Divine Appeal Reflection - 264
Today, consider in Divine Appeal 264: "Pray, pray, pray a great deal, My blood is flowing and I want to convert this corrupt world... Repent, Repent, Repent! For those poor souls who have refused to repent and make sacrifices. Don’t be surprised that your life is always a place of suffering. I beg for souls."
In every age of salvation history, God has raised intercessors—souls pierced by the anguish of Divine Love—who cry out between heaven and earth for the conversion of the world. Today, this call returns with fire: “I beg for souls.” It is not a plea of weakness, but a sovereign cry from the Heart that bled on Calvary and continues to pour out mercy in the Eucharist. The Blood of Christ is not merely a past event—it is a living torrent (cf. Heb 12:24), seeking to redeem this very hour of human history. We are not spectators of redemption—we are summoned into it. Like Abraham before Sodom, Moses before the golden calf, Esther before the king, and Our Lady at the foot of the Cross, we are placed in this generation to intercede, fast, suffer, and pray until grace breaks the hardest stones and the vilest chains are shattered. The appeal is not merely to say prayers—but to become prayer, incarnating repentance and mercy in our flesh, tears, and will. The salvation of others must become the reason we rise in the morning and the agony that keeps us faithful when hope fades.
In the lives of saints we see the pattern of such relentless intercession. St. Monica wept for seventeen years before Augustine turned from his pride. St. Francis Xavier died on the threshold of China, exhausted from reaching the unreachable. St. Teresa of the Andes offered her illness for the conversion of the youth who mocked God. But they prayed not because they saw results; they prayed because they loved. They knew that the true measure of prayer is not what we feel, nor how long we’ve waited, but whether we love as Christ does—unto the shedding of our own comfort, tears, and sometimes blood. In today’s world, where efficiency and visible outcomes drive even spiritual effort, such love is rare. We often grow weary and move on. But if Christ on the Cross did not descend until “it was finished,” who are we to abandon the souls for whom His Blood still flows? His love is total. So must be ours.
The modern landscape is filled with resistance to repentance. The culture of individualism, constant distraction, and spiritual apathy has replaced conversion with vague positivity. Sin is rebranded, conscience silenced, and the Sacrament of Confession, where mercy waits, is often abandoned. And yet Jesus does not cease to call: “Repent, repent, repent.” Not for His sake, but for ours. He calls us to repent, not only for our sins, but in reparation for those who will not repent. In this, we become living sacrifices (cf. Rom 12:1), standing in the gap like Moses, Abraham, and above all, Mary—the woman of sorrow who shared in the Redeemer’s cry for souls. Repentance, when embraced beyond self-interest, becomes a weapon of salvation. It shakes the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart, interrupts the path of Saul, and even reaches Judas—though he refused to believe it. If God’s mercy is infinite, then the demand upon our response must be equally total. Until all are saved, we are not done.
So why is life so often a place of suffering, even for the devout? Because suffering is the chalice from which the co-saviors of souls must drink. Our pain, when united to Christ’s, becomes intercessory fire. That unspoken loneliness, the silent cross of an unanswered prayer, the daily fatigue of love not returned—all of it can become a prayer that pierces heaven. And this is why we cannot stop praying, repenting, or offering. For every mother whose child has wandered from the Church, for every priest ministering in hidden discouragement, for every soul tempted by despair—someone must stand and suffer in their place. That someone is us. The Church, in its deepest call, is Marian and cruciform: she intercedes, suffers, and loves with Christ until all is fulfilled. Therefore, let us not grow tired, and let us never consider our prayer or repentance sufficient until even the furthest soul returns to the Sacred Heart. In this divine urgency, we learn what love truly costs.
Prayer
Our Adorable Jesus, pour into us the unrelenting desire to see every soul saved. Let our prayers rise for the lost, our repentance deepen for the hardened, our suffering join Yours for the unconverted. Do not let us rest while one soul resists Your love. Use us, until all return.
Sr. Anna Ali of the Most Holy Eucharist, intercede for us.