The great Venezuelan mystic Maria Esperanza, whose cause is now in the hands of her archdiocese in Venezuela, was not only prescient in certain serious matters (she foresaw 9/11), but also an eternal optimist.

The name “Esperanza” means “hope.”

That was Maria in a nutshell. Her cause for sainthood is “rapidly” moving forward, her son-in-law, Carlos Marrero Bornn, told Spirit Daily yesterday. It has been transferred from a diocese in New Jersey, where she spent much time in her latter years, to Venezuela, where she is already an official “Servant of God” and where, in downtown Caracas, a Mass connected with her cause is held on the seventh of each month at Our Lady of the Candles (Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria), with testimonies about her sanctity as well as the miraculous events around her.

In 2003, during one of her last interviews with us, she had given a mysterious message, saying, “It will begin here.”

Although, at the time, the message was difficult to understand (Venezuela was at peace and in a period of prosperity), we repeated it in subsequent years, including in 2017. Matters may now be clarifying.

“She was referring to Venezuela,” confirmed Carlos, who served as translator. “She said Venezuela would be a breaking point and trigger events all over. ‘Everything will begin in Venezuela and spread around the world.’ We relate it now to what is currently happening.”

Equally mysterious was her prediction that “the yellow races will rise up.”

What Maria meant exactly remains a matter of discussion, particularly in light of current (and to many, hopeful) events in Venezuela and specifically, indeed, Caracas.

Did her words have multiple meanings?

That may well be, for while she saw a bright future with rays from Heaven engulfing a purified world, she spoke about coming tumultuous events that would precede—serving indeed as that purification.

She spoke of prayer.

She spoke of spiritual revival.

“Rivers of light,” was another way she put it.

And indeed extraordinary luminosities have been seen at Betania (which means “Bethany”), coming from a sun that at times has moved about as it did at Fatima, sending down rays that in one case, witnessed by this writer in December of 1991, formed a perfect image of Mary as depicted on the Miraculous Medal, streaming Grace from her hands.

Maria herself often had a brilliance, even an aura, around her (perhaps what in olden times was represented by artists as a halo). The photo below is not A.I. or enhanced and was first published by Sister Margaret Sims of Boston (pictured to the right of Maria) in the 1990s.

One cannot set aside the seriousness of other messages. Maria spoke of coming conflict, even major war, and great geophysical events. She told us major earthquakes would occur in the U.S. (“the core of the earth,” she said, “is not in balance”) and told family members that one day they would be able to see the ocean from the hills of Betania (which  is near Cúa in the state of Miranda about forty miles south of Caracas, putting it well away, at the current time, from the Caribbean).

One pays special attention to this because Maria has a track record.

In January of 2001 she fretted about what she “saw” as a major attack on America, repeating it (to this website) in March of that same year.

A big international power, along with a smaller power, was already in the U.S. and ready to stage an attack, she told Spirit Daily.

It remains unclear who the “big power” might have been, but the smaller one seemed clearly tied, in retrospect, to the terrorists of al Qaeda.

In August—three weeks before the attacks of September 11—she had her people fax the website to say that what she had warned about on those two previous occasions was now about to happen (“in three weeks or three months”; she wasn’t quite sure).

It ended up being three weeks.

Remarkably, she spoke to those close to her of seeing smoke and two buildings that would fall.

She didn’t specifically identify the World Trade Center, but remarkably also happened to be in Manhattan, crossing the George Washington Bridge, on her way back from visiting that morning and the day before with a priest named Father John LoSasso in The Bronx. “I remember her feeling nervous,” said Carlos, who was driving in heavy traffic on the way to a Doubletree Hotel in New Jersey. “She felt the pressure to leave right away. I remember her looking at the skyline and saying, ‘May God bless New York.'”

Carlos said she specifically mentioned seeing smoke and two “towers” while saying what was coming was “an event that will shake the world.”

After the attacks, Maria prayed around Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and Saint Ignatius Church in Manhattan and the Mother Cabrini Shrine in The Bronx, hoping to stave off further attacks.

Her son-in-law also said that since her death she was been reportedly seen by a number of people, including patients in an intensive-care unit, one of whom identified her from a photograph as a mysterious visitor who they would see at night.

A hospital is currently planned for the Church-approved apparition site of Betania, where the Virgin appeared 31 times between March 25, 1976, and January 5, 1990. Esperanza had expressed desire for the hospital, in the same way there is one at San Giovanni Rotundo, where Saint Padre Pio—whom Esperanza knew well—lived and ministered.

–MHB

[resources: The Final Hour]