JESUS APPEALS TO OUR WORLD

As today is the centennial of the first appearance at FATIMA, let us take a look at one who  was known for the intense propagation of the Holy Rosary , along with an apparition by the Sacred Heart of Jesus and her guardian angel in 1916 during the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

SERVANT of GOD SISTER MARIA CONSOLATA BETRONE was born in 1903 in  Saluzzo, Piedmont, Italy in a middle-class family of bakers who also ran a restaurant. She was  a Catholic mystic and nun of the Franciscan Capuchine Order.

The Lord first moved within the soul of this young and studious girl when she was only 13 years old. One day, as she was busy running errands for her parents, she felt our Lord touched her heart.  

After three failed attempts to join active orders, she was advised by her confessor to enter the Convent of the Poor Clares in Turin in 1930.

She is known for her prayer: "Jesus, Mary, I love you: Save souls" which are not only some words meant to be used as an ejaculatory prayer. It is a concrete way to fully and deeply live the "Little Way of Love" taught by St Thérèse of Lisieux.

Sister Consolata would repeat this one prayer during all her waking hours and in every form of work as she went about her daily tasks. Sister Consolata lived a holy and humble life and did as our Lord requested of her as He revealed her mission in life with these words, "Among the youngest members of Catholic action there are the Little Ones, and among the Little souls there are the Littlest Ones. You belong to these; and to them will belong all those souls who will follow you in offering Me the unceasing act of love."

Sister Consolata spent her whole life attempting to bring to perfection this Tiny Way of Love. She used to fight every thought, every word, every emotion, to keep unceasing her "Jesus, Mary, save souls" all day long, not to spoil one of them (because only one of them means a soul, as Jesus taught her).

In her diary Sister Consolata wrote an impassioned plea to those who would one day come to read this source of spiritual enlightenment, "Jesus reveals to me the intimate sufferings of His Heart caused by the faithlessness of souls consecrated to Him".

After Sister Consolata's death (1946), Father Lorenzo Sales wrote the book "Jesus Appeals to the World" based on her reported messages.

In 1995 Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini started the canonical process of beatification for Sister Mary Consolata Betrone.

Our Lord told her:  "You see, Consolata, sanctity means self-forgetfulness in everything, in thoughts, desires, words....Allow Me to do it all! I will do everything; but you should, at every moment, give Me what I ask for with much love!"

"I delight to work in a soul. You see, I love to do everything Myself; and from this soul I ask only that she love Me."

"If you are in Me and we are one then you will bring forth much fruit and will become strong, for you will disappear like a drop of water in the ocean; My silence will pass into you, and My humility, My purity, My charity, My gentleness, My patience, My thirst for suffering, and My zeal for souls whom I wish to save at all costs!"

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