The Church in Exile and The Three Days of Darkness
Sep. 6, 2019
From the Way of the Cross, 4 June 1880
Present are: Fathers Guibout et Coquet, Father Vannutelli, Mr. Chauvin, Mr. and Mrs. Schoofs from Tours, Mr. Dubois, Mr. de Fontgombaud, Pierre Marchand, Adolphe Charbonnier and some women.
A miraculous Holy Communion takes place. Marie-Julie receives the announcement of new sufferings, which she accepts. She recalls her First Communion.
The ecstasy has only been able to be copied out in part. [These notations are written by Marie-Julie’s secretary, Adolphe Charbonnier].
“I come,” says Jesus, “to bring the nourishment which will preserve your soul for eternal life. I am the Bread of the elect, the Wine which sprouts virgins; I am the adorable nourishment of souls on earth.”
“Come and possess me; come to taste the beauty of My Love. I descend with My tenderness, with the unforgettable treasure of My goodness. Prepare your soul.”
Marie-Julie stops speaking, dazzled. Soon she begins long prayers in a low voice and asks the blessing of the priests; after, she opens her mouth four times; on the fourth time, the host miraculously appears on her tongue.
A long silence follows. Marie-Julie always has her eyes open, lost in radiant contemplations.
She resumes:
--I adore my Beloved… Oh! When He descended into my loving soul, I thought I would faint amidst the immense fire of His gifts.
“Now you are satiated; come, My spouse, come.
--The greater Your Love, the more the sighs of my soul become a martyrdom.
“My spouse, if this flood of happiness wholly intoxicates you, listen again, look…”
--Oh! The Cross! I see it, I contemplate the red palm branch which decorates it.
“Until tomorrow, My victim, on the altar of complete immolation.”
There follows a very long dialogue where Marie-Julie asks for a martyrdom of expiation. The Lord promises her five martyrdoms:
“Know, My spouse, that, soon, I will be going down into the field that My Love has cultivated, to harvest the ears that the sun of My grace has bloomed and filled with grain.”
--My Jesus, I want all that pleases Thee.
“Each day, I will make you see each outrage, each pain, each ingratitude which I would have to suffer. Would you like to adore My Divine Heart, My Sacred Wounds, and all My Body covered with outrages?”
--My Jesus, the fifth sacrifice is the most sensible to my soul… What could I do to alleviate Thy Sacred Members?
“There… Immediately upon seeing the ignominies with which My adorable Body will be covered, would you like to consent to suffer, in the same manner and in the same corresponding parts of your own body, to immediately suffer, as mine will suffer?”
--Yes, my Jesus. I want all that which Thy Holy Will wants.
“Do you consent to wear the marks on the exterior of your members, for Me?”
--My Jesus, I would very much like this but, in humility, I want that the marks of Thy bloody tears not be seen… all in my heart, if it pleases Thee.
“Since you want to keep humility, My spouse, it pleases Me very much. But accept, one time only, in one month from today, accept to carry the visible imprint that I would bear in My adorable hands and feet.”
--Yes, my Jesus, but in my veiled hands… Thy eyes alone will see them.
“Consent, My spouse, to visibly carry My heartbreaking marks.”
--Would Thou like that I give my response a little later, this evening? Thou knows why.
“I know your profound humility. I consent.”
--It will not be me who will choose, it will be Thy grace.
“Would you like to again accept, one time per week, the agony of death, to expiate for the offenses that are prepared for Me?”
--I would like it very much, my Jesus. When?
“I would like it to be on Fridays.”
--As Thou would like, my Divine Saviour.
--Ah! The day when I made my First Communion! The anniversary will be soon. It was in June… From that day onwards, I never wanted to leave Thee, oh my Beloved!
When I could not visit Thee in the Holy Tabernacle, I went to look at the bell tower of Thy church from a distance. It was there that Thou had made me taste a deluge of happiness. That day has remained unforgettable, the memory of it is continual… this happiness lasts forever.
When I had to wait, close to the Holy Tabernacle, oh! that was a long time! To make the time seem shorter, I used to tell myself: “I am going to ask my Mother in Heaven to write in my heart, from Her Immaculate finger, all of the happiness of my First Communion. I have never seen Her write it, but Her Heart has written it. This happiness lasts for always, despite my crosses and my tribulations.
After the fourth fall [attempt?], writes [secretary] Adolphe Charbonnier, I was able to catch the entire canticle, a sort of lamentation which had the air of Pange Lingua.
After a long silence, Marie-Julie began these habitual meditations on Calvary.
The ecstasy ended on the usual incidents: the spear, the sleep in the tomb, [and] kneeling at the final rapture.
[Source: pages 178-181, Cris du Ciel : Sur le Temps qui Vient, by Fr. P. Roberdel].
Reflections on this Prophecy:
The date for this prophecy is 4 June 1880, when Marie-Julie is 30 years old. As she first began having ecstasies when she was 19, then this prophecy is taking place towards the end of her 11 years of being denied the Blessed Sacrament, as part of the assessment of whether her prophecies are real or false.
Notice also the great number of persons gathered to witness this ecstasy: "Fathers Guibout et Coquet, Father Vannutelli, Mr. Chauvin, Mr. and Mrs. Schoofs from Tours, Mr. Dubois, Mr. de Fontgombaud, Pierre Marchand, Adolphe Charbonnier and some women."
Having been in Marie-Julie’s tiny bedroom (see July 13, 2019 blog post), which fits little more than a bed, it is hard to imagine this scene. Did everyone except the secretary stand?
However, the investigation into her visions and messages was a serious one.
Although her local Hierarchy are denying her the Blessed Sacrament, Our Lord Jesus Christ comes to give her Holy Communion.
And even though she is suffering from this denial, Marie-Julie still “asks the blessing of the priests” which shows us her Catholic reverence for the dignity of the Priesthood of Christ and the right of the Catholic Hierarchy to protect the Church Militant by investigating any supposed messages from supposed mystics.
For those readers who are new to Marie-Julie Jahenny's life, Holy Mother Church did declare her a true mystic and ruled that her prophecies were safe for the faithful to read.
Adolphe Charbonnier, one of the faithful secretaries, notes that Marie-Julie “opens her mouth four times; [and] on the fourth time, the host miraculously appears on her tongue.”
This number 4 seems to be significant in its meaning. Why does the Miraculous Host only appear on the fourth time?
Our Catholic Faith has many examples of the number four. Here are some examples:
-There four gospels from four evangelists.
-In Saint John's book of the Apocalypse, the number 4 figures significantly. Father Sylvester Berry's analysis of this prophetical writing, in particular of Chapter 7, says, in part:
"The Apostle sees four spirits ready to send forth the winds of the earth bearing persecution, war, pestilence, and famine [4 punishments]. In the prophecy of Zachaarias the four winds are four chariots bringing plagues upon earth. They symbolize evil spirits and unfaithful pastors who bring untold harm to the faithful by their false teachings and example. The four horesemen of the preceding vision are here replaced by charioteers to signify that the threatened scourges are more grievous than any yet predicted." (p. 80, The Apocalypse of St. John).
-In this time of Exile we know that His Holiness, Pope Gregory XVII, was elected on the fourth ballot in the Papal Conclave of 1958 (see www.thepopeinred.com).
-Also, in obedience to Our Lady of Lourdes, when Saint Bernadette digs into the ground with her bare hands a total of four times, the healing spring water only comes out on the fourth attempt.
-And in one of the prophecies from the Catholic mystic Elizabeth Canori-Mora the number 4 is also prevalent:
"After this the holy Apostle [Saint Peter] touched with his staff the four extremities of the cross, from which instantly sprung up four beautiful trees loaded with fruits and blossoms....St. Peter had produced these four symbolic trees to the end that they may serve as a place of refuge to the little flocks of the faithful friends of Jesus Christ, and in order to preserve them from the fearful punishment which shall convulse the whole earth." (pp.188-189, The Prophets and Our Times, by Rev. R. Gerald Culleton.
In Father Herman Bernard Kramer's must-read book, The
Book of Destiny, he discusses the Catholic symbolism of numbers:
"Seven is the sacred number in the dealings of Almighty God with men to express perfection and universality. It is the sum of 3 plus 4, the number of the Blessed Trinity plus the number of visible creation" (p. 42).
Father Kramer goes on to call man "the crown of visible creation."
Marie-Julie’s life's work has been to suffer as a victim soul. Her sufferings are meant to expiate for our sins, and thus to lessen the Divine Punishments, some of which we are living through today.
This martyrdom is given to her by Christ Himself, from His Mercy, and she gives her full consent.
Christ our Lord offers to give Marie-Julie five martyrdoms to suffer:
Marie-Julie is to suffer in expiation, but it is never revealed for which sins she is to expiate.
Perhaps the hint lies in the fifth martyrdom: “the martyrdom of contemplating the pains to come.”
These pains are surely the sufferings of the Exiled Popes, Hierarchy, and faithful.
The pains we suffer are too many to list, as they injure the heart, the mind, and the soul.
One very real example of our suffering in these times of Exile is watching our beloved family members living lives outside of the Faith, and fearing for their damnation should they continue on the false lives which they follow.
This ecstasy brings one of our more common sufferings to light:
Those of us who are in the Church during this time of Her Exile know the deep suffering of not being able to receive Christ our Lord. The soul knows real suffering, real hunger, real thirst.
Our Catholic duty is to accept this Divine Punishment. But our sufferings are of the common type for this time of Exile.
Marie-Julie is set aside from the common person, as she is given the great privilege to suffer the bodily pains which Christ Himself endured during His Passion and Crucifixion.
Marie-Julie gladly agrees to suffer all of this in expiation. However, her humility of her own unworthiness is such that she asks to not have any wounds show on her body.
She is already a point of curiosity, as evidenced by the large number of people in her tiny bedroom, and she seems to want some of this suffering to be only between Heaven and herself.
This ecstasy also gives us a glimpse into the holiness of Marie-Julie from her remembrance of the effects from her First Holy Communion:
“--Ah! The day when I made my First Communion! The anniversary will be soon. It was in June… From that day onwards, I never wanted to leave Thee, oh my Beloved!”
And then we learn how Marie-Julie courts our Lord from afar when she is not able to receive the Blessed Sacrament:
“When I could not visit Thee in the Holy Tabernacle, I went to look at the bell tower of Thy church from a distance. It was there that Thou had made me taste a deluge of happiness. That day has remained unforgettable, the memory of it is continual… this happiness lasts forever.
When I had to wait, close to the Holy Tabernacle, oh! that was a long time!”
This is the memory of a privileged Catholic soul in a time when the Church was strong. The church she remembers is the parish where she received her First Communion:
“It was there that Thou had made me taste a deluge of happiness. That day has remained unforgettable, the memory of it is continual… this happiness lasts forever.”
May each of us know, like Marie-Julie, the eternal happiness of Heaven from the remembered joy of our true First Communion.
Deo gratias!
"We declare, say, define and proclaim to every human creature that they by necessity for salvation are entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff ." - Decree of Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam,Nov. 18, 1302,ex cathedra