The Ardent Prayer

Memento...

1. Memento, Domine, Congregationis tuae, quam possedisti ab initio.

Remember, Lord, your Congregation which you have possessed from all eternity, thinking of it in your mind ab initio; which you have possessed in your hands when you drew the universe from nothing ab initio; which you have possessed in your heart when your dear Son, dying on the Cross, watered it with his blood and consecrated it by his death, entrusting it to his holy Mother.

2. Grant, Lord, the designs of your mercy; raise up the men of your right hand, such as you have shown them, by giving prophetic knowledge to some of your greatest servants — a St. Francis of Paola, a St. Vincent Ferrer, a St. Catherine of Siena — and to so many other great souls in the last century and even in the one in which we live.

3. Memento: Almighty God, remember this company by applying the omnipotence of your arm, which is not shortened, to bring it to birth and lead it to its perfection. Innova signa, immuta mirabilia, sentiamus adjutorium brachii tui. O great God, who can raise up children of Abraham from rough stones, speak but a single word as God to send good laborers into your harvest and good missionaries into your Church.

4. Memento: God of goodness, remember your ancient mercies, and by these same mercies remember this congregation. Remember the repeated promises you have made to us through your prophets and through your Son himself, to hear us in our just requests. Remember the prayers that your servants, men and women, have offered you on this subject for so many centuries; may their vows, their sobs, their tears, and their shed blood come into your presence to plead powerfully for your mercy. But remember above all your dear Son: respice in faciem Christi tui. His agony, his shame, and his loving cry in the Garden of Olives when he said: quae utilitas in sanguine meo — his cruel death and his shed blood cry aloud to you for mercy, so that through this Congregation his kingdom may be established upon the ruins of that of your enemies.

5. Memento: remember, Lord, this Community in the workings of your justice. Tempus faciendi, Domine, dissipaverunt legem tuam: it is time to do what you have promised to do. Your divine law is transgressed, your Gospel is abandoned, torrents of iniquity flood the whole earth and carry away even your servants. The whole earth is laid waste, impiety sits on the throne, your sanctuary is profaned, and the abomination reaches even into the holy place. Will you leave all this forsaken, just Lord, God of vengeance? Will everything in the end become like Sodom and Gomorrah? Will you keep silent forever? Will you endure this forever? Must not your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and must not your kingdom come? Have you not shown in advance to some of your friends a future renewal of your Church? Must not the Jews be converted to the truth? Is this not what the Church awaits? Do not all the saints in heaven cry out to you for justice: vindica? Do not all the just on earth say to you: amen, veni, Domine? Even the most insensible creatures groan under the weight of Babylon's innumerable sins and beg for your coming to restore all things: omnis creatura ingemiscit, etc. [cf. Rom 8:22]

6. Lord Jesus, memento Congregationis tuae: remember to give your Mother a new Company to renew all things through her, and to end through Mary the years of grace as you began them through her. Da matri tuae liberos, alioquin moriar: give children and servants to your Mother, or else let me die. Da Matri tuae: it is for your Mother that I pray to you. Remember her womb and her breasts, and do not reject me. Remember who you are, and hear me. Remember what she is to you and what you are to her, and grant my prayers. What do I ask of you? Nothing for myself, everything for your glory. What do I ask of you? What you can and even — I dare say — what you ought to grant me, as the true God that you are, to whom all power has been given in heaven and on earth, and as the best of all children, who love your Mother infinitely.

7. What do I ask of you? Liberos: priests who are free with your freedom, detached from everything — without father, without mother, without brothers, without sisters, without relatives according to the flesh, without friends according to the world, without possessions, without entanglements, without cares, and even without a will of their own.

8. Liberos: slaves of your love and your will, men after your own heart who, without any self-will to stain or hinder them, carry out all your wishes and overthrow all your enemies — like so many new Davids, with the staff of the Cross and the sling of the holy Rosary in their hands: in baculo Cruce et in virga Virgine.

9. Liberos: clouds raised from the earth and full of heavenly dew, who fly freely in every direction at the breath of the Holy Spirit. It is of them in part that your prophets had knowledge when they asked: qui sunt isti qui sicut nubes volant? Ubi erat impetus spiritus illuc gradiebantur. [Ezek 1:12]

10. Liberos: men always at your hand, always ready to obey you at the voice of their superiors, like Samuel: praesto sum; always ready to run and to suffer all things with you and for you, like the apostles: eamus et moriamur cum illo.

11. Liberos: true children of Mary, your holy Mother, begotten and conceived by her charity, carried in her womb, attached to her breasts, nourished with her milk, raised by her care, supported by her arm, and enriched by her graces.

12. Liberos: true servants of the Blessed Virgin who, like so many St. Dominics, go everywhere with the shining and burning torch of the holy Gospel on their lips and the holy Rosary in their hands — barking like dogs, burning like fires, and illuminating the darkness of the world like suns — who, by means of a true devotion to Mary, that is to say, one that is interior without hypocrisy, exterior without criticism, prudent without ignorance, tender without indifference, constant without fickleness, and holy without presumption, crush everywhere they go the head of the ancient serpent, so that the curse you pronounced upon him may be fully accomplished: inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem, inter semen tuum et semen ipsius et ipsa conteret caput tuum.

13. It is true, great God, that the devil will lay, as you have foretold, great snares for the heel of this mystical woman — that is, for this little company of her children who will come at the end of the world — and that there will be great enmities between this blessed posterity of Mary and the accursed race of Satan. But this is an entirely divine enmity, the only one of which you are the author: inimicitias ponam. But these battles and persecutions which the children and race of Belial will wage against the race of your holy Mother will only serve to make the power of your grace, the courage of their virtue, and the authority of your Mother shine forth all the more — since from the beginning of the world you gave her the commission to crush that proud one by the humility of her heart and her heel: Ipsa conteret caput tuum.

14. Alioquin moriar: is it not better for me to die than to see you, my God, so cruelly and so unpunished offended every day, and to be myself in ever-growing danger of being swept away by the torrents of iniquity that swell around me? A thousand deaths would be more tolerable. Either send me help from heaven, or take my soul. If I did not hope that you will sooner or later hear this poor sinner in the interests of your glory, as you have already heard so many others — iste pauper clamavit et Dominus exaudivit eum — I would say to you outright with one prophet: tolle animam meam. But the trust I have in your mercy makes me say with another: non moriar sed vivam et narrabo opera Domini, until I can say with Simeon: nunc dimittis servum tuum in pace, quia viderunt oculi mei, etc.

15. Memento: Holy Spirit, remember to bring forth and form children of God with your divine and faithful Spouse, Mary. You formed the Head of the predestined with her and in her; it is with her and in her that you must form all his members. You beget no divine Person within the Godhead; but you alone form all divine persons outside the Godhead, and all the saints who have been and will be until the end of the world are so many works of your love united to Mary.

16. The special reign of God the Father lasted until the flood and was ended by a flood of water; the reign of Jesus Christ was ended by a flood of blood; but your reign, Spirit of the Father and the Son, continues now and will be ended by a flood of fire, of love, and of justice.

17. When will it come, this flood of fire of pure love that you must kindle over all the earth in a manner so gentle and so powerful that all nations — the Turks, the idolaters, and even the Jews — will burn with it and be converted? Non est qui se abscondat a calore ejus. Accendatur: let this divine fire that Jesus Christ came to cast upon the earth be kindled before you kindle the fire of your wrath that will reduce the whole earth to ashes. Emitte Spiritum tuum et creabuntur et renovabis faciem terrae: send this Spirit, all of fire, upon the earth, to create priests all of fire, through whose ministry the face of the earth may be renewed and your Church reformed.

18. Memento Congregationis tuae: it is a congregation, an assembly, a chosen band, a selection of the predestined that you must make in the world and from the world: Ego elegi vos de mundo. [John 15:19] It is a flock of peaceful lambs that you must gather from among so many wolves; a company of chaste doves and royal eagles from among so many ravens; a swarm of honeybees from among so many hornets; a troop of swift deer from among so many tortoises; a battalion of courageous lions from among so many timid hares. Ah, Lord! Congrega nos de nationibus! Gather us, unite us, so that all glory may be rendered to your holy and mighty name.

19. You foretold this illustrious company to your prophet, who describes it in terms very obscure and very secret, but wholly divine: 1. Pluviam voluntariam segregabis, Deus, haereditati tuae et infirmata est, tu vero perfecisti eam. — 2. Animalia tua habitabunt in ea. Parasti in dulcedine tua pauperi, Deus. — 3. Dominus dabit verbum evangelizantibus virtute multa. — 4. Rex virtutum dilecti dilecti in speciei domus dividere spolia. — 5. Si dormiatis inter medios cleros, pennae columbae deargentatae et posteriora dorsi ejus in pallore auri. — 6. Deus discernit caelestis reges super eam, nive dealbabuntur in Selmon; mons Dei, mons pinguis. — 7. Mons coagulatus, mons pinguis; ut quid suspicamini montes coagulatos. — 9. Mons in quo beneplacitum est Deo habitare in eo, etenim Deus habitabit in finem.

20. What is, Lord, this voluntary rain that you have separated and chosen for your weakened inheritance, if not these holy missionaries, children of Mary your Spouse, whom you must gather and set apart for the good of your Church, so weakened and so stained by the crimes of her children?

21. Who are these animals and these poor ones who will dwell in your inheritance and be nourished there by the divine sweetness you have prepared for them, if not these poor missionaries abandoned to Providence, who will overflow with your most divine delights? If not these mystical animals of Ezekiel, who will have the humanity of man through their selfless and generous charity toward their neighbor; the courage of the lion through their holy anger and their ardent and prudent zeal against the demons and the children of Babylon; the strength of the ox through their apostolic labors and their mortification of the flesh; and the swiftness of the eagle through their contemplation of God? Such will be the missionaries you intend to send to your Church. They will have an eye of man for their neighbor, an eye of lion against your enemies, an eye of ox against themselves, and an eye of eagle for you.

22. These imitators of the apostles will preach virtute multa, virtute magna, with great force and power, and so great and so brilliant that they will move all the minds and hearts of the places where they preach. It is to them that you will give your word: dabit vobis os et sapientiam cui non poterunt resistere omnes adversarii vestri, which none of their enemies will be able to resist.

23. It is among these beloved ones that you, as King of the virtues of Jesus Christ the Beloved, will take your delight, since they will have no other aim in all their missions than to give you all the glory of the spoils they win from your enemies: Rex virtutum dilecti dilecti et speciei domus dividere spolia.

24. Through their abandonment to Providence and their devotion to Mary, they will have the silvered wings of the dove: inter medios cleros pennae columbae deargentatae — that is, the purity of doctrine and of morals — and a golden back: et posteriora dorsi ejus in pallore auri — that is, a perfect charity toward their neighbor to bear his faults, and a great love for Jesus Christ to carry his Cross.

25. You alone, as King of heaven and King of kings, will set apart these missionaries from the common run, like so many kings, to make them whiter than snow on the mountain of Selmon — mountain of God, abundant and fertile mountain, strong and dense mountain, mountain in which God delights wonderfully and in which he dwells and will dwell until the end. Who is, Lord, God of truth, this mysterious mountain of which you tell us so many wonders, if not Mary, your dear Spouse, whose foundations you have set upon the summits of the highest mountains: Fundamenta ejus in montibus sanctis. Mons in vertice montium. Happy and a thousand times happy the priests whom you have so well chosen and predestined to dwell with you on this abundant and divine mountain, so as to become kings of eternity through their contempt for the earth and their elevation in God; so as to become whiter than snow through their union with Mary, your Spouse, all beautiful, all pure, and all immaculate; so as to be enriched with the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth, with all the temporal and eternal blessings with which Mary is filled to overflowing. It is from the heights of this mountain that, like so many Moseses, they will hurl by their ardent prayers shafts against their enemies to terrify or convert them. It is on this mountain that they will learn from the very lips of Jesus Christ, who dwells there always, the understanding of his eight Beatitudes. It is on this mountain of God that they will be transfigured with him as on Tabor, that they will die with him as on Calvary, and that they will ascend to heaven with him as on the Mount of Olives.

26. Memento Congregationis tuae. Tuae: it is for you alone to form this assembly by your grace. If man puts his hand to it first, nothing will be accomplished; if he mixes his own work with yours, he will spoil everything, overturn everything. Tuae Congregationis: it is your work, great God. Opus tuum fac: accomplish your wholly divine work. Gather, call, assemble from every corner of your dominion your elect, to make of them a body of troops against your enemies.

27. Do you see, Lord, God of armies, the captains forming full companies, the rulers raising vast armies, the sailors assembling entire fleets, the merchants gathering in great numbers at the markets and fairs? What a multitude of thieves, impious men, drunkards, and libertines unite in crowds against you every day, so easily and so quickly! A whistle blown, a drum beaten, a blunted sword-point displayed, a laurel branch promised, a piece of yellow or white earth offered — in short, a wisp of honor, a worthless gain, and a wretched animal pleasure held out — and in an instant it gathers the thieves, assembles the soldiers, joins the battalions, draws together the merchants, fills the houses and markets, and covers the land and sea with an innumerable multitude of the reprobate, who, though all divided from one another either by distance, or by difference of temperament, or by self-interest, nevertheless all unite even unto death to wage war against you under the banner and command of the devil.

28. And you, great God — though there is so much glory, sweetness, and profit in serving you — will hardly anyone take up your cause? Will hardly any soldier rally to your standard? Will hardly any St. Michael cry out from among his brothers, zealous for your glory: Quis ut Deus? Ah, let me cry out everywhere: fire! fire! fire! Help! help! help! Fire in the house of God! Fire in souls! Fire even in the sanctuary! Help for our brother who is being murdered! Help for our children who are being slaughtered! Help for our good father who is being stabbed!

29. Qui Domini est jungatur mihi: let all the good priests scattered throughout the Christian world, whether they have retired from the fray into deserts or solitudes — let these good priests come and join us. Vis unita fit fortior, so that under the standard of the Cross we may form an army well arrayed in battle and well ordered, to attack in concert the enemies of God who have already sounded the alarm: sonuerunt, frenduerunt, fremuerunt, multiplicati sunt. Dirumpamus vincula eorum et projiciamus a nobis jugum ipsorum. Qui habitat in coelis irridebit eos. [Ps 2:3-4]

30. Exsurgat Deus et dissipentur inimici ejus! Exsurge, Domine, quare obdormis? Exsurge. [Ps 44:23] Lord, arise! Why do you seem to sleep? Arise in your omnipotence, your mercy, and your justice, to form for yourself a chosen company of bodyguards, to guard your house, to defend your glory, and to save souls, so that there may be but one fold and one shepherd, and that all may render glory to you in your temple: et in templo ejus omnes dicent gloriam. Amen. God alone!