(This is a compilation from various Internet Sources)
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On September 17, 1588, Sister Mariana was saying her customary prayers at midnight, when suddenly her body shuddered so violently that she could not help but cry out.
Taken to bed, her body was examined
and it was discovered that on each palm of her hands was something similar to a
hole into which something had been driven. The same was present on the soles of
her feet in the very place where the spikes had been driven into the feet of
Our Lord. Upon her heart was a purple bruise and red mark, as if it had been
wounded by a spear.
The next morning, the doctor examined
her carefully and said she was completely debilitated: the marrow of her bones
dried up, her body paralyzed. The only movement he could find was the beating
of her heart.
This infirmity lasted for one year
and, in the first months, to the physical suffering were added the spiritual
ones, the “dark night of the soul.
One day, on her bed of pain, she
suddenly heard a dreadful clamor in the cell. She opened her eyes and saw a
hideous serpent writhing and twisting in her cell, crawling frantically on the
walls, as if pursued by someone trying to drive him away.
Her pain increased and her spirit was
overwhelmed with despair. All the heroic acts of her life seemed criminal to
her. Her good works appeared as works of perdition, her very vocation an
illusion and sham by which she had delivered herself to eternal damnation. In
this woeful interior state, when it seemed to her that her soul would detach
itself from her body from the violence of her suffering and sink like lead into
Hell, she mustered all her strength, crying out: “Star of the stormy sea, Mary
Most Immaculate, the weak vessel of my soul is sinking. The waters of
tribulation are drowning me. Save me, for I am perishing!”
Before she had pronounced the last
word, she saw a celestial light around her and felt a loving hand touching her
head. At the same time, she heard a sweet voice that said: “Why do you fear, My
daughter? Do you know that I am with you in your tribulation? Rise up and look
at Me!”
The humble religious raised herself
up in her bed and saw a Lady of great majesty and grandeur who breathed
sweetness and love. She asked: “Who are you, beautiful Lady?”
“I am the Mother of Heaven whom you
invoked. I have come to dissipate the darkness of the night of your soul. (…)
for your Lord and God has destined for you great and auspicious things during
your lifetime(…). Now, I will impart life to your nerves, veins and arteries,
and I will dispel the infernal serpent.” As she finished speaking, the enormous
serpent emitted a horrible scream of despair and hurled himself into Hell with
such a great roar that it caused the earth to tremble throughout the Convent
and the city of Quito.
Mariana still remained in her bed
suffering acute pains, and her health continued to worsen until September 1589.
The second Wednesday of the month, at 9 o’clock in the morning, her agony
began.
The Holy Mass was celebrated in her
presence and she received Extreme Unction. At noon on Good Friday of that year,
death appeared imminent. At 3:30 P.M.,
surrounded by her praying and weeping sisters, Sister Mariana raised her eyes
to heaven, gazed at her crucifix, pressed it against her heart and, heaving a
last sigh, died.
At the order of the Mother Abbess,
her body was taken to the lower choir so that for three days it might be viewed
by the people of Quito, who crowded into the church to pray to her as their
protecting angel. The funeral Mass and
burial was set for Monday. However, on
Easter Sunday morning when the grieving nuns entered the upper choir to recite
the 4 A.M. Little Office of Our Lady, they found Sister Mariana praying as normal. The sisters screamed and ran in horror,
certain that they were seeing a ghost.
Sister Mariana had resurrected a second time! This time, she would continue her life of
hard penance and continual prayer for 47 more years until her final death in
1635.
Interrogated by her confessor and the
abbess, Sister Mariana explained that upon this, her second death, Our Lord had
placed her soul in another state of purification and she had suffered a ‘Mystical Purgatory’ that lasted until 3 A.M. Sunday morning, the same hour
Christ had resurrected. He then placed
her soul back in her body, restoring it to full strength and vigor. Sister Mariana understood that God had
restored her to life so that she could experience in her own person how sweet
and meritorious it is to suffer and endure pain in imitation of Christ,
becoming one with Him in the holocaust for the future of the Church.
Thus was the soul of this humble virgin prepared and purified to receive the apparition of the three Archangels and the Sovereign Empress under the invocation of Our Lady of Good Success, as well as for the great trials and mission reserved for her.
Sources:
Sources:
1. The Admirable Life of Mother Mariana Vol. 1 & 2 by Fr. Manuel Sousa Pereira O.F.M. (Note: with Ultra-Conservative Foreword by the Translator)
2. Our Lady of Good Success: Prophecies for Our Times by Marian Therese Horvat Ph.D. (Note: Marian is an Ultra-Conservative)
3. Various Internet Sources