Why We Confide: Our Lady’s Goodness

Informal talk on November 27, 1989

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

“A Roman and Apostolic Catholic, the author of this text submits himself with filial devotion to the traditional teaching of Holy Church. However, if by an oversight anything is found in it at variance with that teaching, he immediately and categorically rejects it.”

 The words “Revolution” and “Counter-Revolution” are employed here in the sense given to them by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in his book Revolution and Counter-Revolution, the first edition of which was published in the monthly Catolicismo, Nº 100, April 1959.

 

 

The immediate impression this grace causes is one of devotion, greater tenderness toward Our Lady, and so to speak, a lively comprehension of all Her goodness and mercy. All of which cause movements of special fervor and do the soul a lot of good.

When we are no longer in her presence, something still remains. When close to the statue, we have that impression of freshness of soul and well being. We know this impression corresponds to a truth, but that it will pass. When it passes, above all in the souls of the youngest of you, it is difficult to remember and to turn it into a permanent element of recollection and hope. Therefore, one can say that this is a fleeting help.

Why is this grace so fleeting? Why does it pass? What does it mean?

The answer is simple. At a certain moment, this grace is for us a help from Our Lady whereby she, as it were, tells our souls: “My son, do not be disturbed, do not bother because I will take care of things!”

Now, Our Lady also wants you to retain this idea for other occasions when you are in dire straits, and she will take care of those even without a sensible grace. This is because Our Lady is no less a mother during times of trouble than when she makes us feel her help through palpable graces.

So this is what happens: I am in trouble and receive this grace from Our Lady: “My son, you will have a suffering, but receive this consolation and know that you will be helped.” This is what sensible grace tells us. However the conclusion is: when we face other troubles and don’t receive palpable graces, she is no less our mother, nor does she love us less than when she said that. It is not because we were doing much better at the moment that she communicated to us that consolation: She loves us because she wants to love us. She loves us because she is our mother, not because we deserve her love.

When we correspond to the graces she gives, this correspondence is one more element for her for love us, but this does not mean that She does not love us when we do not correspond to grace. She even loves us tenderly when we fail to correspond.

The greatest proof of her maternal love is that it does not depend on our correspondence. It is the love of a mother for a child that has not yet learned to speak. What degree of correspondence is there in that infant? None. But she loves that child, and if someone attempts to harm him, she immediately intervenes with a stern: “You can’t do that!” Why? Because she loves that child with a natural and gratuitous love.

Our Lady is our mother even more so than our earthly mothers, however good they are or have been. Our Lady loves us more than our earthly mothers, and even though we do not deserve Her love, she loves us because we are her children. Therefore, even though we fail to correspond to grace, she still has an overflowing  desire to help us and give us every kind of benefit. She overflows with this desire, therefore we must pray to her with confidence during the time of trial certain that she will help.

What happens when we feel no consolation? This is the main point; we should remember the palpable graces we have received and say: “On that occasion she made me feel the grace and now she is not, but I believe because she spoke to my soul!”

In other words, I believe she will help me in the trouble I am in because I once was in dire straits, prayed to her and she gave me a grace of consolation and helped me. This proves that she is a mother and always helps me.

Imagine a very small child that no longer sleeps in a cradle and is just starting to sleep in a bed. During the night he wakes up and feels very isolated, scared of the dark and calls out to his mother, and she comes and takes care of him with great kindness.

What is the end result: The second time the child wakes up he will again be in the dark and scared, but now he has something to refer to: “Mother will help me!” when he calls out to her.

So are the graces we have before Our Lady of Grace. Through the help she has already given we see that she always helps us, like a child that says: “My mother helped me yesterday and she always helps, because she does not change! I can change, but she does not!”

So the conclusion is that these graces communicate something prophetic to us that help will come: “From the help I have been given in the past I know what will happen in future. She will not abandon me.”

If someone did not understand this explanation, I am happy to explain it again and again. I am earnestly committed to making this clear to everyone. Because soon, this point of confidence will be vital to our future conduct  since we need to have a prophetic certainty that Our Lady will heed our prayers.

It is proper for a provident person, meaning one that foresees things, to have at least some knowledge of what is likely to happen, and being a provident person, to make some preparations in advance for what might come.

For example, I knew an elderly lady with whom her family, and even outsiders, would consult about the weather because she could tell if it would rain or not. The weather in São Paulo is very unstable, and for a number of reasons, people wanted to know whether it was going to rain or not.

She was very old when I saw her make this forecast. They asked her: “Aunt so and so, could you tell us if it will rain or not?” With great kindness she stood up from her chair and went outside. Without her noticing, I drew closer because I wanted to find out what she was thinking. I observed she had small earrings, and the sky was blue. She went back in the house, and I followed her. She then said to her guests: “Look, it will rain sometime in the afternoon.” Later on that day, it poured. Nothing I observed could have led to that forecast.

She was provident, and through a natural phenomenon, she was able to perceive and forecast the weather with a great certainty. It was something that others did not understand but which she did. I believe that if she tried to teach someone how she made her forecasts, she would fail. In this case, we are dealing with natural imponderables.

This is different from a prophetic grace. A prophetic grace is something which even the most provident and intelligent man would fail to predict but which a person predicts for a supernatural reason.

Imagine a person, no matter how intelligent or capable, faced with the following dilemma: “Will I be answered by Our Lady or not?” We all know a just man sins seven times a day, as the Scripture says, and so there are a number of reasons to fear that this time Our Lady will not answer my request. The natural answer would be: “I do not know if she will help me this time because I’ve messed up a few times, asked forgiveness, and she did not indicate that she forgave me, so I don’t know where I stand this time.”

Nor is this a matter of committing a mortal or venial sin. A venial sin already merits punishment! So, could it be that Our Lady does not want to fulfill this request because even a venial sin was committed?

How many venial sins or faults have we all committed?

So how can I know that Our Lady has heeded me? If through a supernatural light, I was given the grace to know she helped me, I can conclude that supernatural light was not given for only one occasion. This is how she habitually works, and there is a reason for that. This is how grace customarily works in Catholic piety. He who receives a supernatural grace in this line receives the promise of a long series of additional graces in store for him.

So the person can prophetically predict: more grace will be given! Is this clear?

Now, someone could say: “But after this I went and asked Our Lady, and she did not heed me. So that means that the promise has been broken. I’ve done something that caused her to break the promise.”

No, that is not right. At times she delays and holds back. In not assisting me right away, she helps my soul even more. On another occasion, she simply assists right away. In other words, Our Lady does not function as a button that I press and grace comes out. She is The Queen! She is way too great to be just a dispenser of graces. However, the general line is that when I ask, she helps. This is what gives rational meaning to the Memorare. For without this, what sense does the Memorare make? “Never was it known that anyone who asked for Thy protection…” We know a lot of people who asked for help and did not obtain it. So what does that mean?

The profound meaning is when a person who receives a prophetic grace with a special light, he has an extraordinary reason to hope even when fased with gaps in the sensible graces and mystery. This could last for a  lifetime!

(Dr. Plinio, could you give example in your life?)

They are so numerous that I cannot count them. To mention one grace I received from Our Lady Help of Christians when I was ten or eleven is sufficient. I am now 81. So, 70 years later, and I can say that even now that grace remains the same in my soul.

Let me say: “My sons, prepare yourselves! Our Lady will help!”

Our Lady is the patroness of such bleak situations. Juxta crucem dolorosa, stabat Mater lacrimosa – She stood next to the Cross as her Son was dying. Have you thought about that phrase? This suffering is sufficient to make a mere mortal lose his mind, but she lost nothing. Instead she increased in merit and virtue. This is something awesome and fabulous.

When Our Lord cried out: “My Father, my Father, why hast Thou abandoned Me?” He was expressing the aridity in His soul. Mind you He had told the good thief on that day he would be in Paradise with Him. He so to speak performed a canonization and at the same time declared He too was going to heaven. No one knew better than Him about heaven and its infinite joys.

Furthermore, as the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, He enjoyed the vision of God: He is God! And therefore, while God’s eternal joy never departed from His divinity even one bit, a tremendous cloud hung over His Humanity!

That cloud passed on and He had this word of consolation: “Father, in Thy hands I surrender my spirit.” The Gospel concludes: Et efflavit spiritum. That is, from that extreme pain He went into supreme joy and glory!

My sons, prepare yourselves! Prepare to believe against all appearances, to hope against all odds and to confide absolutely, absolutely, absolutely! Our Lady will help!