The Sign of the Cross
Maria says: (Maria Mother and Teacher, Vol. 1) “My dear children, here I am. I am your Mother, the Mother of God and of the Church. At the foot of the Cross I became your Mother, my Son having entrusted each one of you to me as a true son, and together I became the repository of that cross in which salvation resides, which every man can find through all the centuries, right to the end of the world.
With this blessed sign which I guard, children, you all shall overcome. Victory is based on strength, and your strength resides in Him who has overcome the infernal powers and the world, by sacrificing himself and immolating himself completely, with the total shedding of blood on that wood, which has become the sign and pledge of salvation and glory.
The Church, in the name of the Cross and of the Crucified One, blesses its children from the cradle to the tomb and accompanies them in every glad or sad events of life, imploring, pardoning and comforting.
I follow and accompany the Church, and in the name of my Jesus crucified I guard the faith that has been given by God in Baptism and I strengthen it, I rekindle it and render it heroic.
The Cross is the sign of salvation and it is for this that, raising up missionary vocations, I give to some of your brethren detachment from the goods of the earth and the capacity to leave home, relatives and all the riches that the worldly desire in order to go in search of the true goods, the eternal ones.
It is to them that I entrust the Cross as an immense wealth, so that my Jesus may be to them a comfort, an encouragement and a strength. But to each one of you, in whatever state or condition you find yourselves, I entrust a cross, I give the strength and I invite to receive it as a gift of Heaven.
O Holy Cross which, if welcomed with love, lifts you up and brings you right up to Heaven! How few are those who love you. And yet, if there had been a more simple and less painful means but equally efficacious to save the world, my Son would have chosen it.
I too shared with Him and carried my heavy cross which accompanied me my whole life, and I assure you that if, in our imitation, you shall go and meet it halfway, embrace it and clasp it to your heart, in the cross you will find not only salvation but also joy. So, children, have the saints done and do.
Therefore, love the cross blessed under whatever form it is presented. Love and venerate my Jesus hanging on the cross and carry its effigy on your breast for your defense. Love to make the sign of the cross on yourselves in the most solemn, dear and sorrowful moments of life.
Make the sign of the cross when temptations, doubts, evil things would like to take grace and peace away from you. But above all accept the cross when this is called sorrow and comes as a luminous sign to meet you, to remind you that with it you can reach Heaven.
I know that the good mothers of once upon a time, guiding the little hands of their little children, taught them to fix firmly on their body the sign of the cross. Now it shall be me, when you, recalling this teaching, will want with faith and devotion to mark yourselves with the sign of the cross, who will guide your hand and increase your faith and love.
In the name of the Holy Trinity who has chosen me to be the true Mother of the living, I choose you so that by means of the cross you bring faith and Christian hope to the world.
Children, I bless you and I beg you: love one another and be good. Be always like the arms of the cross, united by charity and brotherly love on which my Jesus can rest himself.
Abolish envies, jealousies and evil things. May perfect harmony reign in you, since in this way will the Lord reign amongst you.”