Maria Esperanza Gives Advice On How To View Times Of Trouble And Chastisement

 By Michael H. Brown

Every once in a while we check in with Maria Esperanza, the famous Venezuelan mystic whose site of apparitions has received strong ecclesiastic approval. When we did so a couple of weeks ago, Maria, who still struggles with walking difficulties and Parkinson-like ailments (and who deserves all our prayers), had some advice on how to approach our troubled times -- this era in which the Church and the world are being purified.

"Even though times look so bad, it is glorious," Maria said from Caracas through her son-in-law Carlos Marrero Bornn, who serves as an interpreter. "We are going through glorious times. Everything is in God's control. It will make everything better. Many signs are being disclosed. We should be only joyful."

There is still the great threat of terrorism, and Israel still bothers Maria -- she has warned that the troubles there could lead to world war -- but according to Bornn, "she feels what is going to come out of it is going to be very good."

No matter how serious matters get, purification is meant to cleanse and even then the Blessed Mother, she says, is coming to lighten it. "She comes to give us strength, to resist temptations," Maria said some years back. "This is why we have sicknesses in these times: because man has abused the things that God has given us. Man is disobeying." 

While she has prophesied new epidemics and has said there will be natural disasters in the U.S. and other countries -- while she has seen this as intensifying on a regional level, especially because of such things as abortion and cloning -- the proper response is the Rosary and the proper spirit is joy. "Everything is perfectly designed," she told Spirit Daily. "It's all in God's plan." 

According to Bornn, Maria, herself a stigmatist and in many eyes the greatest mystic since Padre Pio, watched the recent canonization of St. Pio on television and "broke into tears, reminded of her experiences with him." There were times as a young woman, living in Italy (where her devoted husband Geo is from), when she suddenly "heard" Pio's call and rushed to San Giovanni Rotundo to seek the saint's counsel.

It is said that before their first meeting, Pio had mentioned to friends that he would soon be visited by an extraordinary women. "There is a young woman who is going to come from South America," he is said to have mentioned. "When I leave, she will be your consolation."

While Maria was unable to attend the canonization, she did travel to Rome for Padre Pio's beatification. Although it's difficult to corroborate all details, the account is that Betania itself -- a plot of hillside outside of Caracas -- was foreseen in a vision Maria had and then discussed with Pio. She and Geo then searched for the land and in 1974 found a property that perfectly fit the description, a place that has now been declared as "sacred land" by the bishop and is a spot of many reported miracles. 

[see also 'The Incredible Story of Maria Esperanza' in this archive]