Catholic during the Great Apostasy

…Mary will help us, too, to free our souls from the vile bondage in which they may have groaned for years. We were born in slavery, but by God’s grace we were set free, we do not know how to value freedom, and we do not shun slavery.

Loneliness of the Soul – Forbidden E-book

A strange contradiction in our reason; a strange contradiction in our heart; a strange contradiction in our will! Nature and grace, the world and God are at war with each other, and the battle ground is our heart. We love freedom and seek bondage, for we founded our freedom in bondage. Freedom has become a bondage. We have sold the freedom of the children of God for the freedom of the children of darkness.

Freedom seeks the light, for the light is truth, and we can only be in truth and freedom. But in rejecting truth, we reject freedom; we forge chains for ourselves, as if we feared lest the free soul should return to its God. We tear the heart out of God’s hands, out of the Father’s hands, in order to put it under the power of the oppressors.

Vengeance, vindictiveness, debauchery, avarice, avarice debases the spirit, tears the heart, troubles the conscience, and we, groaning under such a heavy yoke, cry out: we need freedom, but freedom without God, freedom without truth, freedom without love! – That is: we want freedom for evil, we want freedom to lose our salvation. O ! such freedom the results of which we see around us, we see in ourselves! May we, having seen, come to know; having known, do and regain the freedom which God has given us.

Let us ask Mary what is the kindest thing we can do for her, and she will answer: Deliver thy soul, and I will give thee my hand; show me the wounds of thy heart, and I will heal them; show me the darkness of thy mind, and I will unravel it. Thou hast lived long without me, and thy life was death; die to thy former life, and in me thou shalt live; by thine own strength thou shalt not break the chains which the world hath forged for thee. Call upon me for help, and you will experience my power, for I am your Mother, the Mother of mercy! O for this, the memorial of this day shall be the memorial of thy rebirth; be slaves of Mary, for the slavery of the Mother is the way of freedom for the children,

Amen.

From the manuscripts of Father Karol Antoniewicz S. J. reprinted separately from a devotional book by the same author. Kraków. 1883.