In January 2008, I had the pleasure of travelling to South America for three weeks of apostolate with Carlos Reyes, the editor of the Spanish edition of the Michael Journal. I was welcomed in Ecuador by Carlos and his wife Teresa. The first few days we were accompanied by an exorcist priest from Spain, Fr. Fortea. We had a meeting in Quito, with over 3,000 people attending. Later that week we participated in a retreat for the youth of South America. The group there, Lasos de Amor Mariano, (Lace of Marian Love) works in cooperation with the Pilgrims of St. Michael with a goal of converting the youth and to continue to work with them in teaching them the Catholic Faith, forming them in Apologetics so that they are able to defend the Faith.
Carlos Reyes also teaches them the Social Doctrine of the Church and the application of Social Credit so that these youth will be completely formed and ready to go out into the world and lead true Christian lives in every aspect of Church teaching. In the two years since the founding of these retreats, miracles, both spiritual and physical, have happened. Whole families have converted to the Church, marriages have been reconciled, and youth have been cured from drug and alcohol addiction, as well as a number of other addictions and oppressions.
The youth at these retreats come from every background and I was blessed to witness some very sincere and total conversions. These young people are now "in love" with God and the Blessed Mother and are well on their way in this process of formation, learning the total consecration, to Jesus through Mary, by St. Louis-Marie De Montfort. They are eager to learn the Truth and to share it with others.
There was a group of young people there from Columbia where these retreats have been established and ongoing for the past eight years. In their formation they have learned the love of God and their neighbor and have recently incorporated our Social Credit program into their apostolate by means of Local Coupon Systems. These systems help the people, wealthy and poor, cooperate with each other in exchanging goods in that same spirit of love and service of the first Christians as spoken of in the "Acts of the Apostles".
We had another meeting in Quito where we met with the Auxiliary Bishop who supports our apostolate. We were able to give to all the clergy present our journal, "San Miguel", along with a copy of Louis Even's book, "In This Age of Plenty', which has just recently been published in Spanish. We also met a wonderful priest, Fr. Arnau from Argentina, who owns a Catholic Publication, "Christo Hoy", (Christ Today), which has a weekly circulation in Argentina, Ecuador and Paraguay. He was very interested in our Work and providentially we were scheduled to go to Argentina the following week. We were able to meet with him again and discuss a program in cooperation with his apostolate, for the expansion of the San Miguel Journal in South America.
While in Argentina, we met with a group of professionals "CIES" ( Centro de Investigaciones de Etica Social), who promote the Social Doctrine of the Church and are approved by Rome. This group wishes to work in cooperation with us through some universities and internet courses that would teach Social Credit in the light of the social teaching of the Church. They intend on coming to Canada for our Annual International Congress and "week of study" this September, 2008. They had received one of our San Miguel journals, "The Money Myth", from a very good priest from the village of Open Door, Argentina. Open Door is the neighboring village of Lujan, where resides the miraculous statue of "Our Lady of Lujan", Patroness of Argentina. We can say that it was truly Our Blessed Mother, through this priest, who "opened the door" for us in Argentina. We also met the director of "Annunciar", a Catholic radio and television network that broadcasts throughout Argentina. They are also interested in coming to our Congress to do a television documentary on the Pilgrims of St. Michael and the social teaching of the Church.
All throughout this mission I could see the hand of God. I sensed the action of the Holy Spirit uniting all these people with a common goal in reaching out to their brothers and sisters for the salvation of souls. We are now in the planning stage in Argentina and in the formation and evangelization stage in Ecuador. In Columbia there is an expansion of evangelization in all its aspects, from teaching Catechesis, Apologetics and the teachings of the Social Doctrine of the Church, to the establishment of Local Exchange Systems to help the poor and create unity and hope in the community. All the groups that we worked with had one important thing in common: they were all consecrated "To Jesus, through Mary", according to St. Louis-Marie De Montfort. What I experienced and learned in South America is that we can put into action a "Civilization of Love" guided by the loving hand of Mary Immaculate.
Yves Jacques
Subscribe