Letter of Cardinal Bernardino Echeverría Ruiz,
Archbishop of Guayaquil, Ecuador

With great devotion and emotion, we have read this book, Flame of Love, translated by Father Gabriel Róna, S.J., and submitted to us to obtain permission prior to its publication. We must confess, with due sincerity, that we have found in the pages of this book the most beautiful and profound lessons of spiritual life, at such a point that we believe it is proper not only to give the approval needed, but also to recommend this book which will contribute to advance further in the requirements of the Christian life.

Flame of Love is a new name given to that immense and eternal Love that Mary professes to all human beings, for whom Christ offered his Life and shed his Blood. Likewise, Flame of Love is the name that expresses the love that Mary has for Her children. Flame that enlightens, flame that warms up, flame that burns, flame that, while burning in the Heart of Mary, wants to burn in the heart of Her children too, especially during these days set for the prayer of atonement that are Thursdays and Fridays of each week.
 
By this Flame of Love, which is the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we will find the innumerable treasures of the five Wounds of Christ, which are not only the refuge of the soul but also the lesson on the Cross we need to understand when we sign ourselves with the sign of the Cross saying again one of the most simple and profound prayers. By his Holy Cross, He delivers us from our enemies. The Cross is the most powerful weapon to defeat the devil, that evil spirit, which is dominating every day more and more throughout the world.

That is why the Flame of Love must be ignited in order to save all Christians; to save the families, saving the father and the mother of every Christian family; to help to the sanctification of priests who, as they are more like Christ, will exercise a ministry all the more efficient; this Flame of Love must enlighten all the moments of the life of the Christian, all his moments of illness, of agony and of death. Even after death, this Flame of Love must keep on enlightening the hope of all those who are in purgatory.

While giving the authorization to publish this beautiful book of love, we express the most fervent wishes that it will reach numerous hands and turn itself into the instrument by which all of us can come together with God, unceasingly enlightened by this eternal Flame of Love, the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Bishop Bernardino Echeverría Ruiz
Archbishop of Guayaquil
June 1989

Note of Father Gabriel Róna, S.J.

His Excellency Archbishop Bernardino Echeverria, after having personally studied the manuscript of the diary and sent it back to me, has read the following letter to me, dated June 1989.

On November 26, 1994, Archbishop Bernardino was promoted by His Holiness John Paul II Cardinal of our Holy Mother Church. Until his death which occurred on April 6th, 2000, the Cardinal was a friend and a great apostle of the Flame of Love.

He himself approved the Statutes of the Movement. He asked the Holy Father to give his approbation that the Flame of Love be accepted in the whole Church (October 22, 1996). He received this answer from the Holy See:

"Encouraging you to take every measure for the Association to give abundant fruits among its members and also throughout the whole Church, I invite you to continue with the tender task of spiritual accompaniment.”

J. Francis Stafford
President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity
263/97/S-61/B

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