LUCIA DOS SANTOS, VIRGIN - 13 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

Saints celebrated on the 13th of February

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VENERABLE LUCIA DOS SANTOS, VIRGIN

Lucia de Jesus Rosa dos Santos, OCD, (28 March 1907 - 13 February 2005) also known as Lucia of Fatima and by her religious name Maria Lucia of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart, was a Portuguese Discalced Carmelite nun. Sister Lucia and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto are the main witnesses of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in 1917. Sr Lucia's beatification process was opened in 2017.¹

Detailed information about the Fatima apparitions

BE AWARE OF THE DIABOLICAL WAVE THAT IS SWEEPING THE WORLD – IMPORTANT ADVICE BY SR LUCIA OF FATIMA

If we are going to turn the world around, and our fellowmen as well, and cause them toward God and thereby toward life and love and understanding and the giving of all these in turn to still others, we have to begin with ourselves. For we cannot give what we do not have. We have to fill ourselves with that truth and understanding and life and love (which come only from God) if we are to share it with others. And the best and easiest way to achieve this objective is the same as it has always been – humble prayer before Jesus Christ, who is “the Way, the Truth and the Life”, and especially before Him in the Blessed Sacrament on our altars. He is the soul of our prayer-life. And our prayer-life is the soul of our entire life and existence.

Here is a message which Sister Lucia feels is vitally important and that all too generally is ignored. This message is found in a letter she wrote some years ago to her nephew, Father Valinho, a Salesian priest. This is what she wrote:

Dear Father Valinho,

I see from your letter that you are worried about the turmoil and the disorientation of our times. It is indeed sad that so many are allowing themselves to be dominated by the diabolical wave that is sweeping the world, and they are so blind that they cannot see their error. But their principal error is that they have abandoned prayer. Thus, they turn away from God, and without God everything is lacking to them. For, “without Me you can do nothing.”

What I recommend to you above all is that you draw close to the Tabernacle and pray. In fervent prayer you will receive the light, strength and grace that you need to sustain you, and to share with others.

Guide those under your care with humility, with gentleness and at the same time with firmness, because superiors above all have the duty to maintain the truth in its proper place, always with serenity, with justice and charity. For this reason they need to pray more and more, to keep close to God and to tell Him about their affairs and all their problems before they discuss them with human beings. Follow this road and you will see that in prayer you find more knowledge, more light, more strength, more grace and virtue than you could ever achieve by reading many books, or by great studies. Never consider as wasted the time you spend in prayer. You will discover that in prayer God communicates to you the light, strength and grace you need to do all He expects of you.

The only important thing for us is to do the will of God: to be where He wants us to be, and to do all He wants of us, but always with humility, knowing that of ourselves we are nothing and that it is God who works in us and through us, to accomplish His work.

Therefore, we all need to intensify our life of intimate union with God, and this we can attain only through prayer. It is in prayer that the soul encounters direct contact with God, who is our strength and the source of all good. Let time be lacking for everything else, but never for prayer, and you will experience the fact that, after prayer, you can accomplish a lot in a short period of time.

All of us, but especially the superior without prayer, or (the one) who habitually sacrifices prayer for material things, is like a hollow, split reed that serves only to beat the whites of eggs into castles of foam, which, without sugar to sustain them, soon dissolve and become polluted water.

For this reason, Jesus Christ said, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt loses its strength, it is good for nothing but to be thrown out.” We can receive our strength from God alone. We must draw close to Him for Him to communicate it to us. We can only realize this closeness through prayer because it is in prayer that the soul encounters direct contact with God.

I would like you to pass on these recommendations to your religious brothers. Let them experiment with them; then you can tell me if I was wrong. I am convinced that the principal cause of evil in the world, and the falling away of so many consecrated souls, is lack of union with God in prayer. The devil is very smart and watches for our weak points so that he can attack us. If we are not careful and attentive in obtaining the strength from God, we will fall, because our times are very bad and we are very weak. Only God’s strength can sustain us.

See that you take everything with calmness and with great confidence in God. He will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He will supply for our insufficiencies.

Sister Lucia dos Santos, I.C.D.²

²From a prayer booklet

¹Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_L%C3%BAcia