Coimbra, Sept. 16, 1970

Dear Mother Martins,
Pax Christi

I received your letter, for which I greatly thank you. It has been a long time since I heard any news from you, and I didn’t even know about your state of health, nor how you were feeling after the operation. By what you say to me, I see that you must have suffered a lot! This is the penance that Our Lord now asks of you, and these sufferings that He sometimes sends us are the hardest to take. But they are also that which most unite us to Him, Who was the Martyr of Sorrows.

I also have not been feeling very well in my heart, in my eyes, etc. but it is necessary to complete in one’s self what is wanting in the Passion of Christ. It is necessary that Our Lord’s members be one with Him, by physical pain and by moral anguish … Our poor Lord, Who saved us with such love, and how little understood He is! How little loved! How badly served! It is painful to see such disorientation, and in so many people who occupy positions of responsibility! …

As much as possible, we have to seek to make reparation by a union with the Lord that is ever more intimate, identifying ourselves with Him, so that He may be, in us, the light of this world which is immersed in the darkness of error, immorality and pride. It hurts me to learn about what you say, of what already is also happening there!

… It is because the devil has been able to infiltrate evil under the guise of good, and they act as the blind leading the blind, as Our Lord tells us in His Gospel; and souls go on allowing themselves to be deceived.

Voluntarily I sacrifice myself and offer my life to God, for peace in His Church, for priests and for all consecrated souls, above all for those who carry on so erroneously and so deceived! For our separated Brothers: May God give light to all of them and put them on the right path — the path of Truth, which is Jesus Christ.

Regarding what you tell me about the recitation of the Rosary, how sad! Because the prayer of the Rosary or five decades of it, after the Liturgy of the Most Holy Eucharist, is what most unites us to God by the richness of the prayers with which it is composed, all of them coming from Heaven, dictated by the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

The Glory Be that we pray in all the mysteries was dictated by the Father to the Angels when He sent them to sing it to His Word as a newborn babe, and it is a hymn to the Trinity.

The Our Father was dictated to us by the Son, and it is a prayer addressed to the Father.

The Hail Mary is, all of it, impregnated with meaning both with regard to the Trinity and to the Eucharist. The first words were dictated by the Father to the Angel when He sent him to announce the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word.

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee": Thou art full of grace, because in Thee resides the source of the same Grace. And it is by Thy union with the Most Holy Trinity that Thou art full of grace.

Moved by the Holy Ghost, St. Elizabeth said: "Blessed art Thou amongst all women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus": If Thou art blessed, it is because Jesus, the fruit of Thy womb, is blessed.

The Church also moved by the Holy Ghost, added the words: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death": This is also a prayer addressed to God through Mary: Because Thou art the Mother of God, pray for us.

It is indeed a Trinitarian prayer because Mary was the first living Temple of the Most Holy Trinity: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon Thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow Thee; — and the Son which shall be born of Thee shall be called the Son of the Most High."

Mary is the first living Tabernacle where the Father enclosed His Word. Her Immaculate Heart is the first Monstrance that sheltered Him. Her lap and Her arms were the first altar and the first throne upon which the Son of God made man was adored. There the Angels, the Shepherds and the wise men of the earth adored Him. Mary is the first Who took the Son of God in Her pure and Immaculate hands and brought Him to the Temple to offer Him to the Father as a victim for the salvation of the world.

So the prayer of the Rosary, after the Liturgy of the Most Holy Eucharist, is what most introduces us to the intimate mystery of the Most Holy Trinity and the Eucharist; what most brings us to the spirit of the mysteries of Faith, Hope and Charity.

The prayer of the Rosary is the spiritual bread of souls: Whoever does not pray, wastes away and dies. It is by prayer that we find ourselves with God, and in this meeting with Him, He communicates to us Faith, Hope and Charity: virtues without which we cannot be saved.

The Rosary is the prayer of the rich and the poor, of the educated and the simple. Take this devotion away from souls, and you take away their spiritual daily bread.

The Rosary is what sustains the little flame of Faith that still has not been extinguished in many consciences. Even for those souls who pray without meditating, the very act of taking up the Rosary to pray is already a remembrance of God, of the Supernatural. A simple recollection of the mysteries of each decade is one more ray of light to sustain in souls the still smoldering wick.

This is why the devil has made such war against it. And what is worse is that he has succeeded in deluding and deceiving souls who have much responsibility because of the positions they occupy!

… They are the blind leading the blind! … And they would want to base themselves on the Council! They do not see that the Council ordered that all the practices be preserved which down through the ages have been done in honor of the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God; and that the prayer of the Holy Rosary, or five decades of it, is one of the principal practices that by order of the Holy Council and the Supreme Pontiff, we are under obligation to preserve, that is to say, we must preserve. I have great hope that the day will not be long in coming in which the prayer of the Holy Rosary will be declared liturgical prayer. Yes, because all of it forms part of the Liturgy of the Most Holy Eucharist. We pray, work, sacrifice ourselves and trust that —

"In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph!"

Adieu, my dear Sister. The Statue of the Child Jesus that is to go to the Church of the Holy Name of God is still here. Whenever you want, you can come and get it.

A warm embrace for the beloved Mother Cunha Matos and for you, in union of prayers as always.

I don’t know the book of which you speak.

Sr. Lucy, o.c.d.