The Secrets of La Salette    197 

is divided into seven trumpets (Rev 8:1 2); the last three trumpets are the 

three woes. Two of these three woes will occur at the end of the Forty Years, 

about 2038 to 2039/2040. 

    However, God's wrath will not be fully exhausted until the third woe 

(which is the seventh trumpet of the seventh seal); these very last of the 

punishments await a later time (Rev 15:1). So this warning from the Virgin 

Mary also applies to that later time, at the end of Antichrist's reign (in the 

25th century), when God will finish exhausting His wrath upon the wicked 

of the world with another series of great sufferings. 

5.   The leaders, the guides of the people of God have neglected prayer and 

penance, and the demon has obscured their intelligence; they have become 

these wandering stars that the old devil will drag along with his tail to make 

them perish. God will permit the old serpent to place divisions among rulers, 

in all societies and in all families; physical and moral pains will be suffered; 

God will abandon men to themselves, and will send chastisements which 

will follow one after another for more than thirty five years.  

    The   more than 35 years  of punishments from God refers to the Forty 

Years.  She does not give an exact number of years because there is less 

punishment in the first decade of the Forty Years.  The Virgin Mary says 

 more than 35 years,  because the first decade of the Forty Years has much 

less suffering than the next three decades. The afflictions sent by God 

increase as the Forty Years progresses.  In A.D. 2009/2010, the events 

predicted in the book of Revelation begin, and the afflictions sent by God 

will begin to worsen, but God will also send special blessings upon the 

world, to strengthen us for this time of trials. Then the very worst of the 

sufferings will occur during the 2030's. The great afflictions which will come 

upon the world will come mainly from mankind itself, under God's 

Providence. Finally, at the end of those years of sufferings, about 2038 to 

2039, there will be severe supernatural punishments which will come more 

directly from God. Mary describes these supernatural punishments in later 

passages (see paragraph 20). 

    The Virgin Mary's cry against those leaders of the Church, who are led 

astray by the devil, is and will be true of some leaders during the present 

generation. But her warning will more fully apply to many leaders of the 

Church during the early 25th century. The Virgin Mary's words agree with 

the words of Holy Scripture,  His tail swept down a third of the stars of 

heaven, and cast them to the earth.  (Rev  12:4). Here Holy Scripture is 

referring to the damage which the devil will do to the Church during that 

terrible future time.