Signs of the Times  

            "Although evolution is urged on by needs or necessities, yet, if controlled by these alone, it would easily overstep the boundaries of Tradition, and thus, separated from its primitive vital principle, would make for ruin instead of progress.  Hence, by those who study more closely the ideas of the Modernists, evolution is described as a resultant from the conflict of two forces, one of them tending towards progress, the other towards, conservation.  The conserving force exists in the Church and is found in Tradition.  Tradition is represented by religious authority, and thus both by right and in fact.  By right, for it is in the very nature of authority to protect Tradition: and in fact, since authority, raised as it is above the contingencies of life, feels hardly, or not at all, the spurs of progress.  The progressive force, on the contrary, which responds to the inner needs lies in the individual consciences and works in them--especially in such of them as are in more close and intimate contact with life...."
                                         Pius X (Excerpt given at St. Peter's Rome,                                        Sept. 8, 1907 in the 5th year of Our Pontificate)

    (con't)...."During this time," OUR LADY foretold, "the secular Clergy will leave much to be desired because priests will become careless in their sacred dutires.  Lacking the divine compass, they will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain.  How the Church will suffer during this dark night!  Lacking a Prelate and Father to guide them with paternal love, gentleness, strength, wisdom and prudence, many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger.  This will mark the arrival of My  hour.
         Therefore, clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the privacyof your heart, imploring our Celestial Father that, for the love of His Eucharistic Heart of My Most Holy Son and His Precious Blood shed with such generosity and the profound bitterness and sufferings of His cruel Passion and Death.  He might take pity on His ministers and bring to an end those ominous times, sending to this Church the Prelate who will restore the spirit of its priests."


         On Dec. 8, 1634, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, three archangels and their Queen appeared to Mother Mariana.  St. Gabriel was carrying a Ciborium filled with Hosts which Our Lady explained: "This signifies the Most August Sacrament of the Eucharist which will be distributed by my Catholic priests to faithful christians belonging to the Holy Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church, whose visible Head is the Pope, the King of Christianity.  His pontifical infallibilty will be declared a dogma of the Faith by the same Pope chosen to proclaim the dogma of the Mystery of My Immaculate Conception.  He will be persecuted and imprisoned in the Vatican by the unjust usurpation of the Pontifical States through the iniquity, envy and avarice of an earthly monarch."

      [This holy Pope was Blessed Pius IX who fulfilled every prediction made by Our Lady.  His body, being exhumed for beatification in 2000, was found miraculously preserved in the tomb where it had lain for more than a century.  His face still showed a striking serenity in death.]....

           We are living in a time of the great crisis of Faith and morals as prophesied by Our Lady.  The confusion is of such magnitude that it is not only subverting the temporal sphere, but also penetrates the walls of the church itself.  Indeed, as Our Lady prophesied, the corruption of customs has become general and the precious light of Faith almost extinct.  Yet the message of Our Lady of Good Success ends with a note of great hope: When everything will seem lost and paralyzed, that will be the  "happy beginning of the complete restoration.  This iwll mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss."     It is the promise echoed by Our Lady again at Fatima in 1917..."In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph."

      Thus, it seems like an opportune moment to turn to Our Lady of Good Success and invoke Her, begging for every good success--both temporal and spiritual.  It is the moment to ask for her orientation and certainty anid the storm, and the courage and strength to keep aloft the standard of the Faith.

      Finally, let us pray that Our Lady will intervene quickly to restore the Church and society, so that she may reassume her throne and reign again in glory as Queen of all the earth...