A MYSTIC FOR OUR TIME

While they terrify me, I am always fascinated by mystics, especially in our modern times. When one delves deep into their lives, it can be said that basically “there is nothing new under the sun”!

Read St. Faustina’s journal and then go back  800+ years and read the writings of St. Gertrude- it is all there. It is as though Jesus or His Mother sends the same message over and over to each generation, especially when the world is in some state of turmoil – when is it not?

And that message is love God and love one another.

A woman so little known in our day, that there is only one translation into English about her (thanks to the monks of Silverspring in Ireland).

MARIA SIELER  led a retired life yet all who knew her, whether in her youth or in her last years of life in Rome, testify that she was a woman of  great piety. Only her diary gives us insight into her inner life.

She was born on 3 February 1899 in Winterdorf in the parish of St. Ruprecht an der Raab (Styria / Austria). Here she lived as a simple peasant girl. At an early age, her religious life developed, which manifested itself in a great love for Christ and a willingness to sacrifice.

At the age of 20, the Lord  asked her to offer sacrifice for the renewal of the priesthood and  for the salvation of the Church. It was intended to remind the faithful, especially the priests, that there could be no fruitful apostolate without personal devotion to Christ and without constant struggle for selflessness. 

Maria wanted to enter religious life but was rejected again and again, because of ill health. She not only knew physical suffering but also inner darkness and desolation. 

  

Maria wanted to enter religious life but was rejected again and again, because of ill health. She not only knew physical suffering but also inner darkness and desolation.

Maria  did not experience the sufferings of Christ in visions, nor did she have the stigmatized wounds of the Lord. Rather she suffered the inner sufferings of  Jesus.  

  She died on 29 July 1952 in Rome at the age of 53.

Thanks to the efforts of Father Franz Kober the priest of St. Ruprecht, who died on 23 March 2003, the mortal remains of this great woman were brought back to her home from Rome. Many there now see her as  an advocate for us and certainly for priests.