Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta

Saint Annibale Maria di Francia
Apostle of the Divine Will

Jesus to Luisa: “When I have Completed Everything, I will Entrust My Kingdom to My Priest-Ministers so that as second apostles they will be Its heralds. Do you believe it is coincidental the visit of Fr. di Francia, who has shown so much interest in the publication of everything concerning My Will? No, no, I have Arranged it; it is a Providential Act of the Supreme Will that wants him as First Apostle and Herald of the Divine Fiat. As founder of a work it is easier for him to approach Bishops, Priests and people, and also in his own Institute, announce the Kingdom of My Will. For that reason I Assist him so much and I Give him Special Light, because to understand a Divine Will, Holy and Eternal, Great Graces and not a small light, but a Sun, are needed, as well as great disposition from the one to whom this Office is Conferred.” (Jesus to the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta – Volume 20, November 6, 1926).

Saint Annibale Maria di Francia

“These are writings (of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta) that must now be made known to the world. I believe they will produce Great Good. For as Sublime as this Science of the Divine Will is, so do these writings of Divine Dictation present it, clearly and limpidly. In my opinion, no human intellect would have been able to form them.” – St. Annibale Maria di Francia

Born July 5, 1851, in Messina, Sicily, Italy. Since his youth, St. Annibale was drawn to prayer in order to obtain Priests for the Church: “Rogate ergo Dominum messis ut mittat operarios in messem suam” (“Pray therefore the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers into His Harvest” Matt 9:38, Luke 10:2)

A supernatural Light Illuminated his being, the Lord was Calling him to propagate the Divine Command.

Among many achievements, he founded The Rogationist Fathers of the Heart of Jesus and the Daughters of Divine Zeal.

(After learning of the following passage in Luisa’s writings, the Rogationists had this image painted. It is currently hanging in St. Anthony’s and St. Annibale’s Church, Rome, Italy)

Book of Heaven – Vol. 22 – June 1, 1927 – “I was feeling very afflicted, not only because of the privations of my sweet Jesus, but also because I had received the unexpected news of the death of Reverend Father di Francia. He was the only one left to me, to whom I could open my poor soul. How well he could understand me – it was to a saint that I would entrust myself, who had very much comprehended all the value of what Jesus had told me about the Divine Will. He had so much interest in it that, with insistence, he had taken all the writings with himself in order to publish them. So, I was thinking to myself: ‘After Jesus allowed that he would take the writings with himself, to my great sacrifice, because I did not want it, and only because he was a saint I had to surrender… And now, Jesus has taken him to Heaven.’ I felt I myself being tortured because of the pain, but – Fiat! Fiat! Fiat! everything ends down here. I poured out in tears, commending to Jesus that blessed soul (Rev di Francia), who had so much suffered and worked for Him; and while I was doing this, my sweet Jesus moved in my interior, and told me: “My daughter, courage, you must know that everything which that soul, so dear to Me, has done, all the Knowledges he has known about My Will, have caused him to enclose as much Light within his soul. So, each additional knowledge is a greater Light that he possesses, and each Knowledge places a distinct Light in the soul, one more beautiful than the other, together with the seed of the distinct happiness which each Light contains.

          In fact, in anything good that the soul can know, with her will of putting it into practice within herself, she remains in possession of the good she knows. But if she does not have the will to put the knowledges she acquires into practice, it happens as when someone touches a flower or washes himself once with very fresh water: in that act, he will feel the fragrance of the flower, the refreshment of the fresh water, but since he does not possess the flower or the fount of fresh water, little by little the fragrance will vanish, as well as the good of the freshness of that water, and he will find himself empty of that fragrance, and without the freshness he had enjoyed. Such are the Knowledges when one has the good of knowing them but does not put them into practice. Now, that soul (Rev di Francia) had all the will to practice them; so much so, that in seeing the great good he felt, he wanted to make them known to others by publishing them. So, as long as he remained on earth, his body, more than wall, walled up that Light; but as soon as his soul went out of the prison of his body, he found  himself Invested with the Light he possessed. And as the many seeds of happiness he possessed developed, which are the effects of the Knowledges about My Divine Will, he began to feel the beginning of the Life of True Beatitudes. And diving into the Eternal Light of his Creator, he found himself in the Celestial Fatherland, in which he will continue his mission about My Will, assisting everything himself, from Heaven.

          If you knew the great difference in Glory, in Beauty, in Happiness, which exists between one who, upon dying,  brings Light from the earth, together with the Seeds of many Happinesses, and one who only receives it from his Creator… There is such distance as to surpass the distance between Heaven and earth. O! if mortals knew the great good they acquire by knowing a True Good, a Truth, and by making it their own blood in order to absorb it in their own lives, they would compete among themselves, they would forget about everything in order to know one Truth – and would lay down their lives to put it into practice.”

          While Jesus was saying this, I saw the blessed soul of Father before me, near my bed, Invested with Light, Suspended from the earth, fixing on me, but without telling me one word. I too felt mute before him, and Jesus added: “Look at him, how Transformed he is. My Will is Light, and has Transformed that soul into Light; It is Beautiful, and has given him all the tints of Perfect Beauty; It is Holy, and he has been Sanctified. My Will Possesses All Sciences, and his soul has been Invested by Divine Science. There is nothing which My Will has not given to him. O! if all understood what Divine Will means, they would put everything aside, they would care about doing nothing else, and their whole commitment would be to do My Will alone.”

Canonization of St. Annibale Maria di Francia- May 16, 2004, by Pope Saint John Paul II

“Apostle of Prayer for Vocations and the True Father of the poor”

On June 1, 1927, Saint Annibale died in Messina. As soon as the people heard the news of his death they began to say: “Let us go to see the sleeping saint”. A few days before the Blessed Virgin Mary had appeared to him and assured him of Her Protection, a vision to reward his tender devotion toward Her. His body is buried in the church of the “Evangelical Rogation” which Saint Hannibal himself had built in Messina. Many of his contemporaries, and among them St. Luigi Orione, requested that a formal Cause for Canonization be promptly started.

On February 4, 2018 – the parish of Santa Maria Greca and the Little Children of the Divine Will welcomed the relics of St. Annibale Maria Di Francia at Luisa Piccarreta’s house.

 Saint Annibale Maria di Francia – Apostle of the Divine Will

Many times, he would go to Luisa’s house; as he was her extraordinary confessor. In his last years, the Archbishop of Trani appointed him director over everything referring to the publication of Luisa’s writings.

He was named Ecclesiastical Censor for the Archdiocese of Trani-Barletta-Bisceglie as well. He was also the first to begin publishing Luisa’s writings, the first of which was “The Hours of The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” which she wrote around the year 1913 or 1914. Saint Annibale made four editions of this book (1915, 1916, 1917 and 1921), all bearing the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur.  One of the best-remembered episodes, according to a number of witnesses, was the time that St. Annibale took the book, The Hours of the Passion, to the Holy Father, now St. Pius X (who received him privately on a number of occasions, as did Popes Benedict XV and Pius XI), while showing it to him, he was reading a few pages when the Pope interrupted him, saying, “Not while standing, Father; this book should be read kneeling. It is Jesus Christ who is Speaking.”

 

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI blessed the 17.5’ statue of St. Annibale Maria di Francia at the Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican, Rome on July 7, 2010.

  

“It seems that Our Lord, Who century after century increases the Wonders of His Love more and more,  wanted to make of this virgin (Luisa) with no education, whom He calls the littlest one that He found on earth,  the instrument for a Mission so Sublime that no other can be compared to it – that is, the Triumph of the Divine Will upon the whole earth, in Conformity with what is said in the Our Father: Fiat Voluntas Tua sicut in Coelo et in Terra.”

– St. Annibale Maria di Francia