How true, to the Faith, are we?

How many of us follow the clear dictates of Christ, the Bible, and the Blessed Mother? Have we let those teachings slip away from us (as we are swept away by the temporal)?

For instance, there was the Mass reading Sunday (1 John 4):

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”

Read that a few times, perhaps every day for a while. It is critical to your afterlife.

As for messages of the Blessed Mother, let’s take some Church-sanctioned ones from the apparition site of San Nicolás in Argentina.

“Most people are crashing against a wall of evil,” she said on December 16, 1983. “The Lord wants you to be as perfect as you can. He does not want anyone to fall into worldly temptations” (January 14, 1984).

“The Lord does not want discord,” Mary told seer Gladys Quiroga on April 27, 1984. “He wants union. He does not want arrogance or pride. He wants humility.”

“Daughter, pride is a very serious sin, and like all sins, is the work of Satan,” she said that year on June 23. “Pride is a giant evil against which I fight. I invite all my children to banish it, to bury it, and they will please God.”

This does not mean we concede to evil. “I say this to all my children: God does not want you to humble yourselves before the enemy, nor does He want you to be destroyed by him, but for you to face up to him,” she said dramatically on August 30, 1984. “Fear nothing, because the Lord goes in front to each battle. May your will not shrink; be strong because you have the Presence of the Almighty.”

That Presence comes with love, which is felt in joy.

“My children, come close to the Lord by helping the humble, the poor, because Christ Jesus will also show you riches through humility and poverty,” the Virgin added on May 19 of that same year. She said a month later, “My children, the Lord wants your union to be solid, that is why He asks you to be united.”

“Keep clear of selfishness and anger if you do not want to offend God,” she warned the next day (June 14, 1984).

“May there be in your life much love for your brethren and love for God, because without love, nothing can be reached; everything is lost,” the Virgin said on June 14, 1984.

Every time we listen to someone, let this be the standard: are they speaking from anger and dislike, even hatred, or the love mandated by the Good Lord Jesus? Everything is lost.

“If you find yourselves facing someone who feels powerful, withdraw from him.

“Keep your spirit calm, beloved children,” she said on October 1, 1984. “If you find yourselves near hatred, withdraw from hatred.

“Christ is not there.”

“You must be warned, children,” she said on February 21, 1985. “The plague is big.”

[resources: Michael Brown on-line retreat, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday May 22]