When St. Clare repelled Muslim invaders with the Blessed Sacrament.

Maria Valtorta had the following vision of the miracle of St. Clare driving away the Islamists who were attacking her convent in Assisi:

 

Quite a poor little convent, low-lying, with a roof sharply sloping down in front, a small cloister crying out the great Franciscan word from each stone, "Poverty," and dark, short, narrow little corridors onto which the minute cell doors open. The convent resounds like a hive of voices in prayer and moans. And this little convent truly resembles a hive flabbergasted by an invasion. The din of the struggle outside also flows in, with a fusion of violent and prayerful voices.

 

I don't know if it is a lay sister who brings the news that the enemy hordes are trying to invade the convent or some resident of Assisi who warns the Poor Clares of the danger. I do know that panic is reaching its peak as they all rush into the cell of the Abbess, who is prostrate in prayer near the edge of her couch and gets up, pale and consumed, but very beautiful and solemn, to receive her terrified daughters.

 

She listens to them and tells them to go down to the choir with due order and faith, in the silence of the Rule, "for nothing," she says, "no matter how tremendous it may be, must make us forget the holy Rule." And she follows them and goes into the small, unadorned choir, beyond which is the little dark church with a barred door containing only two small candles – one in the church and the other in the choir – which peacefully shine before the tabernacle […].

 

They pray, jolting at every cry that is louder and closer. And when one, who is surely a lay sister, comes back in, yelling unabashedly, "Mother, they are at the door!" the Poor Clares double over, as if already stricken dead. Sister Clare does not. On the contrary, she stands up and proceeds right into the middle of the choir and says, "Do not be afraid. They are men and they are outside. We are here, inside, with Jesus. Remember his words, 'Not a hair will be taken from you.' We are his doves. He will not allow the sparrowhawks to profane them." Outside the wave of tumult is getting louder, giving the lie to her words. But she does not get upset. 

 

On seeing that the Poor Clares are too terrified to overcome doubt and dread, she addresses God. “My sweet Jesus, forgive your poor Clare's daring to set her hands in the place where only a priest can set them. But here there is only You and us. One of us must thus say, 'Come' to You. My hands are washed by tears. They may touch your throne.” [Prior to Vatican II only the priest could handle the Blessed Sacrament.]

 

And she resolutely goes to the tabernacle, opens it, and takes out not the monstrance, as it called, but a case resembling a pyx; it is not made of precious metal, but ivory or mother-of pearl, I think, at least on the outside, insofar as the scanty light enables me to see. She takes it out and holds it as reverently as she would hold the Child Jesus. She fearlessly walks down the few steps and proceeds towards the convent door, singing psalms, and the sisters follow her, trembling and subdued.

 

"Open the door, daughter."

 

"But they are outside! Do you hear the cries and blows?"

 

"Open the door, daughter."

 

"But they will burst in here!

 

"Open the door. For the sake of obedience! " And Clare, previously gentle and persuasive, takes on an imperious tone which will not tolerate delay. She is the former landowner accustomed to giving orders and the great Abbess calling for obedience.

 

The Poor Clare opens, with a moan and shudder slowing down the operation, and the others, behind the Abbess, are also trembling. They cross themselves, closing their eyes, ready for martyrdom, and lower their veils so as to die with their faces covered. The door is finally half open. The shouting of those attacking turns into a cry of victory, and, ceasing to use their weapons, they plunge towards the opening door on a run.

 

Clare, her face as white as the case she is holding high up as the only veil over her cloistered visage, takes two, three, five steps beyond the threshold. I do not know if she sees those in front of her […], I don't think so. Her eyes do nothing but adore the Eucharist she is carrying. Tall, very thin, and consumed as she is, as white as a lily, slow in her steps, she looks like an angel or a ghost. To me she looks like an angel; to the others she must look like a ghost.

 

Their boldness crumbles, comes to a halt, and, on seeing her take another step forward, they turn around in disorderly flight. It is then that Clare staggers and, bending over, as if about to fall, hastens to go back in beyond the threshold.

 

"They have fled. Blessed be the Lord! Now...now hold up your mother. So that I can take Him back to his altar. Sing, daughters, and hold me up. Your mother is very tired now! " Indeed, her face is that of a dying person, as if she had used up all her strength. But her smile is also very sweet, and her waxen hands are very strong in clasping the case!

 

They go back into the choir, and Clare, singing the Te Deum, places the case in the tabernacle; she then remains lying on her back on the two steps of the altar as if dead while the Poor Clares continue the hymn of thanksgiving.

 

This is what I see. And for me [...] a few words from St. Clare, in her heavenly robe, not as a Poor Clare: "With this," and she points to the Most Holy Sacrament, "everything is overcome. It will be the great strength of Paradise and the earth as long as there are earthly needs. Through the infinite merits of the Most Holy Body annihilated for your sake, we saints in Heaven obtain graces for you, and through It you obtain victory. May the Eucharistic Lamb be praised! May the Lord give you peace and blessing."

Maria Valtorta, The Notebooks 1945-50. August 12, 1945, pp. 90-93.

 

Disclaimer: A brief, unsigned and undocumented ‘press release’ from a Vatican dicastery has proposed that her writings are not supernatural [Link]. However, according to the dicastery’s own published standards their press release has no canonical validity [Link para. 22]. I have 100% human faith that the revelations of Maria Valtorta are from Heaven, otherwise I would not be posting them. 

 

View my books here [Link]. 

 

 

 

 

 

When Pope St. Pius X appeared to Maria Valtorta.

Pope St. Pius X was pope from 1903-1914, he appeared to Maria Valtorta on February 8, 1946. 

 

Valtorta writes: 

 

Kindly, candid and good-natured, the figure of holy Pope Pius X appeared to me at the time of Holy Communion. He came forward just as he surely looked in his final days. Slightly obese, burdened by ailments, with his silent gait somewhat shuffling, his shoulders somewhat bent, rounded, supporting a head covered with silvery hair - already haloed with splendor - above his short neck, with a youthfulness in the flesh of his elderly face, and a virginal sweetness in the gaze of his limpid, serene eyes. He was wearing the white clothing of the Pontiffs, but without a red mantle or camauro. Oh, not at all! He was a priest dressed in white rather than black - that's all. But he was so much ‘himself’ that he was more venerable than if he had been in the magnificence of pontifical apotheoses, amid banners and flabella [ceremonial fans], shining guards, the red of cardinals, and so on. He was the holy Pope. 

 

He uplifted his short, chubby hand to bless me. He spoke: 

 

“Woman blessed by the Lord and the Immaculate Virgin, may the Lord and Mary always be with you. Do not take offense, blessed one! Continue, continue on your way. The Lord is pleased. Be simple, increasingly simple, like a child. One of those children whom our blessed Lord so loved. Feed on the Eucharist because you are the little host that is consecrated only when Our Lord Jesus Christ is transubstantiated in the large Host. The more you feed on the Holy Eucharist, then, the more you become a host with Him. 

 

“O blessed one! If I were on the throne of Peter and they told me that there was a creature who had become a “voice” after having been a “voluntary cross”, I would not leave you in this anguish. But I would have comforted you with my blessing, reading the blessed pages [the writings of her revelations] on my knees. 

 

“Remain a girl, won't you? Always a girl [...] with your eyes free from all malice and your heart free from all pride, to understand the Most Blessed Master at all times, who provides instruction for the good of many. The Eucharist and simplicity. The way of the children of love. St. Therese's way, and also mine as a poor servant of the Lord who is still amazed at having become a Pontiff after being a priest”. 

 

And he wept gently, humble and holy in his weeping as he was holy in his smile. He lifted up his head and looked at me again - he, too, a big ‘child’; his expression was so pure. He again smiled at me and said: 

 

“I give you my blessing. Are you happy? I bless you, soul of the Lord and of Mary Most Holy. Continue in patience and faith. In Paradise nothing is remembered except having always done the Most Holy Will of God, and in this, one is blessed. Paradise is so beautiful that none of the lovely things you see can equal it. You could not see Paradise as it is because your heart would burst. 

 

“When you get the chance, send my blessing to that blessed soul, Sister Giuseppina. [Sister Giuseppina of Jesus Crucified, a nun whom Valtorta knew personally.] Tell her that her Patriarch always remembers the Institutes of the Most Holy Child Mary, and especially those very dear ones of his Venetian region. Peace, peace to those places and those who live there! And peace to you, little child of my Jesus. Good-bye. Always remember the Pontiff of children and the Eucharist.”

 

He again raised his hand in blessing, and the whiteness of the woolen robe turned into an incandescence in which St. Pius X was transfigured and disappeared. And now I can say that I, too, have seen a Pontiff! And what a Pontiff! 

 

[...] I was very happy that he spoke to me so informally, like a good pastor, as when he was one in his Venetian region - and he was already holy and great in the sight of God - as when, acting as the Patriarch and later as the Pontiff, he would linger informally with his friends, with the simple folk, with whom the very humble and holy Pope Pius X must have felt quite at ease.

 

Maria Valtorta, The Notebooks, 1945-1950, Feb. 8, 1946, p. 185.  

 

My books: https://frankrega.com/AllBooks.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The man who plotted to murder Pope Pius XII.

Bruno Cornacchiola was a hater of the Catholic Church and had plotted to murder Pope Pius XII in 1947. However, Our Lady intervened in his life at a place adjacent to the site of the martyrdom of St. Paul the Apostle. Known as Tre Fontane, an important shrine has been established there in honor of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin to Bruno. His conversion was complete, and he even presented the weapon he was going to use against the pope to Pius XII himself.

Prior to the apparitions, the site of the shrine was a place of sinful behavior for men and women, I need not say more. But after the appearance of Mary, she revealed that she had sanctified that ground. She said “With his soil of sin I shall perform powerful miracles for the conversion of non-believers.” When I was there on pilgrimage in the late 1990’s I was able to obtain a sample of this sacred soil. At that time it was possible, but now I believe that the growth of the shrine has covered much of that earth with paving.

At any rate, there is a new article on the Rorate Caeli website about the apparitions of Mary to Bruno. He had kept a diary of her revelations to him, which occurred throughout the rest of his life until his death in 2001. These have been recently published in Italian, and the Rorate Caeli report has some excerpts.  I urge you to read this timely article since it pertains to the situation of the Church and the world today. 

Here is the title of their article and the link to it. “Rome: The Virgin of Revelation at Tre Fontane, prophecies for the present time, crisis of the Church, advanced atheism and Islam.”

 

Link: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2025/08/rome-virgin-of-revelation-at-tre.html

 

Frank Rega

https://frankrega.com/index.html

Pope Leo is reportedly working on his first encyclical.

As reported in America magazine (Link), Pope Leo XIV is not sitting idle while on his Castel Gandalfo vacation. According to Augustinian Father Alejandro Moral Antón, a longtime friend, Pope Leo plans to draft the framework of his first encyclical during his vacation break, possibly touching on peace, unity or artificial intelligence. “I know he will begin work on his first encyclical.” 

 

Asked whether the title is known yet, the cleric replied: “I don’t think so, the other day he just told me that he will use these two weeks to develop the main structure of the text. Obviously, he is already working on it, but he is forced to do it in the evening or in spare moments and would need more time, which will happen during the vacation.”

Regarding the encyclical’s topic, Father MoraI said: “I can imagine it will be something related to the concepts evoked since the first hours of his election. The theme of peace, social doctrine, unity, artificial intelligence. But these are just my deductions.”

 

I hope that the primary authorship of his first encyclical will be his, and that he will not continue Pope Francis’ heavy reliance on the input of Cardinal Victor Manual Fernandez, a Modernist. Fernandez has so far been retained by Pope Leo as head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The Cardinal was a key figure in shaping Francis’ writings, particularly the two encyclicals Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti, and in writing the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. In the latter, we have the “heresy in a footnote” novelty (no. 351), proposing that it should be possible in particular cases for divorced and remarried Catholics living in sin to receive the sacraments. This is pure Modernism, asserting that doctrine can change with the times. 

 

In addition, Fiducia Supplicans, the very divisive same-sex blessing declaration, was issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, with primary authorship attributed to the Modernist Fernandez, its prefect.

Not surprisingly, Fernandez’ Dicastery issued a feeble statement in February (Link) contending that there is nothing supernatural about the anti-Modernist writings of the mystic Maria Valtorta. No grounds for the decision were given. In fact, in an egregious insult to the 13,000 page opus of Maria Valtorta, commonly known as the Poem of the Man-God, the allegation of non-supernaturality was not presented within an exhortation, or a declaration, or a document, but in a three paragraph press release! The fact that the actions of two popes had indicated otherwise was completely ignored. (Pope Pius XII and the future Pope Paul VI while he was still an Archbishop.) 

 

Regarding other mystics who had analogous revelations, Mary of Agreda and Anne Katherine Emmerich, the Church has refrained from either affirming or denying their supernatural character, so why the exception for the writings of Valtorta – is it because they affirm traditional Catholic Doctrine and the truth of Christ’s miracles? Yes Pope Leo, the breaking of the bread was a miracle of multiplication, not sharing as you recently implied (Link).

 

I pray that you will avoid the advice of Modernist theologians such as Fernandez, and will not become known as Pope Francis Lite.

Part Two! So what to think of the new Pope?

Part One was an email stating this:  "I think he is a holy person.  Something saintly and innocent about him.  Nothing feigned.  Totally the opposite of Bergoglio."

 

Now for Part Two: 

I think the indications are that he is NOT a Modernist! If so, he would be the first non-Modernist pope since Pope Pius XII.  He favors top-down Divine Revelation instead of the Modernist idea that religion and faith are based on personal sentiments and experiences arising from within the individual believers.  He seems to be strong doctrinally, and I have seen no indication that he thinks dogma can evolve and change with the times as Modernist heretics believe.  Yes he mentions Vatican II, but remember that the concept that Vatican II is heretical or is a false council is still a matter of opinion.  There has been no authoritative declaration of the Church condemning the Council, and since Pope Leo is definitely devoted to the Church he will not go against its teachings.

 

Of course there are other issues, such as ecumenism with false religions and joining in prayer with them, but I really think that his Catholicism is so strong that he would not consider other religions to be on a par with our Faith. 

 

Frank 

https://frankrega.com/AllBooks.htm

 

Saints and Mystics on the Lord's Prayer.

 

 

CLICK to see the Book on Amazon  

Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover versions.

 

The Lord’s Prayer is the only prayer that Jesus specifically taught to his followers. Therefore it is important, in addition to praying it, to understand what it says and means. To shed light on this task, the present book presents a series of essays by Catholic saints and mystics, in which the words and phrases of the prayer are discussed and explained, with varying points of view. This short prayer is composed of a number of separate petitions, and they usually are enumerated as seven. The saintly commentators delve into the many possible interpretations and meanings of these petitions, whether it be a spiritual explanation or a more material and worldly one. In addition to the saints, the revelations to the mystics Luisa Piccarreta and Maria Valtorta contain in-depth teachings from Jesus Himself on the many dimensions of this prayer to His Father.

Remember to keep praying the Lords Prayer, you can never pray it too much.

Frank

The remarkable sinlessness of St. Alphonsus de Liguori.

 

One of my very favorite saints is St. Alphonsus de Liguori. Some of my most significant moments of “conviction of sin” came from reading his Preparation for Death, for which I hope to be eternally grateful.

The below commentary is from a talk by the English prelate Henry Cardinal Manning, given in 1864 to priests of the Redemptorist Order which the saint had founded.

Mission of St. Alphonsus.

 

And when he is come, he will convict the world of sin, and of justice, and of judgment. John 16:8

I will therefore endeavour to trace out the perfections wrought in St. Alphonsus by the Spirit of God, to fit him for the work of convincing the world of sin.

 

The first and eminent grace bestowed upon him for this end was his own personal freedom from sin. They who testify against sin must needs know it; but there are two ways of knowing sin.   There is the knowledge of the sinless: such as the knowledge which Jesus had of sin; of its deformity, its baseness, its deadliness, it deceitfulness; of all that sin is and does, save only the guilt, which by personal experience the sinless Son of God could not know.   There is another kind of knowledge of sin, which comes by sinning.   And this the world preaches as the knowledge necessary for those who would save others from sin.   This was the moral theology of Satan in Paradise: ‘God doth know, that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.  

 

The farther removed from sin, the more power the servants of God have over it.   The nearer to it, the more power it has over them.   To be free from it, is the chief condition of convincing and of converting the world. 

 

Now, St. Alphonsus was in a singular manner and degree preserved from sin, from his first consciousness in childhood to the end of a life of ninety years. 

 

In the Information laid before the Holy See for the judicial process of his canonisation, it is declared, that ‘the stole of innocence which he received in baptism he returned to his Creator without a spot.’    Again, in the office which we have recited on this festival, it is declared that he had ‘a wonderful innocence of life, which he never sullied by a stain of mortal sin.’   And his confessors, after his death, declared their belief that he had never committed a deliberate venial sin.   To the end of his life Alphonsus used bitterly to lament what he called his ‘great sins.’   And these were chiefly three.

 

First, a disrespectful word spoken to his father when he was grown to man’s estate, and already in the profession of the law, at a time of life when sons believe themselves to be free, and less dependent on a father’s will.   For this fault he received from his father, before a numerous company, the chastisement of a blow.   He went to his room, and spent hours kneeling in tears and prayer; and afterwards, on his knees, asked his father’s forgiveness.   The second was, that for a time he fell into a comparative lukewarmness, during which he went to theatres, though, as he said, he did not remember committing there any deliberate sin.   Yet these he lamented to the end of his life.   Lastly, when he had failed as an advocate in some law-suit, he fell into an excess of sadness and dejection, which he traced to his self-love, and to the wound of disappointed vanity.   If such sins showed prominently upon his life of ninety years, it must indeed have been white and resplendent to give them such relief. 

 

Alphonsus, like St. Augustine, had a holy mother, to whom he traces the early horror he had for sin, and his singular preservation from it.   She used to inspire him with a hatred and a fear of evil, and to take him with her to confession every week.   She used to say, ’ I do not wish to be the mother of children who are condemned to eternal death.’   He testifies of himself in words of beautiful simplicity, at the end of his long and perilous life of labour and responsibility: ‘I am a Bishop, and I ought to tell the truth.   I do not remember ever having told a deliberate falsehood, even when I was a child.’

 

From this great innocence of life sprung another perfection — his hatred of sin.   This is always equal to the purity of the heart.   It was this which caused such incomprehensible sorrow in the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the wilderness and in the garden.   And Alphonsus, in all his instincts, abhorred the presence of evil with a supernatural hatred.   He was wont to say: ‘My God, grant that I may die rather than offend Thee.’   ‘Sin is the only evil of which we need be afraid.’   ‘No sin, however slight, is a trifling evil.’   To hinder sin for a day was enough to set him in activity.   When he heard of any scandal, he never delayed a moment.   He would take neither food nor rest till it was corrected.   Often in such times he took no food till evening.   ‘Things of this sort,’ he said, ‘admit of no delays.   It is an offence against God; and if there were but one single sin, we are bound to prevent it.’ 

 

HENRY EDWARD MANNING.

Bayswater, Feast of St. Alphonsus, 1864.

 

Source:

https://pcpbooks.org/blogs/newsletter/cardinal-manning-on-the-mission-of-st-alphonsus-liguori?

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