We recently had an article revisiting supposed messages from Estela Ruiz, a seer from South Phoenix, who began hearing the voice and then, she claims, seeing the visage of the Blessed Mother in 1988. They are not Church-sanctioned apparitions; her bishop “dismissed” them. Neither have they been condemned.

And knowing her for thirty years, she and her late husband were exemplar, deeply devout Catholics, tirelessly serving the poor in the South Phoenix area, where they established a school. How that came to be—the funding at every turn—was nothing less than miraculous.

To recount: On the night of December 3, Estela, her husband Reyes, their son Fernando, and Fernando’s wife, Leticia, were all praying the Rosary.

At the time Estela was a “Sunday morning Catholic” and skeptic — a schoolteacher — until husband Reyes, a devotee of Mary since the age of seven, journeyed to Medjugorje. During his trip, Estela, alone at home, having not wanted to go on the trip, was stunned to hear a voice as they passed an image of the Blessed Mother in their home.

Reyes returned, and that December night they were in particular praying for another son, Reyes Jr., who was struggling with cocaine addiction, and for Fernando and Leticia’s marriage.

During the final decade, Ruiz says she saw a light emanating from a portrait of the Immaculate Heart of Mary that grew brighter until it forced her to close her eyes. At that moment, the Virgin spoke to her: “Don’t you know that I am going to take care of your children?” She was overcome with emotion and, of Mexican descent, began to cry, calling out, “Qué linda! Qué linda!” (“She’s beautiful! She’s beautiful!”)

She began receiving many alleged messages from Our Lady (the Church never officially accepted her experiences), most of them pertaining to family and America.

Just before Christmas in 1995, she was given this alleged missive, for your reckoning:

“As I close my love letter to each of you, my beloved family, I want you to understand how much I love you, how much each one of you is important to the work of God.

“I so depend on you not only to take the good news of God’s Love to all, but that I depend on your actions, which exemplify how much God loves all His children in the world.

“I depend on you to continue to say ‘yes’ to me and the work I am doing with you.

“Take care of each other, for I cannot afford to lose any of you to evil. Pray for each other and with each other. Do not forget that prayer is the foundation of your work.

“Without prayer, there can be no success. Prayer keeps you focused on The One Who makes everything possible and nothing is impossible for our God.

“Love each other with mutual respect and dignity and help each other edify God in your souls. Remember that you cannot do anything on your own. You must always count on Jesus for your strength. Ask the Holy Spirit of God to give you what you need to continue this great work of saving souls.”

[As reported many years ago here: It was a time of evil, said the Virgin to an Arizona seer. It was a time when an “ominous cloud” hovered over humanity, when the attacks of Satan were “accelerating,” when he was reaching into every home. This is what was revealed to a former Phoenix school administrator, Estela Ruiz, in apparitions that began in 1988. “You are living in dark and hard times, and you need to believe in God’s love for you more than ever,” Mary allegedly said to Estela. “He is not the one who has brought the darkness into the world. This darkness has been brought by evil, and it is impossible for you not to be affected by this turmoil that is occurring around you.”

They were messages strikingly similar to what was said in previous American apparitions to a nun named Sister Mildred Neuzil and also by the Virgin at the famous site of Medjugorje where she said the current time was “the hour of the power of the devil.” It was not to scare; it was not to titillate. It was to forewarn of a battle so fierce that it may be without precedent. Abortion! Cloning! The times had stiffened. They had darkened. We saw this too with the 1990 prophecy that forecast the rise of a “great new evil” — nearly identical to the language we now note in reviewing those granted to Ruiz — whose experiences indeed began while her husband was on a journey to Medjugorje.

“You cannot begin to understand the spiritual warfare that is going on — that angels are all around you,” said Mary in one message. “God sees Satan’s attacks and does not leave you and has never left you helpless. He is also around you, wanting and desiring that you turn to Him out of love.”

He would protect, the Virgin said to Estela. He could grant the necessary strength. Satan could not overpower “if you have the Lord’s strength in you.”

But that strength had to be earned and right now humanity was descending into an abyss of materialism and self-idolatry, the Virgin warned Estela. Man was being molded as a new idol. We were worshipping our scientists, our wealth, our selves. No doubt was left as to the serious nature of the conflict. “Satan has unleashed all the demons in hell, and I have come to help you, each and every one of you, to resist this evil which is so powerful throughout the world,” said the Virgin in words mirroring too an apparition in France at LaSalette. “You, my children, are not blind, and you can see this evil that is so evident all over. You can feel him trying to destroy you and thus overtake all whom he can. As time moves on and Satan accelerates his attacks on the world, you must know how to defend yourselves, how to be saved through our Lord, by His mercy and goodness.”

No one needed to wait for signs, said Mary. There was no need to wait for a sign of God’s power. By the time the sign of His power comes, said Mary, it might be “too late.” What was urgent was to relinquish pride — the infection on all humanity — and to replace it with love. So effective has been the devil, said Mary, that “now men believe that what is wrong is right.” He had deceived the most learned — perhaps especially the most learned. “Even the great minds, the most learned of men, cannot understand the cause of this chaos and turmoil in the world,” said Mary, but the truth was simple: men had forgotten God — and when that happens, Satan fills the vacancy. He leads men to destroy life for no reason, said Mary — who first spoke to Estela from an image of Guadalupe. 

“Examine what it is that controls your life,” Mary purportedly said. “Is it anger and hatred, or is it love, compassion, and goodness?” 

They were key questions because the evil was working, warned the Virgin, “in the most subtle way.” In some of the most powerful language from any apparition, Mary told Estela that these were “special times” in which the devil was trying to flood us “so that his evil may not allow God’s children to be saved.”

The kind of love understood by the world at the present moment was not true love, said Mary, but “lust” — “lust of the flesh, of material things, and of sinful power.” She warned about those who were intolerant of other races and creeds. To disdain others was to lack love — and no matter how outwardly devout a person was, no matter how “religious,” if he or she did not love all other humans, if compassion was not shown, if there was haughtiness, there was the presence of evil. 

To dignify people because they seemed to be “of higher social and financial status” was to give in to the powers of darkness, said Mary — when what we were supposed to do was to see Christ and dignity in all.

“My children, when will you finally learn that this faith you have — believing that earthly materials will bring peace and happiness or that other people are responsible for your well-being — is false?” the Virgin allegedly asked back in 1990. “These are your false gods and idols whom you have come to worship and believe in.”

And which were causing great unseen evil.

It wasn’t only occultism. It was just overt forms of evil. The greatest darkness was caused by self-idolatry and it was up to everyone to bring his or her own life in order, said Mary. She mentioned a “great catastrophe” that was possible. She said the world was coming to destruction not through God’s Hand but through our own. “We will not win this war without disasters and catastrophes because the evil one is powerful and has many who follow him,” she said. “I come to warn you, my little ones, that the world is at a crossroad. It will either cross into the path of destruction, or allow Our Lord to reign in the hearts of men. Time is running short.”

But there was a secret weapon. There was something to which we could go. We were anything but helpless. There were all those angels to implore. There were the sacraments. And — always — there is God. 

Satan was running rampant, said Mary, he was howling at high dudgeon — but “never has the Holy Spirit been more powerful than now.”]

[resources: Michael Brown retreat, St. Augustine, Florida]