‘A Last Remedy for Our Ills’
Many will come from secularists who don’t have a clue about the spiritual battle. Others will come from Vatican observers and even religious who will talk of spiritual achievements, but basically in the sense of temporal understanding.
But to truly discuss the 25 years of John Paul II is to discuss a reign that did not begin upon Karol Wojtyla’s ascension to the Chair of Peter.
For the pontificate of John Paul II did not, in reality, begin 25 years ago.
It did not even begin when the Lord placed His Hands upon Peter and called the Apostle His “Rock.”
Without discounting Eternity and the omnipotent Mind of God, the pontificate of John Paul II began spiritually and temporally when the centurion pierced the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the Cross 1,970 years ago.
When the Blood and Water gushed forth as a Fountain of Mercy for us.
There are many significant events too numerous to mention after the Crucifixion, but one of the most important links in the spiritual chain to the papacy of Karol Wojtyla occurred when a woman prayed — as her husband had done previously — before the Shroud.
The woman prayed for a son to be born to her who would grow up to become a Saint.
The next year, St. Francis de Sales was born.
St. Francis, named after the famed stigmatist who first bore the Wounds of Christ, was the inspiration for the founding of the Salesians, a religious order formed by St. John Bosco. As another Saint devoted to the Shroud, Don Bosco would be the inspiration behind another Salesian priest to ensure the first photograph was taken of the cloth in 1898. A photograph that allows any “Doubting Thomas” to see and place their hand — as Mary did — onto the side of Christ’s Heart wound.
What does all this have to do with John Paul II’s election 25 years ago?
The story continues with St. Francis de Sales helping to form the Visitation nuns, the very order that would count among its ranks St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.
A Saint whose feast day is now honored on the same day as the celebration of the 25th anniversary of John Paul II’s pontificate.
Three-hundred-and-fourteen years ago, as she contemplated the devotion her founder Francis de Sales had — a Saint whose motto was that the Shroud is “Our Standard of Salvation” — St. Margaret spoke of a great “revelation.”
After writing about the Heart of the Blessed Virgin on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, September 15, St. Margaret followed with: “I must tell you that a religious of the Visitation who died about 40 years ago in the odor of sanctity had a revelation to the effect that the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ would take its origin in the Order of the Visitation. If this is true, I think it is because of our holy founder, the great St. Francis de Sales, who wanted all his daughters to render continual homage to the divine Heart … .”
St. Margaret stated that the Lord said devotion to His Sacred Heart was “the last effort” of His love for mankind.
“His Sacred Heart is a precious inheritance given us by our good heavenly Father as the final remedy for our ills. This is what He told me.”
That, too, was written in 1689.
Was it a lie or a prophecy?
Considering that St. Margaret’s body lies incorruptible today it is hard for us to comprehend — except when we are talking about biblical idiots or secular humanists — how anyone can believe this statement by St. Margaret is false, or a figment of her imagination.
But if it is a prophecy, how can that be?
For the entire pontificate of John Paul II has NOT been the focus of the Sacred Heart devotion, but of the Divine Mercy message!
In this revelation from another Saint, Mary Faustina Kowalska, the Lord states: “I desire that My Mercy be worshipped, and I am giving mankind the last hope of salvation; that is, recourse to My Mercy.”
How can this be?
Is this not in conflict with the Sacred Heart devotion that is, according to St. Margaret, the “final remedy for our ills”?
Which one is the “last hope”? The Sacred Heart or Divine Mercy?
When we stop to realize again and again that our God does nothing without a beginning and an end — an Alpha and Omega — there is obviously NO conflict between the two messages.
For one is the fulfillment of the other.
And that fulfillment of the Sacred Heart devotion — the Alpha of our Lord’s revelation — is brought full circle in the pontificate of John Paul II and the institution of the Divine Mercy message.
With that celebration of the Great Jubilee Year of Divine Mercy and the universal institution of the feast, we have now reached the Omega of the Sacred Heart revelation.
Indeed, if there is any confirmation of this simple fact, it comes from the Lord Himself who told St. Faustina that “My Heart rejoices in this feast” Diary #998.
And it is confirmed in the life of one man who not only canonized Mary Faustina, but brought that message of Divine Mercy, as Mary’s pope, to not just the Church but an entire world.
A man who “coincidentally” celebrates his reign as Peter’s successor on St. Margaret’s feast day!
And the miracle of John Paul’s reign is a continuation of a message of reconciliation from a Heart that so loved men the stains of Its Blood and Water remain this day on a cloth in Turin, Italy for all to see.
A cloth that proves the pontificate of John Paul II is not an isolated incident, but, perhaps, the last momentous act in a chain of events that fulfilled a long-ago prophecy.
A prophecy that began not 25 years or 314 years ago, but in the Infinite Mind and Heart of God, at the Foot of the Cross when Blood and Water gushed forth.
As we thank God for the fulfillment of the Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy prophecies in the pontificate of John Paul II, let us not put Mary’s pope too high on a pedestal as he is only but a deputy of a jealous God.
Let us, instead, run to our Sacred Heart, Jesus of Mercy, and beg, plead and implore the Son of Mary to Reign as the true King of Jerusalem He, the Son of David, is — who, as the Son of the Eternal Father, is the “last remedy for our ills”!
© 2003 Agnus Dei Presents!
of Reconciliation!
