{"id":40341,"date":"2020-04-16T00:37:58","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T06:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/?p=40341"},"modified":"2023-02-22T14:02:59","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T20:02:59","slug":"the-refuge-for-our-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/the-refuge-for-our-times\/","title":{"rendered":"The Refuge for Our Times","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

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THE<\/strong> Great Storm like a hurricane<\/em><\/a> that has spread across all of humanity will not cease<\/em> until it has accomplished its end: the purification of the world. As such, just as in the times of Noah, God is providing an ark <\/em>for His people to safeguard them and preserve a “remnant.” With love and urgency, I beg my readers to waste no more time and begin climbing the steps into the refuge God has provided…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

WHAT IS THIS REFUGE?<\/p>\n

For decades, there have been murmurings in Catholic circles about “refuges”\u2014literal<\/em> places on earth where God will preserve a remnant. Is this just fantasy, delusion, or do they exist? I will address that question near the end because there is something far more important than physical protection: spiritual <\/em>refuge.<\/p>\n

In the approved apparitions at Fatima, Our Lady had shown the three seers a vision of Hell. She then said:<\/p>\n

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You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.<\/strong><\/em> \u2014Message at Fatima, <\/em>vatican.va<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"This is an extraordinary statement\u2014one sure to ruffle the feathers of evangelical Christians. Because God is saying that the way<\/em> to “Jesus the Way” (Jn 14:6) is through devotion to Our Lady<\/em>. But the Christian who knows his Bible will recall that indeed, in the end times, a “woman” has an extraordinary part to play in the defeat of Satan (Rev 12:1-17) that was announced from the very beginning:<\/p>\n

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I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head,
\nand you shall bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15)<\/span><\/p>\n

On this universal level, if victory comes it will be brought by Mary. Christ will conquer through her because He wants the Church\u2019s victories now and in the future to be linked to her\u2026<\/strong> \u2014POPE JOHN PAUL II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope<\/em>, p. 221<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart, then, is at the center of this triumph<\/em>. Cardinal Ratzinger provides a proper context:<\/p>\n

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In biblical language, the \u201cheart\u201d indicates the center of human life, the point where reason, will, temperament and sensitivity converge, where the person finds his unity and his interior orientation. According to Matthew 5:8 <\/strong>[“Blessed are the pure of heart…”], the \u201cimmaculate heart\u201d is a heart which, with God’s grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore \u201csees God.\u201d To be \u201cdevoted\u201d to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart<\/span>, which makes the fiat<\/em>\u2014\u201cyour will be done\u201d\u2014the defining center of one’s whole life. It might be objected that we should not place a human being between ourselves and Christ. But then we remember that Paul did not hesitate to say to his communities: \u201cimitate me\u201d <\/strong>(1 Cor 4:16; Phil 3:17; 1 Th 1:6; 2 Th 3:7, 9). In the Apostle they could see concretely what it meant to follow Christ. But from whom might we better learn in every age than from the Mother of the Lord?<\/strong> \u2014Cardinal Ratzginer, (POPE BENEDICT XVI), Message at Fatima, <\/em><\/span>vatican.va<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart, then, is not like some kind of “lucky charm” that circumvents the ordinary paths of salvation: faith, repentance, good works, etc. (cf. Eph 2:8-9); it does not replace virtue but helps us to attain it<\/em>. It is precisely through devotion to her Immaculate Heart\u2014to her example, obedience, and recourse to her intercession\u2014that we are provided the spiritual help and strength to remain upon those paths. And this help is real! I want to cry out with all my heart that this “Woman clothed in the Sun” is not a symbolic mother but an actual <\/em>mother in the order of grace. She is a real and actual refuge<\/em> for sinners.<\/p>\n

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…the Blessed Virgin’s salutary influence on men… flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on his mediation, depends entirely on it, and draws all its power from it.<\/strong> <\/span>\u2014Catechism of the Catholic Church<\/a>, <\/em>n. 970<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The biggest reason Christians fear any kind of devotion to Mary is that she will somehow steal Christ’s thunder. Rather, she is the lightning<\/em> that shows the way to Him. Indeed, in her second apparition at Fatima, Our Lady said:<\/p>\n

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My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God. <\/strong><\/em>\u2014Our Lady of Fatima, June 13, 1917, The Revelation of the Two Hearts in Modern Times<\/em>, www.ewtn.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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HOW IS SHE A REFUGE?<\/p>\n

How exactly is Our Lady’s Heart a “refuge”? She is so, simply, because God has deigned it so.<\/p>\n

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The maternal duty of Mary toward men in no wise obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows His power. For all the salvific influence of the Blessed Virgin on men originates, not from some inner necessity, but from the divine pleasure.<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong> \u2014Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium<\/em>, n.\u00a060<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"Christ willed that she be not only His mother, but the mother of all of us, His Mystical Body. This divine exchange took place beneath the Cross:<\/p>\n

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\u201cWoman, behold, your son.\u201d Then he said to the disciple, \u201cBehold, your mother.\u201d And from that hour the disciple took her into his home. (John 19:26-27) <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So that’s what Jesus wants us to do also: take Mary into our hearts and home. When we do, she takes us into her heart\u2014an Immaculate Heart that is “full of grace.” By virtue of her spiritual motherhood she is able to nurture her children, as it were, with the milk of these graces. Don’t ask me how she does it, I just know that she does! Does anyone<\/em> even know how the Holy Spirit works?<\/p>\n

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The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Well, so it is with the spouse of the Holy Spirit. <\/em>She is able to care for us and provide spiritual refuge, as any good mother would, because it is the Will of the Father. Thus, it is her role in these times to protect her children in the Great Storm that is now upon us.<\/p>\n

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My Immaculate Heart: it is your safest refuge <\/span>and the means of salvation which, at this time, God gives to <\/span>the Church and to humanity… Whoever does not enter into this refuge <\/span>will be carried away by the Great Tempest which has already begun <\/span>to rage.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em> \u2014Our Lady to Fr. Stefano Gobbi, <\/em>December 8th, 1975, n. 88, 154 of the Blue Book<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

It is the refuge <\/span>which your heavenly Mother has prepared for you. Here, you will be safe from every danger and, at the moment of the Storm, you will find your peace.<\/strong><\/em> \u2014Ibid. n. 177<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Listen to those promises! We ought to accept this gift for what it is and make haste into this refuge.<\/p>\n

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Mary\u2019s motherhood, which becomes man\u2019s inheritance, is a gift:<\/em> a gift which Christ himself makes personally to every individual. The Redeemer entrusts Mary to John because he entrusts John to Mary. At the foot of the Cross there begins that special entrusting of humanity to the Mother of Christ, which in the history of the Church has been practiced and expressed in different ways\u2026 <\/strong>\u2014POPE JOHN PAUL II, Redemptoris Mater,<\/em> n. 45<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE ROSARY AND THE REFUGE<\/p>\n

It is through the practice and express devotion to Our Mother that we have already learned the promise of “refuge” in her to be true. For example, one of the Fifteen Promises Our Lady conveyed to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan regarding those who pray the Rosary, is that it\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u2026will be a very powerful armor against hell; it will destroy vice, deliver from sin and dispel heresy. <\/strong><\/em>\u2014erosary.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It is no coincidence, then, that Heaven has renewed its call through many seers in the past year to pray the rosary daily. <\/em>For the Rosary remains the preeminent devotion to \"\"the\u00a0Immaculate Heart:
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Church has always attributed particular efficacy to this prayer… the most difficult problems. At times when Christianity itself seemed under threat, its deliverance was attributed to the power of this prayer, and Our Lady of the Rosary was acclaimed as the one whose intercession brought salvation.<\/strong> \u2014POPE ST. JOHN PAUL II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae<\/a>, <\/em>n. 39<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This should not surprise us, for the Catechism teaches that the Church “is prefigured by Noah\u2019s ark, which alone saves from the flood.” [1]<\/sup><\/a>Catechism of the Catholic Church<\/em>, n. 845<\/span><\/span>