Words of Father Werenfried

The one thing I most want to share with you, from my full and busy life, is this: The Gospel is true. Never has our Lord abandoned me. He has always helped me and given what I asked Him for the Church in need. On this is based my boundless trust. It has become my second, or, better still, my true nature. Thanks be to Jesus our Lord. Praise be to His Mother Mary. To you all I say: Help me to support the many projects for which we have jointly pledged our support! Think of all those young people who are consecrating their lives to God in order to serve Him in the least of His little ones. Help me to build up the Church wherever she is in need!

Only those who in blind trust try to do every moment the will of God can face the future fearlessly. This is what Mary did when she went from Nazareth to Bethlehem. It was the last day before Jesus was born. With St. Joseph, her chaste and humble husband, she began the last stage of her journey. She felt the tiredness and the bitter cold. She did not know how things would continue. Everything was uncertain. But her thoughts were only with Jesus. Only trust in the Father bore her up; only the expectation of the Son filled her; only the love of the Holy Spirit pulsed trough her. After Gabriel’s word “Do not fear, Mary”, she lived nine months without fear. And so God took care of everything. For when tiredness overcame Mary and Joseph and all the closed doors had all but broken their human powers of resistance, they found a stable and a manger and the warmth of an animal. And in the light of a heaven that opened up to receive Mary’s prayer of thanksgiving her virgin womb opened to give mankind the Son of God. So our redemption began.

All men whom Christ has redeemed by His Holy Blood are Mary’s children. Not only the pious and the saints but also the weak and the faint-hearted. The sinners and the apostates too. And the persecutors of the faith too. And the traitors too, who have already forsaken the faith in their hearts and under the mark of their priesthood spread ruin in the Church. Like a Mother, Mary wants to help and save them all. She is also the Mother of the Church. She helps the pope and comforts him in the great grief and solitude he suffers from the betrayal, desertion, disobedience and sabotage of so many priests and pastors who should be his most loyal collaborators. She has pity on the whole human race which, led astray, corrupted and perverted by the evil spirit, revolts against God and refuses to serve Him. She, who has overcome all heresies, is firmly resolved to conquer also the most dangerous false teaching of all history, atheistic communism.

Our ancestors hymned her as the Star of the Sea. Ave, maris Stella! The darker the night came down over the world, the brighter shone Mary’s light, showing the way to seekers and to those gone astray. Wherever men of good will follow her light she overcomes the darkness. She is victorious in the souls of all who entrust themselves unreservedly to her. While evil everywhere increases, in them good conquers. While a tide of sin washes over the world, in them God’s grace is triumphant. While error spreads unrestrained, they are witnesses to God’s truth. While discord divides the Church, they save her unity by love. While the Pope is forsaken by countless numbers, they place themselves on his side to defend him. And while the beast of Apocalypse publicly triumphs, Mary is victorious in the hidden lives of her children.

God searches the heart and the mind. He knows the measure of our faith. He knows how seriously we take the message that Jesus brought us in His name. He sees with crystal clearness what we expect from Him and what we expect from ourselves and from the world. But He will not share our trust with the world. Therefore He often disappoints our earthly expectations and hopes, so that He Himself may be our only hope and expectation. He demands that we should give ourselves entirely to Him. This may appear to be a risk in terms of human wisdom, but in God’s wisdom it is complete security in Him, who is infinitely good and almighty.

God alone can save us. That is a shock for our pride, but it is not frightening. God is the only ally who is without self-interest. His salvation is different from every human way out, but at the same time surer, more lasting and infinitely better. God alone can save us. That is the conclusion that again and again has been pieced together out of errors and lost illusions; the knowledge that was gained when all other means had been exhausted. The Jew knew it, but only in the Babylonian captivity. And imperilled Christendom of earlier centuries knew it, but not until the Turks were in the heart of Europe. We too know it, at the eleventh hour, and it should calm our fears.

In Holy Communion we receive Christ in the form of bread. In the poor that we meet we receive Him in the form of flesh and blood. It is the same Christ. At the Last Judgement He will say: “I was hungry, naked, and sick, I was homeless and in prison…” He will not know us if we have not known Him in the underfed and the unclothed, in the sick, the refugees, the homeless, persecuted and prisoners. They are waiting for our love. In them waits Christ.

Our Work gives you the possibility of sharing in the pain of Jesus by suffering with Him. Across all frontiers we can bring something of you – a part of your possession, a handful of comfort, a veil to dry His tears – to the countries in which the Lord is again walking His way of the cross and dying on the Calvaries of the 20^th century. Through our intermediary you are able to ease His way to Golgotha like Vernica or Simon of Cyrene and to stand at the foot of His cross like Mary or John. Do not shirk this task. For there is nothing worse than to turn away in indifference from Jesus who is suffering in His Church. And there is nothing more precious than to comfort Jesus forsaken in His suffering brothers.