What Fr. Gobbi had just experienced was an interior locution. It is not an apparition or other communication perceived by the human senses, but a spiritual phenomenon present in the life of the Church and described in manuals of Catholic theology. The messages (interior locutions) are the gift by which God wishes to make something known to humanity, in Fr. Gobbi's particular case by means of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Starting in July 1973, Fr. Gobbi began to write down these interior locutions he was receiving. Continuing until December 31, 1997, the messages (over 500) and are published in the book entitled, To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons.

By means of these messages, Mary began to make use of Fr. Gobbi as a humble instrument to gather all priests who would accept her invitation to consecrate themselves to her Immaculate Heart, to be strongly united to the Pope and to the Church in union with him, and to bring the faithful into the secure refuge of her motherly heart. Thus a powerful cohort would be formed and spread throughout every part of the world, created not with human means of propaganda, but with the supernatural power that emanates from silence, prayer, suffering and constant faithfulness to ones duties.

Excerpted from To The Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, published by The Marian Movement of Priests, Via Mercalli, 23, 20122 Milano, Italy. Imprimatur: Donald W. Montrose, D.D., Bishop of Stockton, March 25, 1996 (see The Marian Movement of Priests to obtain a copy, free, if necessary):

Message # 201, June 14, 1980

Until I am acknowledged there where the Most Holy Trinity has willed me to be, I will not be able to exercise my power fully, in the maternal work of co-redemption and of the universal mediation of graces.

Sons, let yourselves be transformed by my powerful action as Mother, Mediatrix of Graces, and co-redemptrix.

My role as true Mother and Co-Redemptrix will become manifest to all.

The task which the Most Holy Trinity has entrusted to me will be acknowledged by all.

Beloved children, I am the Mediatrix of Graces.

In these times, you have need above all of being defended from the terrible snares of my Adversary, who has succeeded in establishing his reign in the world. It is the reign which is opposed to Christ; it is the reign of the Antichrist. In this last part of your century, this reign of his will reach the peak of its strength, of its power, of its great seduction. The hour is in preparation when the man of iniquity, who wants to put himself in the place of God to have himself adored as God, is about to manifest himself in all his power.

I am caught between two swords, which pierce my motherly heart. On the one hand I see the great danger into which you are running, because of the chastisement which is already at the doors; and on the other I see your inability to believe and to accept the invitations to conversion, which I am giving you, so that you may flee from it.

Because this humanity has not accepted my repeated call to conversion, to repentance, and a return to God, there is about to fall upon it the greatest chastisement which the history of mankind has ever known. It is a chastisement much greater than that of the flood. Fire will fall from heaven and a great part of humanity will be destroyed.

Peace will come, after the event of the terrible chastisement, which I have already announced to you beforehand, at the dawn of this century of yours.

I am the dawn which is arising to announce the great day of the Lord.

My light which is spreading more and more in hearts and souls - as a rising dawn in the long dark night in which you are still living - is announcing to you that the great day of the Lord is near.

But you are now beginning to live through that which I had foretold to you at Fatima for the last years of this century of yours and which is still guarded under the veil of secrecy.

These are the times of the great chastisement. These times are closer than you think. Already during this Marian year, certain great events will take place, concerning what I predicted at Fatima and have told, under secrecy, to the children to whom I am appearing at Medjugorje. These are the times of the great return.

I have led you today to this place blessed by me, before the statue which recalls the mystery of my co-redemption.

I stood beneath the Cross of Jesus. I am beneath the cross which each of my sons is carrying. I am beneath the Cross which the Church and all this poor sinful humanity is carrying today. I am true Mother and true Co-redemptrix.

From the eyes of this image of myself I have caused miraculous tears to fall more than a hundred times and over the course of several years.

Why am I still weeping? I am weeping because humanity is not accepting my motherly invitation to conversion and to its return to the Lord.

A chastisement worse than the flood is about to come upon this poor and perverted humanity. Fire will descend from heaven and this will be the sign that the justice of God has as of now fixed the hour of His great manifestation.

Even now, that which I predicted at Fatima and that which I have revealed here in the third message confided to a little daughter of mine is in the process of being accomplished. And so, even for the Church the moment of its great trial has come, because the man of iniquity will establish himself within it and the abomination of desolation will enter into the holy temple of God.

At last the moment has come when I, the Woman clothed with the Sun, will conquer the Red Dragon.

[Revelation 12:1 A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun.]

These are seventy years during which I have descended from heaven into your midst as the Woman Clothed with the Sun. These are seventy years during which my Adversary, Satan, has come up from the abyss into your midst, to manifest himself as the Red Dragon in all his terrible power.

[Matthew 24:21 For there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be.]

You are living the painful times of the chastisement, you are living the dark hour of the victory of my Adversary, who is the Prince of Night. You are living the most difficult moments of the purification. And so I urge you to take refuge in the secure dwelling place of my Immaculate Heart and to let yourselves be enwrapped in the heavenly mantle of my most pure light.

Know how to read and to meditate upon that which, in sacred scripture, has been clearly described for you to help you understand the time in which you are living. With my motherly voice I am leading you all to understand the signs of the great tribulation. From the Gospels, from the Letters of the Apostles and from the Book of the Apocalypse, sure signs have been clearly described for you to make you understand what the period of the great tribulation is. All these signs are in the act of being realized in your time.

-First of all, a great apostasy is spreading in every part of the Church, through the lack of faith which is flooding even among its very pastors. Satan has succeeded in spreading everywhere the great apostasy, by means of his subtle work of seduction, which has brought many to be alienated from the truth of the Gospel to follow the fables of the new theological theories and to take delight in evil and in sin, sought after as an actual good.

-Then, in your time, overturnings of the order of nature are multiplying, such as earthquakes, droughts, floods, and disasters which cause the unforeseen death of thousands of persons, followed by epidemics and incurable diseases which are spreading everywhere.

-Moreover, your days are marked by continual rumors of wars which are multiplying and are reaping, each day, innumerable victims. Conflicts and dissensions within countries are increasing; revolts and struggles between various peoples are propagating; bloody wars are continuing to extend themselves, notwithstanding all the efforts which are being made to attain peace.

-Finally, in your time, there are occurring great signs in the sun, on the moon and in the stars. The miracle of the sun which took place at Fatima was a sign I gave you to warn you that the times of these extraordinary phenomena which are taking place in the heavens have now arrived. And how many times during my present apparitions have you yourselves been able to contemplate the great prodigies that are taking place in the sun.

[Mark 13:28-29 Learn a lesson from the fig tree. Once the sap of its branches runs high and it begins to sprout leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see these things happening, you will know that he is near, even at the door.]

Just as the buds which sprout forth on the trees tell you that spring has now arrived, so also these great signs which are taking place in your time are telling you that even now there has come to you the great tribulation, which is preparing you for the new era which I have promised you with the triumph of my Immaculate Heart in the world.

[Genesis 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers: He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.]

This century has been marked by my strong presence in your midst and, in order to make it perceptible to all, I have everywhere multiplied my miraculous manifestations.

Why am I, in these times, making myself present to you in a new, continuous and extraordinary way? Because these are the times of the reign of my Adversary, the Red Dragon, Satan, the old serpent whose head I shall crush.

I came from heaven to ask you to offer me the first Saturday of the month. I asked this of my daughter, Sister Lucia, when she was in the convent of Pontevedra, on the 10^th of December, 1925.

I am asking you to propagate again today the devotion to the first Saturdays of the month. I had asked for this during the first part of this century of yours; I am returning today to ask for it as this century turns towards it most painful close.

These are the times of the great mercy. The Heart of Jesus is about to pour out torrents of his divine and merciful love. The hour of the great mercy for the world has come. It will come down as dew upon every wound; it will open the hardest of hearts; it will purify souls immersed in sin; it will lead sinners to conversion and will grant to everyone the grace of a complete renewal.

The Holy Spirit will come, to establish the glorious reign of Christ and it will be a reign of grace, of holiness, of love, of justice and peace. With His divine love, he will open the doors of hearts and illuminate all consciences. Every person will see himself in the burning fire of divine truth. It will be like a judgment in miniature. And then Jesus Christ will bring His glorious reign in the world.

[Thessalonians 2:1-12: On the question of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we beg you, brothers, not to be so easily agitated or terrified, whether by oracular utterance, or rumor, or a letter alleged to be ours, into believing that the day of the Lord is here.

Let no one seduce you, no matter how. Since the mass apostasy has not yet occurred nor the man of lawlessness - that son of perdition and adversary who exalts himself above every so-called god proposed for worship, he who seats himself in God's temple and even declares himself to be God - do you not remember how I used to tell you about these things when I was still with you? You know what restrains him until he shall be revealed in his own time. The secret force of lawlessness is already at work, mind you, but there is one who holds him back until that restrainer shall be taken from the scene. Thereupon the lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus will destroy him with the breath of His mouth and annihilate him by manifesting His presence. This lawless one will appear as part of the working of Satan, accomplished by all the power and signs and wonders at the disposal of falsehood - by every seduction the wicked can devise for those destined to ruin because they have not opened their hearts to the truth in order to be saved. Therefore God is sending upon them a perverse spirit which leads them to give credence to falsehood, so that all who have not believed the truth but have delighted in evildoing will be condemned.]

The hour of the great apostasy has come. What has been foretold in Holy Scripture, in the Second Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians, is now on the point of coming to pass.

Satan, my Adversary, with snares and by means of his subtle seduction, has succeeded in spreading errors everywhere, under the form of new and more updated interpretations of the Truth, and he has led many to choose with full knowledge - and to live in - sin, in the deceiving conviction that this is no longer an evil, and even that it is a value and a good.

[Today the battle is especially painful because there is precise aggression against women, against all sexual identity and unique roles, and against the unique maternal role of THE woman as "mother of the living." The battle against the woman has confused and angered this generation of women, and men as well. The confusion is such that we are fighting each other and do not recognize the enemy, nor do most even know of his existence. Satan has so confused our minds over the centuries that now he can freely attack the fundamental identity of both men and women without being identified as the enemy! (Spiritual Warfare, Attack Against the Woman, Fr. George Kosicki, C.S.B., Faith Publishing Company, 1990)]

The times of the general confusion and of the greatest agitation of spirits has come. Confusion has entered into the souls and the lives of many of my children.

This great apostasy is spreading more and more, even through the interior of the Catholic Church. Errors are being taught and spread about, while the fundamental truths of the faith, which the authentic Magisterium of the Church has always taught and energetically defended against any heretical deviation whatsoever, are being denied with impunity.

The episcopates are maintaining a strange silence and are no longer reacting. When my Pope speaks with courage and reaffirms with force the truths of the Catholic faith, he is no longer listened to and is even publicly criticized and derided. There is a subtle and diabolical tactic, woven in secrecy by Masonry, which is used today against the Holy Father in order to bring ridicule upon his person and his work and to neutralize his Magisterium.

(see Humanum Genus, Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Freemasonry, April 20, 1884)

In these times, in the Catholic Church, there will remain a little remnant who will be faithful to Christ, to the Gospel, and to its entire truth. The little remnant will form a little flock, all guarded in the depths of my Immaculate Heart. This little flock will be made up of those bishops, priests, religious and faithful who will remain strongly united to the Pope, all gathered together in the cenacle of my Immaculate Heart, in an act of unceasing prayer, of continual immolation, of total offering to prepare the painful way for the second and glorious coming of my Son Jesus.

[Matthew 24:22 And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened.

It is through the great response of prayer and penance, on the part of so many of my children, that I have been able to obtain from Divine Justice the setting aside once again of a great chastisement which ought to have struck all humanity.

But now, with the close of this Marian Year, the space of time granted by the Lord to humanity for its conversion is also on the point of coming to a close. And now you are on the threshold of the events of which I foretold to you.

You have entered into my times. On this day, I am asking you to consecrate to me all the time that still separates you from the end of this century of yours.

It is a period of ten years. These are ten very important years. These are ten decisive years. I am asking you to spend them with me because you are entering into the final period of the second Advent, which will lead you to the triumph of my Immaculate Heart in the glorious coming of my Son Jesus.

In this period of ten years there will come to completion that fullness of time which was pointed out to you by me, beginning with La Salette all the way to my most recent and present apparitions.

In this period of ten years there will come to its culmination that purification which, for a number of years now, you have been living through and therefore the sufferings will become greater for all.

[Matthew 24:29 And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be moved.]

[Revelation 6:12-13 And I saw, when he had opened the sixth seal: and behold there was a great earthquake. And the sun became black as sackcloth of hair: and the whole moon became as blood. And the stars from heaven fell upon the earth, as the fig tree casteth its green figs when it is shaken by a great wind.]

In this period of ten years there will come to completion the time of the great tribulation, which has been foretold to you in Holy Scripture, before the second coming of Jesus.

In this period of ten years, the mystery of the iniquity, prepared for by the ever increasing spread of apostasy, will become manifest.

In this period of ten years all the secrets which I have revealed to some of my children will come to pass and all the events which have been foretold to you by me will take place.