PREDICTIONS OF THE V. ANNA MARIA TAIGI.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 371, 8 July 1874, Page 3

PREDICTIONS OF THE V. ANNA MARIA TAIGI.

Most of our readers have probably heard of a prophecy, which has been current for some years past, of a three days darkness, similar to one of the Egyptian plagues, wherewith God will appall and chastise a guilty and rebellious world. But we are not sure whether it is generally known that the authority on which it rests is that of no less a person than the venerable Anna Maria Taigi, an authority combined with the remarkable fulfilment of so many of that holy woman's other predictions, cannot but entitle it -to more respect than is usually felt for the revelations of anonymous individuals. The following passage from a Roman Jetter to the " Journal de Bruxelles " seems, therefore, to be worth quotting. " A holy and learned man," the writer says, " who died not long since and was a friend of Anna Maria Taigi has often told me that the day would come when the Pope, shut up in the Vatican, will find himself girdled as by a circle of iron. He will have lost all human hope, and it will be just then that God will make a signal display of His mercy. I remember also that D. Raffaele Natali, learned from Anna Maria that Pius IX. would sit 27 years on the Pontifical throne. On a certain day his Holiness had, ordered the mauscripts containing' the revelations of the venerable woman to be brought to him by the Secretary of the Congregation of Rites, and. on reading therein that his reign would last 27 years, he took a pen .and erased the passage, saying, ' That is too much !' This is possible, but lam told that his Holiness has now ordered the restoration of the text which he had expugnad. From the processes of the same venerable Anna Maria has been extracted the prophecy of two great chastisements, the one from heaven and the other from earth. The latter, which will succeed, according to another of her predictions, is explained as follows : Great darkness is to prevail over the whole land during three days and three nights. It will be so thick that absolutely nothing will be visible, and will be accompaned by pestilence, which will chiefly fall on the enemies of religion, although the scourge will not be confined exclusively to them. While this darkness lasts no light will shine, no fire will have any brightness, and only those who have blessed things (candles ?) will be able no see. They are exhorted not to scan the heavens curiously during -the darkness — ■whosoever shall go out at the window or leave his house for the purpose of describing what is passing in the firmament will be immediately struck down. The whole time that this judgment shall last ought to be imployed in prayer, and, above all, in recit" ing the Holy Rosary, hoping that amid all this cfearful humiliation the Lord may show mercy to us. The director of this holy woman said, in August, 18G4 : 'It is most true that the venerable servant of God announced the scourge of darkness, extending over the whole earth. While it lasts the windows must be kept closed, all persons niust ftvoid appearing at them, and they ought to recite the Holy Rosary, and pray.' " The " Pensamiento Espanel" adds :—": — " We are ignorant of the value to be attributed to these predictions, since we are not aware that the Church, the sole authority in the matter, has declared anything with reference to them Certain it is that God does not need to have resource to extraordinary means to bring about the triumph of flis Church, but it is equally time that in His insrutable designs He may be pleased to confound by prodigies the pride and wickedness of his enemies."