Questo articolo è disponibile anche in:
Italian
English
Spanish
Portuguese
Dear Father Angelo,
It is with joy that I am telling you my story.
As I told you I’m an only child, I received a Christian upbringing, with all the Sacraments of the Church.
I remember with infinite joy the moment of my First Communion as the best moment of my life.
However, growing up I lost my faith little by little… I went to Mass out of habit and I did not really believe, I lived a superficial faith, I did not pray, sadly there were sins against the sixth commandment (masturbation and watching indecent things) and after this experience of sin, I found myself at 15 sad and empty…
The sins against the sixth commandment in particular had emptied me and made me sad… so I decided to stop masturbating and watching indecent things (I realize now that this choice to stop with these things was truly a grace!).
But soon after my no to sin (even though I had said no to these things, I still was not in a state of grace, I did not pray and there were other sins in my life, but I was sickened by those against the sixth commandment because of the sadness and terrible void they had caused) a dark time started.
It was as if evil was around me and it was angry, I could feel the hate around me, and asked myself what was happening… I did not understand, I was 16, I was in high school and I asked myself what was happening… there was like a presence, someone or something that I didn’t see that would not leave me alone, that tormented me constantly…
I tell you Father Angelo that I did not experience a case of possession, even though I was not in a state of grace.
I could still study, go to school, but with more difficulties compared to how it was before, because a lot of negative thoughts were tormenting and would not leave me.
Until one day, while surfing the internet, I found on a website some liberation prayers by Father Amorth and even though I was not completely convinced I decided to try to recite them and, immediately after having recited them, I felt a lot better and all that evil that was oppressing me went away… I felt better.
This was a beautiful day for me, and from then on I slowly started praying more and more until one day, again on the internet, I found a guide on how to recite the Rosary and I started praying the Rosary, which I found to be a very potent prayer that freed me from all that evil which had been tormenting me previously.
I no longer had bad/negative thoughts, I could clearly feel that all that evil had been defeated by the Rosary and by prayer… Mary Most Holy had converted me and saved me.
By praying the Rosary I felt how much Mary loved me infinitely and comforted me, hugged me, gave me hope, liberated me, healed me.
I still found myself with grave sins to confess from my past life, confused and I still had doubts about the faith.
So I started offering the decades of the Rosary to Mary asking her to give me the gift of faith, the knowledge of my sin with its gravity, to illuminate me, to gift me the pain of my sins, to convert me, and to all of this followed some good reads (including the dominican friends site) which helped me (it was still Mary Most Holy who guided me in everything), to which followed some Confessions in which I confessed the sins of my past life, those against the sixth commandment and the others.
I came out of the confessional changed and it was like another completely different life, never lived before, was starting… I felt like I was born again to another life completely new and different… I was happy, like I had never been before that moment… I felt very much loved by Jesus, hugged by Him, forgiven by Him.
I experienced again that Infinite Beauty experienced in my First Communion and from then on my Love story with Him, with Jesus, started and my life became beautiful… having Jesus and Mary with me, Grace, the Sacraments, Jesus always with me, Jesus is all my happiness.
Mary Most Holy gave me the gift of chastity, I had asked it from Her because I did not want to fall into the horror of impurity ever again, because of how much it had destroyed and emptied me… and, if from the age of 17 until now at 21, there has not been any relapse regarding the sixth commandment it is just because of Her Grace.
We also need to pray always, cast away evil thoughts, be vigilant, but I’m telling you this, Father Angelo, in order to exalt the Infinite Greatness of the Holy Queen Mary.
Now I pray the Rosary every day (for at least 5 decades), I go to daily Mass and this constitutes for me all my happiness.
Regarding the Vocation, I tell you Father Angelo, that I would become a Priest just to be united with Jesus, in intimacy with Him… And I also think about my brothers and sisters in exile who risk damnation, I would also do it for them so that Jesus could save them through me.
It is only Jesus who does everything and everything is only His Grace.
And I find myself now, at 21, having to make the decision, once I will finish my university studies, of what to do with my life… and I tell myself that, if it is God’s will, I would be infinitely happy to become a Priest and that is what I would like to do.
Because I would feel that my life is being given for something that lasts forever.
For something infinitely precious.
And I would feel by becoming a Priest the loving adherence to the One I Love Jesus and this fills me with infinite joy.
The devotion of the Dominican Order to Mary Most Holy attracts me…
Wearing that religious habit is to me to be clothed with Love for Jesus, choosing Him… just the thought fills me with joy.
What made me think of the Dominican Order is precisely this Devotion to Mary Most Holy, that is present in this Order.
And the studies also appeal to me… knowing God and the Truth.
All for Love of Jesus, to deepen my knowledge of Him, the Only Infinite Beauty.
Today on the feast of Saint Dominic I visited the Church of S… in… You were right. It is truly amazing, one of the most beautiful Churches I have ever seen.
In front of a Saint Dominic statue, I entrusted my life and my vocation to him, asking him to pray to Jesus for me and to think about everything for me.
I feel a lot of hope and joy in my heart, hope of Love, of being able to one day consecrate my life to Jesus, the One who I love.
Just the thought of it, fills me with joy, hope, serenity and peace now in my everyday life.
It is a dream of Love for me, of Love towards Jesus and Mary.
Of course there is a lot of discernment to do, but I already feel so happy just at the thought and I have a lot of hope,this entire journey is beautiful to me, even though I just started on it, it’s already wonderful.
I thank you a lot for all the prayers that you do for me which I wholeheartedly reciprocate, for listening to me and for all the time you dedicate to me.
Thank you for everything and I will hopefully talk to you soon, may Mary Most Holy bless you, best wishes, Hail Mary.
Dear friend,
1. I believe the Lord has led your life until now coloring it with stronger shades than what normally happens.
He certainly has plans, like He had them for Saint Ignatius of Loyola when He had him understand the difference between the feelings one experiences when reading the adventures of knights and dames and those one experiences when reading the lives of the Saints.
Later in life, you will understand more and more what Our Lord did and permitted until today in your life and everything will become for you a great lesson that you will never finish understanding.
2. Coming to the event of your First Communion, that you call the best of your life.
I think you remember it in detail.
Napoleon said that of his childhood, he only remembered that day.
I think Our Lord envelops that day with a particular grace.
You certainly remember what happened, people’s faces, the gifts, the party, the lunch.
But as you progress, your sight will turn more and more to Christ and you will understand that on that day Our Lord was entering your heart to take ownership of it.
And he put in some of that joy which is characteristic of Heaven so that you could feel a desire for it.
He did not enter it alone, but – as Saint Teresa of Avila used to say – he entered it with all His royal court praying with you and for you.
All the Heavens entered your heart that day. And just the memory of this event causes you to relive it and inebriates you again with the presence of the Lord and of Heaven.
Perhaps this is happening even now while you’re reading my words.
3. Afterwards, sadly, as it happens for many young people, you experienced impurity. And it devastated you.
You went to Mass.
But devoid of the grace of God and tied by the ropes of impurity, you were unable to elevate yourself.
Being impure, you could not penetrate, taste and live what you were doing.
There was only the external aspect of the faith, but not its experience.
At the same time, your prayer life stopped. And so Heaven was completely closed off from you and your soul was becoming more and more dry, like soil that has not been rained on for a long time.
4. And so Our Lord allowed that you would feel in a very precise manner the consequences of sin which – according to Saint Thomas – puts us under the power of the devil.
Not only you started experiencing sadness and emptiness, but you were “disgusted” by your own sins of impurity.
You felt that they were depriving you of dignity.
So you stopped emptying yourself and defacing yourself like the prodigal son of the Gospel parable.
But you were not in a state of grace, yet
You were still under the power of the devil, in an inner darkness.
You felt a malaise in you and around you: “It was as if evil was around me and it was angry, I could feel the hate around me,… there was like a presence, someone or something that I did not see but that would not leave me that tormented me constantly”.
How many people at your age have the same experience without the lucidity that the Lord wanted you to have…
They are chained and perhaps they think they are free. They have yet to discover the interior freedom which allows them to elevate themselves to God and to be united with Heaven.
They are sad and perhaps they think they are happy. They have yet to discover true happiness, that which pervades body and soul and has nothing to do with the effervescence of the senses which chains the soul in sensuality.
They are under the siege of their adversary and they are convinced that that’s how life is supposed to be.
5. Yes, you were not experiencing demonic possession, you were not possessed, so those kids of that age aren’t , but you were under its influence.
Only now you realize what misery you were living in.
The prodigal son as well, when he returned home and hugged his father, had his eyes opened even more and realized the abject state he had fallen into, while initially he did not notice it and settled for that as well.
6. Then the Lord’s hand brought you, via the internet, to Father Amorth’s liberation prayers and there you found the door which for you was the exit, the beginning of liberation.
You started praying the Rosary. Or better to say, you started bringing Mary’s presence into your life.
And everything changed. Or rather, everything was overturned.
You found again the sweetness of your First Communion, the joy of having Jesus with you, of having Jesus inside you, of feeling his affection through consolations, graces, attentions and kindnesses from him.
And all of this through Mary, who is that Arc of the Covenant which carries inside not just a fistful of manna, like the old arc of the covenant, but Jesus, the Bread of eternal life.
7. I like to remember that when the people of Israel were walking in the desert they were preceded by the arc of the covenant.
“Whenever the ark set out, Moses would say, “Arise, O Lord, may your enemies be scattered, and may those who hate you flee before you” (Nm 10:35).
“And when it came to rest, he would say, “Bring back, O Lord, the myriads of Israel’s troops!” (Num 10:36), which is to say: be their rest, their quiet, their consolation.
Now all of this is also happening for you: precisely because you bring Mary at the forefront of your life, at the summit of your day and your actions.
And her enemies, who are also yours and God’s, run away, they are humiliated and scattered.
When you pause and stop next to the Arc of the Covenant, especially with the Rosary, God comes back to you to be your company, your richness and your satiety.
8. When you took up again the spiritual life you started praying with the Rosary and asking Mary to give you the gift of faith, the knowledge of sin and its gravity, to convert you and especially to give you the gift of chastity.
And she listened to you.
Here I like to remember also that on the ancient arc of the covenant there was a cover made of the purest gold, also referred to as propitiatory, on which there were some Cherubs .
Of that propitiatory that covered the arc of the covenant God said: “There I will meet you and there, from above the cover, between the two cherubs on the ark of the covenant, I will tell you all that I command you regarding the Israelites.” (Ex 25:22).
Well, that arc of the covenant with the propitiatory is the prefiguration of Mary.
It is close to her that the Lord meets us, it is through Her that He speaks to us.
It is through her that He gifts us his graces.
You experienced that .
9. “And I find myself now, at 21, having to make the decision, once I’ll finish my university studies, of what to do with my life… and I tell myself that, if it is God’s will, I would be infinitely happy to become a Priest and that’s what I would like to do.
Because I would feel that my life is being given for something that lasts forever.
For something infinitely precious.”
Well, in this particular moment of your life keep entrusting yourself to this sweet Mother that the Lord has put in front of you.
She is the one that will open your way.
She is the one who will resolve every difficulty in an unimaginable and unpredictable manner.
It is through Her that the Lord will inspire you and talk to you.
It will also be through Her that He will give you the necessary help to be a good priest and an ardent apostle in the midst of the Church.
10. I am glad that on the day of Saint Dominic you felt the desire to go to a church where you knew you would find an image of him.
Through that image you talked to him perhaps for the first time in such a specific manner.
You entrusted your life, your future and your desires to him.
And you felt a lot of hope and peace in your heart.
Saint Dominic spoke to you in this way, by giving your hope and peace.
I like to remember what happened to Saint Catherine of Siena when she desired to become a Dominican:
“Chaterine felt an increasing desire to accomplish a project which she had entertained indeed from her infancy; namely, to be clothed with the habit of the order founded by the illustrious St. Dominick, hoping she could thus more easily accomplish her holy vow.
She prayed continually to God, through the intercession of that saint, who had displayed such an impassioned zeal for the salvation of souls.
Our Lord, seeing this young and generous athlete combating in the arena, encouraged her by the following vision.
During her deep, she seemed to behold all the Founders of the various orders, and among them St. Dominick, whom she recognized by a lily of dazzling brightness which he bore in his hand, and which was burning without being consumed.
They each and all engaged her to select an order, so as to serve God in higher perfection; she turned towards St. Dominick, whom she saw advancing towards her and presenting her with a habit of the Sisters of Penance of St. Dominick, who are very numerous in Siena.
He addressed her in the following consoling words “Daughter, be of good heart, fear no obstacle, excite your courage, for the happy day will come when you shall be clothed in the pious habit you desire.”.
This promise filled her heart with joy, she thanked the great St. Dominick with an effusion of tears, which awakened her, and restored her to her senses.” (Blessed Raymond of Capua, Legenda Maior, Life of Saint Catherine, 20).
Perhaps you didn’t hear these exact words from Saint Dominic.
But you felt hope and peace and the mere thought of becoming a Dominican makes you very happy.
It seems to be that all of these vibrations of your heart express through emotion the words the Holy Father Dominic gave to Catherine in order to accompany those same sentiments and he says to you as well: “Son, be of good heart, fear no obstacle, excite your courage, for the happy day will come when you shall be clothed in the pious habit you desire”.
So you will be able to dress Jesus with your love, like you dear, and to testify in front of the world that you chose Him for your life, “the better part” (Lk 10:42).
While thanking you for this beautiful testimony of what Jesus did for you in your life through Mary, I assure you of my prayer (which will also be accompanied by that of many of our visitors) and I bless you.
Father Angelo