A Visit to the Miraculous Statue of Our Lady of Good Success – Part 1 of 3

Quito, Ecuador – Prophecies and Hope

            By John Vennari

“At the end of the nineteenth century and for a good part of the twentieth century, various heresies will be spread in this land,” warned Our Lady of Good Success to Mother Marina de Jesus Torres in 1634. 

Our Lady prophesied, “Passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of customs.” In this period of great crisis of Faith in the Church and world, “the atmosphere will be saturated with the spirit of impurity, which, like an unclean sea, will spread through the streets, plazas and public places with an astonishing liberty, there will be almost no virgin souls in the world.”

“In these fateful times,” She continued, “childhood innocence will scarcely be found, in this way vocations to the priesthood will gradually disappear.”

She foretold that among the secular clergy, there will be “much to be desired in this period, because priests will neglect their sacred duties … the Church will suffer a dark night.

This is but a sample of the remarkable prophecies given by Our Blessed Mother to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres. 

The story of Mother Mariana and the statue of Our Lady of Good Success took place in the Conceptionist Convent in Quito, Ecuador, from approximately 1579 to 1635. It is an astonishing chronicle of miracles, prophecies, inspiration, warning and hope.

The entire account enjoys the full approval of the Catholic Church, and has direct implications to the crisis of Faith in our time, which Our Lady calls a period of “almost complete decadence.”

From January 28 to February 4 of this year, I had the privilege of traveling to Ecuador for the February 2 Anniversary of the Canonical crowning of the miraculous statue. 

At Quito –  in the convent chapel, or in the presence of the miraculous statue, or in the company of knowledgeable souls who relate the astounding story, or absorbing the unique Catholic history, or kneeling before the incorrupt body of Mother Mariana, or the combination of all of the above – one has the sense of arriving at a contact point between Heaven and earth. I have visited various Catholics shrines around the world, but have yet to encounter anything like Quito and its Conceptionist convent. It is a place where, if we may speak thus, the supernatural seems to become tangible. 

Remarkable Prophecies

Before we even relate the story of Mother Mariana, her sufferings as a victim soul for the twentieth century, the rebellion of the non-observant sisters, the completion of the miraculous statue by the angels, her dying three times, her communication with saints and angels throughout her life, her countless other fascinating prodigies, and the thematic connection between Our Lady of Good Success and the Message of Fatima, it is best to establish the credibility of these miraculous happenings by listing some of the most remarkable prophecies of Our Lady of Good Success. These prophecies have come to pass in stunning detail. 

Here is a kind of Top 10:

1) Independence of Ecuador

On January 16, 1599, Our Lady told Mother Mariana, “Within a short time the country in which you live will cease being a colony and will be a free republic. Then it will be known by the name of Ecuador, and will need heroic souls to sustain it in the midst of so many public and private calamities.”

On May 24, 1822, the battle that achieved Ecuador’s Independence from Spain was fought at Mount Pichincha, a mountain that overlooks Quito and the Conceptionist convent.

2) A “Truly Catholic President”

On the same date in January 1599, Our Lady foretold, “A truly Catholic president will come in the nineteenth century.”

It is universal recognized this prophecy was fulfilled in the remarkable figure of Gabriel Garcia Moreno of Ecuador. Not only was he a courageous Catholic statesman who worked to build  a healthy nation in accord with natural and divine law, he is also regarded as the fulfillment of Our lady’s prophecy because of the next two details:

3) The Consecration of Ecuador to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Our Lady said of this Catholic president, “He will consecrate the republic to the Divine heart of My Blessed Son. This consecration will uphold the Catholic religion in subsequent years which will be tragic for the Church.”

It was Garcia Morena who arranged the solemn Consecration of Ecuador to the Sacred Heart, which took place at the cathedral in Ecuador on March 24, 1874. President Morena was the first Catholic leader in history to enact such a national consecration.

4) The Assassination of the Catholic Leader and the Place of the Assassination

As part of the above-mentioned 1599 prophecy, Our Lady said of this Catholic president,  “Our Lord God will give palm of martyrdom in the plaza where this convent of mine is.”

On August 6, 1875, a little more than a year after the National Consecration to the Sacred Heart, Garcia Moreno, fiercely hated by Freemasons, liberals and leftists, was macheted to death in the main plaza of Ecuador, which adjoins the Conceptionist convent of Mother Mariana.

5) The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception

  The Child Jesus prophesied to Mother Mariana on February 12, 1634: “The dogma of faith of My Mother’s Immaculate Conception will be proclaimed when the Church is fought against more, and My Vicar is a captive.”

Blessed Pope Pius IX, who had been made a prisoner in the Vatican due to the Masonic revolution in Italy, proclaimed the de fide Dogma of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, 1854.

6) The Dogma of Papal Infallibility

On December 8, 1634, while explaining to Mother Mariana a vision of the archangels Michael, Gabiel and Raphael, Our Lady prophesied as follows. “The Archangel Gabriel also carries a ciborium … full of hosts, which signify the most august Sacrament of the Eucharist which will be distributed by my Catholic priests to the Christian faithful belonging to the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, whose visible head is the Pope, the king of Christendom; whose papal infallibility will be declared a dogma of the faith by the pope who is destined to declare as a dogma the mystery of my Immaculate Conception; who will be persecuted and imprisoned in the Vatican due to the unjust usurpation of the Papal States through an earthly monarch’s wickedness, envy and avarice.”

The Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus on the infallibility of the Pope was promulgated by Vatican I under Pope Pius IX on July 18, 1870, the same persecuted pontiff who defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

 

7) The Dogma of the Assumption

In the above-mentioned 1634 prophecy, the Child Jesus foretold, “The de fide dogma of My Blessed Mother’s Passage and Assumption in body and soul to Heaven [will be defined] in the same way. But you, My spouses and chosen souls, ought to believe it always, as if it were already a dogma.”

More than 300 years later, on November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII solemnly defined the dogma of the Virgin Mary’s Assumption in body and soul into Heaven.

8) The Canonization of Mother Beatrice of Silva

 

The Order of the Immaculate Conception, Mother Mariana’s order, was founded in 1484 in Portugal by Mother Beatrice de Silva. On January 16, 1635, Mother Mariana, just before she died, foretold “Beatrice de Silva… will be raised to the altars in the twentieth century.”

This prediction came to pass. Beatrice de Silva was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1926, and canonized by Pope Paul VI on October 3, 1976. 

9) Fire in Chapel

On Holy Thursday, 1624, while Mother Mariana was in prayer, she saw in a vision that during the middle of the nineteenth century, on the night of Holy Thursday, the main altar of her church was burning in a dreadful fire, and that the fire would start by the influence of demons.

This prophetic vision was fulfilled more than 200 years later on Holy Thursday, 1878, when a fire broke out in the convent church as a result of kerosene lamps. The subsequent chaos that ensued among the people and the sisters caused substantial harm to the church, the choir and the church’s artwork.

 

10) Mother Mariana would not be known until the twentieth century

On February 2, 1610, when Our Lady commanded that Her statue be made, Mother Mariana responded with the request that her own name be unknown, so as to focus all attention to the devotion towards Our Lady of Good Success.

Our Blessed Mother responded, “Regarding your name, your request pleases me… Tell the bishop for me that it is my Blessed Son’s and my will that your name be concealed from everyone, both within and without the cloister, because at the present time it is fitting that non one be told how and whence came the idea of making the statue, because this knowledge is reserved for the general public of the twentieth century.”

Mother Mariana and the full story of Our Lady of Good Success remained virtually unknown for centuries. The story slowly came to light after the 1875 assassination of Garcia Moreno, and emerged even more into the public eye in 1906. On February 8 of that year, while remodeling the convent, the casket in which Mother Mariana was buried in 1635 was opened, and her body was found incorrupt.  Other happenings, such as the 1941 miracle of Our Lady of Good Success, and events connected to the post-Conciliar crisis of Faith, resulted in the story of Mother Mariana being better known by “the general public of the twentieth century.”

These “Top Ten Prophecies” in no way exhaust the miracles, prophecies and wonders connected to the story of Our Lady of Good Success.  The striking predictions and their fulfillment command our attention like few other prodigies in Church history. We are compelled to take the story seriously, and to study it more closely.

Confirmation and Consolation

The remarkable history of Our Lady of Good Success is both a confirmation and a consolation.

The visions are a confirmation of central components of the traditional Catholic Faith that have been obscured or denied in our time, including the Seven Sacraments and the reverence due them, devotion to Our Lady, reparatory suffering, strict observance of true religious life, heaven, hell, purgatory, the Social Kingship of Christ (indirectly contained in the prophecy about Garcia Moreno), the necessity of maintaining the purity of the Faith, traditional Catholic morality, genuine Catholic education, and intolerance of heresy. The visions do not contain the slightest whiff of the new Vatican II orientation, but continually confirms the Traditional faith of all time.

The visions are a consolation in this manner: we are assured that God is in control, even in this crushing time of universal apostasy. Our Lady consoles us by predicting the unprecedented crisis in which we live, telling us ahead of time what is in store. The crisis does not take Heaven by surprise; the depravity will not prevail in the end. We are told  by means of these visions that the present apostasy constitutes a trial for the faithful, and that the Church will indeed be restored.  Our Blessed Mother said in March 1634 “And to put this faith and confidence of the just to the test, there will be occasions in which, apparently, all will be lost and paralyzed; and then will be the happy beginning of the complete restoration.

To recap the visions of Quito as a no-compromise confirmation of the Catholic Faith of all time, the holy visions contain no hint of effeminate Conciliar slogans such a “dialogue,” “what unites us is greater than what divides us,” or “reconciled diversity.” In fact, the Message is pointedly un-ecumenical. On February 2, 1634, Our Lord thundered the following warning against those immersed in heresy: “A thousand times accursed be the heretics and their followers, who cast doubt on the mysteries concerning Me and My Mother! May they be accursed! And may the center of the earth be their eternal dwelling place, together with the Father of Lies, Lucifer, and his followers, in the midst of fire created by Divine wrath for the rebellious Angels and the men who follow them, departing from the truth, outside of the Catholic Church.”

“Woe to the Children of These Times”

We intend to continue with a serious of CFN articles on Our Lady of Good Success. There is much to relate. In this first introductory piece, along with establishing the veracity of the prophecies, we spotlight the striking warning of Our Lady for our time given in 1610.

While the reported visions are mostly clear and to the point, some of the details acan be shrouded in mystery. At times, one might be tempted to believe these prophecies only concern the country of Ecuador, as this nation features prominently in Our Lady’s communications. However, as the eminent Father Vincent Miceli taught, prophecies are usually clearest to those who live through their fulfillment. There is no doubt that not only Ecuador, but the entire world now groans under the apostasy foretold by Our Lady of Good Success.

What follows is an extended quotation of Our Blessed Mother from January 21, 1610: “…[A]t the end of the nineteenth century and during most of the twentieth century, in what is now a colony and will then be the Republic of Ecuador, passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of customs, for Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic Sects and they will focus principally on children in order to sustain this widespread corruption.

“Woe to the children of these times! It will be difficult to receive the Sacrament of Baptism and also the Sacrament of Confirmation. They will receive the Sacrament of Confession only if they remain in Catholic schools, for the devil will make a great effort to destroy these schools, by making use of persons in authority.

“The same will happen regarding Holy Communion. How it pains me in telling you that there will be many and enormous public sacrileges, and also hidden profanations of the Sacred Eucharist! Many times during this period, the enemies of Jesus Christ, instigated by the devil, will rob sacred Hosts in the cities, with the sole purpose of profaning them. My Blessed Son will be thrown to the ground and trampled upon by dirty feet…

  “But at that time they will finally know you, and they will know the favors that I have conferred upon you… Together with this knowledge will come the love and veneration of my sacred image about which I strictly order you today: give orders for making it just as you see me and place it above the seat belonging to the abbess so that from there I may govern and direct my daughters and sustain this monastery of mine, since Satan, making use of good and bad men, will undertake a cruel battle to destroy it…

“During this time, due to the fact that in this poor country the Christian spirit will be lacking, the Sacrament of Extreme Unction will be little esteemed. Many people will die without receiving it, either because of the negligence of their families or their false sentimentality towards their sick relatives; others, also, so as to oppose the spirit of the Catholic Church, spurred on by the accursed devil, will deprive souls in this way of innumerable graces… for making the great leap from time into eternity… Some people will die without receiving it, because of God’s just and secret chastisements.”

“As for the Sacrament of Matrimony, which symbolizes the union of Christ with His Church, it will be attacked and deeply profaned in the fullest sense of the word. Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of doing away with this Sacrament, making it easy for everyone to live in sin, encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church… The effects of laicized education having increased, priestly and religious vocations will diminish.”

This is a striking prophecy of our time concerning disregard of the Sacrament of matrimony, widespread cohabitation and the soaring rise of illegitimate children worldwide. We see this collapse of morality and family all around us. Keep in mind, this impious breakdown of marriage of was predicted over 400 years ago!

Our Lady continues, “The Sacrament of Holy Orders will be scoffed, subjugated and despised since by subjugating and denigrating God’s Church, one consequently does the same to God Himself, Who is represented by His priests. The devil will endeavor to persecute the Lord’s ministers in every way and will labor with cruel and subtle craftiness to divert them from the spirit of their vocation, corrupting many of them.

“These priests, who in this manner will scandalize the faithful, will cause the hatred of these same faithful and of the enemies of the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church to fall upon all priests…

  “Moreover, during those unhappy times there will be unbridled luxury, which, by being an occasion of sin for other persons, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls, which will be lost. Innocence in children will scarcely be found, nor modesty in women, and in that greatest crisis of the Church, he who is obliged to speak in due time will remain silent.”

Elsewhere, Our Lady tells Mother Mariana, “The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will abound in that time of depraved desolation, while the one who should speak remains silent.”

Present day Churchmen often stand silent in the face of evil, such as heresy, abortion, ‘same-sex’ marriage and other deviations from the Faith. How often to we exclaim, “Why don’t they oppose this evil?” or ”Why don’t they refuse Communion to pro-abortion politicians?” or “Why don’t they condemn the aberrations of the Faith rampant in modern Catholic schools and universities that that destroys the Faith in our youngsters?” This dereliction of duty in today’s Churchmen is foretold by Our Lady of Good Success.

We also note the devastating impact of godless “laicized education,” predicated by Our Blessed Mother, that educates only the natural man, but either pretends his supernatural end does not exist, or directly poisons the student against the things that pertain to God.

“Lightening Rod”

Our Blessed Mother now speaks of the importance of devotion to Our Lady of Good Success, a devotion She wishes all of her faithful children to practice: “… your daughters and successors… will appease Divine wrath, by having recourse to me under the invocation of Good Success, whose statue I ask for and command you to have made for the consolation and support of my convent and the faithful in that time, a period that will have great devotion to me, who am the Queen of the Church under various invocations.

This devotion will be the lightning rod placed between Divine justice and the corrupt world, to prevent the formidable chastisement that it merits from being let loose upon this guilty land.”

Elsewhere Saint Raphael tells Mother Mariana it is Heaven’s desire that this statue be venerated in subsequent generations, “The Lord has ordered you to have sculpted, as She will tell you, the statue of His Blessed Mother which will be venerated in future centuries.”

Our Lady further promised great graces to those who promote this devotion: “Those who dedicate themselves to the propagation of its title in every century, will be blessed…” (see prayer on *).

For more on this topic, please go to page 15 for the account and photos from my recent visit to Quito.

Next month we will focus on the early years of Mother Mariana, her persecution by the non-observant sisters, her excruciating sufferings for their salvation, and the miraculous story of the Statue itself, commanded to be made by Our Lady and completed with the help of the angels.

 

1 All quotations in this article are taken from The Story of Our Lady of Good Success and Novena, An Abridgment of the Book Written by Rev. Father Manuel Sousa Pereira, Translated by Reverend Paul M. Kimball, [Camilus: Dolorosa Press, 2013]. The opening quotes are from the remarkable account of “The Sanctuary Light Extinguished,” March, 1634, pp. 77-82.

2 Ibid., p. 18.

3 Ibid.,  p. 73.

4 Ibid.,  p. 91.

5 Ibid.,  p. 73.

6 Ibid.,  p. 102.

7 Ibid.,  pp. 61-62.

8 Ibid.,  p. 47.

9 From seven in the morning, Sunday, July 27, 1941, until three in the morning of July 28, the statue of Our Lady of Good Success was seen moving its eyes. The prodigy was witnessed by more than thirty thousand people and was reported by eight newspapers throughout the country. More on this in future installments.

10 Most people seem to have first heard of Our Lady of Good Success from Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s homily on June 30, 1988. Here he quoted Our Lady of Good Success’ prediction of a prelate who will absolutely oppose the twentieth century wave of apostasy and impiety, and help save the priesthood by forming good priests (more on this in a future installment). Another crucial element in making the story known is the outstanding work down by Marian Horvat Ph.D. of Tradition in Action in publishing various books and articles on the topic, and by translating Father Manuel de Sousa Pereira’s 1790 two-volume work The Admirable Life of Mother Mariana of Jesús Torres y Berriochoa, into English.

11 Kimball translation, The Story of Our Lady of Good Success and Novena, An Abridgment of the Book Written by Rev. Father Manuel Sousa Pereira, p. 78.

12 Ibid., p.74

13 Ibid., pp. 39-41.

14 Apparition of February 2, 1610. Ibid, p. 47.

15 Ibid, p. 41.

16 Ibid., p. 38.

17 Ibid., p. 49.

 

 

John Vennari

John Vennari

John Vennari, the late editor of Catholic Family News and founder of Oltyn library services was a writer, speaker, and teacher of the true Catholic Faith. He devoted to his life to combating the errors so rampant in the church and society today. His fight ended in April 2017 after a long battle with cancer.
Please remember to pray for Mr. Vennari.