Frequent Questions

When the Virgin Mary asked the visionaries for the formation of the Grace Mercy Order, She was asked why She didn't appear in the core of the Catholic Church. Our Lady answered that, in these times, the Sacred Hearts would appear to visionaries outside of the Church with the purpose of rescuing those who do not belong to Christianity and those who have distanced from it for lack of trust. We obeyed the request of the Virgin Mary. For that reason, as mentioned in our web pages, this work does not belong to any institutionalized religion.

The Mother of the Divine Conception of the Trinity was the form that the Virgin Mary manifested in Her first Apparition to this group of visionaries on August 8, 2007, in the north of the state of Paysandu, in Uruguay.

Consequently, the Mother of the Divine Conception of the Trinity is not an advocation of this group, but an Aspect of the Virgin Mary, revealed when She delivered Her first message to the visionaries.

The Divine Conception of Mary refers to Her state of Purity and Grace, that which we know from the first Joyful Mystery, as the Annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary.

In that event, Our Lady received, through the message of the Archangel, the revelation of Her spiritual state, and of Her Divine Conception. That means She was free of any stain, that She had no original sin. This is why She is Immaculate and Her Conception is Divine since it comes from God.

Besides, the Aspect of the Mother of the Divine Conception of the Trinity shows that Her Divine Conception is united to the Most Holy Trinity: to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; that the Holy Virgin is pure and full of Grace and Her Soul belongs to the Triune Consciousness.

We pray the Holy Rosary because Our Lady asked us to daily pray it and to teach it to our brothers and sisters, as a spiritual exercise for Peace in humanity and on the Planet.

Since we began to pray the Holy Rosary, we have learned that, through it, we are protected and united to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

We believe that the mentioned Apparitions are true because the Virgin Mary Herself has spoken to us about them and requested us to visit several Marian Sanctuaries that She has founded in the world, for us to receive the Graces and gifts that She placed in those sacred places.

We believe that the Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in different places, despite being associated with specific Messages, have the only purpose of correcting our paths and leading us back to God.

Since the Virgin Mary asked us for the foundation of the Grace Mercy Order, She requested us to wear habits, as a symbol of the different vows that we assume before God when we consecrate our lives.

Throughout the years, our habits gradually changed for explicit requests of the Divinity and each detail has a spiritual purpose.

We believe this happened because we also gradually changed, became more mature thus being able to assume more profound vows with God.

For example, the habit that the mothers and sisters of our Order wear was requested by the Virgin Mary to represent a more profound vow of selfless service and the commitment to embrace the sorrows of the world with Our Lady, helping Her to bear and transform these sorrows.

These vows manifest in our day-to-day, in our willingness to serve, in our daily prayers; it is something material but above all, profoundly spiritual.

Thus, the habit is not representing a religion, it exists first to remind each one of us, consecrated monks and nuns of the Grace Mercy Order, about the vows we have assumed with God, and then to let the world know about the choice we have made of consecrating our lives.

Yes, we believe in the Holy Trinity. This is the basis of our faith, our consecrated life, and our life of service, there is no other reason for our spiritual path.

Yes, we believe that Jesus is God because He taught us through His Gospel that comes from the Father, and the Father acts through His Firstborn Son, that is, Christ comes from the Kingdom of the Heavens, and He is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity.

Conversion is the act of redemption that we live in our lives through surrender to Christ through the experience of the sacraments and healthy and peaceful life, filled by the prayer of the heart and selfless service.

Since the foundation of this Work in 1987, its members have tried to apply in their daily lives the Christian and fraternal values, seeking to assist those who are less privileged in their basic needs, as well as to help them to develop their potential and, thus, become responsible for their own growth and development.

In 2011, after 24 years of informal services throughout Brazil and other countries with prayer groups of the Light-Network, the Virgin Mary requested us to begin our international humanitarian missions, providing humanitarian assistance to those affected by the Earthquake in Nepal.

After this work, we carried out missions in Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Kongo, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Greece, Turkey, Colombia, and Brazil.

In 2016 we began to assist Venezuelan refugees that arrived in the State of Roraima, Brazil, in search of protection and new opportunities due to the crisis in their country.

In 2017, the UNHCR, (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), recognized the actions of Fraternity – International Humanitarian Federation (FIHF), an organization that supports all this Work, and they requested an institutional association, which remains up to today, in 5 of the 13 shelters of the State of Roraima, and in the temporary lodging of Manaus, in the State of Amazonas.

In 2018 the FIHF developed a partnership in the education sector with UNICEF, another agency of the United Nations, through the project “The Common Good”, provided by missionaries of the FIHF.

In the same year, 12 ministries of the Brazilian government began the “Welcoming Operation”, a task force that gathered humanitarian responses from more than 100 national and international agencies, among which are the FIHF and representatives of the civil society.

This marked the beginning of a stage of greater logistics and organization of the humanitarian response, giving it a quality that is internationally recognized.

In the environmental disasters of Mariana and Brumadinho, in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, the missionaries of the FIHF and the consecrated monastics of the Grace Mercy Order acted assisting animals and bringing aid to people who had been rescued, providing assistance to field vet hospitals and psychological assistance to people affected by the loss of their loved ones.

We live entirely self-given so that the Christian values that we develop may be transformed into actions that benefit the other Kingdoms of Nature and assist in the rescue of human dignity.

We founded communities, nuclei, groups of prayer, and monasteries so that all those who are interested may have the opportunity of dedicating themselves to these works of love and fraternity, freely and spontaneously, without the need of having financial costs for this.

We survive cultivating our food, producing and taking care of our own seeds, interacting ecologically and sustainably with natural resources.

The collaborators related to our objectives, regarding both the development of the communities and the services we render to the world, including humanitarian response and worldwide meetings of prayer, donate voluntarily and spontaneously.

These donations are transformed into projects of development based on our social statutes and allow us to continue offering activities free of charge to all, no matter their race, creed, or social situation.

Besides, spontaneous donation is what allows us to keep the doors in the communities, nuclei, and groups of prayer open and without charging fees.

Therefore, each one that arrives can become integrated and benefit from the donation that someone made previously. Thus, the donations become impersonal and anonymous works of service to humanity and the planet.

We are Christians because we believe in Christ and try to daily live His teachings. He is our Master and Lord.

We consider ecumenism to be a path towards unity among all Christians, unity that is based on prayer, selfless service, conversion, and fraternal dialogue. Through this dialogue, we can succeed in fulfilling the Will of Christ that "all of His disciples may become one."

The Sacred Hearts themselves in Their apparitions speak about the Holy Father. Since Pope Francis was elected supreme pontiff, Christ Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the Most Chaste Saint Joseph have mentioned, on many occasions, the important task he is carrying out and the importance of supporting him.

For that reason, the Grace Mercy Order always watches the transmissions of the Papal audiences, and also accompanies through the internet and prays for the apostolic journeys of the Holy Father.

Statement by Mother María Shimani de Montserrat:

“After August 8, 2007, the Virgin Mary began to appear to Friar Elías del Sagrado Corazon de Jesus and to me at least once a month. In one of these occasions, Our Lady requested us to go to Brazil, specifically to the Light-Community of Figueira, in Minas Gerais, with the purpose of speaking of the Apparitions with the founder of the Community, José Trigueirinho Netto, and inform him that She also wanted to appear at that location.

We gathered all the courage we had available and, just like the Virgin had instructed, we travelled to the Light-Community of Figueira. There, we shared group life for around two weeks, without knowing how we were to address Trigueirinho to explain what was happening.

However, when we talked, he told us that he had been waiting for a long time for the arrival of the Mother of humanity in Figueira.

Thus, on January 25, 2008, the Virgin Mary appeared privately to a small group at the place known today as the Hill of the Apparitions, in the Marian Center of Figueira.

That day, Trigueirinho knelt down before the Apparition of the Virgin and offered Her everything he had, which was his life and his community, so that She could have this place available to do Her task. And so it was.

From then on, we had private Apparitions every 13th and 25th of each month, during the years of 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.

These were years of profound conversions, prayer, preparation and purification for ourselves as visionaries and also of the communities, preparing us for what would come afterwards.

On August 18, 2011, we were in the Light-Community of Aurora, in the north of Paysandu Department, in Uruguay. It was dawn when Friar Elías knocked on my bedroom door and told me that the Virgin Mary had woken him up, She wanted to speak to us.

We went to the orange groves that are on the field of the community and the Divine Mother appeared there and asked both of us if we were willing to definitively renounce our lives and accompany Her in a worldwide task through public Apparitions.

We said yes, that we would always accompany Her in whatever She needed, in total obedience.

Thus, public Apparitions began.

On November 15 of this same year, 2011, the Virgin Mary began to transmit Her daily messages, and they continue to this day*.

On November 15, 2012, when the daily messages completed one year, Our Lady made an Apparition in the Marian Center of Aurora and announced that She would appear to one more visionary, then calling Sister Lucía de Jesús, who was already a consecrated nun of the Grace Mercy Order. From this day on, Sister Lucía began to also participate in this task with the Sacred Hearts.”

(*) June 2020

Mother María Shimani de Montserrat’s answer:

"Clairvoyance is a spiritual mission. A visionary is a person who is summoned and called by God to be an instrument through which the Divinity can transmit Their Word to humanity.

There are different degrees of clairvoyance, according to the spiritual task that must be fulfilled, as God determined that He would speak to human beings through other human beings - those who in ancient times were called prophets and, in this time, are called visionaries.

The so-called primary or main visionaries are those people whom God designated to speak to and to be His instruments. They can have different types of vision, in different degrees and in different ways, but what characterizes them is that the Divinity addresses them directly.

The intermediate visionaries are those people who, for different reasons, access other realities in different ways, and with different degrees of amplitude, but to whom the Divinity does not address directly.

It is important to have it clear that it is God who communicates with the visionaries, not the visionaries who summon God when they think or feel like it. It is always a movement that is made from the Divinity towards human beings, not the opposite.

A visionary is a person who strives to become empty of themselves, who constantly works for not wanting anything for themselves and to be always at the service of God, in total gratitude and obedience.

Each person comes to this world with a spiritual and material task to fulfill; therefore, clairvoyance is an inner commitment with which the being is born and that awakens and is activated when the Divinity considers it to be necessary.

Generally, the visionaries have spiritual experiences and visions with the Divinity and the angels since they are children so that their souls may gradually enter into this task.

When the moment defined by God comes, they begin to experience the first Apparitions and receive the first instructions; in our case, from the Virgin Mary."

To be a visionary is not personal merit, it is a serious responsibility of serving God unconditionally.

It is to communicate the messages of Heaven to humanity without distorting any word. it is to become empty of expectations, achievements, or protagonism.

It is to learn to listen and transmit the messages of the Divinity without manipulating any word.

It is to be truthful and as pure as possible, despite our imperfections.

It is to surrender yourself to a life of constant consecration and renewal of vows.

It is a commitment and a daily discipline with prayer, selfless service, and the permanent sacrifice of always putting others first.

It is to not let yourself be influenced by the things that the world experiences, not to contaminate yourself with any type of information. It is to accept the call of God, so as to learn to be a true instrument of the Eternal Father.

Statement by Friar Elías del Sagrado Corazon de Jesús:

“I professed the catholic religion in the first years of my adolescence when I had the Grace of actively partaking the eucharistic celebrations and some activities related to the church, like taking care of the parish and ringing the bell tower of the city to call for the mass. I was the altar boy and joined the Legion of Mary and of the Neocatechumenal Way.

During that period, the church taught me to think of being somebody in life, learning to serve, committing myself to pray the Holy Rosary and to carry the image of Our Lady of Fatima to homes of families.

All this strengthened my faith when I was still very young and led me to seek Christ in the Eucharist and to confess myself with priests to be able to recognize the sacrament of reconciliation and the Mercy of God.

Besides that, it contributed to my decision to lead a healthy and family life, away from the influences that part of the youth experiences in these times.

As a teenager, the visions started to expand and I did not find any answer to what was happening to me. So I tried to focus on studying and working to help my family.

I continued to pray and serve as I had learned, a commitment I have always kept alive within me because I felt it was a commitment with God, way beyond any institution.

Until one day, Our Lady, the Virgin Mary, called me again and brought me to this Work, to serve Her and Her Son.”

Statement by Sister Lucía de Jesús:

“At home, I did not have a catholic formation, but I studied from childhood to high school in the Monastery of Saint Benedict of Olinda, in my hometown, where I had a catholic formation. But when I was a teenager, I stopped going deeper into spirituality.

So, when I was 16 years old, I experienced an inner crisis that had nothing to do with any material facts, it was simply an inner discontent.

I didn't find encouragement in anything, neither answers to my questions. I asked for help from my mother, who had been coming to the Light-Community of Figueira for many years and who had a prayer group at our home. So she took me to Figueira.

When I came for the first time, it was as if I had woken up from a dream and reencountered God. At seventeen years old, with the support of my parents and my brother and sisters, I made the decision to come and live in this place.

So, I had a catholic formation and the basis of my faith was built this way, but it was in this Work that I defined myself internally to follow Christ."

Statement by Friar Elías del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús:

“On January 5, 2013, while we were praying in one of the communities, I had a clear and precise vision of Our Lord, very similar to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This Apparition happened twice in other moments of prayer.

In this first Apparition, the presence and love radiated were very strong. I did not doubt that it was Him. Immediately Our Lord spoke to me and asked me that, on the following day, we gathered in prayer to receive Him, because He would come to transmit us a message. At that time, we didn't know what it was about.

In obedience, we did what He asked us. The next day, when Our Lord appeared again after our prayers, He transmitted a message and asked me to transcribe it into my notebook.

He revealed that it was His first daily message and that, from then on, for one year, he would transmit daily messages at 3 p.m., the hour of Mercy.

Christ Jesus said that, as a way of preparing ourselves for receiving His messages, we should pray 150 beads of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy every day.

His Apparitions happened during one entire year, fulfilling what He had announced. In the following years, Our Lord transmitted more daily messages, then weekly, and finally, monthly. In one of His Apparitions, Christ Jesus asked us to carry out a spiritual exercise every 5th and 6th of each month, which He called the "Marathon of Divine Mercy," in which, on the 5th and 6th of each month, we pray 1500 beads of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.

Currently, 82 marathons of prayer have been carried out in several countries of South America, Central America, the United States, and Europe. The events, open to the public with free admission, are transmitted live on the Internet channel Misericordia María TV, uniting hearts of the whole world to ask for Mercy for humanity and the planet.”

Statement by Sister Lucía de Jesús:

“In March of 2013, during the Monthly Apparition of the Virgin Mary, She came accompanied by Saint Joseph and She said that from March 19 of that year, He would also begin to transmit messages to humanity.

In these times, Saint Joseph comes as a simple and humble servant of God, as someone who profoundly knows the human condition, because He has already lived it to teach us how to go beyond the worldly stimuli, our miseries and difficulties, and surrender to the Will of the Eternal Father.

And this doesn't mean that the Apparitions of Christ Jesus and the Virgin Mary are not enough. The Apparitions of Saint Joseph just reveal to us the infinite Love and Mercy of God, Who in spite of giving us so much, is always willing to give more.

We believe that The Apparitions also reveal a great mystery that we hold and that we need to discover and live with urgency. Therefore, the Creator sends His Messengers to the world, the Sacred Hearts, so that through Them we may learn, not only fulfill the Divine Will but also to express what we must truly be as humans beings, through the example of the life of His Son upon Earth.

Each Divine Messenger has a way to teach us to go through this path and live this inner revelation. As humanity is so diverse and They are here for all, each being is given an opportunity to find oneself through these merciful instructions that God has granted to us.”

The Marian Centers are places manifested at the request of the Virgin Mary and consecrated by Her so that Her children could find peace through prayer.

All the details for their construction were transmitted by Our Lady, by Christ, and by Saint Joseph and each space was blessed by Them for the good of humanity.

The Marian Centers are places where we can pray, participate in the liturgies, meet with God, and take the Graces that the Most Holy Virgin left deposited there for the devotees and pilgrims.

They are places where we can also serve through prayer, praying for this world that needs so much, for all the Kingdoms of Nature, for each being.

The Marian Centers, just as all the Marian Shrines that Our Lady instituted through Her Apparitions in different places of the world, are sacred spaces, where we all can strengthen ourselves internally and bring a little Peace to this planet.

The Virgin Mary requested various Marian Centers for this Work, and four have been concretized so far:

The Marian Center of Aurora, in Paysandu, Uruguay, which accompanies the Light-Community Fraternity;

The Marian Center of Figueira, in Minas Gerais, Brazil, which accompanies the Light-Community of Figueira;

The Marian Center of the Holy Spirit, in Cordoba, Argentina, which accompanies the Light-Community of the Brotherhood

And the Marian Center of the Child King, in Teresopolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which accompanies the Light-Community New Earth.

Statement by Mother María Shimani de Montserrat:

“The first consecration that was carried out in the Grace Mercy Order took place at the request of the Virgin Mary, in the afternoon of March 19, 2009, in the Light-Community Fraternity of Aurora, in Uruguay. In a very simple ceremony, in a field of orange groves, nine brothers and sisters prostrated before God and promised to serve Him eternally.

On that occasion, we tied a cord around our waits, as a symbol of our vows, it was something very simple, but that would remain etched forever in our consciousnesses.

A few days later, also in a very simple ceremony, other brothers and sisters were consecrated in the Light-Community of Figueira. We were the first sixteen consecrated members of the Order.

In January of 2010, the Grace Mercy Order constituted as a religious association, which gathers around 350 consecrated brothers and sisters, among monastics and non-monastics."

All the work carried out by this Work is supported by the Fraternidade – International Humanitarian Federation (FIHF), a non-profit civil association, that acts in 18 countries and has its world home office in the city of Carmo da Cachoeira, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Having a philosophical, cultural, humanitarian, environmental, and beneficent character, the Fraternidade gathers 22 civil national and international associations that, with related groups, render services free of charge.

Independent and neutral, the Fraternidade welcomes all creeds, cultures, races, and religions and has no ties with political and economic groups or institutionalized religions.

Sustained by donations and humanitarian partnerships, without being paid for the services it renders, it develops voluntary, altruistic, and selfless actions.

Fraternidade exerts a fundamental role in the integration, accompaniment, and support to the work carried out by each one of its affiliates, namely:

Light-Communities:

The five Light-Communities that currently exist are civil associations of group community life and spiritual ecumenical activity.

They were created with the aim of expressing a fraternal life, guided by principles and values, oriented to equality, giving of self, and to the common good.

In the Light-Communities, the practice of good, self-surrender, and fraternal love forges the relationships and patterns of behavior, as well as guides the realization of daily tasks, accompanied by prayer, study, music, retreat, and selfless service to the Animal, Plant, and Mineral Kingdoms.

The search for a self-sustainable infrastructure is one of the most important activities at this moment. Therefore, we plant most of our food from pure seeds that are not genetically modified and that have been developed for around 26 years.

In addition, we search to interact consciously with the natural resources, within a constructive and non-exploitative relationship with water, soil, and areas of vegetation.

Light-Nuclei

The five Light-Nuclei are civil associations and extensions of the Light-Communities. In the Light-Nuclei, it is possible to find a portal to deepening into spiritual quest and improvement of the fraternal group coexistence.

Following the same principles of the Light-Communities, all the tasks in the nuclei are carried out by volunteers and sustained by spontaneous donations.

There are seven civil associations of service affiliated to the Fraternidade – International Humanitarian Federation: the Fraternity International Humanitarian Missions, the House of Light on the Hill, the Francis of Assisi Park, the House of Christ of Good, the Light-Network of Federal District Association, the Fraternidade – International Humanitarian Federation (Greece) and the Fraternidade – International Humanitarian Association (Portugal).

They were created by volunteers and collaborators throughout the last decades to fulfill the goals proposed by Fraternidade.

They develop a series of activities that always focus on solidarity and help to human beings, animals, and the environment with the purpose of reducing suffering, acting in emergencies and humanitarian crises, and giving back dignity to those in need.

Some of these affiliates were created to be able to act abroad, in emergencies and humanitarian responses abroad.

Associations of Instruction:

The Fraternidade has as affiliates three associations of instruction: The Irdin Publishing Association, in Brazil, Irdin Publishing Association Europe, in Portugal, and Shasti Association Incorporation, in the United States. Their objective is to propagate knowledge and instructions that collaborate in the awakening and maturing of the human consciousness towards innate and elevated values, helping in the construction of a society of fraternity, understanding, tolerance, and service that includes human beings as well as the other Kingdoms of Nature that evolve with us on the planet.

The search for spiritual evolution, self-knowledge, and ecumenical experience of the principles of Universal Love, the path towards an evolutive life of group service, and the aspiration to cause life to become sacred, have always been the basis of development of the works of the Grace Mercy Order as well as of Association Mary.

In this way, the religiosity that permeates the formal work of the religious associations was born from the impulse for the manifestation of a life that is totally consecrated to the Christian Principles of Universal Love.