Our Lady of Good Success, Ecuador
Apparition of Our Lady that appeared to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres at her Conceptionist Royal Convent in Quito, Ecuador in 1594
In 1577, 13-year-old Mariana de Jesus Torres traveled from Spain to Ecuador with a group of religious sisters to found a new convent in Quito. By the age of 15, she had professed her vows. Mariana took on extreme penances and mortifications to atone for the sins of the 20th century (still hundreds of years away!) at the request of Our Lord who appeared to her. In 1582, while praying in front of the Eucharist, she experienced a vision, of Our Lord, His Mother, St. John and St. Mary Magdalen at the foot of the cross. She chose to sacrifice herself for the people of the twentieth century and immediately fell dead. However, she chose to return to Earth from heaven and continue to suffer for the sins of the twentieth century, and she resurrected after days of mourning from her order and the pronouncements of death from the doctor.
In 1588, after experiencing the stigmata and numerous other suffering and torments she died again on Good Friday, and came back to life again on Easter Sunday morning. The next year, as the foundress of the order’s health began to deteriorate, Mariana was made Mother Superior.
Mother Mariana struggled with financial difficulties and sisters who wished to separate the order from the control of the Franciscans. On February 2, 1594, while praying for help for her community Our Lady first appeared to Mother Mariana. She held a golden crosier in her right hand to signify that She would govern the convent and said:
“I am Mary of Good Success, the Queen of Heaven and Earth. Precisely because you are a religious soul full of love for God and for His Mother who now speaks to you, I have come from heaven to sooth your burdened heart.”
“[The devil] will not attain his goal, because I am the Queen of Victories and the Mother of Good Success. Under this invocation I wish, in the centuries to come, to perform miracles for the preservation of this, my convent, and its inhabitants.
“Until the end of the world I will have holy daughters, heroic souls, in the obscure life of their convent, who, suffering persecutions and slanders from within their own community, will be much loved by God and His Mother.… Their lives of prayer, penance, and sacrifice will be extremely necessary in all times. After having spent their lives unknown to all, they will be called to heaven to occupy an exalted throne of glory.”
Our Lady of Good Success would appear to Mother Mariana several more times, make many more predictions regarding the twentieth century and also ask that a statue be made in her likeness. The statue was completed with divine help on January 16, 1611.
On January 16, 1635 Mother Mariana dies for the final time. When her tomb is opened in 1906 during renovations she is found to be incorrupt and in 1986 her cause for canonization was opened.
Today the statue of Our Lady of Good Success is taken from it’s place in the convent for public veneration twice a year and Her feast is celebrated on February 2nd.
Prayer to Our Lady of Good Success
Our Lady and Mother, see how evil is invading everything: hearts, families, society, our Country.
Children no longer walk on the path of innocence. The youth, caught up in worldly pastimes, no longer come before thy altar to ask thy maternal blessings; nor do they seek the light of thy gaze to dissipate the shadows of doubt the world instills unceasingly.
Mothers are forgetting that the home is the first school where good is taught, and they are the first teachers.
Family life today has deteriorated, and the sound of the call to prayer is rarely heard.
In the schools there is no prayer, nor are thy grandeurs sung. In the home, few still believe in Holy Providence which has counted all the hairs on our heads and the sufferings of our hearts, and few have recourse to the merciful assistance of thy maternal heart.
In these hours, our Country is the poor traveler of the Gospel who fell into the hands of thieves, riddled with wounds that are almost mortal, without the relief of any human hope.
My sweet Mother, take care of these abandoned children who are lost because they have nothing in life. Protect the youth so that these tender plants are not swallowed up in the poisonous muck of vice. Teach mothers the divine gift of being mothers and their duty to model the hearts of their children at the cost of any sacrifice, of saving them with the mysterious supplication of their tears.
If you do not come to the assistance of this agonizing Country, the remnants of Christendom will disappear. Your heart is an abyss of ineffable tenderness. Let a drop of balm fall upon its wound and it will live…
Amen.
More #31DaysofMary tomorrow! How was your week? Write it down then link it up below. I look forward to reading your posts!
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