The Italian Trinitarian tertiary and mystic Anna Maria Taigi was born in Sienna on 1769; she died in Rome in 1857. One day in the 1790s, a Servite priest who met her in the streets of Rome heard a voice within him telling him that she would be entrusted by God to his guidance and become a saint. Anna later went to that priest for confession after the birth her first child. Anna was the wife of a foul-tempered valet (Domenico Taigi), and raised their seven children and nursed her repulsively ill mother in a crowded house. Despite such circumstances, she was often in ecstasy and had prophetic gifts. A mystic sun surrounded by a crown of thorns appeared to her, and within it she foresaw distant events. However, she exercised her gift only when it was demanded by charity. She was consulted frequently by Popes Leo XII and Gregory XVI, and by Napolean Bonaparte's mother. Here is her account of a vision she received concerning our future:

"God will ordain two punishments: One, in the form of wars, revolutions and other evils, will originate on earth; the other will be sent from Heaven. I see above the earth an intense darkness which will last for three days and nights. Nothing will be visible and the air will vomit pestilence, which will claim principally but not exclusively the enemies of religion. During these three days, artificial light will be impossible. Only sacred candles can be lighted and will afford light. During this alarm, the faithful should stay in their houses and recite the Rosary and give Misericords to God. He who out of curiosity opens his window to look out or leave his house will fall dead on the spot.

"On this terrible occasion so many of these wicked men, enemies of His Church, and of their God, shall be killed by this divine scourge, that their corpses around Rome will be as numerous as the fishes, which a recent inundation of the Tiber had carried into the city. All the enemies of the Church, secret as well as known, will perish over the whole earth during that universal darkness, with the exception of some few, whom God will soon after convert. The air shall be infested by demons, who will appear under all sorts of hideous forms.

"After the three days of darkness, Saints Peter and Paul, having come down from heaven, will preach throughout the world and designate a new Pope. A great light will flash from their bodies and settle upon the cardinal, the future pontiff. Then Christianity will  spread throughout the world. Whole nations will join the Church shortly before the reign of the Antichrist. These conversions will be amazing. Those who survive shall have to conduct themselves well. There shall be innumerable conversions of heretics, who will return to the bosom of the Church; all will note the edifying conduct of their lives, as well as that of other Catholics. Russia, England and China will come into the Church.

"France will fall into frightful anarchy. The French people shall have a desperate civil war, in which old men themselves will take up arms. The political parties having exhausted their blood and their rage, without being able to arrive at any satisfactory understanding, shall at the last extremity agree by common consent to have recourse to the Holy See. Then the Pope shall send France a special legate, in order that he may examine the state of affairs and the dispositions of the people. In consequence of the information received, His Holiness himself shall nominate a most Christian king for the government of France...

"Religions shall be persecuted, priests shall be massacred, the churches shall be closed, but only for a short time; the Holy Father shall be obliged to abandon Rome."