Can God the Father “Appear” and Speak to a Human Person? Has the Father Ever “Appeared” to His Creatures?

The answer to both questions is Yes.

We must qualify this answer to say that any such “appearance” is necessarily tailored to the cognitive capability of the recipient. God is infinite Spirit. The second Person of the Trinity took on a human nature in the Incarnation. This human nature is an essential dimension of God incarnate although not of the Godhead. If God the Father manifests himself to a human being, it will necessarily have to be through some kind of vehicle – whether it be a burning bush, a voice in the sky or in the form of a human being. Such vehicles are not “part” of the Godhead but are simply instruments used for the purpose of the revelation.

Let us start with the Old Testament. When the New Testament talks about God, the reference is to the Father. For instance, when St. Paul says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with all of you,” (2 Corinthians 13:13), he is referring to the Father when he says God. And God as Father in this and similar contexts in the New Testament is the same God who interacted with the people of Israel in the Old Testament. Thus, the direct encounters with God in the Old Testament are, for the most part, encounters with the Father (although there are also some that are clearly encounters with the Son and the Holy Spirit).

Here are some instances of “appearances” of God in the Old Testament:

“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said: I am God the Almighty. Walk in my presence and be blameless.” (Genesis 17:1)

“The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oak of Mamre, as he sat in the entrance of his tent, while the day was growing hot. Looking up, he saw three men standing near him.” (Genesis 18:1-2)

“Jacob named the place Peniel, “because I have seen God face to face,” he said, “yet my life has been spared.”” (Genesis 34:31)

“When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to look, God called out to him from the bush: Moses! Moses! He answered, “Here I am.”” (Exodus 3:4)

“Since then no prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.” (Deuteronomy 34:10)

The New Testament shows us direct encounters with the Father at the baptism of Jesus and at the Transfiguration:

“The holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”” (Luke 3:22)

“While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”” (Matthew 17:5)

“For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory, “This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain.” (2 Peter 1:16-17)

These encounters did not end with the age of the Apostles.

In Christian history, the most famous direct appearance of the Father was witnessed by St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits.

This is memorably described in the Protestant publication Christianity Today:

“During this time Ignatius had one of his most decisive visions. While in prayer one day, he saw Christ with a cross on his shoulder, and beside him was God the Father, who said, “I wish you to take this man [meaning Ignatius] for your servant.” Jesus said to Ignatius, “My will is that you should serve us.” Ignatius was also told that his group was to be called “the company of Jesus,” that they were to be like a company of fur traders yet focused on doing God’s will.”¹

Here is another account:

St. Ignatius “took his way towards Rome, on foot, with F. Faber, and F. Laínez in his company [. . .] one day drawing nigh to the city of Rome, leaving the two Fathers in the field, he went into a deserted and solitary church some mile from the city to pray. There amidst the greatest fervor of his prayers, he felt his heart changed, and God the Father appeared to him, together with his most Blessed Son, who carried the Cross upon his shoulders and with the eyes of his soul, illustrated with that resplendent light, he saw that the Eternal Father, turning to his only begotten Son, commended Ignatius, and those in his company unto him, with exceeding great love, putting them into his hands.”²

St. Margaret Mary of the Sacred Heart and Sister Lucia of Fatima had visions of the Trinity and of the Father as a distinct Person. St. Margaret Mary describes the experience in her autobiography: “The Eternal Father presented me with a very heavy cross beset with thorns and surrounded with various instruments of the Passion and [the Father] said to me:  ‘See, My daughter, I make thee the same present which I made to My Beloved Son.'”  St. Faustina Kowalska of the Divine Mercy received direct messages from the Father.

So, to repeat, the answer to the questions with which we started is YES.

But how is an appearance of the Father possible? St. Thomas Aquinas shows us why there is no theological obstacle to its possibility.  But he points out whereas the Son and the Spirit are “sent” by the Father and manifest themselves as sent, the Father can manifest himself but not as one who is sent.

“The dilemma is that the missions follow the order of the processions (as we said), but the Father proceeds from none. The answer is that the Father is not sent, but is present in the soul by virtue of the Trinitarian concomitance we averred to in the last paragraph: “As to the Father, though He dwells in us by grace, still it does not belong to Him to be from another, and consequently He is not sent.”³

The visible mission adds something to the apparition, to wit, the authority of the sender. Therefore the Son and the Holy Ghost who are from another, are said not only to appear, but also to be sent visibly. But the Father, who is not from another, can appear indeed, but cannot be sent visibly. ⁴

End Notes

¹https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/moversandshakers/ignatius-of-loyola.html

²https://www.uni-uenster.de/imperia/md/content/mittellatein/forschung/intersections/22alison_c_fleming_-_st_ignatius_of_loyola___s____vision_at_la_storta____and_the_foundation_of_the_society_of_jesus.pdf

³Summa Theologiae Ia Q. 43, A. 5.

⁴https://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.TP_Q39_A8.html

Did God the Father “Appear” to Mother Eugenia and are the Messages She Received Genuinely Messages from the Father?

 This is a question that should be answered with reference to similar phenomena. We might likewise ask: did Jesus appear to St. Margaret Mary or St. Faustina Kowalska?  This kind of question cannot be answered with the same certainty that we have when we say Jesus rose from the dead. The claim of the resurrection of Jesus is based on the scriptural accounts. It is part of the “public” revelation and has a level of authority and certainty that transcends any claim of private revelation such as we have in the case of these two saints – even when these private revelations have been approved by the Church.

But we have three criteria we can turn to in these matters: does the witness seem reliable? Is the revelation associated with the encounter compatible with the public revelation recorded in Scripture? Has the Church deemed it “worthy of belief?” If the answer to these three questions is “Yes”, then we have good reason to affirm that the claim of a private revelation is authentic. Other factors such as our own experience can provide us with certainty.

As it pertains to the revelation reported by Mother Eugenia, as we shall see, it is theologically compatible with the public revelation and it received the highest form of recognition possible for a private revelation, the approval of the local bishop (more on this below). Mother Eugenia herself led a remarkable life:

Despite only having one year of formal schooling she was able to enter the  the Congregation of Our Lady of the Apostles at the age of 20 in October 1927.  She was 24 when God the Father appeared to her.   Three years after the alleged manifestation in 1932, she was elected Superior General of the Congregation at the age of just  27 on 7th August 1935.

The fruits of the grace of the message and her unity to the Father were immediately manifest.  She was head of the congregation for  12 years and in that time   opened over 70 centres in remote Africa and Asia, and Europe. It was she who discovered the First medicine for the cure of leprosy, extracting it from the seed of a tropical plant. Yet, in all of these  and other incredible achievements she never sought any acclamation from anyone and was pleased to see others acknowledged before her. There are many testimonies of how she exuded holiness and there were miraculous healings that occurred through her intercession whilst she was alive and also following her death on August 10th 1990.¹

In later life she was persecuted by jealous nuns and unscrupulous ecclesiastics. But she had a powerful protector in Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, secretary of the Holy Office from 1959 to 1966 and then pro-prefect until 1968 of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Such persecution was only to be expected for those whom God chooses. A good example is Padre Pio who was silenced, slandered and harassed for most of his public life.

The claim of the revelation made to Mother Eugenia also conforms with the prior pattern of private revelations made by the divine Persons where the revelation confirms what is found in the public revelation.

On all these counts, and on the basis of our own personal experience of the Father, we can affirm the authenticity of the appearance of God the Father to Mother Eugenia.

End Notes

¹https://www.lovethefather.com/

What Does the Catholic Church Say About the Reported Appearance of the Father?

The Church has approved the claim of the appearance of God the Father to Mother Eugenia as well as its associated messages.

The ultimate authority for investigating the claim of an apparition is the local bishop. Church law for these matters was set by the Council of Trent and remains in effect to this day:

“The holy Synod ordains, that no one be allowed to place, or cause to be placed, any unusual image, in any place, or church, howsoever exempted, except that image have been approved of by the bishop: also, that no new miracles are to be acknowledged, or new relics recognised, unless the said bishop has taken cognizance and approved thereof; who, as soon as he has obtained some certain information in regard to these matters, shall, after having taken the advice of theologians, and of other pious men, act therein as he shall judge to be consonant with truth and piety.”¹

Vatican approval can be secured but is not necessary:

As established in the Council of Trent (1545-63), the local bishop is the first and main authority in the judgement of the authenticity of apparition claims. Vatican approval is not required for an apparition to be considered authentic. After an episcopal approval, the Vatican may do nothing but it may release an official statement or after some time give non-written forms of approval such as a papal visit with the crowning of the associated icon or a gift such as a golden rose, the approval of the construction of (or elevation of an existing shrine to) a basilica, the establishment of a feast day, or the canonization of the associated visionary.

Positive judgments by the local bishop (but not yet by the Vatican) theoretically are able to be reversed by a subsequent bishop – but this has never happened in the history of the Church. Negative judgments (Constat de non supernaturalitate) and rulings of no evidence of supernaturality (Non constat de supernaturalitate) have later been changed to positive judgments on a few rare occasions with the ruling of a subsequent bishop.²

The University of Dayton documents the process by which the local bishop goes about verifying an apparition and the significance of ecclesial approval (although they are speaking mainly of Marian apparitions the same applies to any claim of a supernatural apparition):

The local bishop is the first and main authority in apparition cases, which can be defined as instances of private revelation. Bishops evaluate evidence of an apparition according to these guidelines:

1. The facts in the case are free of error.
   2. The person(s) receiving the messages is/are psychologically balanced, honest, moral, sincere and respectful of church authority.
   3. Doctrinal errors are not attributed to God, Our Lady or to a saint.
   4. Theological and spiritual doctrines presented are free of error.
   5. Moneymaking is not a motive involved in the events.
   6. Healthy religious devotion and spiritual fruits result, with no evidence of collective hysteria.

Judgment can find that an apparition shows all signs of being an authentic or a truly miraculous intervention from heaven, that it is clearly not miraculous or there are not sufficient signs manifesting it to be so, or that it’s not evident whether or not the alleged apparition is authentic.

If a Marian apparition is recognized by the bishop, it means that the message is not contrary to faith and morals and that Mary can be venerated in a special way at the site. But, because belief in a private revelation is not required by the church, Catholics are at liberty to decide how much personal spiritual emphasis to place on apparitions and the messages they deliver.³

The report of the appearance of the Father to Mother Eugenia was approved by her local bishop after a ten-year investigation. Since then the Vicar General of the Vatican and numerous bishops have given their imprimaturs to her messages. There has been no negative pronouncement on the revelation from any Church authority. This is incalculably significant in terms of the authority accorded to the authenticity of the appearance and its messages.

Here is a summary of the investigation that ended with the approval of the encounter with the Father (the material below is excerpted from the very useful site www.lovethefather.com):

Enquiry Established by the Bishop of Grenoble

To challenge the veracity and the theological soundness of the claims of Eugenia relating to The Message (given in July-August 1932), the Bishop of Grenoble [Bishop Alexandre Caillot] established a Canonical Enquiry.  At that time Eugenia was only a young 27 year old nun who had been brought up as a peasant girl in another country  (Italy) with a different language.  She had received her veil as a nun only 6 years earlier.  The Message was written down by Sister Eugenia under the guidance of Father God in Latin, a language which she had never learnt.  Having only having a primary level of  education she had no capacity by herself to cope with the vocabulary, grammar, conjugations and spelling of the Latin language.

The panel conducting the Enquiry consisted of:

* Fr Auguste Valencin-Amons SJ.

* Albert Valencin-Amons SJ.

The above mentioned priests were from the Archdiocese of Lyon and were theologians at the major seminary of Lyon.  Being from another  diocese the enquiry had a high level of autonomy and independence, and representation from the oldest diocese of France.

*Mgr Emile Guerry, also a theologian, who was the Vicar General of Grenoble at the time, was another member of the panel. More will be said about him later.  He was to become a prominent Archbishop in France.

*Two medical doctors, one a psychiatrist,  made up the remainder of the panel.

The two Valencin brothers ranked at the time among the foremost authorities in the field of philosophy and theology and in their long career had proved themselves to be experts in evaluating such cases.

The Enquiry at first disbelieved Sister Eugenia and then it slowly changed its mind:

• The Enquiry was exhaustive.
• At the start of the Enquiry the Church authorities and the panel were totally disbelieving and dismissive of what Sister Eugenia told them.
• Then in January 1934 the major  block for the theologians was removed when they found that Saint Thomas Aquinas had declared in his Summa Theologiae that a person could see the “unseen” God under certain circumstances.  Nevertheless even after this, the Panel did not believe Sister Eugenia.  According to Bishop Caillot’s Testimony, Fr Auguste Valencin was brutal in his interrogation of her in June 1934. Continued disbelief by Church authorities and the panel was still so deep-seated that Eugenia was then subjected to the terrible experience of being committed by the Panel to a Church Mental Asylum (St Vincent’s) and spending a few days there over the Christmas period of 1934. However over many months of cross-examination Eugenia never changed anything in her statements or testimony.
• Over a long period of time, by way of exhaustive interrogations, searching and reflections, the panel gradually had all its doubts dispelled.  The panel finally submitted a long favourable report, along with a volumous file,  to the Bishop of Grenoble.
• The case and the findings were also submitted to the Vatican before any official pronouncement was made.

Bishop Alexandre Caillot after that period of 10 years of investigation declared in 1945:

A “Supernatural and Divine Intervention seems to me the only logical and satisfactory explanation of the facts.”

Footnote

​As Vicar General of the Diocese of Grenoble  Emile Guerry (1891-1969) had a thorough involvement in the process of the Canonical Investigation. Although initially he had reservations, in   the end he was thoroughly convinced of the authenticity of the accounts given by Mother Eugenia and was inspired to write a book in 1936 , “Vers  le Père”  (Towards the Father).   This work was not about Mother Eugenia and her visions but was series of eighty nine meditations on the Father and the Holy Trinity.

Written originally in French, this work was subsequently translated and published in  five other languages:  English, Italian, Spanish, German and Polish.

Many believe it was this work that played a strong part in him being elevated to the position of Secretary to the French Assembly of Cardinals and Archbishops, and then to being ordained Bishop of episcopacy in 1940.  He fulfilled this role admirably and so was appointed   Archbishop of Cambrai in 1952.  Cambrai is in the North West of France, bordering on Belgium.  He was a Council Father on all four sessions of the Vatican Council.

His glowing testimony on the power of this devotion to do enormous  good in souls and in one’s diocese we repeat on this page:

“All those who- whether preachers or directors of consciences – have contributed to spread it (That is devotion to the Father), have rejoiced to note the profound effects of purifications and sanctification it has brought about in souls.”

Of further interest too is the fact that a  contemporary  Cardinal Jean Verdier, Archbishop of Paris,  gave an Imprimatur to all the main prayers that came to us from Mother Eugenia  on 8 May 1936. Cardinal Verdier is buried in a sarcophagus close to the Main Altar in Notre Dame Cathedral Paris. ⁴

Bishop Petrus Canisius van Lierde, Vicar General of the Vatican, gave his imprimatur to the account of the appearance to Mother Eugenia and its messages in 1989.

The world’s first church dedicated to God the Father, and inspired by the revelation to Mother Eugenia, was built in Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine. Its foundation stone was blessed by Pope St. John Paul II. The Archbishop of Chennai in India, the Archbishop of  Kharkov-Zaporizhzhya in Ukraine and other bishops around the world have officially promoted the devotion to God the Father in their dioceses.

End Notes

¹https://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/trentall.html

²http://www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/approved_apparitions/vatican.html

³https://udayton.edu/imri/mary/a/apparitions-approval-process.php

⁴https://www.lovethefather.com/the-canonical-investigation

What Do the Father’s Messages Tell Us Him?

The content of the messages received by Mother Eugenia represent a return to the source documents of the Christian faith, the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament.

In the Gospel of John, we are told:

“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.” (John 4:23)

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

“Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.” (John 17:3)

The movement of salvation was initiated by God the Father and reaches its culmination in our knowledge of the Father through his Son, Jesus the Messiah.

In fact, the knowledge of God the Father in the New Testament is the climax of the revelation of God as a father in the Old Testament. In this climax, Jesus reveals too that we become children of God the Father through the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The New Testament spotlights the coming of Jesus and the sending of the Holy Spirit. But the coming of Jesus is initiated by the Father. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son. The goal in the salvific journey is to become children of the Father! “As proof that you are children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Galatians 4:6). “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!”” (Romans 8:14-15)

But this pivotal role of the Father has been neglected in the two millennia that followed the coming of Jesus perhaps because the Church had to consolidate its understanding of the Son and the Spirit. Consequently, we have feasts for the Son (Christmas) and the Spirit (Pentecost) but no feast for the Father. The study of the Son is called Christology. The study of the Holy Spirit is called Pneumatology. But there is no corresponding focus on the study of the Father. This vacuum certainly represents an incompleteness in our lived awareness of God as Trinity and consequently the fullness of Christian revelation.

And it is a vacuum that had to be filled by divine intervention – much as the lack of a devotion to the salvific Love of the incarnate Son led to the Sacred Heart revelation to St. Margaret Mary and the lack of a sense of the sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit led to the revelation to Sister Elena Guerra.

In this context, the discourse from the Father recorded by Mother Eugenia feels like a cold shower for the faithful who have ignored or downplayed what is obvious in the texts of Scripture: the fundamental role of the Father in reality as a whole and in salvation history.

Take a look at these texts from the New Testament.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world.” (Ephesians 1:3)

“Giving thanks to the Father, who has made you fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in light. He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:12-14)

“Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things are and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are and through whom we exist. (1 Corinthians 8:6)

“See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.” (1 John 3:1).

“My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.” (John 10:29-30)

“Jesus answered and said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, a son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees his father doing; for what he does, his son will do also. For the Father loves his Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed.” (John 5:19-20)

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” (Matthew 11:27)

“The works that the Father gave me to accomplish, these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. Moreover, the Father who sent me has testified on my behalf. But you have never heard his voice nor seen his form.” (John 5:36-37).

It is obvious then in the Gospels and the epistles that the Father has to play a central role in our understanding of God and salvation history and in our spiritual lives. It is in this context that we can understand the raison d’être of the appearance of the Father and his messages.

The messages of the Father tell us what we need to know, what we need to do and the benefits of both. These can be sub-categorized under three themes – what we need to personally know about the Father, what he tells us about salvation and what he reveals to us about the Trinity and the Incarnation.

Here we will examine what the Father says about himself, his relationship to us, and what he wants us to do.

In the messages concerning these themes, the Father tells us he wants us to know, love and honor him. He wants us to come to know his infinite love. He wants us to have total trust and confidence in him and he cannot “resist” the requests of those who have complete confidence (this request for trust and confidence is found in both Old and New Testaments). He wants us to share in his infinite power. He wants us to have a special devotion to him which is urgent in view of the distorted idea of God found almost everywhere. This special devotion includes celebrating a feast in his honor similar to the feasts honoring the Son and the Holy Spirit. Love is at the center of all the messages.

These are the Father’s messages about himself and the relationship he wants us to have with him:

• I am coming to banish the excessive fear that My creatures have of Me, and to show them that My joy lies in being known and loved by My children, that is, by all mankind, present and future.

I am coming to bring hope to men and nations. How many have long since lost it! This hope will make them live in peace and security, working for their salvation.

I am coming to make Myself known just as I am, so that men’s trust may increase together with their love for Me, their Father. I have but one concern: to watch over all men and love them as My children.

• [After recounting the central events of the Old and New Testaments, the Father says:] This, then, in brief, is the story of My love until My coming among men through My Son. Most men know of all these events, but they fail to grasp the essential thing: that love was the guiding principle in it all! Yes, it is love. This is what I want to impress upon you. Now this love has been forgotten. I want to remind you of it, so that you can learn to know Me as I am, so that you will not be, like slaves, afraid of a Father Who loves you so much. You see, in this story we are only at the first day of the first century, and I would like to bring it up to the present time, the twentieth century. Oh, how My paternal love has been forgotten by Men! Yet I love you so tenderly! 
• But as you have seen, at every moment My protection manifests itself through graces and benefits. You can conclude from this that there is a Father Who is above all fathers, Who loves you and will never cease to love you, if you so desire.
• No one has yet understood the infinite desire of My divine, paternal Heart to be known, loved and honored by all men, the just and the sinful. These are the three gifts that I wish to receive in homage from man, so that I may always be merciful and good even towards the most hardened sinners.
• And how many creatures of My Hands, whose existence I know of but of which you are ignorant, do not even know the Hand Which shaped them! Oh, how I would like to let you know what an almighty Father I am for you and would also be for those creatures, through My benefits! I would like their lives to be made sweeter through My law. I would like you to go to them in My name and speak to them of Me. Yes, tell them that they have a Father who, having created them, wants to give them the treasures He possesses. Above all, tell them that I think of them, I love them and want to give them eternal happiness. Oh, I promise you, men’s conversion will come sooner.
• Believe Me, if you had begun to honor Me with a special devotion from the times of the early Church, after twenty centuries few men would remain living in idolatry, in paganism and in so many false and evil sects, in which man is running blindly towards the abyss of eternal fire! And see how much work remains to be done! My hour has come! I must be known, loved and honored by men, so that, having created them, I can be their Father, then their Savior and finally the object of their eternal delight.
• Oh, beloved humanity, oh, men who are My children, set yourselves free from the bonds in which the devil has chained you until now, inspiring in you fear of a Father Who is pure love! Come, come closer to Me, you have every right to approach your Father; open up your hearts, pray to My Son that He may help you to know even better My goodness towards you. You who are prisoners of superstition and the laws of the devil, leave this tyrannical slavery and come to the truth of truths. Recognize the One Who made you and is your Father.
• I make you a promise which will have an eternal effect. It is this: call Me by the name of Father, with confidence and love, and you will receive everything from this Father, with love and mercy.
• Since man’s creation, I have never for one moment stopped living beside him. As his Creator and Father, I feel the need to love him. It is not that I need him, but My love, as Father and Creator, makes Me feel this need to love man. Thus I live close to man, I follow him everywhere, I help him in all things, I supply everything. I can see his needs, his toils, all his desires, and My greatest happiness lies in helping him and saving him. Men believe Me to be a terrifying God Who is going to cast all mankind into hell. What a great surprise it will be when, at the end of time, they see so many souls they believed lost, enjoying eternal bliss among the elect! I wish all My creatures to be convinced that there is a Father Who watches over them and Who would like them to enjoy, on earth, a foretaste of eternal happiness.
• I have already told you that I want you to enjoy eternal happiness even here, on earth, but you still have not understood the real meaning of what I said. It is this: If you love Me and call Me by the sweet name of Father, you will begin to live, here and now, in the love and the trust which will make you happy in eternity and which you will sing in heaven in the company of the elect. Is this not a foretaste of the happiness of heaven, which will last for ever? I therefore desire man to remember often that I am right there, where he is, that he could not live if I were not with him, living just as he is. In spite of his unbelief, I always remain close to him.
• Oh, how I wish to see this plan of mine realized! Until now man has never thought of giving God, his Father, the pleasure I am about to speak of: I would like to see great trust established between man and his heavenly Father, a true spirit of familiarity and delicacy at the same time, so as not to take advantage of My great goodness. I know your needs, your desires, and everything in your hearts. But how happy and grateful I would be if I saw you coming to Me and confiding in Me your needs, like a son who has total trust in his father. How could I refuse you the smallest or biggest thing if you asked Me? Even if you do not see Me, do you not feel Me very close to you in the things that happen to you and around you? How you will be rewarded, one day, for having believed in Me, even without having seen Me! Even now that I am here, in person, among you all, talking to you, repeating ceaselessly, in every way, that I love you and want to be known, loved and honored with a special devotion, you cannot see Me, apart from a single person, the one to whom I am dictating this message! Only one among all of humanity! Yet I am talking to you, and in her whom I see and to whom I am talking I see you all and am speaking to each and every one of you, and I love you as if you could see Me!
• I would like to make My home in every family, as in My domain, so that all can say with absolute assurance: “We have a Father who is infinitely good, infinitely rich and greatly merciful. He thinks about us and is close to us. He looks after us, supports us. He will give us everything we need if we ask Him. All his riches are ours, we will have everything we need.” I am there precisely in order that you should ask Me for what you need. “Ask and you will receive.” In My fatherly goodness I will give you everything, provided that all regard Me as a true Father, living among His family, as I indeed do.
• I want to protect the young people as a tender Father. There is so much evil in the world! These poor, inexperienced souls are letting themselves be seduced by the attraction of vice which, little by little, leads to total ruin. You who especially need someone to take care of you in life, so that you can avoid evil, come to Me! I am the Father Who loves you more than any other creature will ever be able to do! Take refuge close, very close to Me, confide in Me your thoughts and your desires. I will love you tenderly. I will give you graces for the present and bless your future. You can be sure I will not forget you after fifteen or twenty-five or thirty years, having created you. Come! I see that you greatly need a sweet and infinitely good Father like Me.
• Come to Me through My Son and, once you are close to Me, confide your desires to Me. I will show you this fountain, making Myself known to you as I really am. When you know Me, your thirst will be quenched, you will be revived, your ills will be cured, your fears will vanish. Your joy will be great and your love will feel securer than it has ever been before. But, you will say to Me, how can we come to You? Oh, come by the path of confidence, call Me your Father, love Me in spirit and truth, and this will be enough to make this refreshing and powerful water quench your thirst. But if you really want this water to give you all you need to know and love Me, and if you feel cold and indifferent, call Me by the sweet name of Father and I will come to you. My spring will give you love, confidence and everything you need to be loved for ever by your Father and Creator. As I desire most to be known by all of you, so that you can all enjoy, even here on earth, My goodness and My tenderness, make yourselves apostles to those who still do not know Me and I will bless your toil and efforts, preparing great glory for you with Me in eternity!
• I am the ocean of charity. I showed you the spring which pours from My Breast to quench your thirst, and now, in order to let you see My goodness towards everyone, I am going to show you the ocean of My universal charity, that you may dive into it blindly. Why? So that, diving into this ocean, souls rendered bitter by faults and sins may lose that bitterness in this bath of love. They will emerge from this ocean better, happy at having learned how to be good and charitable. If, because of ignorance or weakness, you yourselves happen to fall again into this state of bitterness, I shall still be an ocean of charity, ready to receive this bitter drop, transform it into charity and goodness and make you holy as I, your Father, am. My children, do you want to live your life on earth peacefully and joyfully? Come and cast yourselves into this immense ocean and remain in it for ever. As you work and live your normal life, this life will be sanctified through charity. As for My children who do not follow the truth, I wish all the more to enfold them in My fatherly predilection, so that they may open their eyes to the light which now shines more clearly than ever. This is the time of graces, foreseen and awaited since the beginning of time!
• The spring is the symbol of My knowledge; the ocean is that of My charity and of your trust. When you wish to drink from this spring, study Me in order to know Me and, when you know Me, dive into the ocean of My charity, trusting in Me with a confidence so deep as to transform yourselves: this I shall be unable to resist. I shall then forgive your errors and lavish the greatest favors upon you.
• My children, is it not perhaps true that, if you knew you had a Father Who thinks of you and loves you infinitely, you would in your turn make an effort to be more faithful to your Christian duties, as well as to your duties as citizens, to be just and to render justice to God and to men? Is it not true that, if you knew this Father Who loves you all without distinction and Who, without distinction, calls you all by the sweet name of children, you would love Me as affectionate children, and that this love, under My impulse, would become an active love, extending itself to the rest of humanity who still do not know this Christian society and who know even less Him Who created them and is their Father?
• If somebody went and talked to these souls, abandoned to their superstitions, or to so many others who call Me God because they know I exist but not that I am close to them; if somebody said to them that their Maker is their Father as well, and that He thinks of them and is concerned with them, that He surrounds them with intimate affection in their sorrows and dejection, this would obtain the conversion of the most stubborn ones, and these conversions would be more numerous and firm, that is, more persevering.
• And you, My children, who have lost the faith and live in the darkness, raise your eyes, you will see shining rays coming to illuminate you. I am the sun that shines, warms and re-warms. Look, and recognize that I am your Creator, your Father, your one and only God. It is because I love you that I come to make you love Me, so that you may all be saved. I am speaking to all men, the world over, making this appeal of My fatherly love ring out, this infinite love that I want you to know is a permanent reality. Love, love, love always, but also show others how to love the Father, so that from today on I will be able to show you all the Father Who loves you so passionately.
• I am asking of man what he is able to give Me: his confidence, his love and his gratitude. It is not because I need My creature and his adoration that I desire to be known, honored and loved; the only reason why I am stooping down to him is to save him and give him a share in My glory. Further, in My goodness and My love I realize that the beings I have drawn from nothing and adopted as My true children are falling in great numbers into eternal unhappiness with the devils. They are thus failing to fulfil the purpose of their creation and are losing their time and their eternity!
• With regard to the means of honoring Me as I desire, all I ask of you is great confidence. Do not think I want austerities or mortifications; I do not want you to walk barefoot or to lay your faces in the dust, or to cover your-selves with ashes. No, no! My dearest wish is that you behave as My children, simply and trusting in Me! With you I will become everything for everyone, the most tender and loving Father. I will be on intimate terms with you, giving Myself to you all, making Myself small so as to make you great for eternity.
• I desire that one day, or at least a Sunday, be dedicated to honoring Me in a special way under the title of Father of all Mankind. For this feast, I would like a special Mass and Office. It is not difficult to find the texts in the Holy Scriptures. If you prefer to offer Me this special devotion on a Sunday, I choose the first Sunday of August. If you prefer a weekday, I would like it to be always the seventh day of that same month.
• I also desire that every family prominently display the picture I will later show … I wish every family to be able to place itself under My special protection in this way, so that they can honor Me more easily.
• And to you who will work for My glory and commit yourselves to making Me known, honoured and loved, I give the assurance that your reward will be great, because I will count everything, even the smallest effort you make, and I will reward you a hundredfold in eternity.
• Everything I am saying to you is intended to make you realize that I come to carry out this work of love, to give you powerful help to cast off the tyrannical slavery which imprisons your souls, and to let you enjoy real freedom, whence real happiness comes. Compared with this freedom, all earthly joys are as nothing. Raise yourselves to the dignity of children of God and learn how to respect your own greatness. I will then be your Father more than ever, the most lovable and merciful of fathers.
• I have come to bring peace with this work of love. I will let a ray of peace fall upon anyone who honors Me and trusts in Me, so that he will be relieved in all his troubles, all his worries, sufferings and afflictions, especially if he calls Me and loves Me as his Father. If families honor Me and love Me as their Father, I will give them My peace together with My providence. If workers, businessmen and artisans invoke and honor Me, I will give them My peace and My strength, I will show Myself to be the good and merciful Father. If each Christian community invokes and honors Me, I will give it My peace, I will show Myself to be a most loving Father, and through My power I will ensure the eternal salvation of souls. If all mankind invokes and honors Me, I will bring down upon it the spirit of peace like a benevolent dew. If all nations, as such, invoke and honor Me, there will be no more discord, nor wars, because I am the God of peace and where I am, there no war can be.
• Finally, you know that I can do everything because of My power. Well, I am offering this power to all of you, to use now and for eternity. I will always show Myself to be your Father, provided that you show yourselves to be My children. What do I desire to achieve with this work of love, if not to find hearts able to understand Me? I am the holiness of which I possess the perfect and full expression; I offer you this holiness, of which I am the Author, through My Holy Spirit, and I instill it in your souls through My Son’s merits.

The messages reveal the infinite Love of the Father. They are also rich in promises that we should make part of our lives – in particular these:

• I am there precisely in order that you should ask Me for what you need. “Ask and you will receive.” In My fatherly goodness I will give you everything, provided that all regard Me as a true Father.
• I know your needs, your desires, and everything in your hearts. But how happy and grateful I would be if I saw you coming to Me and confiding in Me your needs, like a son who has total trust in his father. How could I refuse you the smallest or biggest thing if you asked Me?
• Take refuge close, very close to Me, confide in Me your thoughts and your desires. I will love you tenderly. I will give you graces for the present and bless your future.
• Make yourselves apostles to those who still do not know Me and I will bless your toil and efforts, preparing great glory for you with Me in eternity!
• Finally, you know that I can do everything because of My power. Well, I am offering this power to all of you, to use now and for eternity. I will always show Myself to be your Father, provided that you show yourselves to be My children.

What Do the Father’s Messages Tell Us About Salvation and What About His Great Promise?

There is today extensive confusion about salvation. Some Protestants ask “Have you been saved?” and then offer their own new formulas for salvation. Many Catholics are ignorant of the Church’s teachings on salvation basics and have little interest in the matter. Other Christians assume everyone goes to Heaven no matter what they do with their lives.  In his messages, the Father focuses on the path to salvation. He reminds us of the constant teaching of the Church on salvation but also takes us back to the original proclamation of the New Testament on salvation that is all but forgotten today. In this original proclamation, salvation is Father-driven, Father-oriented and Father-facing. This original proclamation will appear astonishing to those who have not paid attention to the actual texts.  It is also exhilarating as we shall see.

Towards the end of the messages, as they move to a crescendo, the Father makes a startling promise, what we might call the Great Promise:

ALL THOSE WHO CALL ME BY THE NAME OF FATHER, EVEN IF ONLY ONCE, WILL NOT PERISH, BUT WILL BE SURE OF THEIR ETERNAL LIFE AMONG THE CHOSEN ONES.

At first blush, this Promise seems both shocking to the Christian mind and too good to be true. What about Jesus we ask? Or the Holy Spirit? What about the sacraments? The Church? Our moral lives? Our perseverance to the end?

But, as we shall see, the Promise includes and subsumes all of the above. And it derives entirely from what we read in Scripture.

Concerning its scriptural roots, consider this fundamentally important passage:

“Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.” (John 17:3)

Eternal life is knowing “the only true God” which in this verse refers to the Father. In knowing him, we know him as the one who sent Jesus. He sent Jesus because HE, the Father, “so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” It is the Father from whom salvation originates and it is to the Father that we direct our lives.

But we can do all of this only through Jesus. Jean Galot points out that “The dialogue [in John 8:34-36] shows that only acceptance of Jesus opens the way to authentic sonship of the Father: those who want to kill Jesus have the devil as their father (cf. John 8:44). To acknowledge the Father therefore essentially means to acknowledge the Father of Jesus.”¹

In fact, the Father specifically states to Mother Eugenia that we can only become children through Jesus: “I sent My Son …  Through Him I adopted you in My infinite love, as real children.”

And we can also only do this in the Holy Spirit. Recall those dramatic verses from Galatians and Romans. “As proof that you are children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Galatians 4:6). “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!”” (Romans 8:14-15). The central act of BEING a Christian is “crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” – namely calling God “BY THE NAME OF FATHER.”

What is staggering in the epistles is the announcement that we are truly Christians only if we call God Father! In the crucial verses from Galatians and Romans, we are shown believers “crying out, Abba, Father!’”  We are told that this affirmation of the Father constitutes “proof” that we are truly “children” of God: and therefore his heirs who have “eternal life”: “So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.” (Galatians 4:7). This is exactly what we are told in the Promise: “ALL THOSE WHO CALL ME BY THE NAME OF FATHER … WILL NOT PERISH” –  i.e., those who are ““crying out, Abba, Father!’” who “know you, the only true God” have “eternal life” because you are “if a child then also an heir, through God.” There is knowing – knowing God by the name of Father –  and there is acting – calling out to him as Father.

We are able to call God “BY THE NAME OF FATHER” only because of the Holy Spirit. This is pointed out too by the Father: “I have shown you that My Son Jesus represents Me among men, and that, through Him, I live constantly among them, I also want to show you that I come among you through My Holy Spirit.”

According to the New Testament, there is something profoundly mysterious about “THE NAME OF FATHER”. Jesus says: “Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven.” (Matthew 23:9). St. Paul later says, “I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.” (Ephesians 3:14-15). “Call no one … but …..” “Named.” All earthly fatherhood and parenthood derive from the Father and Jesus tells us that we should use the word “father” only analogically in our everyday use. “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.” (Matthew 7:11).  The essence and fullness of fatherhood, infinitely perfect fatherhood, is found only in God the Father. This is what we recognize when we call God Father in the sense that Jesus taught it. And we are able to do this only because “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” The mystery about “THE NAME OF FATHER” is a mystery of the infinite love that is God, of a love that desires our eternal union with him.

A Return to the Faith of our Fathers

What is so important about the Great Promise is the fact that it brings the Father to the center stage of salvation which is what we see portrayed in the New Testament. A dramatic divine intervention was required to get us back to the path to the starting-point of salvation laid out in Scripture. This starting-point is the call to Abba we find in Romans and Galatians. Jean Galot writes, “Theology reflects life. It reaps the effects of the abundance or meagerness of this life in its various aspects. The name “Abba” that enthralled the first Christians has become a memory recorded in the letters of Paul, a testimony from the past that is too little echoed or shared in by the prayer of Christians today. … Paul presents the invocation ‘Abba’ as the sign of the Christian’s divine sonship: ‘As proof that you are his sons …’ In other words, the specifically Christian personality is defined by its relationship to the Father. This truth is guaranteed by the testimony of the Spirit.”²

There is more to come in Scripture as we come face to face with this Promise of the Father in key biblical passages.

We already saw in Ephesians 1:3 that it is the Father who chose us in Christ from all eternity. Colossians 1:12-13 tells us that the Father “delivered us from the power of darkness” and made us “fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in light.” 1 Corinthians 8:6 says “there is one God, the Father, from whom all things are and for whom we exist.”

It is the Father who is driving the salvific plan. Again, we see in 1 Peter 1:3-4: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith, to a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the final time.”

In short, in his “great mercy” the Father not only gives us “an inheritance that is imperishable” but also safeguards our inheritance for us: it is “kept in heaven for you who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith.” This is what is echoed in the Promise: “WILL BE SURE OF THEIR ETERNAL LIFE AMONG THE CHOSEN ONES.” “SURE” because “he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:4) and, as we see in Romans 8:30, “And those he predestined he also called; and those he called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified.”

In one of the most moving passages of all, the Father says:

I am your Father! Is it possible that, having called Me your Father and having shown your love for Me, you could find in Me such a hard and insensitive heart as to let you perish? No, no, do not believe it! I am the best of Fathers! I know My creatures’ weaknesses! Come to Me, come with confidence and love! I will forgive you after you have repented. Even if your sins were as repulsive as mud, your confidence and your love will make Me forget them, so you will not be judged! I am just, it is true, but love pays for everything!

In other words, your “inheritance is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” and it is “kept in heaven for you who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith.”

Not a Blank Check But a Promissory Note

But the Great Promise is applicable only if we turn to God and cooperate with the grace he offer us. There is no substitute for repentance and continuing conversion. Turning to our earlier question about the commandments, the sacraments and the Church, we find that these are all incorporated in the messages.

The Great Promise of the Father must be seen in the light of all his other exhortations. For instance, he says:

However, what I do require is the faithful observance of the commandments I gave the Church, so that you will be rational creatures and will not be like animals because of your lack of discipline and your evil inclinations, so that you will preserve the treasure which is the soul I gave you, clothed in the fullness of its divine beauty! Then, according to My desire, do what I have already instructed you to do: honor Me with a special devotion.

With My Son Jesus I led a life of sacrifice and work. I received His prayers, that man might have a clearly indicated path along which to walk always in justice, so as to reach Me safely! Of course, I can understand My children’s weaknesses! Because of this, I asked My Son to give them the means to get up again after they have fallen. These means will help them to purify themselves from their sins, so that they may still be the children of My love. They are, chiefly, the seven Sacraments. And the greatest means of securing your salvation, despite your falls, is the Cross, My Son’s Blood poured out upon you every moment, if you so wish, both in the Sacrament of Penance and in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

So what is being given is not a blank check. It is a promissory note. A promise to pay from the Father – but the promise entails conditions to be met by us, the recipients. By turning to the Father, we open the gateway to salvation. But we have to walk through the gateway which means keeping the commandments, repenting from sin, becoming brothers and sisters of Jesus in the Holy Spirit. Yet the Promise assures us that we are not alone as we make our journey through the gateway into the Valley of the Shadow and from there to the eternal House of the Lord. Throughout the journey, the rod and the staff of the Father protects all those who call on him.

Promises to Keep

With respect to the audacity of the offer made, the Great Promise of the Father is similar to

the promises relevant to salvation made at other divine interventions, in particular Fatima, the Sacred Heart, the Divine Mercy:

Sacred Heart

“I promise you in the excessive mercy of My Heart that My all-powerful love will grant all to those who communicate on the First Friday in nine consecutive months the grace of final penitence; they shall not die in My disgrace nor without receiving their sacraments; My Divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.”

Fatima

“I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to confession and receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”

Divine Mercy

“The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day all the divine floodgates through which graces flow are opened. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet.”

“I promise that the soul that venerates this image [of the Divine Mercy] will not perish.”

Just as the recipients of the Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy revelations were asked to commission icons associated with these revelations, the Father asked for an icon representing him. And just as there were requests for special feast days of the Sacred Heart and the Divine Mercy, the Father asked for a Feast day celebrating his love for his children. Both icons and feast days serve in making concrete and immediate what otherwise would remain abstract and forgotten.

Each promise made in these great interventions from Heaven – the Sacred Heart, Fatima, the Divine Mercy, Mother Eugenia – has to be taken in the context of the messages associated with that intervention as a whole and not in isolation. They are meant to move our souls to union with God but have no place for presumption or sloth.

“Have You Been Saved?”

Is “salvation” a one-time event? Some Protestants ask, “Have you been saved?” Their assumption is that a one-time profession of faith in Jesus as personal Lord and Savior is all that is required for salvation. For some Catholics, the Five First Saturdays or the Nine First Fridays or the Great Promise of the Father may seem to function as a similar one-time event that leads to salvation.

But in these latter cases cited by Catholics what we have are promises from Heaven. These promises are not a substitute for our own perseverance in faith. Rather, they are promises that we will receive the grace to persevere to the end.  It is an ongoing one-time event!

As St. Paul writes, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work.” (Philippians 2:12-13)

The Protestant assumption that salvation comes from a one-time profession of faith highlights the importance of making a fundamental decision acknowledging our sins and finding liberation from sin and the wages of sin by accepting Jesus as Lord. Scripture tells us:

“You have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” (I Corinthians 6:11)

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved) … For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:4-5, 8-9)

But Scripture also tells us: “It is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” (Romans 13:11) “For through the Spirit, by faith, we await the hope of righteousness.” (Galatians 5:5) Here salvation is spoken of as a future event.

Sadly, Scripture also tells us that Christians can fall away from the path of salvation: “There were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will introduce destructive heresies and even deny the Master who ransomed them, bringing swift destruction on themselves.” (2 Peter 2:1) “If we sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains sacrifice for sins but a fearful prospect of judgment and a flaming fire that is going to consume the adversaries. (Hebrews 10:26-27)

The point of the Promise is that the Father, who the Bible proclaims as the Author of salvation (“God so loved the world ”), will assist on the path to eternal life all those who “know” him and “cry, “Abba, Father!””  

One commentator offers further clarity on how the Father’s Promise relates to this perseverance to the end:

The sentence in question is this. “All those who call me by the name of Father, even if only once, will not perish, but will be sure of their eternal life among the chosen ones.”

However, elsewhere in the work, the other conditions for the salvation offered are mentioned.  The first is love: “Is it possible that, having called Me your Father and having shown your love for Me, you could find in Me such a hard and insensitive heart as to let you perish?   The second condition is repentance:   “I will forgive you after you have repented.”

Then elsewhere The Father unveils the mechanism by which this promise is fulfilled:

“If you love Me and call Me by the sweet name of Father, you will begin to live, here and now, in the love, and the trust which will make you happy in eternity and which you will sing in heaven in the company of the elect.  Is this not a foretaste of the happiness of heaven, which will last forever?”

An insight into how the promise would be fulfilled in a person who subsequently falls away from God  is given in The Message where Our God tells in great details of an example of a long-offending soul who is facing sudden death but is not in a state of grace.  Before breathing his last the soul confesses his sins, seeks forgiveness and acknowledging God as his Father and Savior.  After calling God his Father, the man is judged with a paternal love and he is saved even though he had to spend a period of time in Purgatory.  This example shows The Message to be in complete compliance with Church dogma.  …

It is a beautiful thing to see and recount and explore the beautiful promises of salvation offered both here in the message to Sr Eugenia and in other instances in the history of the Church, as all of these promises testify to the great love of God for souls, his yearning to save souls, and the infinite power of His grace.

To summarise, the phrase in the context of the whole message is to be understood in this manner:

If anyone is repentant and full of confidence in the love of the Father to us His Children,  they should surrender themselves to the Father and lovingly and trustingly call upon Him, then the Father  will give them the grace either of conversion here and now, but especially  at the hour of death He  will remember that act of love and give them such an extraordinary infusion of grace such as is necessary for their eternal salvation.

It is obvious from a consideration of the whole of the message that the manner in which one calls “Father” is of utmost importance.  If one said “Father”, but with indifference or even worse with disdain or contempt, or in mockery,  then it is quite clear that the promise would not be fulfilled in them. The person needs to call upon the Father from the depths of their soul with love and trust and confidence.

The Father understands that a lack of confidence in one’s eternal destiny is a ploy of the devil to have people put their trust in worldly things and sinful things.  The Father wants to fill his children with such trust that they become willing to turn their backs on the false promises of worldly and sinful temptations.

Jesus said, “We can judge a tree by its fruits.”  When one allows one’s heart to respond to this sentence, a wonderful transforming effect can be received in one’s soul.  It can install in the heart and soul an extraordinary trust in the Father’s love and goodness and intention for our redemption and eternal happiness.  Is not such hope the key to true conversion?  One may here the objection that this sentence could lead to presumption.  But no, not at all.  The Father complained to Sr Eugenia about so many souls throwing themselves into the abyss of hell because they have not understood or responded to His love.  When one reads the whole of the message given to Sr Eugenia it is clear that the Father is seeking our total transformation in His love, and moreover that coming to a profound understanding of the Father’s love is a key to conversion.

This one sentence also tells us a great deal about the Father: God the Father’s love is so great for us, beyond anything we can imagine.   He is faithful beyond our comprehension.³

A Father Who Seeks the Salvation of All

Running through the Father’s revelation is his concern for the salvation of all human beings – not simply professed Christians:

“And you, who only know the religion in which you have grown up, and that religion is not the true one, open your eyes. Here is your Father, He Who created you and Who wants to save you. I come to you to bring you the truth and salvation.”

[He wants the message of his intimate Fatherly love to be propagated because] “Most of the unbelievers, the impious and various communities remain in their iniquity and unbelief because they think that I am asking the impossible of them, that they have to submit to My commands like slaves of a tyrannical lord, whose power and pride keep him distant from his subjects, to oblige them to show Him respect and devotion.”

[He seeks to provide] “a smooth path for the conversion of sinners, sincere and persevering conversion, and the return of the prodigal sons to their Father’s house.” [He includes those who are in schism and heresy and even] “the sacrilegious, and the various secret sects.”

[He wants the devotion] “to be extended among all nations as quickly as possible.”

[He laments the fact that] “Men believe Me to be a terrifying God Who is going to cast all mankind into hell.” Rather, “I wish all My creatures to be convinced that there is a Father Who watches over them and Who would like them to enjoy, on earth, a foretaste of eternal happiness.”

“Believe Me, you who are listening to Me as you read these words: if all men who are far from our Catholic Church heard people talking about this Father Who loves them, Who is their Creator and their God, about this Father Who desires to give them eternal life, then many of these men, even the most obstinate ones, would come to this Father of Whom you had spoken to them.”

You, My children, who are outside the Catholic Church, should realize that you are not excluded from My fatherly love. I am making this tender appeal to you because you too are My children. If you have lived up to now in the devil’s snares, acknowledge that he has cheated you. Come to Me, your Father, and I will receive you with joy and love!

These poignant passages mirror what we read in Scripture of the Father’s desire to save every one of us:

“This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:3-4)

“The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,” but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

It is clear throughout the messages that the Father is seeking not just Christians but, in particular, those who are members of all other religions or no religion. He is intent on drawing them all because he is their Creator who desires eternal union with them. This concern for all humanity was later affirmed by the Second Vatican Council with its outreach to all.

The Path to Salvation in the Revelation of the Father

How do we sum up the path to salvation laid out in the Father’s revelation? In essence, it affirms all that is taught by the Catholic Church on salvation while bringing to the forefront what Jesus and the New Testament taught but what many have forgotten: salvation is Father-oriented.

Baptism, the sacraments, the Eucharist, obedience to the moral law are fundamental. The Father calls this the “clearly indicated path … to reach Me safely.” Also fundamental is the eternal life that comes from knowing the Father and Jesus whom he sent and crying out “Abba, Father” through the Spirit acting in us and making us adopted brothers and sisters of the Eternal Son. Hence the Father’s focus on calling “ME BY THE NAME OF FATHER.” Finally, as the Father underlines, love is “the guiding principle in it all.”

So first there is the stress on the pathway that the Church has always taught with priority given to the Holy Eucharist:

• I come among you in two ways: the Cross and the Eucharist! The Cross is My way of coming down among My children, since it is through it that I caused My Son to redeem you. And for you, the Cross is the way to ascend to My Son, and from My Son to Me. Without it you could never come to Me, because man, by sinning, brought on himself the punishment of separation from God. In the Eucharist I live among you as a Father with His family. I wished My Son to institute the Eucharist so as to make every tabernacle the vessel of My favors, My riches and My love, to give them to men, My children. It is always by these two means that I cause both My power and My infinite mercy to come down ceaselessly.
• Because, having instructed My Son to institute the Holy Eucharist, I intended to come to you every time you receive the Sacred Host! Of course, nothing prevented Me from coming to you even before the Eucharist, as nothing is impossible to Me! But receiving this Sacrament is an action that is easy to understand and it shows how I come to you! When I am in you, I can more easily give you what I possess, provided that you ask Me for it. Through this Sacrament you are intimately united with Me. It is in this intimacy that the outpouring of My love makes My holiness spread into your souls. I fill you with My love, then you have only to ask Me for the virtues and perfection you need and you can be sure that in those moments when God is reposing in His creatures, nothing will be refused you.
• I ask everyone to take part in the Holy Mass according to the liturgy; this pleases Me greatly!
• In My goodness and My love I realize that the beings I have drawn from nothing and adopted as My true children are falling in great numbers into eternal unhappiness with the devils. They are thus failing to fulfil the purpose of their creation and are losing their time and their eternity! If there is something that I desire, above all now, it is simply to see more fervor on the part of the just, a smooth path for the conversion of sinners, sincere and persevering conversion.
• I am the light of lights: where it penetrates there will be life, bread and happiness. This light will illumine the pilgrim, the sceptic, the ignorant. It will illumine you all, o men who live in this world of darkness and vice. If you did not have My light, you would fall into the abyss of eternal death! Finally, this light will lighten the ways which lead to the true Catholic Church.
• If you love Me as faithful children, you will also have loving and obedient respect for My Church and My representatives.
• However, what I do require is the faithful observance of the commandments I gave the Church, so that you will be rational creatures and will not be like animals because of your lack of discipline and your evil inclinations, so that you will preserve the treasure which is the soul I gave you, clothed in the fullness of its divine beauty!
• With My Son Jesus I led a life of sacrifice and work. I received His prayers, that man might have a clearly indicated path along which to walk always in justice, so as to reach Me safely! Of course, I can understand My children’s weaknesses! Because of this, I asked My Son to give them the means to get up again after they have fallen. These means will help them to purify themselves from their sins, so that they may still be the children of My love. They are, chiefly, the seven Sacraments. And the greatest means of securing your salvation, despite your falls, is the Cross, My Son’s Blood poured out upon you every moment, if you so wish, both in the Sacrament of Penance and in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
• As for you, souls in a state of sin, or who are ignorant of religious truth, I will not be able to enter you; however, I will be close to you, because I never stop calling you, inviting you to desire to receive the benefits I bring you, so that you may see the light and be healed of sin. Sometimes I look at you and feel compassion for your unhappy state. I sometimes look at you with love, to dispose you to yield to the charms of grace. I spend days, sometimes years, close to some souls to be able to ensure their eternal happiness. They do not know that I am there waiting for them, calling them every moment of the day. However, I never become weary and I still feel joy in remaining close to you, always hoping that you will return to your Father some day and that you will at least offer Me some act of love before you die.

Come to Me, come with confidence and love! I will forgive you after you have repented. Even if your sins were as repulsive as mud, your confidence and your love will make Me forget them, so you will not be judged! I am just, it is true, but love pays for everything!

I asked My Son to give them the means to get up again after they have fallen. These means will help them to purify themselves from their sins, so that they may still be the children of My love. These means will help them to purify themselves from their sins, so that they may still be the children of My love. They are, chiefly, the seven Sacraments. And the greatest means of securing your salvation, despite your falls, is the Cross, My Son’s Blood poured out upon you every moment, if you so wish, both in the Sacrament of Penance and in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

But what is dramatic about the revelation to Mother Eugenia is its return to the New Testament proclamation of the font of salvation: the Father.

• I make you a promise which will have an eternal effect. It is this: call Me by the name of Father, with confidence and love, and you will receive everything from this Father, with love and mercy.
• I come to make Myself similar to My creatures, to correct the idea you have of a terrifyingly just God, as I see men spending their whole lives without confiding in their only Father, Whose only wish is to make their earthly life easier and then give them a divine life, in heaven.
• But you, who abide in the true law, or rather, who have promised to follow the law that I gave you to ensure your salvation, have let vice lead you into evil. You have strayed from the law by behaving badly. Do you think you are happy? No. You feel that your hearts are not at ease. Do you suppose that, looking for pleasure and other human joys, your hearts will finally be satisfied? No. Let Me tell you, you will never feel truly free nor truly happy until you recognize Me as your Father and submit to My yoke, to be true children of God, your Father. Why? Because I created you for a single purpose, to know Me, love Me and serve Me, as a simple and trusting child serves its father!

The Father’s revelation to Mother Eugenia is important at all times but it is of the greatest relevance today with the across-the-board confusion about salvation. In this revelation we have both the forgotten precepts of the New Testament and the consistent teaching of the Church on the path to salvation.

End Notes

¹Jean Galot, Abba Father We Long to See Your Face (New York: Alba House, 1992), 65.

²Ibid., 66.

³https://www.lovethefather.com/theological-difficulties

What Do the Messages of the Father Tell Us About the Trinity and the Incarnation?

The ignorance about salvation among Christians is matched by their almost total ignorance about the Trinity and the Incarnation. Very little is said about the Three Persons in the One God or about Jesus as God incarnate. And when something is said, it is often just a recitation of abstractions. Neither the Trinity nor the Incarnation seem to make any difference in the lives of Christians today. 

Heaven’s remedy is the revelation from the Father. In re-discovering God the Father, we come to recognize God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The Father takes us back to the original revelation and to the faith of the first Christians. He restores the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation to the center of the life of faith.  There are Three divine Persons within the One divine Nature that is God. And in the Father’s revelation we see all things from the perspective of the action of Father, Son and Holy Spirit – which is exactly what we see in the New Testament.

It is the loss of the Father that resulted in a loss of the Holy Trinity in the Christian life. By taking us back to the fullness of his Fatherhood, the Father also brings us to his only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from Father and Son.

In the messages, the Father says: “Who is God? God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” He also says, “Until the three Persons are honored by a special devotion in the Church and the whole of mankind, there will be something lacking in this society.”

It is clear in the messages, as it is in Scripture, that the Father comes to us through the Son and the Holy Spirit: “I offer you this holiness, of which I am the Author, through My Holy Spirit, and I instill it in your souls through My Son’s merits. It is through My Son and the Holy Spirit that I am coming to you and into you.”

In John 6:45-6, we are told: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him … Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.”

The eternal life promised by the Father comes through Jesus. All whom the Father gives to Jesus will not perish because “no one can take them out of the Father’s hand”: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.” (John 10:27-30)

Father and Son bring eternal life: “The Father who sent me commanded me what to say and speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. So what I say, I say as the Father told me.” (John 12:49-50)

There is no “competition”:  “The Father and I are one.” (John 10: 30) “ Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (John 14:9-10)

In the messages too, the Father says that he and the Son are one and, further, that he and the Holy Spirit are one.  In doing so, he teaches the truth that we do not have three gods but one God and within the one God, there are Three divine Persons.  As the ancient Athanasian creed says, “For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.”

In the Gospel of John we read: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” (John 14:10-11) In the messages, the Father says, “I have shown you that My Son Jesus represents Me among men, and that, through Him, I live constantly among them.”

Again, we hear in the Gospel of John about “the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father.” (John 15:26). In the messages we read, “I also want to show you that I come among you through My Holy Spirit.”

These verses from Scripture – and their echoes in the revelation of the Father – show that the Three Persons are mutually distinct and mutually indwelling. We do not have either tritheism or modalism. This is how the truth of the Trinity is communicated in the New Testament, the Councils and in the Father’s revelation.

The Three divine Persons are eternal and “equal.” But a certain priority has always been accorded to the Father. Jean Galot explains this further: “The Father takes precedence. … In him everything that is in God has its origin. This explains why, when the revelation of the Trinity was given us, the name of God, which designated the totality of God in the Old Testament in whom the distinction of the persons was not yet apparent, was used in the New Testament to designate more specifically the person of the Father. The Father is called God because in him is verified everything that had previously been revealed about God, and because he is the source of the divinity of the Son and the Spirit. In the Father dwells the plenitude of the divinity in its primordial origin. This plenitude is present in the Son and the Spirit, inasmuch as it is received from the Father.”¹

But “the Father is not superior to the Son or to the Spirit. He possesses only a priority of origin. … The three divine persons are equal in perfection. They possess the same divine nature. …  The three divine persons have existed from all eternity, and they are God.”²

In his messages, the Father moves us away from abstractions to the concrete actions of the Persons of Trinity that we see in Scripture and our own lives:

• The Messiah is God. Who is God? God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Whence does He come? Or rather, who ordered Him to come among men? It was I, His Father, God. Whom is He to represent on earth? His Father, God. What is He to do on earth? He will make the Father, God, known and loved. Did He not say: “Do you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” (St. Luke, ch. 2, v. 49). “I have come only to do the will of My Father.” “Whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.” “You will pray to Him like this: ‘Our Father, Who art in heaven…’, and elsewehere, since He came to glorify the Father and to make Him known to men, He says: “Whoever sees Me, sees the Father.” “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.” “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (St. John, ch. 14, v. 6) “Whoever is with Me is also with My Father”?
• Oh, how My paternal love has been forgotten by Men! Yet I love you so tenderly! In My Son, that is to say, in the Person of My Son made man, what have I not done! Divinity is veiled in this humanity, it is shrunk, impoverished, humiliated.
• Now that I have shown you that My Son Jesus represents Me among men, and that, through Him, I live constantly among them, I also want to show you that I come among you through My Holy Spirit. The work of this third Person of My divinity is carried out silently and often man is not aware of it. But for Me it is a very fitting way of living, not just in the tabernacle, but also in the souls of all those in a state of grace, to establish My throne in them and to live there always, like the true Father Who loves, protects and helps His children.
• I recognize that you honor Me in My Son and that there are those who are able to offer everything to Me through My Son, but they are few indeed! Do not believe, though, that in honoring My Son you are not honoring Me! You do, certainly, honor Me, as I live in My Son! Thus, everything that is to His glory is also to My glory! But I would like to see man honoring his Father and Creator with a special devotion. The more you honor Me, the more you will honor My Son, since, according to My will, He became the Word Incarnate and came among you to make known to you the One Who sent Him. If you come to know Me, you will love Me and My beloved Son more than you do now.
• My Son Jesus is in Me and I am in Him, in our interchanging love which is the Holy Spirit, Who keeps us united in this bond of love so as to make us ONE.
• Moses received from Me as the first of the ten commandments, this command to be communicated to men: “Love and worship God!” Those who are already Christians may say: “We have loved you since we were born or since our conversion, as we often say in the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Our Father, Who art in heaven!’ ” Yes, My children, it is true, you do love Me and honor Me when you say the first part of the ‘Our Father’, but continue with the other requests and you will see: “Hallowed be Thy name!” Is My name being blessed? Continue: “Thy kingdom come!” Has My kingdom come? You honor very fervently the Kingship of My Son Jesus, it is true, and in Him you are honoring Me! But will you deny your Father this great glory of proclaiming Him ‘King’, or at least, of letting Me reign until all men can know and love Me? I desire you to celebrate this feast of the Kingship of My Son in reparation for the insults He received before Pilate and from the soldiers who scourged His holy and innocent humanity. I ask you not to suspend this feast, but, on the contrary, to celebrate it enthusiastically and fervently; but in order that everyone may really know this King, they must know His kingdom as well. Now, to achieve this dual knowledge perfectly, it is also necessary to know the Father of this King, the Maker of this kingdom. Truly, My children, the Church – this society I entrusted My Son to found – will complete its work by honoring Him Who is its Author: your Father and Creator.
• As I have told you, it is necessary to bring to fulfilment in the holy Church the devotion which honors in a very special way this society’s Author, the One Who came to found it, and the One Who is its soul, God in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Until the three Persons are honored by a special devotion in the Church and the whole of mankind, there will be something lacking in this society.
• I have already made some souls aware of this lack, but most of them, too timid, have not responded to My call. Others have had the courage to speak about it to the appropriate people, but, in the face of their failure, they have not persisted. Now My hour has come. I Myself am coming to make men, My children, know what, until today, they have not understood completely. I Myself am coming to bring the flame of the law of love so that, by this means, the enormous layer of ice that surrounds mankind can be melted and destroyed.
• If men could penetrate the Heart of Jesus in all Its desires and Its glory, they would realize that Its most ardent desire is to glorify the Father, the One Who sent Him, and, most of all, not to let His glory be diminished as it has been until now. He desires the complete glory that men can and must give Me, as their Father and Maker, and still more as the Author of their Redemption!
• I am the holiness of which I possess the perfect and full expression; I offer you this holiness, of which I am the Author, through My Holy Spirit, and I instill it in your souls through My Son’s merits.
• It is through My Son and the Holy Spirit that I am coming to you and into you, and it is in you that I seek My repose.

The Father’s messages are a dynamic renewal of the great truths underlying the Old and New Testaments. These messages take us back to the fullness of the Trinitarian revelation that is fundamental to Christianity but is today seldom affirmed.

End Notes

¹Jean Galot, Abba Father We Long to See Your Face (New York: Alba House, 1992), 82.

²Ibid., 87. 84.

Are There are Any Credible Criticisms of the Claim of the Appearance of the Father?

Given the life-changing nature of this revelation of God the Father, it is significant that there have been no serious critiques or controversies concerning the encounter. The approval of the relevant Church authorities after intensive investigation and interrogation, in large part, pre-empted future objections.

Having said this, we note that there is one wholly unserious attempt to attack the provenance and authenticity of the reported revelation. We will address the charges made by the source of these attacks. While addressing his arguments, we will not name him simply because we do not want to give any publicity to someone whose treatment of the revelation to Mother Eugenia is both slanderous and blasphemous.

The credibility of this critic is questionable as pointed out by others familiar with some of his writings.

Jeff Mirus, the co-founder of Christendom College and CatholicCulture.com, says about him that he

never expresses the slightest hesitation or the slightest doubt on any complex issue. Salvation outside the Church? No problem. The proper way for women to behave? Simple and clear. The very specific rule people should follow in determining how frequently to receive Communion? [His] one size fits all. [He] draws his ideas from private revelation, favorite saints, or simply his own dubious spirituality. After all, he has already warned us that the Faith is much bigger than the Magisterium, and that it is actually a heresy to rely overmuch on the Magisterium. And so—on his own sole authority—he blithely explains everything you always wanted to know about Catholicism but were afraid to ask. … He is simply very fond of private revelation and of his own private ideas.¹

Another observer says this about the critic:

He “has predicted a ‘Warning’ associated with the Garbandal apparitions for three years in a row running.
2008–he said it would occur, no fail, 100% confidence
2009 –recalculated and said it would occur, 100% confidence
2010 –March or April date—didn’t materialize.
[He] frequently misrepresents his speculative innovations as Church teaching.

[He] makes light of things like imprimaturs, nihil obstats, bishop approval, catholic publishers and other theologians, his criticisms throw them all into the one bag of being unreliable and essentially makes the contrasting point that he can be trusted.

He has neither his Bishops approval for his writings, a good and faithful Catholic publisher, a nihil obstat, an imprimatur, nor a recommendation from any other theologian, bishop, priest or credentialed authority recommending his books or writings.
Look for a foreword page and you will find no one editing, proofreading or recommending his books. This is a ‘one-man band’, self-publishing all his books with his own internet presence through a website.
Moreover, if you want to know an authoritative answer or delve into the teachings of the Catholic Church, then he has all the answers.
Want to know the date of the Second Coming
“Jesus Christ returns from Heaven, with the Virgin Mary, in the year 2437 A.D.”²

With this background in mind, we will not be surprised to find that the attacks launched by the critic, who specializes in providing supplies for surviving the coming apocalypse, are at best juvenile and at worst blasphemous. They resemble the trick questions used by the Scribes and Pharisees to trap Jesus. The format of the criticisms is one of grand pronouncements and strings of cliches. Also, since his own private revelations about the “end-times” have been demonstrably false, we cannot take seriously his claim to be able to infallibly pronounce on other private revelations – particularly one that has been approved by the Church.

These are his principal charges:

• The promise that those who turn to God as Father will not perish is an empty promise of salvation which takes away from the Incarnation of Christ.
• The appearance of the Father as a young man detracts from the Incarnation of Christ.
• The demand of venerating an image of the Father is placed as a condition of salvation which takes away from the Christian message.
• The Father’s desire to be honored is blasphemous because God is perfect and has no desires.
• The focus on the Father takes away from the necessary focus on the suffering and death of Jesus and its salvific effect.
• The revelation says that people have lived in excessive fear of the Father and falsely says that this fear should be removed.
• This private revelation is said to be more important than the Incarnation and is on a par with Sacred Scripture.
• The roles of the Persons of the Trinity are confused.

It is clear from his charges that the critic has very little understanding of Trinitarian theology or the theology of the Father.  Further, he deliberately misrepresents key statements made in the messages. Anyone who has read a book like Vatican theologian Jean Galot’s Abba Father We Long to See Your Father will recognize the startlingly superficial nature of the critic’s comments on the Father, the Trinity and the Incarnation.

Galot says:

“The declaration, ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,’ shows us that all study of the Gospel must culminate in the Father. In every aspect of the revelation of the incarnate Son, it is important to discover the Father. Beyond the reading of the Scripture texts and beyond exegesis, the ultimate goal of the study of the Gospel must be the Father, a Father discovered in the pulsation of Jesus’ filial life.”³

“The Son receives everything from the Father by reason of the fact that he is begotten by the Father, so that the Father’s priority is total and the Father is the origin of everything that Jesus is and of everything he does. But since the Son receives everything, he possesses everything the Father possesses. He is “one”, one single Being with him. He receives the plenitude of divinity and that is why he is God like the Father, perfectly equal to the Father in possessing his divine nature.”⁴

“Salvation is governed by the Father’s intention to establish his universal fatherhood. That is the fundamental truth emphasized in the hymn at the beginning of the Letter to the Ephesians (Ep 1:2-14). … In his plan for universal fatherhood, the Father willed to become the Father of all human beings in the Son and through the Spirit.”⁵

“When Jesus teaches his disciples in explicit terms how to pray, he asks them to address the Father. The only prayer formula he transmits to them begins with the invocation to the Father and is totally directed to the Father. … Prayer addressed to Christ or to the Holy Spirit reaches the Father even if the Father is not named. … Indeed, all prayer is brought to the Father by Christ in the Holy Spirit.”⁶

It is these very themes – that are biblically fundamental and yet widely ignored – that are crystallized in the messages received by Mother Eugenia.

Each one of the critic’s charges is demonstrably false as we see below.

Charge – The promise that those who turn to God as Father will not perish is an empty promise of salvation which takes away from the Incarnation of Christ.

Response – We have seen earlier that Jesus himself said that eternal life comes from knowing the Father and the one whom he sent. We have seen also that this promise cannot be seen in isolation from the Father’s requirement (in the same message to Mother Eugenia) of keeping the commandments, receiving the sacraments, turning to Jesus and the Holy Spirit and trusting God. But much like the promises made in the Sacred Heart, Fatima and Divine Mercy revelations, a specific action (in this case sincerely turn to God as Father) will result in God providing the graces necessary for salvation. It is a starting-point not the end-point!

Charge – The appearance of the Father as a young man detracts from the Incarnation of Christ

Response – This charge is nothing less than silly. Anyone familiar with Andrei Rublev’s famous icon of the Trinity will recall that all Three Persons are shown as being of the same age with no beards. The icon derives from the three angels visiting Abraham who Christians later interpreted to be the Persons of the Trinity. God is not physical but (as we have seen), he can use physical vehicles to manifest himself. In the case of Jesus, of course, we uniquely honor the Eternal Son truly taking on a human nature. In the appearance to Mother Eugenia, the Father specifically dispels the false notion that he is to be thought of as “a frightening old man.” He emphasizes the fact that there is no “age difference” between the eternally existing Persons of the Trinity. This should be obvious to anyone who is theologically literate but is sometimes forgotten in popular piety. Jean Galot writes, “ The perfection of fatherhood cannot be conceived in a static manner. The Father’s paternity is a welling up of divine life. Far from suggesting aging, as do certain pictures of the Father representing him as an old man, it is totally new and young. The One Jesus called “Abba” is younger than all other fathers.”⁷

Charge – The demand of venerating an image of the Father is placed as a condition of salvation which takes away from the Christian message.

Response – Images are associated with other private revelations. For instance, special blessings are promised to those who venerate the images of the Sacred Heart or the Divine Mercy. In the case of Mother Eugenia, the Father says that he desires families to prominently display an image of himself that he revealed to her and that those who do so will receive his “special protection.” Nowhere in the messages does it say that venerating the image is a condition of salvation. The promise is no different from the promises made in the Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy revelations. And the image is a finite icon that draws our minds and hearts to the reality of the infinite Father and not an idol to be worshipped. We do not stop at the image but use it as a vehicle to “connect” with the eternal Father whom we are called to worship “in spirit and truth.”

Charge – The Father’s desire to be honored is blasphemous because God has no desires and emotions.

Response – The inanity of this attempted critique is obvious from Scripture itself:

“When the LORD saw how great the wickedness of human beings was on earth, and how every desire that their heart conceived was always nothing but evil, the LORD regretted making human beings on the earth, and his heart was grieved.” (Genesis 6:5-6)

“The anger of the LORD shall not abate until he has carried out completely the decisions of his heart.” (Jeremiah 23:20)

“How could I give you up, Ephraim, or deliver you up, Israel? … My heart is overwhelmed, my pity is stirred.” (Hosea 11:8)

“At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36)

“As he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it.” (Luke 19:41)

In these verses we see emotions, feelings and desires attributed to God. We know that in his infinite perfection, God has no change or need. Yet we also know that God is infinite love. This love is unchanging but it is experienced by us as divine wrath or mercy – or a divine desire (“The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart.” 1 Samuel 13:14).  The Father tells Mother Eugenia that he desires us to know, love and honor him. This is also what he told the prophet Malachi: “A son honors his father … If, then, I am a father, where is the honor due to me? … So says the LORD of hosts to you.” (Malachi 1:6.). It is not that the Father “needs” anything from us. Rather, we can reach the perfection proper to us only in knowing, loving and honoring the Father. Honoring the Father helps us not him. As he says in his messages, “It is not because I need My creature and his adoration that I desire to be known, honored and loved; the only reason why I am stooping down to him is to save him and give him a share in My glory.”

Charge – The focus on the Father takes away from the necessary focus on the suffering and death of Jesus and its salvific effect.

Response – The New Testament shows each Person of the Trinity playing a specific role in salvation history. As we have seen, the Father sends us the Son and the Spirit to draw us to the salvation that is union with him. This role played by the Father was obscured in subsequent Christian history. The revelation to Mother Eugenia has served as a necessary corrective to bring us back to the truths already found in Scripture. It should be mentioned that in this revelation the Father highlights the importance of the suffering and death of Jesus for our salvation: “for you, the Cross is the way to ascend to My Son, and from My Son to Me. Without it you could never come to Me, because man, by sinning, brought on himself the punishment of separation from God.” The Father also emphasizes the importance of the devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Kingship of Christ both of which are rooted in the Incarnation.

Charge – The revelation says that people have lived in excessive fear of the Father and falsely says that this fear should be removed.

Response – The critic maintains that there is no excessive fear of God in the faithful and he says, in fact, that we should seek to have a holy fear of God. But he is wrong on the first count and misleading on the second. Most people, including most Christians, do have an image of a harsh, condemning God. This is precisely why the Divine Mercy revelation to St. Faustina was necessary and why it met such resistance. While the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, we should not stay at the beginning. We should be afraid of breaking the laws of God but this should not affect our understanding of God. Through his parable of the prodigal son, Jesus shows us the unconditional love of the Father. It is precisely this love that the Father manifests in his messages.

Charge – This private revelation is said to be more important than the Incarnation and is on a par with Sacred Scripture.

Response – One wonders which revelation he is talking about. In his messages to Mother Eugenia, the Father asks her to go back to Scripture and ties all that he is saying to specific biblical verses and to events in Old and New Testament history. What the Father’s revelation does is to take us back to the sources of our faith: Scripture, the Incarnation, salvation history, the sacraments. It presupposes the truth of all of these. As we have said, the messages are not the revelation of any new truth but a request to return to the fullness of the original revelation that constitutes Scripture. The messages underline the love of the Father of which Scripture already speaks: “I am speaking to all men, the world over, making this appeal of My fatherly love ring out, this infinite love that I want you to know is a permanent reality.” And it calls for unconditional trust and confidence in the Father – which is also a hallmark of each book of the Bible.

Charge – The roles of the Persons of the Trinity are confused.

Response – It is the critic who is confused perhaps because of his misconceptions about the Trinity.

We have seen that that, in his messages, the Father takes us back to the original revelation of the Trinity and makes the actions of the Divine Persons as concrete as we find them to be in Scripture. The messages, like Scripture, show that the Three Persons are mutually distinct and mutually indwelling.  The critic on the other hand keeps moving between the opposite and equal heresies of tritheism and modalism – and complains that the messages do not follow in his footsteps.

In addition to the messages cited earlier, this excerpt from the prayer given to Mother Eugenia (which the critic ignores) makes it strikingly clear that there is no confusion of Trinitarian roles:

“Grant me the light, the grace and the power of the Holy Spirit! Strengthen me in this Spirit so that I may never lose Him, never grieve Him nor weaken His voice in me. My Father, it is in the Name of Jesus, Your Son, that I ask You for this. O Jesus, I ask You to open Your Heart! Put my heart into Yours and offer it, together with the Heart of Mary, to our Divine Father. Obtain for me the grace which I need!”

And, as we have seen, the Father specifically asks for the Three Persons to be honored in the Church and by humanity with a special devotion so that we can recover the fullness of the revelation of God.

In conclusion, these outrageous attempts to smear the grace-giving revelation received by Mother Eugenia tell us very little about the revelation itself. But they tell us a lot about the mind-set of the critic.  They remind us to return to the warning of Jesus: “Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.” (Matthew 7:6). In the words of St. Ambrose, this “mystery ought to remain sealed up with you … that it be not made known to those for whom it is not fitting.”

End Notes

¹https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/magisteriumism-and-other-myths/

²https://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/15400

³Jean Galot, Abba Father We Long to See Your Face (New York: Alba House, 1992), 29.

⁴Ibid., 71.

⁵Ibid., 120, 131.

⁶Ibid., 186.

⁷Ibid., 68.