"My Adversary will one day think that he is celebrating a complete victory..."

Everywhere we look today, signs of persecution against the Church are emerging.  Our Lady told Father Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests that, "My Adversary will one day think that he is celebrating a complete victory: over the world, over the Church, over souls.  It will be only then that I will intervene - terrible and victorious - that his defeat may be all the greater when he is certain in his conviction that he has conquered once for all...You, my sons, have been called to live through these events.  It is now the time for you to know this, that you may be consciously prepared for the battle.  This is now the time for me to begin disclosing part of my plan.  First of all, it is necessary that my Enemy have the impression of having conquered everything, of having everything now in his hands.  This is why he will be permitted to penetrate even into the interior of my Church, and he will succeed in plunging the sanctuary of God into darkness.  He will reap the greatest number of victims from among the ministers of the sanctuary.  This will in fact be a time of great falls on the part of my beloved sons, my priests.  Satan will seduce some of them by pride, others by love of the flesh, others by doubts, others by unbelief, and still others by discouragement and loneliness.." (October 18, 1975).

Our Lady, speaking to Barbara Reuss on April 25, 1946 at Marienfried, said that, "There are dark incomprehensible events.  In the place where the greatest confidence is found and where the people are taught I can do everything, I will make preparations for peace.  I am the sign of the living God.  I place my sign on the foreheads of my children.  The star (Lucifer) will persecute the sign.  But my sign will conquer the star."

While Our Lady is placing her sign on the foreheads of her children [those who are consecrated to her and who live out a true devotion to her], the Devil is also placing his mark on the foreheads of his children.  Our Lady explained to Father Gobbi that, "These are the times when the followers of him who opposes himself to Christ are being signed with his mark on the forehead and on the hand.  The mark on the forehead and on the hand is an expression of  a total dependency on the part of those who are designated by this sign.  The sign indicates him who is an enemy of Christ, that is to say, the sign of the Antichrist.  And this mark, which is stamped, signifies the complete belonging of the person thus marked to the army of him who is opposed to Christ and who fights against his divine and royal dominion.  The mark is imprinted on the forehead and on the hand.  The forehead indicates the intellect, because the mind is the seat of the human reason.  The hand expresses human activity, because it is with his hands that man acts and works.  Nevertheless, it is the person who is marked by the mark of the Antichrist in his intellect and in his will.  He who allows himself to be signed with the mark on his forehead is led to accept the doctrine of the denial of God, of the rejection of his Law, and of atheism which, in these times, is more and more diffused and advertised.  And thus he is driven to follow the ideologies in mode today and to make of himself a propagator of all the errors..."

I have been witnessing many signs of demonic activity, both within the Church as well as without.  We can expect to see more and more cases of demonic possession.  Last Saturday, while I was praying the Rosary just prior to Confession, the silence in the Church was punctuated by the piercing sound of a woman wailing and howling like a wild animal.  Our Lady doesn't want the ever thickening darkness and apostasy to frighten or discourage us.  But neither does she want us to be blind to it.  More than ever today, we are called to be prayer warriors, marching under the banner of the Mother of God.

We can expect, if we are consecrated to the Immaculata, to be hated even within the Church by those who pass themselves off as Catholic but who are only in the Church in a bodily manner while remaining external to her pale (see Lumen Gentium, No. 14).  Indeed St. Louis de Montfort tells us that, "Finally, sinners continually hate and persecute the elect, openly and secretly. The elect are a burden to them. They despise them, criticise them, ridicule them, insult them, rob them, deceive them, impoverish them, hunt them down and trample them into the dust; while they themselves are making fortunes, enjoying themselves, getting good positions for themselves, enriching themselves, rising to power and living in comfort."

I continue to experience this hatred personally.  It is very real and palpable.  But just as real - and far more powerful than this satanic hatred - is the love of Jesus and Mary.

Remain under the mantle of the Immaculata.  This is our sure refuge.  Now is the time of darkness and confusion.  A time of diabolical disorientation.  A time when devils are being loosed upon the world.  Pray without ceasing.  Pray and trust.