience, and commitment. Jesus promises the grace needed to fulfill this vocation.

Grace to love your spouse faithfully every day.
Strength to remain committed during difficult seasons.
Patience when misunderstandings arise.
Wisdom to make decisions that benefit the marriage.
Help to grow together in holiness and love.

2. I Will Establish Peace in Their Families

Christ desires every Christian home to be a place of peace and unity.

Greater harmony between husband and wife.
Healing of past hurts and resentments.
A spirit of forgiveness in the home.
Unity when facing challenges together.
A peaceful atmosphere rooted in Christ's love.

3. I Will Console Them in All Their Troubles

Every marriage experiences trials. The Sacred Heart offers comfort and strength.

Comfort during marital struggles.
Strength during financial difficulties.
Peace during health concerns or illness.
Hope during seasons of grief or loss.
Assurance that Christ walks with them through every trial.

4. I Will Be Their Refuge During Life and, Above All, in Death

Jesus invites spouses to place their trust in Him throughout their lives.

A safe refuge during life's storms.
Confidence in God's care for their marriage.
Strength when facing uncertainty.
Peace during times of suffering.
Hope of being united with Christ forever.

5. I Will Bestow Abundant Blessings Upon All Their Undertakings

The Lord desires to bless every aspect of family life.

Blessings on their marriage and home.
Guidance in raising children.
Wisdom in managing finances.
Fruitfulness in shared goals and dreams.
Growth through every challenge and success.

6. Sinners Will Find in My Heart the Source and Infinite Ocean of Mercy

No marriage is perfect, and every couple needs mercy.

Grace to seek forgiveness from God.
Strength to forgive one another.
Healing from past mistakes in the relationship.
Hope after failures and disappointments.
Renewal through Christ's endless mercy.

7. Lukewarm Souls Will Become Fervent

The Sacred Heart rekindles spiritual passion and love.

Renewed desire to pray together.
Greater appreciation for the sacrament of marriage.
Increased love for God and each other.
A stronger commitment to faith.
New enthusiasm for serving one another.

8. Fervent Souls Will Quickly Rise to High Perfection

Jesus helps devoted spouses grow in holiness.

Deeper selfless love within the marriage.
Greater patience and understanding.
Increased trust in God's plan.
Growth in humility and sacrifice.
A marriage that reflects Christ's love more fully.

9. I Will Bless Every Place Where an Image of My Heart Is Exposed and Honored

A home devoted to the Sacred Heart becomes a place of grace.

Christ becomes the center of the home.
Daily reminders of His love and mercy.
Encouragement for family prayer.
Spiritual blessings upon the household.
A visible sign that the family belongs to Jesus.

10. I Will Give Priests the Gift of Touching the Most Hardened Hearts

God often works through holy priests to strengthen marriages.

Guidance during marriage struggles.
Wise counsel when difficult decisions arise.
Help through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Encouragement to strengthen the marriage bond.
Spiritual direction that leads spouses closer to Christ.

11. Those Who Promote This Devotion Will Have Their Names Written in My Heart

Couples who share devotion to the Sacred Heart participate in Christ's mission of love.

The joy of sharing Christ's love with other couples.
A deeper relationship with Jesus.
Special graces for their faithfulness.
The privilege of helping strengthen marriages.
Confidence of being cherished by Christ.

12. I Promise the Grace of Final Perseverance to Those Who Practice the First Fridays

The Great Promise points spouses toward eternal life.

Strength to remain faithful to God and spouse.
A deeper love for the Eucharist.
Perseverance through trials and hardships.
Grace to finish life's journey in faith.
Hope of eternal union with Christ and loved ones.

Five Gifts the Sacred Heart Offers Every Marriage

Taken together, the Twelve Promises reveal five beautiful gifts Christ desires to give every husband and wife:

1. Faithful Love in Marriage

The grace to love as Christ loves—faithfully, sacrificially, and unconditionally.

2. Peace in the Home

A spirit of unity, forgiveness, and harmony within the family.

3. Mercy and Forgiveness

The healing power to overcome mistakes, wounds, and failures.

4. Strength Through Trials

The courage to persevere through every challenge together.

5. Grace to Reach Heaven Together

The ultimate goal of Christian marriage: helping one another become saints.

A Prayer for Married Couples

Sacred Heart of Jesus, make our hearts like Yours—full of love, mercy, patience, fidelity, and peace. Bless our marriage, our family, and our journey toward heaven together. Help us to trust in Your promises, rely on Your grace, and reflect Your love in our home every day. Amen.

The Catholic Prayer Companion - Latest Book

2026-05-07T12:40:00.001+10:00

A Complete Guide to Daily Prayer, Healing, and Spiritual Growth in Christ

Transform your daily prayer life with a powerful Catholic devotional companion designed to deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ, strengthen your spiritual discipline, and bring peace, healing, and clarity into everyday life.

Perfect for Catholics seeking a structured and meaningful prayer routine, The Catholic Prayer Companion combines timeless Catholic traditions, powerful prayers, Scripture-based reflections, and practical spiritual guidance into one complete resource for personal devotion, family prayer, Eucharistic preparation, healing, protection, and spiritual growth.

Whether you are a beginner in prayer, returning to the faith, or seeking a deeper devotional life, this book helps you build a consistent and transformative prayer habit rooted in the richness of the Catholic Church.

Why Readers Love This Book

Easy-to-follow daily prayer structure
Powerful prayers for healing, protection, anxiety, forgiveness, and peace
Traditional Catholic devotions
Eucharistic Adoration and Rosary guidance
Practical prayer methods for modern life
Beautifully organized for everyday use
Ideal for individuals, families, prayer groups, and RCIA participants

What You’ll Discover Inside

Daily Catholic Prayer Routine

Build a consistent rhythm of prayer from morning to night with guided structures for:

Morning Offering
Examination of Conscience
Divine Mercy Prayer
Night Prayer
Silent Prayer and Meditation

Powerful Catholic Devotions

Deepen your faith through beloved Catholic traditions, including:

The Holy Rosary
Divine Mercy Chaplet
Eucharistic Adoration
Sacred Heart Devotion
Marian Prayers
Approved Selected Novenas and Litanies

Healing & Spiritual Growth

Find comfort and renewal through prayers and reflections for:

Anxiety and fear
Emotional healing
Spiritual warfare
Forgiveness
Discernment and guidance
Trust in God

Prayer Methods & Spiritual Practices

Learn practical ways to pray more deeply:

Lectio Divina
Contemplative Prayer
Scripture Meditation
Interior Silence
Journaling and Reflection
Prayer Planning Systems

Perfect For

Catholics wanting a deeper prayer life
Beginners learning Catholic prayer traditions
Busy Christians seeking structured devotion
Prayer groups and Bible study communities
Gifts for Catholics, Confirmation, RCIA, or spiritual encouragement
Daily devotional readers and faith-based journaling

Prayer is not meant to be rushed, confusing, or distant.

In a noisy and anxious world, The Catholic Prayer Companion helps you rediscover the peace, strength, and intimacy found in daily conversation with God.

This is more than a prayer book.
It is a spiritual companion designed to help you:

pray consistently,
encounter Christ deeply,
grow in holiness,
and live each day with greater peace and purpose.

Whether you pray for five minutes or one hour, this guide will help you create sacred space in your daily life and draw closer to God through the beauty of the Catholic faith.

A complete Catholic prayer guide for daily devotion, healing, peace, and spiritual growth. Discover powerful prayers, traditional devotions, Scripture reflections, Eucharistic Adoration, Rosary guidance, and practical prayer methods to deepen your relationship with Christ every day.

The Catholic Prayer Companion: Growing in Power, Perseverance, Intercession, and True Freedom in Christ Kindle Edition

Amazon.com: The Catholic Prayer Companion: Growing in Power, Perseverance, Intercession, and True Freedom in Christ eBook : Sequeira, Parry, Sequeira, Steffi: Kindle Store

They wanted spectacle. Proof. A cosmic interruption. Something undeniable.

2026-02-26T10:14:00.001+11:00

But Heaven does not respond for unbelief.

At first glance, Jesus’ words in Gospel of Luke 11:29–32 sound severe.
“This generation is an evil generation…”

But beneath the fire is mercy.
Beneath the rebuke is hope.

Because whenever Jesus exposes blindness, it is never to shame.

The Hope: God Still Speaks

The people demanded a sign.
Jesus gave one.

The sign of Jonah.

Which means this:
God has not abandoned humanity to confusion.
He has spoken decisively — through death and Resurrection.

The sign is not withheld.
It is fulfilled.

Christ crucified and risen is Heaven’s final word over every generation — including ours.

And here is the encouragement:
If Nineveh could repent at a reluctant prophet, how much more can we be transformed by the Risen Lord?

If the Queen of Sheba crossed deserts to hear the wisdom of Solomon, how much more grace is available to us who live after Calvary, after Pentecost, after the outpouring of the Spirit?

The Encouragement: Resurrection Is Personal

The “sign of Jonah” is not merely theological — it is real.

Jonah went down and came up. Jesus died, descended to hell and rose in glory.

And every believer is invited into that same pattern.

When we apply this truth, something shifts:

We stop chasing dramatic confirmation and start pursuing conversion.
We stop demanding proof and start practicing surrender.
We stop waiting for a miracle and start becoming obedient.

And here is the secret:
When we surrender to the Cross, Resurrection power follows.

Not always instantly.
Not always emotionally.
But inevitably.

Because the pattern of Christ cannot fail.

What Happens When We Apply This Truth?

When we embrace the “sign of Jonah” in our own lives:

🔥 Despair loses authority.
If Christ has conquered death, no tomb in our life is permanent.

🔥 Repentance becomes liberation, not humiliation.
Nineveh’s repentance spared a city. Ours restores a soul.

🔥 Faith deepens beyond feelings.
We no longer need constant signs — we anchor ourselves in the finished work of Christ.

🔥 We become witnesses instead of skeptics.
The world seeks spectacle. The Spirit forms saints.

And something powerful happens internally:
We stop living as consumers of grace and start living as carriers of glory.

The Reality

In the Christian life, the sign of Jonah is not symbolic alone — it is sacramental.

Every Confession is a descent and rising.
Every Eucharist is death and Resurrection made present.
Every surrender to the Holy Spirit is a burial of pride and a birth of power.

We do not stand outside the Paschal Mystery.
We enter it.

And when we do, fear shrinks.
Because the same Spirit who raised Jesus now dwells within the Church.

The Final Encouragement

Jesus’ warning is not the last word.

The last word is hope.

If you feel buried by circumstances — the stone can still roll away.

The point of the passage is not “You have failed.”
It is “Something greater is here.” Jesus.

Greater than confusion.
Greater than doubt.
Greater than the past.
Greater than death itself.

And when we apply this truth?

We stop asking,
“Lord, show me a sign.”

And we begin praying,
“Lord, make me new.”

🔥 Come, Holy Spirit.
Turn rebuke into revival.
Turn warning into desire for God.
Turn this generation into a living sign of the Resurrection.

MATTHEW 25:31–46 — THE THRONE, THE FIRE, THE DECISION | THE JUDGMENT WE DON’T PREACH ENOUGH

2026-02-24T10:50:00.003+11:00

BEFORE YOU IGNORE THE NEXT PERSON IN NEED

When Jesus reveals the Last Judgment in Matthew 25, He is not using poetry. He is unveiling reality.

This is not symbolic. This is not exaggerated. This is Jesus Christ describing the end.

The Son of Man comes in glory.
All nations are gathered.
The King separates sheep from goats.

And then the words that pierce eternity:

“Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.” (Mt 25:41)

Notice this clearly:
The eternal fire was prepared for the Devil and his angels — not for humanity. Hell was prepared for Satan and the fallen angels.

God created you for communion, not damnation.
But love can be rejected. Mercy can be refused. Christ can be ignored.

When a person freely rejects love — refuses mercy — ignores Christ in the vulnerable — they align themselves with the rebellion of the Devil.

And that is the shock of this Gospel.

Jesus speaks of “eternal fire.” The Church has always taught its reality — not as metaphor, but as the definitive state of self-exclusion from communion with God.

The shock of the passage is not scandalous sin — it is neglected love. The goats are not condemned for spectacular evil. They are condemned for neglected love.

“I was hungry… you gave me no food.”
“I was thirsty… you gave me no drink.”
“A stranger… no welcome.”
“Naked… no clothing.”
“Sick and in prison… no care.”

They did not curse Jesus.
They did not deny Him publicly.
They simply failed to love Him in the least.

And the Judge says: “You did not do it to Me.”

Listen to St. John Chrysostom:

“Do you wish to honor the body of Christ? Do not despise Him when naked. Do not honor Him here in the church building with silken garments while outside you leave Him suffering from cold and nakedness.”
(Homily 50 on Matthew)

The Eucharist you adore is the same Christ you pass on the street.

St. Augustine of Hippo reminds us:

“He who created you without you, will not justify you without you.”
(Sermon 169)

Grace is free — but it does not force your will. Salvation requires cooperation with love.

And hear the mystical depth of St. Catherine of Siena, as God speaks in The Dialogue:

“The damned are punished by that very fire which is My charity.”

The fire is real.
But the tragedy is this: it is love rejected.

Hell is not God delighting in punishment.
It is the state of a soul that definitively refuses mercy.

As St. John Paul II taught:

“Hell is the state of those who definitively reject the Father’s mercy, even at the last moment of their life.”
(General Audience, July 28, 1999)

Satan’s rebellion began with “I will not serve.”
The goats live the same refusal — not in dramatic defiance, but in cold indifference.

Matthew 25 is terrifying because it is ordinary.

The test is daily.
The Judge is hidden in the poor.
The decision is now.

Every poor person is a test.
Every inconvenience is an altar.
Every act of mercy is eternal.

Every ignored beggar is an encounter. Every refusal shapes your forever.

Today is mercy. Tomorrow is separation — or glory. Tomorrow is judgment.

Choose love.
Choose action.
Choose Christ in the least.

Because one day, the King will speak.

And His words will never be reversed.

You will meet Jesus in glory.

The only question is whether you will hear:

“Come, you blessed of my Father…”

“Depart from me.”

And this is where the journey turns personal. Lent reminds us that we are dust — but not destined for dust. We are called from ashes into glory. The battle of Matthew 25 is ultimately about identity: will we live as children of the Father, or drift into the indifference of the fallen? True identity is revealed in love. Glory is not sentiment — it is charity lived. The throne scene is not meant to crush you, but to forearm you. You were not made for eternal fire. You were made for eternal communion.

The Blueprint for Spiritual Warfare - First Sunday of Lent

2026-02-23T11:15:00.008+11:00

Matthew 4:1–11 — The Blueprint for Spiritual Warfare

In Gospel of Matthew 4:1–11, we are not just reading about Jesus being tempted. We are witnessing a masterclass in spiritual warfare — one that combines Scripture, discernment, and identity in Christ as the ultimate weapons.

This passage parallels Gospel of Luke 4:1–13 and echoes Israel’s testing in the wilderness in Book of Deuteronomy. Where Israel failed, Jesus stands firm. Where Adam fell, Christ overcomes. His victory is not only historical; it is instructional for anyone navigating temptation today.

One of the major lessons this passage teaches is the importance of knowing who you are in Christ. Understanding your identity and authority is essential in resisting the enemy’s attacks. Resources that explore this deeply can strengthen believers in practical ways.

1. Spiritual Warfare Often Comes After Spiritual Highs

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”

This happened immediately after His baptism — after affirmation, after the heavens opened, after the Father declared His identity. Spiritual warfare often follows spiritual breakthrough.

The enemy does not wait until you are weak. He often attacks when you are stepping into calling.

Key takeaway:
Do not be surprised by resistance after obedience.

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion…” — First Epistle of Peter 5:8

2. The Battlefield Is Identity

“If you are the Son of God…”

Satan’s first move is subtle. He questions identity. The Father had just declared who Jesus was, and the enemy tried to destabilize that certainty.

Most temptations begin with identity distortion before behavioral compromise. Knowing your God-given identity anchors your responses and strengthens resistance, even when the enemy tries to shake you.

3. Temptation Attacks Legitimate Needs

After forty days of fasting, Jesus was hungry.

“Turn these stones into bread.”

Bread is not sinful. Hunger is not sinful. Need is not sinful.

The temptation is to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way. How often do we manipulate for affirmation, compromise for security, or rush God’s timing?

Jesus responds:

“Man shall not live by bread alone…” — Book of Deuteronomy 8:3

Provision does not define identity. Obedience does.

4. The Enemy Knows Scripture — So Must You

In the second temptation, Satan quotes Psalm 91.

Even the enemy knows Scripture. The trick is misapplication. Spiritual warfare requires discernment, context, and depth. Jesus responds again with Scripture:

“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” — Book of Deuteronomy 6:16

“Take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” — Epistle to the Ephesians 6:17

Scripture becomes both shield and sword — a living truth that protects and empowers. Daily reflection on God’s Word is essential to internalize this principle.

5. Worship Determines Allegiance

“All this I will give you… if you will fall down and worship me.”

Power without the cross. Glory without suffering. Kingship without obedience.

The enemy offers shortcuts.

Jesus answers:

“You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.” — Book of Deuteronomy 6:13

At the heart of spiritual warfare is worship. What you worship, you obey. What you obey shapes your life.

6. Resistance Is Active, Not Passive

After the third refusal:

“The devil left Him.”

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” — Epistle of James 4:7

Notice the sequence: submit, then resist. Submission strengthens resistance. You cannot resist what you secretly entertain.

7. The Model Jesus Gives Us

Jesus models:

Spirit-led awareness
Scriptural grounding
Identity
Refusal of shortcuts

This is spiritual authority expressed through obedience: calm, anchored, unshakeable.

For those seeking to grow in their daily walk with Christ, resources like Ashes to Glory guide readers step by step through reflection, prayer, and surrender — helping form habits that mirror the model Jesus demonstrates in the wilderness.

8. Saints Who Fought the Devil

Throughout history, many saints followed this same pattern:

Anthony the Great used prayer, fasting, and Scripture to overcome demonic assaults.
Padre Pio faced intense spiritual attacks yet relied on devotion, rosary, and the sacraments.
Teresa of Avila confronted oppression through interior prayer and total surrender.

These examples reflect the timeless principle that victory comes through surrender to Jesus, Scripture, and understanding of God’s truth. Exploring our personal identity in Christ — as emphasized in Identity: From Creation to New Creation: Finding Your Place in God’s Story and Why It Changes Everything — strengthens believers to stand firm like these saints.

9. How This Applies to Us Today

Spiritual warfare is not always dramatic. It looks like:

Choosing integrity when compromise is easier
Trusting God’s timing instead of forcing outcomes
Refusing to define yourself by performance
Saying no to shortcuts that promise quick success

When anxiety whispers, insecurity questions, or ambition tempts shortcuts, answer with truth. Scripture is alive and powerful:

“The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power…” — Second Epistle to the Corinthians 10:4

Daily habits of reflection, prayer, and Scripture meditation — like those encouraged in Ashes to Glory — paired with an understanding of your true identity in Christ, equip believers to withstand the enemy consistently.

Final Truth

Satan tempts.
Jesus stands.
The Word answers.
The enemy leaves.

Victory is not about avoiding the wilderness. It is about knowing who you are — and whose you are — when you are in it.

Knowing who you are in Christ anchors you in every temptation, while daily reflection, prayer, and Scripture shape your response. Identity and intentional practice work together to help you stand firm, resist the enemy, and walk in the transformation Jesus modeled in the wilderness.

From Levi to Matthew: A Life Completely Changed (Luke 5:27–32)

2026-02-21T14:49:00.001+11:00

There are moments in life that redefine everything — your identity, your direction, your destiny.

For Levi, that moment came when Jesus said, “Follow Me.”

And the tax collector became Matthew.

Before: Levi the Tax Collector

Levi worked for Rome.
Tax collectors were wealthy — but despised.

They were seen as:

Corrupt
Dishonest
Traitors to their own people

He likely had money, comfort, and security.
But he didn’t have honor.
He didn’t have community respect.
He didn’t have spiritual peace.

He was sitting at a tax booth — not just physically, but spiritually.
Stuck. Defined. Boxed in by reputation.

He probably woke up each day knowing people avoided him.

Success on the outside.
Isolation on the inside.

The Moment: A Call That Changed Everything

Jesus walks by.

No lecture.
No condemnation.
No background check.

Just two words: “Follow Me.”

Levi immediately leaves his booth.

That booth represented:

Income
Stability
Identity
Control

He walked away from all of it.

That’s courage.
That’s faith.
That’s hunger for something more.

After: Matthew the Disciple

Levi becomes Matthew — one of the Twelve.

From collecting taxes…
To collecting testimonies.

From serving Rome…
To serving the Kingdom.

He didn’t just change careers.
He changed allegiance.
He changed identity.

He later becomes the writer of the Gospel of Matthew — a Gospel that presents Jesus as King and fulfillment of prophecy.

The man once known for taking from people became a man who gave the world the story of Jesus.

That is redemption.

The Witness: A Banquet of Grace

One of Matthew’s first acts as a new follower?

He throws a feast and invites other tax collectors and “sinners.”

He didn’t hide his past network — he used it.

His witness began at a dinner table.

He basically said:
“I met Someone who changed my life. You need to meet Him.”

Your transformation is your testimony.

You need authenticity.

What Changed in Him?

Before:

Driven by gain
Defined by reputation
Likely hardened by rejection

After:

Driven by purpose
Defined by calling
Marked by grace

Jesus didn’t just improve him.
He renamed his future.

What This Means for You

Your past does not limit your future.

If God can take:

A rejected tax collector
A morally compromised man
A social outcast

And turn him into a Gospel writer…

Then your story isn’t finished either.

You may be sitting at your own “tax booth” — a job, habit, or identity that no longer fits who you’re meant to be.

The invitation is still the same:

Follow Me.

And when you rise,
your life becomes proof that change is possible.

From Levi…
to Matthew.

From who you were…
to who you’re becoming.

Jesus uses the language of business - Profit, gain, exchange

2026-02-20T10:56:00.005+11:00

Gospel of Luke 9:25:

“What profit is there for one to gain the whole world, yet lose or forfeit himself?”

He is asking: What is the true return on your life?

You can measure profit in money, status, influence, security. But Christ introduces a different ledger — one that weighs the soul.

The question assumes something shocking:
It is possible to succeed completely by the world’s standards and fail absolutely by heaven’s.

This is hyperbole — the total package:

Wealth
Power
Reputation
Influence
Pleasure
Achievement

Not just a little success. The whole world.

Jesus is exposing the illusion that fulfillment comes from accumulation. The world promises expansion — more visibility, more applause, more control. But the heart is not built for “more.” It is built for God.

To “gain the world” means to organize your entire life around temporal success.

The Greek word suggests damage, destruction, ruin.

This is not losing possessions. It is losing the self.

the “self” here refers to:

The soul made in God’s image
The capacity for communion with God
The eternal destiny of the person

To lose oneself is to become spiritually fragmented — to trade eternal communion for temporary possession.

It is possible to own everything outwardly and be empty inwardly.

The tragedy is not material success. The tragedy is disordered love — when lesser goods replace the Highest Good.

The life of St Francis Xavier

He was brilliant. Educated at the University of Paris. Ambitious. Positioned for academic prestige and influence. By worldly standards, he had everything ahead of him.

Then Ignatius of Loyola repeated this very verse to him:

“What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”

At first, Xavier resisted. He wanted success. Recognition. Achievement.

But the words worked on him.

Eventually, he surrendered his ambition and joined the newly formed Society of Jesus. He left Europe. He traveled to India, Southeast Asia, and Japan. He endured poverty, exhaustion, danger, and isolation.

By worldly standards, he lost everything:

Comfort
Status
Security
Academic prestige

But spiritually?

He found himself. He found God.

He baptized thousands. He ignited missionary fire across continents. He died at 46 on an island near China, with no worldly fame — but with a soul fully alive in Christ.

The man who might have gained a university chair gained eternity instead.

The Deeper Lesson

The verse is not anti-success.

The question is not:
“May I have things?”

The question is:
“Do these things have me?”

St Francis Xavier did not hate the world. He simply refused to let it define his worth.

And that is the heart of Jesus’ warning:

If you build your life on what passes away, you will pass with it.
If you build your life on God, even death cannot take you.

The world can be gained. The soul must be guarded.

“Gaining the world” can become mortal sin when created goods replace God.
“Losing oneself” ultimately refers to definitive separation from God.
Eternal loss is not accidental.
It is the tragic solidifying of a freely chosen orientation away from God.

The Catechism holds two truths together:

God’s mercy is radical and universal in offer.
Human freedom is real and eternally consequential.

Temporary spiritual blindness can be healed through repentance.

Eternal loss occurs only when a person dies in a state of unrepented mortal sin — a definitive refusal of communion.

That is the gravity behind Christ’s question.

CCC 1033–1037 — Hell

These paragraphs explain what that eternal loss means.

CCC 1033

Hell is described as definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed.

The emphasis is on freedom.
God does not predestine anyone to hell.
The separation results from a free and final choice against God.

CCC 1034–1035

Scripture speaks of:

“Unquenchable fire”
“Outer darkness”
“Eternal punishment”

The Church affirms the reality and eternity of hell, not as metaphor alone, but as a real state of existence.

The chief suffering of hell is eternal separation from God.

CCC 1036

The Church calls believers to vigilance.
We must respond to grace.
Life is serious because eternity is real.

CCC 1037

God predestines no one to go to hell.
For this to happen, there must be a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) and persistence in it until the end.

The Fire of Hidden Devotion - Day 1 - Lent

2026-02-18T13:35:00.004+11:00

Reflection:

True holiness is not measured by the eyes of men, but by the gaze of Jesus, who reads the heart and rewards what is hidden.

The soul that gives, prays, and fasts in secret becomes a temple of God’s love, refined and set aflame by His Spirit.

Key Takeaway:
Seek Jesus alone in all acts of devotion;

let your heart burn for Him in hidden obedience, not for human praise.

Question:
When no one is watching, for whom—or for what—does your heart truly long?

Ash Wednesday - Make this your holiest Lent

2026-02-17T22:13:21.127+11:00

In the Gospel of Matthew, Christ speaks of the hidden chamber — the inner room where the Father sees, where prayer burns without spectacle, where fasting refines desire and generosity widens the soul. He directs the gaze inward, toward communion rather than display.

Ash becomes invitation.

Return to the secret place.
Return to the inner altar.
Return to the fire that shapes saints.

Lent unfolds as holy ascent — forty days of consecration, and alignment to the Word of God. The Spirit begins a careful work: pruning excess, sharpening vision, strengthening devotion. What once distracted now loosens its hold.

The Apostle declares in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, “Now is the day of salvation.” The present moment is the moment of choice.

Ash speaks of mortality.
The Cross speaks of mercy.
Resurrection speaks of magnificence.

Christ entered the dust.
Christ carried the dust.
Christ raised the dust into glory.

Ash Wednesday gathers you into that movement — from formation to redemption to radiance.

The Father shapes souls as He once shaped clay — with intention, with precision, with unwavering purpose.

Fire refines. You are dust remembered by God.

Dust marked by covenant.
Dust destined for resurrection brilliance.

Walk these forty days with holy focus.
Let prayer deepen into encounter.
Let fasting sharpen hunger for righteousness.
Let generosity reflect the heart of the Father.

Ash today. Glory ahead. Heaven has placed its sign upon you.

Rise into the journey.

Beautiful Indepth - Lenten Book - Ashes To Glory: A Lent to Easter Journey

2026-02-16T18:51:00.002+11:00

Ashes To Glory

A Lent to Easter Journey of Daily Scripture, Spiritual Renewal, Healing, and the Hope of Resurrection Life

What if this Lent and Easter could become the most transformative season of your life?

A journey not merely symbolic, but a real encounter with the God who makes all things new— a holy interruption so honest, so stretching, so tender and fierce that you could not possibly emerge the same.

Ashes to Glory is a 47‑day Christian devotional that leads you from repentance to resurrection and into a transformed life with God. Blending Scripture, spiritual formation, and rich theological reflection, this devotional pilgrimage guides you from the dust of Lent to the brilliance of Easter. It is a slow, sacred walk with Christ through surrender, mercy, longing, and renewal—a spiritual mini‑retreat that gently exposes what must fall away and awakens what is ready to rise.

Whether you are seeking a Lent devotional, an Easter devotional, or a Christian spiritual formation resource to deepen your walk with Jesus, Ashes to Glory offers a clear and compelling path into deeper intimacy with Him.

Across these days, you will explore the core movements of the Christian life—repentance, mercy, surrender, holiness, hope, and resurrection. Each reading combines biblical insight, reflective prayer, and practical application, helping you live out your faith with clarity and purpose.

You will discover:

A meaningful way to journey through Lent and prepare your heart for Easter
Daily reflections that draw you into Scripture and the presence of God
A deeper understanding of repentance, forgiveness, and spiritual renewal
How to follow Jesus into death to self and rise into new life
The power of the Holy Spirit to transform your heart and habits
What it means to reflect the glory of God in everyday life

Along the way, you will encounter:

The beauty of turning your heart back to God
The mercy that meets you in your weakness
The courage to lay down what no longer gives life
The slow, radiant work of the Spirit forming Christ within you
The joy and strength of resurrection life
The quiet shine of a soul that has been with God

This is not a devotional you simply read. It is a path you walk. A transformation you receive. A rising that begins in the hidden places of the heart.

Perfect for individuals, families, small groups, or church communities, Ashes to Glory is a spiritually rich guide for anyone longing for renewal, depth, and a fresh encounter with God.

Let these 47 days draw you from ashes to glory— from the life you have known into the life that is waiting for you.

Begin your journey. Embrace the transformation. Live the resurrection.

Available on Amazon: Ashes To Glory - A Beautiful Journey of Lent to Easter

My New Book on sale at Amazon - The Holy Rosary Companion

2026-01-09T06:49:00.003+11:00

Link to the Book on Amazon: The Holy Rosary Companion

Can the Lord do this for me? Yes — because Jesus Christ is alive, His Word is fire, and the Holy Spirit still moves with power in every believer who prays with faith‑filled expectation.

The Church teaches that prayer is meant to be living, burning, and transformative. CCC 2708 reveals that meditation engages the whole person — thought, imagination, emotion, and desire — until the heart is filled with the truth of Christ. Scripture then reveals the next step: “With the heart one believes… and with the mouth confession is made…” (Romans 10). When the heart is ignited by the Word and the mouth boldly proclaims that Word in faith, heaven breaks open.

The Holy Rosary Companion is written for anyone who longs for the Spirit‑filled, Scripture‑rooted, Christ‑centered prayer through the powerful intercession of Mary. This is the Rosary prayed with fire — with the Word of God on your lips, the mysteries of Christ before your eyes, and the Holy Spirit stirring your heart into living faith.

Each mystery includes:

• A key Scripture summary

• A short opening prayer

• Ten Christ‑centered confessions (“Jesus, you…”)

• Scripture references for every meditation

• A simple structure for individuals, families, and groups

Rosary is the prayer that moves mountains. Prayer that renews the mind. Prayer that awakens the heart. Prayer that invites the Holy Spirit to act with power. Many individuals, and families testify that when the Rosary is prayed contemplating on the mysteries of Christ the atmosphere shifts — peace enters the home, unity grows, healings and deliverances are manifested, bondages broken, curses lifted and the presence of God becomes tangible.

As you pray, expect the Holy Spirit to stir faith within you. Expect Jesus to meet you in the mysteries. Expect the Father to pour out grace.

This companion will help you:
• Shut every door to the enemy

• Give Jesus first place in all things

• Walk as an overcomer through Christ

• Receive the goodness God desires for you

• Live in the freedom Christ won for you

• Cast down every thought that opposes the Word

• Recognize the supernatural power of your spoken confession

• Expect God to move suddenly, swiftly, and powerfully

• Experience all the graces promised in the Holy Rosary

Rooted in CCC 2708 and Romans 10, this book provides Scripture‑anchored confessions that train your heart and your mouth to work together in faith. You may find yourself learning a new way to pray — but the fruit will be supernatural, liberating, and bring you into closer union with Jesus.

Perfect for:

• Anyone hungry for a deeper encounter with Jesus

• Families longing for unity, peace, and spiritual breakthrough

• Prayer groups, ministries, and parish gatherings

• Converts and seekers exploring the Rosary

• Anyone desiring a Rosary experience that is simple, scriptural, and Spirit‑filled

Let this companion draw you into the fire of Christ’s love — one mystery, one Scripture, one Spirit‑empowered confession at a time.

Link to the Book on Amazon: The Holy Rosary Companion

Blessed are the Meek

2023-03-11T22:54:00.005+11:00

Blessed are the meek, for they will possess the land - Mathew 5:5 - YouTube

ICON of MARY in MOSCOW, RUSSIA - Bleeding?

2022-03-19T00:59:00.004+11:00

ICON of MARY in MOSCOW, RUSSIA - Bleeding?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7wgmNruueI

The Bleeding Icon of the Virgin Mary, Our Most Pure and Gracious Lady the Theotokos - Cathedral of the Russian Military Forces.

As innocent civilians bleed to death, our Mother Mary's icon is bleeding. Immediate Question is not HOW? - But the question is WHY?

Please Share.

Our Lady of Hrushiv, Ukraine & Message (Conditional) on WORLD WAR 3

2022-03-16T21:35:00.004+11:00

For Discernment and Preparation (Spiritual, Physical)

Our Lady of Hrushiv, Ukraine & Message (Conditional) on WORLD WAR 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLSTcC00wXE&t=208s

WORLD WAR 3 - PROPHECY - Our Lady of Hrushiv - UKRAINE Seventy-three years after the 1914 apparition, the Mother of God once again appeared at Hrushiv. On April 26, 1987 – exactly one year after the Chernobyl disaster — a bright light covered the church of the Holy Trinity in Hrushiv, and the Virgin Mary appeared over the cupola. A television program even recorded part of this light phenomenon.

Soon hundreds, then thousands came from all over the USSR to view these apparitions which continued every day until August 15. It is estimated that over 500,000 witnessed these apparitions until they ended. The Soviet militia and KGB could not even begin to control the crowds.

The message was a sequel to the earlier one: “I have come on purpose to thank the Ukrainian people because you have suffered most for the Church of Christ in the last 70 years. I have come to comfort you and to tell you that your suffering will soon come to an end. Ukraine will become an independent state.” And once again, the Holy Mother warned of the dangers coming from Russia and asked people to pray for that country.

“Oppression and wars continue to occupy the minds and hearts of many people. Russia, despite everything, continues to deny my Son. Russia rejects real life and continues to live in darkness. If there is not a return to Christianity in Russia, there will be a Third World War; the whole world will face ruin.”

Please watch & share.

God Bless Everyone

Pathiraj Yadav's Supernatural Testimony to Christ - a hindu brother turns to Jesus

2022-03-05T12:49:00.007+11:00

Summary of events leading to Christ (English summary translation of Hindi Video)

This video is in hindi. 🔥PathiRaj Yadav's Supernatural Testimony to Christ - a hindu brother turns to Jesus - YouTube

1. Brief summary of Brother PathiRaj Yadav (Pronounced as Pa-thi-RAJ Yaa-Dav)

2. PathiRaj Yadav comes from north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Born in a family of Hindus, raised as a devout hindu.

3. He suffered from an excruciating backache, consumed heavy doses of pain-killers and medicines but pain would not leave him.

3. A Christian friend, requested him to visit a Catholic Charismatic Retreat Center - Tabor Ashram (http://taborashram.org/) located in Kalyan, Maharashtra, India. 2 hours drive from Mumbai.

4. Very reluctantly Pathiraj decided to visit this prayer center on a Friday.

5. During the break of the retreat/prayer session, he was curious about a long queue awaiting before a crucifix.

6. He decided to go near the crucifix and asked the statue his question.

7. He asked - to the statue - If you are real, then please heal my back. To his absolute amazement and surprise, the statue of Jesus Crucified, spoke back to him and answered him, that he will heal Pathiraj.

8. Jesus healed him and series of miraculous events started occuring in Yadav's life.

9. After progressive search and seeking about Lord Jesus, Pathiraj received baptism into the Catholic Church

10. He witnesses his supernatural faith in Jesus and has recorded amazing fruit in the evangelisation ministry.

11. Please pray, please share.

What Our Lady in Medjugorje said about fasting

2022-03-03T23:58:00.003+11:00

Messages of Our Lady in Medjugorje about fasting

Facts about fasting brought to light in Medjugorje by Our Lady

7/21/82 pgs. 130-131

2. Fasting can suspend the laws of nature.* 7/21/82 pgs. 130-131

3. Fasting reduces punishments from God.* 11/16/82 pg. 136

4. Fasting is an “arm,” a weapon of significant power to defeat, of which atomic power does not compare. Atomic power has not strength to conquer Satan.* 6/25/92 pg. 193

5. Bread and water is the best fast.* 7/21/82 pg. 130-131

6. Fasting, to be powerful, must be done with the heart. *9/20/84 pg. 209

7. Through fasting, the whole plan of Our Lady, that God himself planned for the world’s salvation during this special time, will be achieved. *9/26/85 pg. 222

8. By giving our fasting to Our Lady, it “forces” Satan not to be able to seduce us to evil and drives him away. *9/4/85 pg. 235

9. Fasting purifies our hearts from the sins of our past. (Through Confession, sins of the past are forgiven, but healing from life-long vice or memories that Satan uses against us to lead us back into sin, requires purification). *12/4/86 pg. 239

10. Fasting, coupled with prayer WILL obtain EVERYTHING you ask for (the exception would be something illicit).* 10/29/83 pgs. 348-349

11. Fasting sanctifies you to receive the Holy Spirit. *11/4/83 pg. 349

12. Humility is a fruit from fasting, when coupled with prayer.* 2/10/84 pg. 366

13. The present fasting in the Church is not adequate. Our Lady desires this to change. She said fasting has been forgotten in the last quarter of this century in the Catholic Church. *5/84 pg. 375

14. Fasting is one element that keeps Satan from conquering us. Faith and prayer are the other two. *11/16/81 pg. 114.

We, in turn, are to conquer Satan. The arms to do so are fasting coupled with prayer.* 6/25/92 pg. 193

15. Satan is enraged against those who fast and convert. *6/16/83 pg. 343

16. Fasting for the sick can cure them along with faith and prayer. *11/26/81 pg. 115

17. Fasting, along with prayer, was offered as a remedy by Our Lady to stop arguments from the Holy Priesthood.* 1/21/82 pg. 121

18. Fasting will bring the Kingdom of God among us.* 3/14/84 pg. 153

19. Fasting makes Our Lady happy.* 8/5/84 pg. 157

20. Fasting will make prayer more vigorous. *1/25/84 pg. 363

21. Our Lady will make the maximum good come from our fast. She wants us to give our fast to her in which she “disposes of them “according to the will of God. *9/24/82 pgs. 134-135

22. Fasting, coupled with prayer, especially community prayer, will protect you from Satan’s aggression in destroying marriages, creating division among priests and will crush him in his plans for obsessions and murders in society today of which Our Lady says he is responsible. *12/26/82 pg. 139

23. To obtain a grace from God, it is best you let no one know you are fasting. *1/28/87 pgs. 180-181

24. We are to fast out of gratitude. *9/20/84 pg. 209

25. Fasting is to be encouraged in others.* 2/22/88 pg. 286

26. Our Lady tells us to fast to prepare for the coming of Jesus. *11/25/96

*(Page numbers are given from the book Words from Heaven, Messages of Our Lady from Medjugorje, the 7th edition, if you wish to read the whole message.

It is the most authoritative book on the messages of Medjugorje. (From “Fasting” booklet published by Caritas, Birmingham, AL.)

Traditional Prophecies About the Glorious Era of Peace - I

2021-12-23T15:21:00.002+11:00

Glorious Era of Peace - Our Lady of Good Success (Quito)

Background:

Although there has been an explosion of prophecies about the Era of Peace in more recent times, these prophecies are by no means new. On the contrary, they have existed throughout the entire history of the Church. The old Catholic Encyclopedia, of unassailable orthodoxy and great authority, makes this clear:

The more noteworthy of the prophecies bearing upon “latter times” seem to have one common end, to announce great calamities impending over mankind, the triumph of the Church, and the renovation of the world.

All the seers agree in two leading features as outlined by E.H. Thompson …

First they all point to some terrible convulsion, to a revolution springing from most deep-rooted impiety, consisting in a formal opposition to God and His truth, and resulting in the most formidable persecution to which the Church has ever been subject.

Secondly, they all promise for the Church a victory more splendid than she has ever achieved.

Our Lady of Good Success is the name of an approved apparition in Quito, Ecuador to a nun, Venerable Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, beginning at the very end of the 16th century. Although these apparitions do not speak in detail about the Era, they do make clear that a complete restoration will occur:

In order to free men from the bondage to these heresies, those whom the merciful love of my most Holy Son has designated to effect the restoration, will need great strength of will, constancy, valor and confidence of the just. There will be occasions when all will seem lost and paralyzed. This then will be the happy beginning of the complete restoration.

http://www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/messages/quito_messages.html

Note: Extract from Dan O'Connor's great book - The Crown of Sanctity: On the Revelations of Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta

Amazing Life after Death Experience of Fr James Manjakal MSFS

2021-10-21T20:48:00.000+11:00

Amazing Life after Death Experience of Fr James Manjakal MSFS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrHymg7u-xg

Prayer Against Oppression

2021-10-21T16:27:00.002+11:00

Prayer Against Oppression

Most Blessed Trinity, by the authority given to me by the natural law and by Thy giving these things & rights to me, I claim authority, rights and power over my N. (income, finances, possessions, etc.) and anything else that pertains to the oppression.

By the merits of Thy Sacred Wounds, I reclaim the rights, powers and authority over anything which I may have lost or conceded to any demon and I ask Thee to remove any demon's ability to influence or affect anything in my life.

God the Father humiliate the demons that have sought to steal Thy glory from Thee by oppressing Thy creatures. We beseech Thee to show Thy great glory and power over them and Thy great generosity to me, Thine unworthy creature, by answering all that I have asked of Thee.

I bind all demons of oppression, in the name of Jesus, by the power of the Most Precious Blood, the power of the humility with which Christ suffered His wounds, and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Virgin Most Powerful, Saint Michael the Archangel, the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, and all the saints, and I command you to leave and go to the foot of the Holy Cross to receive your sentence, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

(Ripperger, Laity, p. 43)

Prayer of Deliverance by Fr. Gabriele Amorth

2021-10-10T00:15:00.008+11:00

Prayer of Deliverance by Fr. Gabriele Amorth

O Jesus our Savior, my Lord and my God, my God and my all, with your sacrifice on the Cross you redeemed us and defeated the power of Satan. I beg you to deliver me from every evil presence and every evil influence.

I ask you in your name, I ask you for the sake of your wounds, I ask you for the sake of your blood, I ask you for the sake of your Cross, I ask you through the intercession of Mary, Immaculate and Sorrowful.

May the blood and the water that flow from your side wash over me to purify me, deliver me, heal me.

Amen.

Miraculous Results - How to practise faith in all things

2020-11-14T23:18:00.000+11:00

Watch this amazing spiritual talk on Faithfulness in life.

Are you looking for big results in life ?

Are you thinking the best in your worst situations of life ?

Are you faithful in your faith to Jesus?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tiuJCtfbAE&t=5s