Fr_Bart_in_English

38 years ago pope John Paul II said the prophecy about Ireland it was probably never understood by many then.

1 October 1979 in Limerick he predicted what is now going on and what we can clearly see ourselves nowadays.

"Ireland must choose. You the present generation of Irish people must decide; your choice must be clear and your decision firm. Let the voice of your forefathers, who suffered so much to maintain their faith in Christ and thus to preserve Ireland’s soul, resound today in your ears through the voice of the Pope when he repeats the words of Christ: ‘What will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his life? (Mt 16:26). What would it profit Ireland to go the easy way of the world and suffer the loss of her own soul? Your country seems in a sense to be living again the temptations of Christ: Ireland is being asked to prefer the ‘kingdom of the world and their splendour’ to the kingdom of God (Cf Mt 4:8). Satan, the tempter, the adversary of Christ, will use all his might and all his deceptions to win Ireland for the way of the world. What a victory he would gain, what a blow he would inflict on the Body of Christ in the world, if he could seduce Irish men and women away from Christ. Now is the time of testing for Ireland. This generation is once more a generation of decision. Dear sons and daughters of Ireland, pray, pray not to be led into temptation. I asked in my first encyclical for a ‘great, intense and growing prayer for all the Church’. I ask you today for a great, intense and growing prayer for all the people of Ireland, for the Church in Ireland, for all the Church which owes so much to Ireland. Pray that Ireland may not fail in the test. Pray as Jesus taught us to pray: ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’. Above all, have an immense confidence in the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the power of his death and resurrection. It is precisely because of the strength of his paschal mystery that each of us and all Ireland can say: ‘I can do things in him who strengthens me’ (Phil 4:13)."