“Wretched city, ungrateful people! The justice of God will punish you!” “It seemed to me, therefore, that I saw the whole world in disorder, particularly the city of Rome. […] The sky was covered with a black mist, discharging the most appalling lightning, which incinerated and scorched everywhere: the earth, no less than the sky, was in convulsions. The most dreadful earthquakes and the most ruinous whirlwinds wreaked terrible damage over the whole earth. In this way good Catholics were separated from the false Christians.” “Woe to the unobservant men and women religious, who have disdained their holy rules! Woe, woe, for they shall all perish under the terrible scourge.”1
What are we to think of these words? Are they scientific predictions, fiction or inventions conceived by some fertile imagination? No, dear reader, they are prophecies transmitted by God to one of His most beloved daughters in the 18th century.
There are those who, moved by a false concept of mercy, are sure that God only consoles and caresses; others even preach that sin need never be punished… However, this is not what we gather from the revelations received by Blessed Elizabeth Canori Mora. As with so many other prognostications of souls endowed with the prophetic charism throughout history, her writings are marked by stern recriminations against the sinful world, visions of terrible and threatening punishments to come, and the censures of a just God who, angered by the crimes committed against His Church, promises to avenge, restore and glorify her. They are comparable to the message Our Lady transmitted to the three little shepherds at Fatima in 1917, which, while striking for its announcement of severe punishments, also fills the Catholic heart with hope in its foretelling of the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The Blessed describes visions of terrible future chastisements, censures of a God who promises to restore and glorify His Church
Let us look at some extracts from the prophecies of this Blessed and the message that Divine Justice, through her, wished to send to humanity for its conversion.
“I will be the priest and you the victim”
Maria Elizabeth Cecilia Canori Mora was born in Rome on November 21, 1774. At the age of twelve she made a vow of chastity at the Lord’s command. However, falling under the influence of her family, she later embraced the most worldly of customs. Heedless of the troubled conscience that this unfaithfulness caused her, she married a well-known lawyer from Rome, Christopher Mora, who became the cross and the tormentor of her life.
It was the love of God that pursued her, guiding her towards a painful conversion. With the help of grace, she found in suffering the way to purge her many sins and the means to begin an intimate relationship with God.
When she was twenty-nine years of age, the Lord visited her through her first mystical experiences. Elizabeth became a seer of the tribulations of the Church, being favoured with prophetic gifts and the stigmata of the Passion. God showed her, in supernatural visions, the arduous battles that the Church Militant would have to fight in the latter times against the forces of evil that were arising to destroy her, both externally and internally.
The seer’s greatest sadness was to see how the Holy Church was betrayed by the very ones who should support and defend her
In 1814, Elizabeth decided to make an act of offering of her life, willing to renounce everything and endure all the sufferings that the Lord would send her. Thirsting for such sacrifices, God readily accepted her as a victim of love for the Church and the Papacy, encouraging her on two occasions with these words: “My beloved daughter, offer yourself to my heavenly Father in favour of my Church. I promise you my help”; “Trust in the incomprehensible excesses of my infinite mercy. Be eager to suffer for my love. I will always be with you to help you and lead you to triumph over yourself. I leave you my beloved Mother to comfort you. Daughter, it is my love that will crucify you on this cross. I will be the priest and you will be the victim.”
Sorrowful afflictions of the Church
Elizabeth’s visions dealt mainly with tragedies which, although already begun in her time, were yet to be fully unleashed upon the world and the Church. She was shown the sorrowful afflictions that Holy Church would have to suffer “from those who, under the name of good and of benefit, seek to ruin her; they are ravenous wolves who, in sheep’s clothing, seek her utter destruction.”
The Blessed clearly understood that often the worst enemies and persecutors of the Crucified Jesus were to be found within the Church herself, defiling the holy faith of the Apostles and diverting the faithful from the Divine Law with nefarious doctrines; “making use,” she said, “of the very words of the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Gospels, to twist their correct meaning, so as to sustain their perverse malice and their unworthy maxims.”
With great dismay, Elizabeth understood the lamentable state of countless souls consecrated to the Lord: “I saw the sacrileges committed by so many ministers of God! I saw their gluttony, their attachment to transitory goods, their neglect of the true worship of God! I saw the apparent good done for dishonest ends! […] I was shown the poor administration of the sanctuaries. I saw the great dishonour that God receives from bad priests.”
Her greatest sadness was to see the harm inflicted on the Mystical Spouse of Christ by the infidelity of her ministers who, instead of supporting her at the price of their own blood, betrayed her, based on the false maxims of the world…
A true victim for the Church, Elizabeth suffered deeply from the sins of the clergy, and she begged God earnestly: “Unleash upon me the terrible punishment, annihilate me, do with me as You please; but save the poor sinners, save the Church!” Thus, the Eternal Father, seeing her overflowing with this desire, deigned to grant sinners a time for conversion.
The triumph of justice over mercy
Nevertheless, Our Lord continued to prove to her that the iniquities of humanity were crying out to Heaven: “My justice is weary of bearing the heavy weight of so many horrors. My Eternal Father no longer wants to accept the sacrifices of His chosen souls who, like victims, offer themselves through rigorous penance to appease His wrathful indignation.”
A difficult revelation for a heart inflamed with charity like Elizabeth’s! The obstacles that her desire for mercy raised against this affirmation caused her immensely more suffering than the privations and sacrifices with which she tortured her body to placate divine justice.
One day, God appeared to her in the form of a strong, armed warrior. “With His avenging sword, He was about to punish the grave outrages He received from His own,” recounted the seer. Unable to resign herself to the misfortunes that were about to befall the world, Elizabeth felt a terrible duel begin within her… In the end, justice triumphed over mercy and the Blessed surrendered to the divine desires that were manifested to her.
Terrible punishments for the world
Equally impressive are the messages the Blessed received about the punishments reserved for the sinful world. The Lord showed her the enormity of the sins that reigned on earth: injustice, fraud, licentiousness and every kind of iniquity. “My God! What pain my poor spirit felt to see those peoples looking more like beasts than men. Oh, how horrified my soul was by all those men so deformed by vice!”
“Terror and shock will reduce all men and animals to a state of utmost dread. The whole world will be in convulsion”
This is how Elizabeth describes the vision that the Lord confided to her: “The sky was covered with a dark blue, the very sight of which caused fright. […] Terror and shock will reduce all men and animals to a state of utmost dread. The whole world will be in convulsion and [men] will kill each other, they will slaughter each other without pity. In the time of this bloody strife, the avenging hand of God will weigh upon these wretched men and, in His omnipotence, will punish their pride, their temerity and their shameless audacity.”
Perhaps these words do not seem exaggerated in view of the brutality of contemporary wars, unimaginable at the time of the Blessed. In reality, however, they seem to point to other events, as yet unseen by humanity.
Indeed, it is noteworthy that, according to Elizabeth, the executors of divine justice on this occasion will be the very demons and infernal beings who seek to destroy His Church.
The dawn of triumph and glorification
Now, at the end of this period, in which the most holy wrath of God will be manifested as never before, Elizabeth relates that the punishment will give way to a happy and universal restoration of order and virtue. In fact, even in His most implacable justice, Providence always aims at promoting the good and making holiness reign. Moreover, He will not fail to reward with an era of grace and holiness the small number of His elect who remain faithful during the great purification of the world.
The divine words addressed to Blessed Elizabeth are very clear and full of hope: “I will send zealous priests to preach my Faith, I will form a new apostolate, I will send my Divine Spirit to renew the earth. […] I will give a new shepherd to my Church, learned and holy, filled with my Spirit; with his holy zeal he will reform the flock of Jesus Christ.”
Upon receiving these revelations and understanding the imperative need for chastisement for their entire fulfilment, Elizabeth came to love God’s wise designs more deeply. This is how she relates the effects of the divine punishment: “When this was done, it seemed to me that the whole world breathed in peace, and that through learned and holy men a just order would be re-established on earth, to the supreme glory of God and the honour of our Holy Catholic Church. It seemed to me that sins ceased and that true penance was being done everywhere. It seemed to me that peace and justice reigned; the Faith of Jesus Christ triumphed universally and made men followers of the Holy Gospel.”
Purified and restored, the Mystical Spouse of Christ will radiate her holiness to the peoples: “The whole Church was reordered according to the true dictates of the Holy Gospel, the Religious Orders were re-established, and every Christian home became another religious house; such was the fervour, the zeal for the glory of God, that everything was founded on the basis of love of God and of neighbour. Thus, in a moment, the Catholic Church’s triumph, glory, and honour took place: she was acclaimed by all, esteemed by all, venerated by all; all decided to follow her, acknowledging the Vicar of Christ, the Supreme Pontiff.”
Does not the prophetic announcement of the Virgin Mary at Fatima: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph,” seem to shine in these words?
“Tempus faciendi!”
Looking closely at history, from the time of Blessed Elizabeth Canori Mora to the present day, we cannot claim that her revelations have already been entirely fulfilled. At the same time, it is undeniable that the sins and calamities she predicted have been increasingly confirmed, and on a global scale. Is it not licit and even sensible to expect, therefore, that God’s intervention is near and that He expects from His children decisive steps towards a conversion of heart?
At last restored, the Mystical Spouse of Christ will reign triumphant over all peoples, as Our Lady foretold in Fatima
If the answer to these questions is affirmative, let us implore the Blessed Virgin Mary and her most holy Son to grant us to be among those who, even amidst the most terrible convulsions, will see in them the merciful hand of God, zealous for the good of humanity, so that they may remain faithful to Holy Mother Church and strive earnestly for her triumph! ◊
Notes
1 All the citations from the prophecies of Blessed Elizabeth Canori Mora are taken from: BLESSED ELIZABETH CANORI MORA. La mia vita nel Cuore della Trinità. Diario della Beata Elisabetta Canori Mora, sposa e madre. Città del Vaticano: LEV, 1996.
