100th Anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima - Miracle of the Sun
Faith, Joel 1:13-15, Psalms 138:1-8, Revelations:12:1-18, Luke 11:15-26; Doctrine of Faith Message of Fatima; Inspirational Hymns - Gregorian Chants; Our Lady of Medjugorje Message; Feast of 100th Anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima; Sanctuary Basilica of Our Lady of Fatima Portugal; Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary; Mystical City of God - Book 8 Chapter 5 Angel Gabriel Brings Notice of Death Chapter 6 Glorious Transition of most Holy Mother Mary Chapter 7 The Burial and Assumption of Most Holy Mother Mary; Chapter 8 The Coronation of Most Holy Mother Mary; Catholic Catechism - Part Four - The Christian Prayer - Section One - Prayer in the Christian Life, Chapter 1 The Revelation of Prayer Article 1 Prayer in The Fullness of Time Article 2 the Way of Prayer; RECHARGE: Heaven Speaks to Young Adults
JESUS I TRUST IN YOU (Year of Mercy). "Always Trust in Jesus, He the beacon of light amongst the darkest clouds" ~ Zarya Parx 2016
JESUS I TRUST IN YOU (Year of Mercy). "Always Trust in Jesus, He the beacon of light amongst the darkest clouds" ~ Zarya Parx 2016
"Where There is a Will, With God, There is a Way", "There is always a ray of sunshine amongst the darkest Clouds, the name of that ray is Jesus" ~ Zarya Parx 2014
The world begins and ends everyday for someone. We are all human. We all experience birth, life and death. We all have flaws but we also all have the gift of knowledge, reason and free will, make the most of these gifts. Life on earth is a stepping stone to our eternal home in Heaven. The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, wonder and awe (fear of the Lord) , counsel, knowledge, fortitude, and piety (reverence) and shun the seven Deadly sins: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony...Its your choice whether to embrace the Gifts of the Holy Spirit rising towards eternal light or succumb to the Seven deadly sins and lost to eternal darkness. Material items, though needed for sustenance and survival on earth are of earthly value only. The only thing that passes from this earth to the Darkness, Purgatory or Heaven is our Soul...it's God's perpetual gift to us...Embrace it, treasure it, nurture it, protect it...~ Zarya Parx 2013
"Raise not a hand to another unless it is to offer in peace and goodwill." ~ Zarya Parx 2012
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Liturgical Cycle: A - Gospel of Matthew - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Daily Rosary
(MON, SAT) - Joyful Mysteries
(TUES, FRI) - Sorrowful Mysteries
(WED,SUN) - Glorious Mysteries
(THURS) - Luminous Mysteries
(MON, SAT) - Joyful Mysteries
(TUES, FRI) - Sorrowful Mysteries
(WED,SUN) - Glorious Mysteries
(THURS) - Luminous Mysteries
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Inspirational Hymns
Illumination: Peaceful Gregorian Chants
**Copyright Disclaimer - Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research under the term "fair use", which is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational, and personal use also tips the balance in favor of fair use.
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Our Lady of Medjugorje Monthly Messages
October 2, 2017 message from Our Lady of Medjugorje:
"Dear children, I am speaking to you as a mother - with simple words, but words filled with much love and concern for my children who, through my Son, are entrusted to me. And my Son, who is of the eternal now, He is speaking to you with words of life and is sowing love in open hearts. Therefore, I am imploring you, apostles of my love, have open hearts always ready for mercy and forgiveness. According to my Son, always forgive your neighbors, because in that way peace will be in you. My children, care for your soul, because it alone is what truly belongs to you. You are forgetting the importance of family. A family does not need to be a place of suffering and pain, but a place of understanding and tenderness. Families who strive to live according to my Son live in mutual love. While He was still little, my Son would say to me that all people are His brothers. Therefore, remember, apostles of my love, that all people whom you meet are family to you - brothers according to my Son. My children, do not waste time thinking about the future, worrying. May your only concern be how to live well every moment according to my Son. And there it is - peace for you! My children, do not ever forget to pray for your shepherds. Pray that they can accept all people as their children; that, according to my Son, they may be spiritual fathers to them. Thank you!" ~ Most Holy Blessed Mother Mary
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Papam Franciscus
(Pope Francis)
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
THE MESSAGE
OF FATIMA
OF FATIMA
(Vatican Radio) CONGREGATION
INTRODUCTION
As the second millennium gives way to the third, Pope John Paul II has
decided to publish the text of the third part of the “secret of Fatima”.
The twentieth century was one of the most crucial in human history, with
its tragic and cruel events culminating in the assassination attempt on the
“sweet Christ on earth”. Now a veil is drawn back on a series of events
which make history and interpret it in depth, in a spiritual perspective alien
to present-day attitudes, often tainted with rationalism.
Throughout history there have been supernatural apparitions and signs
which go to the heart of human events and which, to the surprise of believers
and non-believers alike, play their part in the unfolding of history.
These manifestations can never contradict the content of faith, and must
therefore have their focus in the core of Christ's proclamation: the Father's
love which leads men and women to conversion and bestows the grace required to
abandon oneself to him with filial devotion. This too is the message of Fatima
which, with its urgent call to conversion and penance, draws us to the heart of
the Gospel.
Fatima is undoubtedly the most prophetic of modern apparitions. The first
and second parts of the “secret”—which are here published in sequence so
as to complete the documentation—refer especially to the frightening vision of
hell, devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Second World War, and
finally the prediction of the immense damage that Russia would do to humanity by
abandoning the Christian faith and embracing Communist totalitarianism.
In 1917 no one could have imagined all this: the three pastorinhos
of Fatima see, listen and remember, and Lucia, the surviving witness, commits it
all to paper when ordered to do so by the Bishop of Leiria and with Our Lady's
permission.
For the account of the first two parts of the “secret”, which have
already been published and are therefore known, we have chosen the text written
by Sister Lucia in the Third Memoir of 31 August 1941; some annotations were
added in the Fourth Memoir of 8 December 1941.
The
third part of the “secret” was written “by order of His Excellency the
Bishop of Leiria and the Most Holy Mother ...” on 3 January 1944.
There
is only one manuscript, which is here reproduced photostatically. The sealed
envelope was initially in the custody of the Bishop of Leiria. To ensure better
protection for the “secret” the envelope was placed in the Secret Archives
of the Holy Office on 4 April 1957. The Bishop of Leiria informed Sister Lucia
of this.
According
to the records of the Archives, the Commissary of the Holy Office, Father Pierre
Paul Philippe, OP, with the agreement of Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, brought the
envelopecontaining the third part of the “secret of Fatima” to Pope John
XXIII on 17 August 1959. “After some hesitation”, His Holiness said: “We
shall wait. I shall pray. I shall let you know what I decide”.(1)
In
fact Pope John XXIII decided to return the sealed envelope to the Holy Office
and not to reveal the third part of the “secret”.
Paul
VI read the contents with the Substitute, Archbishop Angelo Dell'Acqua, on 27
March 1965, and returned the envelope to the Archives of the Holy Office,
deciding not to publish the text.
John
Paul II, for his part, asked for the envelope containing the third part of the
“secret” following the assassination attempt on 13 May 1981. On 18 July 1981
Cardinal Franjo Šeper, Prefect of the Congregation, gave two envelopes to
Archbishop Eduardo Martínez Somalo, Substitute of the Secretariat of State: one
white envelope, containing Sister Lucia's original text in Portuguese; the other
orange, with the Italian translation of the “secret”. On the following 11
August, Archbishop Martínez returned the two envelopes to the Archives of the
Holy Office.(2)
As
is well known, Pope John Paul II immediately thought of consecrating the world
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and he himself composed a prayer for what he
called an “Act of Entrustment”, which was to be celebrated in the Basilica
of Saint Mary Major on 7 June 1981, the Solemnity of Pentecost, the day chosen
to commemorate the 1600th anniversary of the First Council of Constantinople and
the 1550th anniversary of the Council of Ephesus. Since the Pope was unable to
be present, his recorded Address was broadcast. The following is the part which
refers specifically to the Act of Entrustment:
“Mother
of all individuals and peoples, you know all their sufferings and hopes. In
your motherly heart you feel all the struggles between good and evil, between
light and darkness, that convulse the world: accept the plea which we make in
the Holy Spirit directly to your heart, and embrace
with the love of the Mother and Handmaid of the Lord those who most await this
embrace, and also those whose act of
entrustment you too await in a particular way. Take under your motherly
protection the whole human family, which with affectionate love we entrust to
you, O Mother. May there dawn for everyone the time of peace and freedom, the
time of truth, of justice and of hope”.(3)
In
order to respond more fully to the requests of “Our Lady”, the Holy Father
desired to make more explicit during the Holy Year of the Redemption the Act of
Entrustment of 7 May 1981, which had been repeated in Fatima on 13 May 1982. On
25 March 1984 in Saint Peter's Square, while recalling the fiat
uttered by Mary at the Annunciation, the Holy Father, in spiritual union with
the Bishops of the world, who had been “convoked” beforehand, entrusted all
men and women and all peoples to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in terms which
recalled the heartfelt words spoken in 1981:
“O
Mother of all men and women, and of all peoples, you who know all their
sufferings and their hopes, you who have a mother's awareness of all the
struggles between good and evil, between light and darkness, which afflict the
modern world, accept the cry which we, moved by the Holy Spirit, address
directly to your Heart. Embrace with the love of
the Mother and Handmaid of the Lord, this human world of ours, which we entrust
and consecrate to you, for we are full of concern for the earthly and eternal
destiny of individuals and peoples.
In
a special way we entrust and consecrate to you those individuals and nations which particularly need to be thus entrusted and
consecrated.
‘We
have recourse to your protection, holy Mother of God!' Despise
not our petitions in our necessities”.
The
Pope then continued more forcefully and with more specific references, as though
commenting on the Message of Fatima in its sorrowful fulfilment:
“Behold,
as we stand before you, Mother of Christ, before your Immaculate Heart, we
desire, together with the whole Church, to unite ourselves with the consecration
which, for love of us, your Son made of himself to the Father: ‘For their
sake', he said, ‘I consecrate myself that they also may be consecrated in the
truth' (Jn 17:19). We wish to unite
ourselves with our Redeemer in this his consecration for the world and for the
human race, which, in his divine Heart, has the power to obtain pardon and to
secure reparation.
The power of this consecrationlasts for all time and embraces all individuals, peoples and nations. It
overcomes every evil that the spirit of darkness is able to awaken, and has in
fact awakened in our times, in the heart of man and in his history.
How
deeply we feel the need for the consecration of humanity and the world—our
modern world—in union with Christ himself! For the redeeming work of Christ
must be shared in by the world through the
Church.
The
present Year of the Redemption shows this: the special Jubilee of the whole
Church.
Above all creatures,
may you be blessed, you, the Handmaid of the Lord, who in the fullest way obeyed
the divine call!
Hail
to you, who are wholly united to the
redeeming consecration of your Son!
Mother
of the Church! Enlighten the People of God along the paths of faith, hope, and
love! Enlighten especially the peoples whose consecration and entrustment by us
you are awaiting. Help us to live in the truth of the consecration of Christ for
the entire human family of the modern world.
In
entrusting to you, O Mother, the world, all individuals and peoples, we also entrust
to you this very consecration of the world, placing it in your motherly
Heart.
Immaculate
Heart! Help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the
hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasurable effects already weigh down
upon our modern world and seem to block the paths towards the future!
From
famine and war, deliver us.
From
nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver
us.
From
sins against the life of man from its very beginning, deliver
us.
From
hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us.
From
every kind of injustice in the life of society, both national and international,
deliver us.
From
readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver
us.
From
attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of God, deliver us.
From
the loss of awareness of good and evil, deliver
us.
From
sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us,
deliver us.
Accept,
O Mother of Christ, this cry laden with
the sufferings of all individual human beings, laden with the sufferings of whole societies.
Help
us with the power of the Holy Spirit to conquer all sin: individual sin and the
‘sin of the world', sin in all its manifestations.
Let
there be revealed, once more, in the history of the world the infinite saving
power of the Redemption: the power of merciful
Love! May it put a stop to evil! May it transform consciences! May your
Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light
of Hope!”.(4)
Sister
Lucia personally confirmed that this solemn and universal act of consecration
corresponded to what Our Lady wished (“Sim,
està feita, tal como Nossa Senhora a pediu, desde o dia 25 de Março de 1984”:
“Yes it has been done just as Our Lady asked, on 25 March 1984”: Letter of 8
November 1989). Hence any further discussion or request is without basis.
In
the documentation presented here four other texts have been added to the
manuscripts of Sister Lucia: 1) the Holy Father's letter of 19 April 2000 to
Sister Lucia; 2) an account of the conversation of 27 April 2000 with Sister
Lucia; 3) the statement which the Holy Father appointed Cardinal Angelo Sodano,
Secretary of State, to read on 13 May 2000; 4) the theological commentary by
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith.
Sister
Lucia had already given an indication for interpreting the third part of the
“secret” in a letter to the Holy Father, dated 12 May 1982:
“The third part of the secret refers to Our Lady's
words: ‘If not [Russia] will spread her errors throughout the world, causing
wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father
will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated'
(13-VII-1917).
The third part of the secret is a symbolic revelation,
referring to this part of the Message, conditioned by whether we accept or not
what the Message itself asks of us: ‘If my requests are heeded, Russia will be
converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors
throughout the world, etc.'.
Since we did not heed this appeal of the Message, we see
that it has been fulfilled, Russia has invaded the world with her errors. And if
we have not yet seen the complete fulfilment of the final part of this prophecy,
we are going towards it little by little with great strides. If we do not reject
the path of sin, hatred, revenge, injustice, violations of the rights of the
human person, immorality and violence, etc.
And let us not say that it is God who is punishing us in
this way; on the contrary it is people themselves who are preparing their own
punishment. In his kindness God warns us and calls us to the right path, while
respecting the freedom he has given us; hence people are responsible”.(5)
The
decision of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to make public the third part of the
“secret” of Fatima brings to an end a period of history marked by tragic
human lust for power and evil, yet pervaded by the merciful love of God and the
watchful care of the Mother of Jesus and of the Church.
The
action of God, the Lord of history, and the co-responsibility of man in
the drama of his creative freedom, are the two pillars upon which human history
is built.
Our
Lady, who appeared at Fatima, recalls these forgotten values. She reminds us
that man's future is in God, and that we are active and responsible partners in
creating that future.
Tarcisio Bertone, SDB
Archbishop Emeritus of Vercelli
Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Archbishop Emeritus of Vercelli
Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Reference:
- Vatican News. From the Pope. © Copyright 2017 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Accessed - 10/13/2017
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Today's Word - faith [feyth]
Origin: 1200-50; Middle English feith < Anglo-French fed, Old French feid, feit < Latin fidem, accusative of fidēs trust, akin to fīdere to trust.
noun
1 confidence or trust in a person or thing:
faith in another's ability.
2 belief that is not based on proof:
He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion:
the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.:
to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5 a system of religious belief:
the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6 the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.:
Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7. the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.:
He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
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Today's Old Testament Reading - Joel 1:13-15; 2:1-2
13 Priests, put on sackcloth and lament! You ministers of the altar, wail! Come here, lie in sackcloth all night long, you ministers of my God! For the Temple of your God has been deprived of cereal offering and libation.
14 Order a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly; you elders, summon everybody in the country to the Temple of Yahweh your God. Cry out to Yahweh:
15 'Alas for the day! For the Day of Yahweh is near, coming as destruction from Shaddai.'
1 Blow the ram's-horn in Zion, sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let everybody in the country tremble, for the Day of Yahweh is coming, yes, it is near.
2 Day of darkness and gloom, Day of cloud and blackness. Like the dawn, across the mountains spreads a vast and mighty people, such as has never been before, such as will never be again to the remotest ages.
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Today's Psalms - Psalms 9:2-3, 6, 16, 8-9
2 I rejoice and delight in you, I sing to your name, Most High.
3 My enemies are in retreat, they stumble and perish at your presence,
6 the enemy is wiped out -- mere ruins for ever -- you have annihilated their cities, their memory has perished. See,
8 he will himself judge the world in uprightness, will give a true verdict on the nations.
9 May Yahweh be a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble!
16 Yahweh has made himself known, given judgement, he has ensnared the wicked in the work of their own hands.Muted music
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Today's New Testament Reading - Revelation 12:1-18
1 Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, robed with the sun, standing on the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.2 She was pregnant, and in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth.
3 Then a second sign appeared in the sky: there was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and each of the seven heads crowned with a coronet.
4 Its tail swept a third of the stars from the sky and hurled them to the ground, and the dragon stopped in front of the woman as she was at the point of giving birth, so that it could eat the child as soon as it was born.
5 The woman was delivered of a boy, the son who was to rule all the nations with an iron sceptre, and the child was taken straight up to God and to his throne,
6 while the woman escaped into the desert, where God had prepared a place for her to be looked after for twelve hundred and sixty days.
7 And now war broke out in heaven, when Michael with his angels attacked the dragon. The dragon fought back with his angels,
8 but they were defeated and driven out of heaven.9 The great dragon, the primeval serpent, known as the devil or Satan, who had led all the world astray, was hurled down to the earth and his angels were hurled down with him.
10 Then I heard a voice shout from heaven, 'Salvation and power and empire for ever have been won by our God, and all authority for his Christ, now that the accuser, who accused our brothers day and night before our God, has been brought down.
11 They have triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word to which they bore witness, because even in the face of death they did not cling to life.
12 So let the heavens rejoice and all who live there; but for you, earth and sea, disaster is coming -- because the devil has gone down to you in a rage, knowing that he has little time left.'
13 As soon as the dragon found himself hurled down to the earth, he sprang in pursuit of the woman, the mother of the male child,
14 but she was given a pair of the great eagle's wings to fly away from the serpent into the desert, to the place where she was to be looked after for a time, two times and half a time.
15 So the serpent vomited water from his mouth, like a river, after the woman, to sweep her away in the current,
16 but the earth came to her rescue; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river spewed from the dragon's mouth.
17 Then the dragon was enraged with the woman and went away to make war on the rest of her children, who obey God's commandments and have in themselves the witness of Jesus.
18 And I took my stand on the seashore.
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Today's Gospel Reading - Luke 11: 15-26
1) Opening prayer
Father, your love for us
surpasses all our hopes and desires.
Forgive our failings,
keep us in your peace
and lead us in the way of salvation.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
surpasses all our hopes and desires.
Forgive our failings,
keep us in your peace
and lead us in the way of salvation.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Jesus was driving out a devil, but some
of the people said, 'It is through Beelzebul, the prince of devils, that
He drives devils out.' Others asked him, as a test, for a sign from
heaven; but, knowing what they were thinking, He said to them, 'Any
kingdom which is divided against itself is heading for ruin, and house
collapses against house.
So, too, with Satan: if he is divided
against himself, how can his kingdom last? - since you claim that it is
through Beelzebul that I drive devils out. Now if it is through
Beelzebul that I drive devils out, through whom do your own sons drive
them out? They shall be your judges, then. But if it is through the
finger of God that I drive devils out, then the kingdom of God has
indeed caught you unawares. So long as a strong man fully armed guards
his own home, his goods are undisturbed; but when someone stronger than
himself attacks and defeats him, the stronger man takes away all the
weapons he relied on and shares out his spoil.
'Anyone who is not with me is against me; and anyone who does not gather in with me throws away.
'When an unclean spirit goes out of
someone it wanders through waterless country looking for a place to
rest, and not finding one it says, "I will go back to the home I came
from." But on arrival, finding it swept and tidied, it then goes off and
brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and
set up house there, and so that person ends up worse off than before.'
• Today's Gospel speaks about a long
discussion around the expulsion of a mute demon which Jesus had
performed before the people.
• Luke 11, 14-16: Three diverse
reactions in the face of that expulsion. Jesus was casting out devils.
Before this very visible fact, in front of everyone, there were three
different reactions. People were surprised, astonished and applauded.
Others said: "it is in the name of Beelzebul that He casts out devils".
The Gospel of Mark tells us that it was a question of the Scribes who
had gone to Jerusalem to control the activity of Jesus (Mk 3, 22).
Others still asked for a sign from heaven because they were not
convinced by a sign as evident as as the expulsion done in front of all
the people.
• Luke 11, 17-19: Jesus shows the
incoherence of the enemies. Jesus uses two arguments to confront the
accusation of casting out the devil in the name of Beelzebul. In the
first place, if the devil casts out the devil himself, he divides
himself and will not survive. In the second place, Jesus gives them back
their argument: If I cast out the demons in name of Beelzebul, your
disciples cast them out in whose name? With these words, they were also
casting out demons in the name of Beelzebul.
• Luke 11, 20-23: Jesus is the strongest
man who has come, a sign of the arrival of the Kingdom. Here Jesus
leads us to the central point of his argument: "When a strong man, fully
armed, guards his own home, his goods are undisturbed. But when someone
stronger than himself attacks and defeats him, the stronger man takes
away all the weapons he relied on and shares his spoil". According to
the opinion of the people of that time, Satan dominated the world
through the demons (daimônia). He was a strong and well armed man who
guarded his house. The great novelty was the fact that Jesus succeeded
to cast out the demons. This was a sign that He was and is the strongest
man who has come. With the coming of Jesus the kingdom of Beelzebul was
declining: "But if it is through the finger of God that I drive devils
out, then the kingdom of God has indeed caught you unawares". When the
magicians of Pharaoh saw that Moses did things that they were not
capable of doing, they were more honest than the Scribes before Jesus
and they said: "Here is the finger of God!" (Ex 8, 14-15).
• Luke 11, 24-26: The second fall is
worse than the first one. At the time of Luke in the 80's, a time of
persecution, many Christians returned back and abandoned the community.
They went back to live as before. To warn them and all of us, Luke keeps
these words of Jesus about the second fall which is worse than the
first one.
• The expulsion of the demons. The first
impact caused by the action of Jesus among the people is the expulsion
of the demons: "He gives orders even to unclean spirits and they obey
him!" (Mk 1, 27). One of the principal causes of the discussion of Jesus
with the Scribes was the expulsion of the devils. They slandered
against Him saying: "He is possessed by Beelzebul!" "It is in the name
of Beelzebul, head of demons that He casts out devils!" The first power
that the Apostles received when they were sent out on mission was the
power to drive out demons. "He gave them authority over unclean spirits"
(Mk 6 ,7). The first sign which accompanies the announcement of the
Resurrection is the expulsion of demons. "The signs that will be
associated with believers: in my name they will cast out devils!" (Mk
16, 17). The expulsion of devils was what struck people more (Mc 1,27).
This reached the center of the Good News of the Kingdom. By means of the
expulsion Jesus restored or recovered persons to themselves. He
restored their judgment and their conscience (Mk 5, 15). Especially in
the Gospel of Mark, from beginning until the end, with words which are
almost the same, constantly repeats the same image: "And Jesus cast out
devils!" (Mk 1, 26.34.39; 3, 11-12. 22.30; 5, 1-20; 6, 7.13; 7, 25-29;
9, 25-27.38; 16, 17). It seems to be a refrain which is always repeated.
Today, instead of always using the same words, we will use different
words to transmit the same image and we will say: "Jesus overcame the
power of evil, Satan, who causes so much fear to people, He dominated
him, seized him, conquered him, cast him out, eliminated him,
exterminated him, destroyed him and killed him!" By this the Gospel
wants to tell us: "It is forbidden to the Christian to fear Satan!" By
his Resurrection and by his liberating action, Jesus drives away from us
the fear of Satan, He gives freedom to the heart, firmness in our
actions and causes hope to emerge in the horizon! We should walk along
the path of Jesus savouring the victory over the power of evil!
• To drive out the power of evil. Which
is today the power of evil which standardizes people and robs from them
the critical conscience?
• Can you say that you are completely
free? In the case of a negative response, some part of you is under the
power of other forces. What do you do in order to cast out this power
which dominates you?
Full of splendour and majesty his work,
his saving justice stands firm for ever.
He gives us a memorial of his great deeds;
Yahweh is mercy and tenderness. (Ps 111,3-4)
his saving justice stands firm for ever.
He gives us a memorial of his great deeds;
Yahweh is mercy and tenderness. (Ps 111,3-4)
Reference: Courtesy of Order of Carmelites, www.ocarm.org.
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Featured Item from Litany Lane
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Feast Day : 100th Anniversary Fátima Miracle of the Sun
Our Lady of Fátima (Portuguese: Nossa Senhora de Fátima, European Portuguese: [ˈnɔsɐ sɨˈɲoɾɐ dɨ ˈfatimɐ])
is a title for the Virgin Mary due to her reputed apparitions to three
shepherd children at Fátima, Portugal on the thirteenth day of six
consecutive months in 1917, beginning on May 13. The three children were
Lúcia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto.
The title of Our Lady of the Rosary
is also sometimes used to refer to the same apparition (although it was
first used in 1208 for the reputed apparition in the church of Prouille),
because the children related that the apparition called herself the
"Lady of the Rosary". It is also common to see a combination of these
titles, i.e.
Our Lady of the Rosary of Fátima (Portuguese: Nossa Senhora do Rosário de Fátima). The
events at Fátima gained particular fame due to their elements of
prophecy and eschatology, particularly with regard to possible world war
and the conversion of Soviet Russia. The reported apparitions at Fátima
were officially declared "worthy of belief" by the Catholic Church.
History
Page from Ilustração Portuguesa,
29 October 1917, showing the people looking at the miracle of the sun
during the Fátima apparitions attributed to the Virgin Mary.
On
May 13, 1917, ten year old Lúcia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and
Francisco Marto were herding sheep at a location known as the Cova da
Iria
near their home village of Fátima, Portugal. Lúcia described seeing a
woman "brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and
stronger than a crystal ball filled with the most sparkling water and
pierced by the burning rays of the sun."
Further appearances were reported to have taken place on the thirteenth
day of the month in June and July. In these, the woman exhorted the
children to do penance and Acts of Reparation
as well as making personal sacrifices to save sinners. The children
subsequently wore tight cords around their waists to cause themselves
pain, performed self-flagellation using stinging nettles,
abstained from drinking water on hot days, and performed other works of
penance. According to Lúcia's account, in the course of her
appearances, the woman confided to the children three secrets, now known
as the Three Secrets of Fátima.
Thousands of people flocked to Fátima and Aljustrel in the following
months, drawn by reports of visions and miracles. On August 19, 1917,
the provincial administrator and anticlerical Freemason, Artur Santos
(no relation to Lúcia Santos), believing that the events were
politically disruptive, intercepted and jailed the children before they
could reach the Cova da Iria that day. Prisoners held with them in the
provincial jail later testified that the children, while upset, were
first consoled by the inmates, and later led them in praying the rosary.
The administrator interrogated the children and tried unsuccessfully to
get them to divulge the contents of the secrets. In the process, he
threatened the children, saying he would boil them in a pot of oil, one
by one unless they confessed. The children refused, but Lúcia told him
everything short of the secrets, and offered to ask the Lady for
permission to tell the Administrator the secrets.
That month, instead of the usual apparition in the Cova da Iria on the
13th, the children reported that they saw the Virgin Mary on 15 August,
the Feast of the Assumption, at nearby Valinhos.
Photograph taken during the reputed "Dance of the Sun" at Fátima on 13 October 1917.
As
early as July 1917 it was claimed that the Virgin Mary had
promised a miracle for the last of her apparitions on October 13, so
that all would believe. What happened then became known as "Miracle of
the Sun". A crowd believed to number approximately 70,000,
including newspaper reporters and photographers, gathered at the Cova
da Iria. The incessant rain had finally ceased and a thin layer of
clouds cloaked the silver disc of the sun. Witnesses said later it could
be looked upon without hurting the eyes.
Lúcia, moved by what she said was an interior impulse, called out to
the crowd to look at the sun. Witnesses later spoke of the sun appearing
to change colors and rotate like a wheel. Not everyone saw the same
things, and witnesses gave widely varying descriptions of the "sun's
dance". The phenomenon is claimed to have been witnessed by most people
in the crowd as well as people many miles away.
While the crowd was staring at the sun, Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta
said later they were seeing lovely images of the Holy Family, Our Lady
of Sorrows with Jesus Christ, and then Our Lady of Mount Carmel. They
said they saw Saint Joseph and Jesus bless the people. The children were aged 10, 9, and 7 at the time.
Columnist Avelino de Almeida of O Século (Portugal's most influential newspaper, which was pro-government in policy and avowedly anti-clerical),
reported the following: "Before the astonished eyes of the crowd, whose
aspect was biblical as they stood bare-headed, eagerly searching the
sky, the sun trembled, made sudden incredible movements outside all
cosmic laws - the sun 'danced' according to the typical expression of
the people." Eye specialist Dr. Domingos Pinto Coelho, writing for the newspaper Ordem
reported "The sun, at one moment surrounded with scarlet flame, at
another aureoled in yellow and deep purple, seemed to be in an exceeding
fast and whirling movement, at times appearing to be loosened from the
sky and to be approaching the earth, strongly radiating heat". The
special reporter for the October 17, 1917 edition of the Lisbon daily, O Dia,
reported the following, "...the silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy
purple light was seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken
clouds...The light turned a beautiful blue, as if it had come through
the stained-glass windows of a cathedral, and spread itself over the
people who knelt with outstretched hands...people wept and prayed with
uncovered heads, in the presence of a miracle they had awaited. The
seconds seemed like hours, so vivid were they."
Chapel of Apparitions, built at the place where the Fátima apparitions were reported
No movement or other phenomenon of the sun was registered by scientists at the time.
According to contemporary reports from poet Afonso Lopes Vieira and
schoolteacher Delfina Lopes with her students and other witnesses in the
town of Alburita, the solar phenomenon was visible from up to forty
kilometers away. Not all witnesses reported seeing the sun "dance". Some
people only saw the radiant colors, and others, including some
believers, saw nothing at all.
Since no scientifically verifiable physical cause can be adduced to
support the phenomenon of the sun, various explanations have been
advanced to explain the descriptions given by numerous witnesses. A
leading conjecture is a mass hallucination possibly stimulated by the
religious fervor of the crowds expectantly waiting for a predicted sign.
Another conjecture is a possible visual artifact caused by looking at
the sun for a prolonged period. As noted by Auguste Meessen, a professor
at the Institute of Physics, Catholic University of Leuven, looking directly at the Sun can cause phosphene
visual artifacts and temporary partial blindness. He has proposed that
the reported observations were optical effects caused by prolonged
staring at the sun. Meessen contends that retinal after-images produced
after brief periods of sun gazing are a likely cause of the observed
dancing effects. Similarly Meessen states that the colour changes
witnessed were most likely caused by the bleaching of photosensitive
retinal cells.
Meessen observes that solar miracles have been witnessed in many places
where religiously charged pilgrims have been encouraged to stare at the
sun. He cites the apparitions at Heroldsbach in Germany (1949) as an
example where exactly the same optical effects as at Fátima were
witnessed by more than 10,000 people.
There is no evidence that people who came to Fátima, even those
expecting a miracle, were staring at the sun before Lúcia spoke. Most
would have been focused on the tree where the children said the
apparition appeared. Some onlookers reported other phenomena, including
luminous mist and the showers of flower petals seen around and above the
tree during previous visitations.
In addition to the Miracle of the Sun, the seers at Fátima indicated
that the apparition prophesied a great sign in the night sky which would
precede a second great war.
On January 25, 1938, bright lights, an aurora borealis appeared all
over the northern hemisphere, including in places as far south as North
Africa, Bermuda and California. It was the widest occurrence of the
aurora since 1709 and people in Paris and elsewhere believed a great fire was burning and fire departments were called.
Lúcia, the sole surviving seer at the time, indicated that it was the
sign foretold and so apprised her superior and the bishop in letters the
following day. Just over a month later, Hitler seized Austria and eight months later invaded Czechoslovakia.
Three Secrets of Fátima
First two secrets
The first secret was a vision of hell, which Lúcia describes in her Third Memoir, as follows:
- "Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror."[20]
The second secret included Mary's instructions on how to save souls
from hell and convert the world to the Christian faith, also revealed by
Lúcia in her Third Memoir:
- "I
have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them,
God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If
what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be
peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending
God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI.
When you see a night illuminated by an unknown light, know that this is
the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world
for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church
and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the
consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of
reparation on the First Saturdays.
If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be
peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing
wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy
Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.
In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will
consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of
peace will be granted to the world."
Third Secret
The third secret, a vision of the death of the Pope and other religious figures, was transcribed by the Bishop of Leiria and reads:
- "After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of
Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his
left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they
would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the
splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand:
pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud
voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!' And we saw in an immense light that
is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they
pass in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression
that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, Religious men and
women going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big
Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before
reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins
and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he
prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached
the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he
was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him,
and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops,
Priests, Religious men and women, and various lay people of different
ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two
Angels each with a crystal aspersorium
in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and
with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God."
Controversy around the Third Secret
The Vatican
withheld the Third Secret until 26 June 2000, despite Lúcia's
declaration that it could be released to the public after 1960. Some
sources, including Canon Barthas and Cardinal Ottaviani,
said that Lúcia insisted to them it must be released by 1960, saying
that, "by that time, it will be more clearly understood", and, "because
the Blessed Virgin wishes it so."
When
1960 arrived, rather than releasing the Third Secret, the Vatican
published an official press release stating that it was "most probable
the Secret would remain, forever, under absolute seal." After this
announcement, immense speculation over the content of the secret
materialized. According to the New York Times,
speculation over the content of the secret ranged from "worldwide
nuclear annihilation to deep rifts in the Roman Catholic Church that
lead to rival papacies."
Some
sources claim that the four-page, handwritten text of the Third Secret
released by the Vatican in the year 2000 is not the real secret, or at
least not the full secret. In particular, it is alleged that Cardinals
Bertone, Ratzinger and Sodano
engaged in a systematic deception to cover-up the existence of a
one-page document containing the so-called words of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, which some believe contains information about the Apocalypse and a
great apostasy. These sources contend that the Third Secret actually
comprises two texts, where one of these texts is the published four-page
vision, and the other is a single-page letter allegedly containing the
words of the Virgin Mary which has been concealed.
The Vatican has maintained its position that the full text of the
Third Secret was published in June 2000. According to a December 2001
Vatican press release (subsequently published in L'Osservatore Romano),
Lúcia told then Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone in an interview that the
secret had been completely revealed and published - that no secrets
remained. Bertone, along with Cardinal Ratzinger, co-authored The Message of Fátima,
the document published in June 2000 by the Vatican that allegedly
contains a scanned copy of the original text of the Third Secret.
During
his apostolic visit to Portugal between May 11 and 14, 2010 on the
occasion of the 10th anniversary of the beatification of Jacinta and
Francisco Marto, Pope Benedict XVI
explained in a rare conversation with reporters that the interpretation
of the third secret did not stop with the interpretation of a
prediction of the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter's Square in 1981. The Third Secret of Fátima,
said Benedict XVI, "has a permanent and ongoing significance" and that
"its significance could even be extended to include the suffering the
Church is going through today as a result of the recent reports of
sexual abuse involving the clergy".
Fate of the three children
Sister
Lúcia reported seeing the Virgin Mary again in 1925 at the Dorothean
convent at Pontevedra, Galicia (Spain). This time she said she was asked
to convey the message of the First Saturday Devotions. By her account a
subsequent vision of Christ as a child reiterated this request.
Sister
Lúcia was transferred to another convent in Tui or Tuy, Galicia in
1928. In 1929, Sister Lúcia reported that Mary returned and repeated her
request for the Consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.
Sister
Lúcia reportedly saw Mary in private visions periodically throughout
her life. Most significant was the apparition in Rianxo, Galicia,
in 1931, in which she said that Jesus visited her, taught her two
prayers and delivered a message to give to the church's hierarchy.
In
1947, Sister Lúcia left the Dorothean order and joined the Discalced
Carmelite order in a monastery in Coimbra, Portugal. Lúcia died on
February 13, 2005, at the age of 97. After her death, the Vatican,
specifically Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (at that time, still head of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith),
ordered her cell sealed off. It is believed this was because Sister
Lúcia had continued to receive more revelations and the evidence needed
to be examined in the course of proceedings for her possible
canonization.
Sister
Lúcia's cousins, the siblings Francisco (1908–1919) and Jacinta Marto
(1910–1920), were both victims of the Great Spanish Flu Epidemic of
1918-20. Francisco and Jacinta were declared venerable by Pope John Paul
II in a public ceremony at Fátima on May 13, 1989. He returned there on
May 13, 2000 to declare them 'blessed' (a title of veneration below
that of sainthood; see Canonization). Jacinta is the youngest
non-martyred child ever to be beatified.
In 1936 and again in 1941, Sister Lúcia claimed that the Virgin Mary
had predicted the deaths of two of the children during the second
apparition on June 13, 1917. Besides Lúcia's account, the testimony of
Olímpia Marto (mother of the two younger children) and several others
state that her children did not keep this information secret and
ecstatically predicted their own deaths many times to her and to curious
pilgrims.
In
fact, it was the first thing Jacinta told her mother when she spoke to
her after the initial apparition.According to the 1941 account, on 13
June, Lúcia asked the Virgin if
the three children would go to heaven when they died. She said that she
heard Mary reply, "Yes, I shall take Francisco and Jacinta soon, but you
will remain a little longer, since Jesus wishes you to make me known
and loved on Earth. He wishes also for you to establish devotion in the
world to my Immaculate Heart."
Exhumed
in 1935 and again in 1951, Jacinta's face was found incorrupt or immune
to decay. Francisco's body, however, had decomposed.
Consecration of Russia
Statue of Pope Pius XII in Fátima, Portugal.
According
to Sister Lúcia, the Virgin Mary promised that the Consecration of
Russia would lead to Russia's conversion and an era of peace.
Pope Pius XII, in his Apostolic Letter Sacro Vergente of 7 July 1952, consecrated Russia to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pius XII wrote,
- Just as a few years ago We consecrated the entire human race to the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, so today We consecrate and in a most special manner We entrust all the peoples of Russia to this Immaculate Heart...
In
1952 the Pope said to the Russian people and the Stalinist regime that
the Virgin Mary was always victorious. "The gates of hell
will never prevail, where she offers her protection. She is the good
mother, the mother of all, and it has never been heard, that those who
seek her protection, will not receive it. With this certainty, the Pope
dedicates all people of Russia to the immaculate heart of the Virgin.
She will help! Error and atheism will be overcome with her assistance
and divine grace."
Popes
Pius XII and John Paul II both had special relations to Our Lady of
Fátima. Pope Benedict XV began Pacelli's church career, elevating him to
archbishop in the Sistine Chapel
on May 13, 1917, the date of the first reported apparition. Pius XII
was laid to rest in the crypt of Saint Peter's Basilica on October 13,
1958, the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima.
Pope
John Paul II again consecrated the entire world to the Virgin
Mary in 1984, without explicitly mentioning Russia. Some believe that
Sister Lúcia verified that this ceremony fulfilled the requests of the
Virgin Mary. However, in the Blue Army's Spanish magazine, Sol de Fátima,
in the September 1985 issue, Sister Lúcia said that the ceremony did
not fulfill the Virgin Mary's request, as there was no specific mention
of Russia, and "many bishops attached no importance to it." In 2001,
Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone issued a statement, claiming that he had met
with Sister Lúcia, who reportedly told him, "I have already said that
the consecration desired by Our Lady was made in 1984, and has been
accepted in Heaven." Sister Lúcia died on February 13, 2005, without
making any public statement of her own to settle the issue.
Some maintain that, according to Lúcia and Fátima advocates such as Abbe Georges de Nantes, Fr. Paul Kramer and Nicholas Gruner,
Russia has never been specifically consecrated to the Immaculate Heart
of Mary by any Pope simultaneously with all the world's bishops, which
is what Lúcia in the 1985 interview had said Mary had asked for.
However, by letters of August 29, 1989 and July 3, 1990, she stated
that the consecration had been completed; indeed in the 1990 letter in
response to a question by Rev. Father Robert J. Fox, she confirmed:
I come to answer your question, "If the consecration made by Pope John Paul II on March 25, 1984 in union with all the bishops of the world, accomplished the conditions for the consecration of Russia according to the request of Our Lady in Tuy on June 13 of 1929?" Yes, it was accomplished, and since then I have said that it was made. And I say that no other person responds for me, it is I who receive and open all letters and respond to them.
In the meantime, the conception of
Theotokos Derzhavnaya Orthodox Christian venerated icon points out that
Virgin Mary is considered actual Tsarina of Russia by the religious
appeal of Nicholas II thus Consecration of Russia may refer to return of
Russian monarchy.
Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima
The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima is one of the largest Marian shrines in the world. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima (also known as the Fátima Shrine, the Sanctuary of Fátima or Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary)
is a Roman Catholic Marian basilica in Fátima, Portugal. Its
construction began in 1928 and it was consecrated in October 1953.
The basilica is built at the site of the
Marian apparitions reported by three Portuguese children in 1917 and
known as Our Lady of Fátima. The tombs of Blessed Francisco Marto,
Blessed Jacinta Marto and Sister Lúcia, the three children, are in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary. Scenes of the Marian apparitions are shown in stained glass.
The fifteen church altars are dedicated to the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary.
The large church organ was installed in 1952 and has about twelve
thousand pipes. Four statues of the four great apostles of the Rosary
and to the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary are at the four
corners of the Basilica: Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Saint Dominic, Saint John Eudes and Saint Stephen, King of Hungary.
The shrine attracts a large number of Roman Catholics,
and every year pilgrims fill the country road that leads to the shrine
with crowds that approach one million on May 13 and October 13, the
significant dates of the Fátima apparitions. Overall, about four million pilgrims visit the basilica every year.
The Chapel of Apparitions is at the very heart of the
basilica. The exact location of the apparitions is marked by a marble
pillar which holds a statue of the Virgin Mary.
The Paul VI Pastoral Center was inaugurated on May 13, 1982, by Pope John Paul II,
as a center for study and reflection on the message of Fátima. It can
seat over two thousand people and has accommodation for four hundred
pilgrims.
The treasury of the sanctuary holds the Irish Monstrance
considered to be one of the most significant works of religious art
from Ireland. The monstrance was gifted to the basilica in 1949.
The entrance to the Fátima Sanctuary,
which is to the south of the rectory, is a segment of the Berlin Wall
intended to emphasize the belief that the Rosary prayers influenced the
fall of the Berlin Wall related to the Consecration of Russia based on
the Our Lady of Fátima messages.
The large statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which stands in the niche
above the main entrance of the basilica, was sculpted by American priest
Thomas McGlynn, O.P. Father McGlynn spent considerable time with the
visionary Sister Lúcia
as she described for him in detail how Mary looked during her
appearances to the children. The statue is not what Father McGlynn had
in mind when he approached Sister Lúcia, but is more accurately
described as a collaboration between visionary and sculptor, producing
perhaps the most accurate representation of Our Lady of Fátima ever to
be sculpted. The statue was presented as a gift from the Catholic people
of the United States to the Sanctuary of Fátima in 1958.
Fátima Prayers and Reparations
Many
Roman Catholics
recite prayers based on Our Lady of Fátima. Lúcia later said that, in
1916, she and her cousins had several visions of an angel calling
himself the "Angel of Portugal" and the "Angel of Peace" who taught them
to bow with their heads to the ground
and to say "O God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love you. I ask
pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do
not love you." Lúcia later set this prayer to music and a recording
exists of her singing it. It was also said that sometime later the angel
returned and taught them a eucharistic devotion now known as the Angel
Prayer.
Lúcia said that the Lady emphasized Acts of Reparation
and prayers to console Jesus for the sins of the world. Lúcia said that
Mary's words were "When you make some sacrifice, say 'O Jesus, it is
for your love, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for sins
committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.'" At the first
apparition, Lúcia wrote, the children were so moved by the radiance they
perceived that they involuntarily said "Most Holy Trinity, I adore you!
My God, my God, I love you in the Most Blessed Sacrament."
Lúcia also said that she heard Mary ask for these words to be added to
the Rosary after the Gloria Patri prayer: "O my Jesus, pardon us, save
us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in
most need."
In
the tradition of Marian visitations, the "conversion of sinners" is not
necessarily religious conversion to the Roman Catholic Church,
for that would be the "conversion of heretics or apostates who are
'outside the church and alien to the Christian Faith' according to Pope
Leo XIII in his encyclical on the Unity of the Church, Satis Cognitum".
Conversion of sinners refers to general repentance and attempt to amend
one's life according to the teachings of Jesus for those True Catholics
who do profess the faith truly, but are fallen into sins. Lúcia wrote
that she and her cousins defined "sinners" not as non-Catholics but as
those who had fallen away from the church or, more specifically,
willfully indulged in sinful activity, particularly "sins of the flesh"[53]
and "acts of injustice and a lack of charity towards the poor, widows
and orphans, the ignorant and the helpless" which she said were even
worse than sins of impurity.
Pilgrimage
Statue depicting the Immaculate Heart of Mary as described by Sister Lúcia of Fátima.
An estimated 70,000 people assembled to witness the last of the promised appearances of the Lady in the Cova da Iria
on October 13, 1917. The widely reported miracle of the sun was a
factor that led to Fátima quickly becoming a major centre of pilgrimage.
Two million pilgrims visited the site in the decade following the
events of 1917. A small chapel - the Capelinha
- was built by local people on the site of the apparitions. The
construction was neither encouraged nor hindered by the Catholic Church
authorities. On May 13, 1920, pilgrims defied government troops to
install a statue of the Virgin Mary in the chapel,
and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
was first officially celebrated there in January 1924. A hostel for the
sick was begun in that year. In 1927 the first rector of the sanctuary
was appointed and a set of Stations of the Cross were erected on the
mountain road. The foundation stone for the present basilica was laid
the next year.
1930 was the year both of official church recognition of the
apparition events as "worthy of belief" and the granting of a papal indulgence to pilgrims visiting Fátima.
In 1935 the bodies of the visionaries Jacinta and Francisco were
reinterred in the basilica. The coronation of the statue of Our Lady of
Fátima there in 1946 drew such large crowds that the entrance to the
site had to be barred.
Today pilgrimage to the site goes on all year round and additional
chapels, hospitals and other facilities have been constructed. The
principal pilgrimage festivals take place on the thirteenth day of each
month, from May to October, on the anniversaries of the original
appearances. The largest crowds gather on 13 May and 13 October, when up
to a million
pilgrims have attended to pray and witness processions of the statue of
Our Lady of Fátima, both during the day and by the light of tens of
thousands of candles at night.
Political aspects
From
the French Revolution onwards the Catholic Church had adopted an
increasingly embattled world view and from the pontificate of Pius IX
the Church had been waging war against the so-called twin enemies of
liberalism and socialism. At the same time religion had become
predominantly a female activity by the early twentieth century.
The
numerical predominance of women within the Catholic Church went
alongside a corresponding development of female divine symbols. Dramatic
affirmations of feminine power were given in the apparitions of the
Virgin Mary which occurred all over Western Europe from the 1840s. The
Virgin, usually in the form of the Immaculate Conception, revealed
herself to female seers, often children. When Our Lady appeared to
Catherine Labouré, Bernadette Soubirous, Lúcia Santos at Fátima, or to
the children at Beauraing later, in 1932, and Mariette Beco in 1933,
these dramatic affirmations of divine power in an increasingly
irreligious/secular age, a transformation more strongly felt in the
Western world, offered 'proof' of the power of heaven against "the
onslaughts of secularizing governments".
"The Marian militancy of the Jesuit congregations divided the world
into two camps, those who would defend the Virgin and those who would
defile her. In the wake of the apparitions at Fatima in Portugal such a
view of the world appeared to be shared by the Virgin herself. The
'secrets of Fatima' revealed periodically by the seer Lucia showed
Mary's concern with the apostacy of Soviet Russia and the threat of communist anticlericalism.
Our
Lady of Fatima presented a vision of a world divided. Rome, and
Mary, were ranged against the Soviet Union in a struggle between the
redeemed and the fallen. With the advent of the Spanish Second Republic,
the Virgin Mary [would be] seen on Spanish soil at Ezquioga. Ramona
Olazabal insisted Mary had marked the palms of her hands with a sword.
Seers gained much credence in Integrist and Carlist
circles. The visions at Ezquioga were widely covered in the press, as
were the sixteen other visitations of the Virgin to Spain in 1931. There
was also the Fatima story, an officially sanctioned apparition, the
cult of which, far from being condemned, was actively encouraged by the
Church. As the forces of the Republic gathered strength in Spain, the
Virgin Mary was to be found leading the armies of the faithful ranged
against the Godless."
The
Blue Army of Our Lady is made up of Catholics and non-Catholics who
believe that by dedicating themselves to daily prayer (specifically, of
the Rosary) they can help to achieve world peace and put an end to the
error of communism. In 1952, a feature film, The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima, was released. Critics held that the film overplayed the role of socialist
and other leftist elements in Portuguese government as the
"adversaries" of the visions. They state that since the government was
controlled not by socialists but by Freemasons at the time,
most government opposition to the visions would have been motivated by
concern for separation of church and state, not by atheistic,
antitheistic or Communistic ideology. Other critics have stated that
only the enemies of the message propose such a belief.
Official position of the Catholic Church
Inside the Basilica of the Rosary
Private revelations do not form part of the deposit of faith of the Catholic Church,
and its members are not bound to believe in any of them. However, as a
matter of prudence, assent would normally be expected of a Catholic
based on the discernment of the Church and its judgment that an
apparition is worthy of belief.
After a canonical enquiry, the visions of Fátima were officially
declared "worthy of belief" in October 1930 by the Bishop of
Leiria-Fátima.
Ecclesiastical
approbation does not imply that the Church provides an
infallible guarantee on the supernatural nature of the event.
Theologians like Karl Rahner argued however, that Popes, by
authoritatively fostering the Marian veneration in places as Fátima and
Lourdes, motivate the faithful into an acceptance of divine faith.[65] Popes Pius XII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI
all voiced their acceptance of the supernatural origin of the Fátima
events in unusually clear and strong terms. After the local bishop had
declared that (1) the visions of the three children are credible and (2)
the veneration of the Blessed Virgin is permitted, the Portuguese
bishops approved and declared the genuine supernatural nature of the
event. The Vatican responded with granting indulgences and permitting
special Liturgies of the Mass to be celebrated in Fátima.[15]
In 1939, Eugenio Pacelli, who was consecrated bishop on May 13,
1917—the day of the first apparition—was elected to the papacy as Pius
XII, and became the Pope of Fátima.
One year after World War II had started, Sister Lúcia asked Pope Pius
XII to consecrate the world and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
She repeated this request on December 2, 1940, stating in the year 1929,
the Blessed Lady requested in another apparition the consecration of
Russia to her Immaculate Heart. She promised the conversion of Russia
from its errors.
On May 13, 1942, the 25th anniversary of the first apparition and the
silver jubilee of the episcopal consecration of Pope Pius XII, the
Vatican published the Message and Secret of Fátima. On October 31, 1942,
Pope Pius XII,
in a radio address, informed the people of Portugal about the
apparitions of Fátima, consecrating the human race to the Immaculate
Heart of the Virgin with specific mention of Russia. On December 8, 1942, the Pontiff officially and solemnly declared this
consecration in a ceremony in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. On May 13,
1946, Cardinal Masalla, the personal delegate of Pius XII, crowned in
his name Our Lady of Fátima, as the Pope issued a second message about
Fátima:
- "The faithful virgin never disappointed the trust, put on her. She will transform into a fountain of graces, physical and spiritual graces, over all of Portugal, and from there, breaking all frontiers, over the whole Church and the entire world".
On 1 May 1948, in
Auspicia Quaedam, Pope Pius XII requested the consecration to the
Immaculate Heart of every Catholic family, parish and diocese.
- "It is our wish, consequently, that wherever the opportunity suggests itself, this consecration be made in the various dioceses as well as in each of the parishes and families."
On May 18, 1950, the Pope again sent a message to the people of
Portugal regarding Fátima: "May Portugal never forget the heavenly
message of Fátima, which, before anybody else she was blessed to hear.
To keep Fátima in your heart and to translate Fátima into deeds, is the
best guarantee for ever more graces". In numerous additional messages, and in his encyclicals Fulgens Corona (1953), and Ad Caeli Reginam (1954), Pius XII encouraged the veneration of the Virgin in Fátima.
At the end of the Second Vatican Council Pope Paul VI
renewed the consecration of Pius XII to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
and, in an unusual gesture, announced his own pilgrimage to the
sanctuary on the fiftieth anniversary of the first apparition. On May
13, 1967, he prayed at the shrine together with Sister Lúcia. This
historic gesture further cemented the official support for Fátima. Pope John Paul II
credited Our Lady of Fátima with saving his life following the
assassination attempt on Wednesday, May 13, the Feast of Our Lady of
Fátima, in 1981.
He followed the footsteps of Paul VI, on May 12, 1987, to express his
gratitude to the Virgin Mary for saving his life. The following day, he
renewed the consecration of Pius XII to the Immaculate Heart of the
Virgin.
On May 12 and 13, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI visited the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima
and strongly stated his acceptance of the supernatural origin of the
Fátima apparitions. On the first day, the Pope arrived at the Chapel of
Apparitions to pray and gave a Golden Rose to Our Lady of Fátima "as
a homage of gratitude from the Pope for the marvels that the Almighty
has worked through you in the hearts of so many who come as pilgrims to
this your maternal home". The Pope also recalled the "invisible hand" that saved John Paul II and said in a prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary that "it
is a profound consolation to know that you are crowned not only with
the silver and gold of our joys and hopes, but also with the 'bullet' of
our anxieties and sufferings".
On the second day, Pope Benedict's homily pronounced in front of more
than 500,000 pilgrims a reference to the Fátima prophecy about the
triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and related it to the final
"glory of the Most Holy Trinity".
References
- Alonso, Joaquín María (1976) (in Spanish). La verdad sobre el secreto de Fatima: Fátima sin mitos. Centro Mariano "Cor Mariae Centrum". ISBN 978-84-85167-02-9. Retrieved 26 October 2010.
- Alonso, Joaquin Maria; Kondor, Luis (1998). Fátima in Lucia's own words: sister Lucia's memoirs. Secretariado dos Pastorinhos. ISBN 978-972-8524-00-5. Retrieved 26 October 2010.
- Cuneo, Michael. The Vengeful Virgin: Studies in Contemporary Catholic Apocalypticism. in Robbins, Thomas; Palmer, Susan J. (1997). Millennium, messiahs, and mayhem: contemporary apocalyptic movements. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-91649-3. Retrieved 26 October 2010.
- De Marchi, John (1952). The Immaculate Heart. New York: Farrar, Straus and Young
- Ferrara, Christopher (2008). The Secret Still Hidden. Good Counsel Publications Inc.. ISBN 978-0-9815357-0-8
- Frère François de Marie des Anges (1994). Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph. New York, U.S.A
- Frere Michel de la Sainte Trinite (1990). The Whole Truth About Fatima, Volume III. New York, U.S.A.
- Kramer, Father Paul (2002). The Devil's Final Battle. Good Counsel Publications Inc.. ISBN 978-0-9663046-5-7
- Joe Nickell: Looking for a Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions & Healing Cures: Prometheus Books: 1998: ISBN 1-57392-680-9
- Nick Perry and Loreto Echevarria: Under the Heel of Mary: New York: Routledge: 1988: ISBN 0-415-01296-1
- Sandra Zimdars-Swartz: Encountering Mary: Princeton: Princeton University Press: 1991: ISBN 0-691-07371-6
- Walsh, William:Our Lady of Fatima: Image: Reissue edition (October 1, 1954): 240 pp: ISBN 978-0385028691
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Today's Snippet I: Sanctuary of Fatima
In addition to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary (Portuguese: Basilicia da Nossa Senhora de Rosário), it comprises the Chapel of the Lausperene (Portuguese: Capela de Lausperene), a great oak tree (near which the Marian Apparitions occurred), a monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Portuguese: Monumento ao Sagrado Coração de Jesus) and the Chapel of the Apparitions (Portuguese: Capelinha das Aparições), where three children Lucia Santos and her cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, were first visited by Mary. In addition, several other structures and monuments were built in the intervening years to commemorate the events associated with the events in 1916, including: the Hostel/Retreat House of Our Lady of Sorrows (Portuguese: Albergue e Casa de Retiros de Nossa Senhora das Dores), the rectory, the Hostel/Retreat of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Portuguese: Casa de Retiros de Nossa Senhora do Carmo), a segment of the Berlin Wall (marking the consecration of Russia to the Sacred Heart of Christ), monuments to Fathers Formigão and Fischer, a High Cross (by artist Robert Schad), and individual monuments to Pope Paul VI, Pope Pius XII, Pope John Paul II and D. José Alves Correia da Silva (who had important roles in the history of site) and the Pastoral Centre of Paul VI (Portuguese: Centro Pastoral de Paulo VI).
Across from the main sanctuary is the much larger Basilica of the Holy Trinity constructed after 1953, owing to the limited scale of the Sanctuary for large-scale pilgrimages and religious services.
History
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| Lúcia Santos, Francisco Jacinta Marto, 1917. |
Victims of the 1918 flu pandemic epidemic, both cousins (Francisco and Jacinta Marto) died on 4 April 1919 and 20 February 1920 (in Aljustrel and Lisbon), respectively. Along with the Three Secrets of Fátima, their stories (and that of Lucia), would be linked to religious construction that followed in Fátima. A small chapel, the Capelinha das Aparições (Chapel of the Apparitions) was begun on 28 April 1919 by local people: its construction was neither hindered or encouraged by church authorities.
On 13 May 1920, pilgrims defied government troops to install a statue of the Virgin Mary in the chapel, while the first officially celebrated mass occurred on 13 October 1921. A hostel for the sick was also begun in the same year, but the original chapel was destroyed on 6 March 1922.
The first investigations (canonical process) by the Roman Catholic Church in regards to the events at Fátima began on 3 May 1922. Meanwhile, small Chapel of the Appariations was rebuilt and functioning by 1923. It would take the next four years to see a change in attitude from the Roman Catholic church; on 26 July 1927, the Bishop of Leiria, presided over the first religious service at Cova da Iria, that included the blessing of the 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) stations of the cross on the mountain road to the site from Reguengo do Fetal.
On 13 May 1928, the first foundation stone was laid in the construction of the basilica and colonnade of Fátima, a process that continued until 1954. The construction of the colonnade, by architect António Lino began in 1949 and extended to 1954. Meanwhile, on 13 October 1930, the Roman Catholic Church permitted the existence of the first cult of Nossa Senhora de Fátima (Our Lady of Fátima). Even before the completion of the complex, the mortal remains of Jacinta Marto was moved from her modest grave in Vila Nova de Ourém (where she had been buried following her death) to Fátima (12 September 1935), and later (on 1 May 1951) to the completed basilica sanctuary. Her brother's remains, were moved from the cemetery in Fátima to the basilica on 13 March 1952. An organ was also mounted that same year in the completed church, by the firm Fratelli Rufatti of Pádua.
Before this period, on 13 May 1942, a large pilgrimage had already to marked the 25th anniversary of the apparitions. Two years later (on 13 May 1946), Cardinal Massella, Pontifical Legate, crowned the image of Our Lady of Fátima in the Chapel of the Apparitions, marking a complete reversal in the official posture of the Vatican See towards the events at Fátima. On 7 October 1953 the Church of the Sanctuary of Fátima was consecrated, and within a year, Pope Pius XII conceded the church the title of Basilica in his short Luce Superna document (November 1954).
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| The Calvary in Fátima, Portugal. |
The sections of the organ, until this time dispersed throughout the basilica were united in one unit in 1962, in the high choir.
On 13 May 1967, Pope Paul VI visits Fátima to mark the 50th anniversary of the first apparitions.
On 19 September 1977, the civil parish was elevated to the status of town.
Between 12–13 May 1982, in a pilgrimage to Fátima by Pope John Paul II, the first cornerstone of the Capela do Sagrado Lausperene was laid: the construction would continue until 1987. Its completion and consecretaion on 1 January 1987 was attributed to donations and gifts from the Austrian association Cruzada de Reparação pelo Rosário para a Paz no Mundo (Rosary Repair Crusade for World Peace). Pope John Paul II would return once more on 12–13 May 1991 to preside over the international pilgrimage anniversary.
On 4 June 1997, the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic elevated the town of Fátima to the status of city.
Following several years of building, on 24 August 2006, the first attempts to classify the sanctuary as a national patrimony were begun, in terms of the transitory regime, but was incomplete due to a sunset clause of 8 September 2001.
The shrine attracts every year a large number of Roman Catholic pilgrims, from Portugal and all around the world. This international stature gave Fátima the title of "Shrine of the World". Every year pilgrims fill the country road that leads to the shrine with crowds that approach one million on May 13 and October 13, the significant dates of the Fátima apparitions. Overall, about four million pilgrims visit the basilica every year.
Architecture
Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary
The carillon consists of 62 bells, created and tempered in Fátima by José Gonçalves Coutinho, of Braga. The largest bell weighs approximately 3,000 kilograms (6,600 lb) and the clapper about 90 kilograms (200 lb). The clock is the work of Bento Rodrigues, also of Braga. The angels on the main facade are the author of Albano França. The statue of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in the niche of the spire, is 4.73 metres (15.5 ft) tall and weighs 14 tons.
At the entrance to the basilica, over the main portico, is a mosaic representing the Holy Trinity crowning Mary. It was executed by officials of the Vatican and blessed by Cardinal Eugénio Paccelli, future Pope Pious XII, so-called Pope of Fátima. A large statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which stands in a niche above the main entrance of the basilica, was sculpted by American priest Thomas McGlynn. Father McGlynn spent considerable time with Sister Lúcia as she described to him in detail how Mary looked during her appearances to the children. The statue is not what Father McGlynn had in mind when he approached Sister Lúcia, but is more accurately described as a collaboration between visionary and sculptor, producing perhaps the most accurate representation of Our Lady of Fátima: the statue was presented as a gift from the Catholic people of the United States to the Sanctuary of Fátima in 1958.
Many of the events of the Marian apparitions at Fátima are depicted in the stained glass windows in the basilica, while fifteen altars within the church are dedicated to the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary. At the four corners of the basilica are statues of the four great apostles of the Rosary and to their devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary: Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Saint Dominic, Saint John Eudes and Saint Stephen, King of Hungary.
A five-section organ (grande organ, positive, recitative, solo and echo) actioned by a console of five keyboards and pedals is installed in the choir. It has 152 registers and approximately 12,000 lead, tin and wood tubes, with the largest 11 metres (36 ft) in height and the smallest 9 millimetres (0.35 in). Initially, the organ was divided into its five parts and dispersed within the basilica, but it was re-formed in 1962 and installed in its present location.
Chapel of the Sacred Lausperene
The Chapel of the Sacred Lausperene (Portuguese: Capela do Sagrado Lausperene), is situated at the end of the left colonnade of the basilica. The stained-glass windows at its entrance represent manna in the desert and the Last Supper.Chapel of the Apparitions
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| The Chapel of the Apparitions |
Other places and monuments
Pope John Paul II inaugurated the Paul VI Pastoral Center May 13, 1982, as a center for study and reflection on the message of Fátima. It can seat over two thousand people and has accommodation for four hundred pilgrims.The treasury of the sanctuary holds the Irish Monstrance considered to be one of the most significant works of religious art from Ireland. The monstrance was gifted to the basilica in 1949.
Near the entrance to the Fátima Sanctuary, south of the rectory, is a segment of the Berlin Wall intended to emphasize the belief that the Rosary prayers influenced the fall of the Berlin Wall related to the Consecration of Russia based on the Our Lady of Fátima messages.
Sources
- AAVV, ed. (2004), Caminhos do Espírito, Percursos da Arte, Região de Turismo Leiria / Fátima; [Paths of the Spirit, Paths of Art, Leiria Tourist Region] (in Portuguese), Leiria, Portugal, pp. 153–160
- Fátima: 75 anos [Fatima: 75 years] (in Portuguese), Fátima: Comissão Central das Comemorações do 75.º Aniversário das Aparições de Nossa Senhora de Fátima, 1992
- Silva, Patrick Coelho da, O Santuário de Fátima: arquitetura portuguesa do século XX [The Shrine of Fatima: Portuguese architecture of the twentieth century] (in Portuguese), Porto, Portugal: Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada à Universidade Fernando Pessoa
- Vasconcelos, João (1996), Romarias - II - um inventário dos Santuários de Portugal [Pilgrimages: An inventory of the Shrines of Portugal] (in Portuguese), II, Lisbon: Olhapim Editores
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Snippet III: Devotion to The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
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| Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Scapular |
The Sacred Heart (also known as Most Sacred Heart of Jesus) is one of the most famous religious devotions to Jesus' physical heart as the representation of his divine love for humanity.
This devotion is predominantly used in the Catholic Church and among some high-church Anglicans and Lutherans. The devotion especially emphasizes the unmitigated love, compassion, and long-suffering of the heart of Christ towards humanity. The origin of this devotion in its modern form is derived from a French Roman Catholic nun, Marguerite Marie Alacoque, who said she learned the devotion from Jesus during a mystical experience. Predecessors to the modern devotion arose unmistakably in the Middle Ages in various facets of Catholic mysticism.
In the Roman Catholic tradition, the Sacred Heart has been closely associated with Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ. In his encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor, Pope Pius XI stated: "the spirit of expiation or reparation has always had the first and foremost place in the worship given to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus". The Golden Arrow Prayer directly refers to the Sacred Heart. Devotion to the Sacred Heart is sometimes seen in the Eastern Catholic Churches, where it remains a point of controversy and is seen as an example of Liturgical Latinisation.
The Sacred Heart is often depicted in Christian art as a flaming heart shining with divine light, pierced by the lance-wound, encircled by the crown of thorns, surmounted by a cross and bleeding. Sometimes the image shown shining within the bosom of Christ with his wounded hands pointing at the heart. The wounds and crown of thorns allude to the manner of Jesus' death, while the fire represents the transformative power of divine love.
The Feast of the Sacred Heart has been in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar since 1856, and is celebrated 19 days after Pentecost. As Pentecost is always celebrated on Sunday, the Feast of the Sacred Heart always falls on a Friday.
History of Devotion
Early devotion
 |
| Sacred Heart of Jesus Ibarrará, 1896 |
From the time of John the Evangelist and Paul of Tarsus there has always been in the Church something like devotion to the love of God, but there is nothing to indicate that, during the first ten centuries of Christianity, any worship was rendered to the wounded Heart of Jesus. It is in the eleventh and twelfth centuries that the first indications of devotion to the Sacred Heart are found. It was in the fervent atmosphere of the Benedictine or Cistercian monasteries, in the world of Anselmian or Bernardine thought, that the devotion arose, although it is impossible to say positively what were its first texts or who were its first devotees. It was already well known to St. Gertrude, St. Mechtilde, and the author of the Vitis mystica (previously ascribed to St. Bernard, now attributed to St. Bonaventure).
From the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, the devotion was propagated but it did not seem to have developed in itself. It was everywhere practised by individuals and by different religious congregations, such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carthusians, etc. It was, nevertheless, a private, individual devotion of the mystical order. Nothing of a general movement had been inaugurated, except for similarities found in the devotion to the Five Wounds by the Franciscans, in which the wound in Jesus's heart figured most prominently.
In the sixteenth century, the devotion passed from the domain of mysticism into that of Christian asceticism. It was established as a devotion with prayers already formulated and special exercises, found in the writings of Lanspergius (d. 1539) of the Carthusians of Cologne, the Louis of Blois (Blosius; 1566), a Benedictine and Abbot of Liessies in Hainaut, John of Avila (d. 1569) and St. Francis de Sales, the latter belonging to the seventeenth century.
The historical record from that time shows an early bringing to light of the devotion. Ascetic writers spoke of it, especially those of the Society of Jesus. The image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was everywhere in evidence, largely due to the Franciscan devotion to the Five Wounds and to the habit formed by the Jesuits of placing the image on their title-page of their books and the walls of their churches.
Nevertheless, the devotion remained an individual, or at least a private, devotion. Jean Eudes (1602–1680) made it public, gave it an Office, and established a feast for it. Père Eudes was the apostle of the Heart of Mary; but in his devotion to the Immaculate Heart there was a share for the Heart of Jesus. Little by little, the devotion to the Sacred Heart became a separate one, and on August 31, 1670, the first feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated in the Grand Seminary of Rennes. Coutances followed suit on October 20, a day with which the Eudist feast was from then on to be connected. The feast soon spread to other dioceses, and the devotion was likewise adopted in various religious communities. It gradually came into contact with the devotion begun at Paray, and resulting in a fusion of the two.
Visions of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
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| St Margaret Mary Alacoque, Giaquinto 1765 |
The most significant source for the devotion to the Sacred Heart in the form it is known today was Visitandine Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647–1690), who claimed to have received visions of Jesus Christ. There is nothing to indicate that she had known the devotion prior to the revelations, or at least that she had paid any attention to it. The revelations were numerous, and the following apparitions are especially remarkable:
- On December 27, probably 1673, the feast of St. John, Margaret Mary reported that Jesus permitted her, as he had formerly allowed St. Gertrude, to rest her head upon his heart, and then disclosed to her the wonders of his love, telling her that he desired to make them known to all mankind and to diffuse the treasures of his goodness, and that he had chosen her for this work.
- In probably June or July, 1674, Margaret Mary claimed that Jesus requested to be honored under the figure of his heart, also claiming that, when he appeared radiant with love, he asked for a devotion of expiatory love: frequent reception of Communion, especially Communion on the First Friday of the month, and the observance of the Holy Hour.
- During the octave of Corpus Christi, 1675, probably on June 16, the vision known as the "great apparition" reportedly took place, where Jesus said, "Behold the Heart that has so loved men ... instead of gratitude I receive from the greater part (of mankind) only ingratitude ...", and asked Margaret Mary for a feast of reparation of the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, bidding her consult her confessor Father Claude de la Colombière, then superior of the small Jesuit house at Paray. Solemn homage was asked on the part of the king, and the mission of propagating the new devotion was especially confided to the religious of the Visitation and to the priests of the Society of Jesus.
A few days after the "great apparition", Margaret Mary reported everything she saw to Father de la Colombière, and he, acknowledging the vision as an action of the Spirit of God, consecrated himself to the Sacred Heart and directed her to write an account of the apparition. He also made use of every available opportunity to circulate this account, discreetly, through France and England. Upon his death on February 15, 1682, there was found in his journal of spiritual retreats a copy in his own handwriting of the account that he had requested of Margaret Mary, together with a few reflections on the usefulness of the devotion. This journal, including the account and an "offering" to the Sacred Heart, in which the devotion was well explained, was published at Lyons in 1684. The little book was widely read, especially at Paray. Margaret Mary reported feeling "dreadful confusion" over the book's contents, but resolved to make the best of it, approving of the book for the spreading of her cherished devotion. Outside of the Visitandines, priests, religious, and laymen espoused the devotion, particularly the Capuchins, Margaret Mary's two brothers, and some Jesuits. The Jesuit Father Croiset wrote a book called The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a book which Jesus is said to have told Margaret to tell Fr. Croiset to write, and Fr. Joseph de Gallifet, also a Jesuit, promoted the devotion.
Papal Approvals
The Blessed Mary of the Divine Heart was a nun from Sisters of the Good Shepherd Congregation who requested, in the name of Christ Himself, to Pope Leo XIII that he consecrate the entire World to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The death of Margaret Mary Alacoque on October 17, 1690, did not dampen the zeal of those interested; on the contrary, a short account of her life published by Father Croiset in 1691, as an appendix to his book "De la Dévotion au Sacré Cœur", served only to increase it. In spite of all sorts of obstacles, and of the slowness of the Holy See, which in 1693 imparted indulgences to the Confraternities of the Sacred Heart and, in 1697, granted the feast to the Visitandines with the Mass of the Five Wounds, but refused a feast common to all, with special Mass and Office. The devotion spread, particularly in religious communities. The Marseilles plague, 1720, furnished perhaps the first occasion for a solemn consecration and public worship outside of religious communities. Other cities of the South followed the example of Marseilles, and thus the devotion became a popular one. In 1726 it was deemed advisable once more to importune Rome for a feast with a Mass and Office of its own, but, in 1729, Rome again refused. However, in 1765, it finally yielded and that same year, at the request of the queen, the feast was received quasi-officially by the episcopate of France. On all sides it was asked for and obtained, and finally, in 1856, at the urgent entreaties of the French bishops, Pope Pius IX extended the feast to the Roman Catholic Church under the rite of double major. In 1889 it was raised by the Roman Catholic Church to the double rite of first class.
After the letters of Mother Mary of the Divine Heart (1863–1899) requesting, in the name of Christ Himself, to Pope Leo XIII consecrate the entire World to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Holy Father commissions a group of theologians to examine the petition on the basis of revelation and sacred tradition. This investigation was positive. And so in the encyclical letter Annum Sacrum (on May 25, 1899) this same pope decreed that the consecration of the entire human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus should take place on June 11, 1899. In this encyclical letter the Pope attached Later Pope Leo XIII encouraged the entire Roman Catholic episcopate to promote the devotion of the Nine First Fridays and he established June as the Month of the Sacred Heart. Leo XIII also composed the Prayer of Consecration to the Sacred Heart and included it in Annum Sacrum.
Pope Pius X decreed that the consecration of the human race, performed by Pope Leo XIII be renewed each year. Pope Pius XI in his encyclical letter Miserentissimus Redemptor (on May 8, 1928) affirmed the Church's position with respect to Saint Margaret Mary's visions of Jesus Christ by stating that Jesus had "manifested Himself" to Saint Margaret and had "promised her that all those who rendered this honor to His Heart would be endowed with an abundance of heavenly graces." The encyclical refers to the conversation between Jesus and Saint Margaret several times[2] and reaffirmed the importance of consecration and reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Finally, Venerable Pope Pius XII, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Pope Pius IX's institution of the Feast, instructed the entire Roman Catholic Church at length on the devotion to the Sacred Heart in his encyclical letter Haurietis aquas (on May 15, 1956). On May 15, 2006, also Pope Benedict XVI sent a letter to Father Peter Hans Kolvenbach, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, on the 50th Anniversary of the encyclical Haurietis Aquas, about the Sacred Heart, by Pope Pius XII. In his letter to Father Kolvenbach, Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed the importance of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Worship and Devotion
The Roman Catholic acts of consecration, reparation and devotion were introduced when the feast of the Sacred Heart was declared. In his Papal Bull Auctorem Fidei, Pope Pius VI praised devotion to the Sacred Heart. Finally, by order of Leo XIII, in his encyclical Annum Sacrum (May 25, 1899), as well as on June 11, he consecrated every human to the Sacred Heart. The idea of this act, which Leo XIII called "the great act" of his pontificate, had been proposed to him by a religious woman of the Good Shepherd from Oporto (Portugal) who said that she had supernaturally received it from Jesus. Since c. 1850, groups, congregations, and States have consecrated themselves to the Sacred Heart. In 1873, by petition of president Gabriel García Moreno, Ecuador was the first country in the world to be consecrated to the Sacred Heart, fulfilling God's petition to Saint Margaret Mary over two hundred years later.
Peter Coudrin of France founded the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary on December 24, 1800. A religious order of the Roman Catholic Church, the order is best known for its missionary work in Hawaii. Mother Clelia Merloni from Forlì (Italy) founded the Congregation of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Viareggio, Italy, May 30, 1894. Worship of the Sacred Heart mainly consists of several hymns, the Salutation of the Sacred Heart, and the Litany of the Sacred Heart. It is common in Roman Catholic services and occasionally is to be found in Anglican services. The Feast of the Sacred Heart is a solemnity in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, and is celebrated 19 days after Pentecost. As Pentecost is always celebrated on Sunday, the Feast of the Sacred Heart always falls on a Friday.
The Enthronement of the Sacred Heart is a Roman Catholic ceremony in which a priest or head of a household consecrates the members of the household to the Sacred Heart. A blessed image of the Sacred Heart, either a statue or a picture, is then "enthroned" in the home to serve as a constant reminder to those who dwell in the house of their consecration to the Sacred Heart. The practice of the Enthronement is based upon Pope Pius XII's declaration that devotion to the Sacred of Jesus is "the foundation on which to build the kingdom of God in the hearts of individuals, families, and nations..."
Alliance with the Immaculate Heart of Mary
The Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary is based on the historical, theological and spiritual links in Catholic devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The joint devotion to the hearts was first formalized in the 17th century by Saint Jean Eudes who organized the scriptural, theological and liturgical sources relating to the devotions and obtained the approbation of the Church, prior to the visions of Saint Marguerite Marie Alacoque.
In the 18th and 19th centuries the devotions grew, both jointly and individually through the efforts of figures such as Saint Louis de Montfort who promoted Catholic Mariology and Saint Catherine Labouré's Miraculous Medal depicting the Heart of Jesus thorn-crowned and the Heart of Mary pierced with a sword. The devotions, and the associated prayers, continued into the 20th century, e.g. in the Immaculata prayer of Saint Maximillian Kolbe and in the reported messages of Our Lady of Fatima which stated that the Heart of Jesus wishes to be honored together with the Heart of Mary.
Popes supported the individual and joint devotions to the hearts through the centuries. In the 1956 encyclical Haurietis Aquas, Pope Pius XII encouraged the joint devotion to the hearts. In the 1979 encyclical Redemptor Hominis Pope John Paul II explained the theme of unity of Mary's Immaculate Heart with the Sacred Heart. In his Angelus address on September 15, 1985 Pope John Paul II coined the term The Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and in 1986 addressed the international conference on that topic held at Fátima, Portugal.
The Miraculous Medal
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| The Miraculous Medal |
The Sacred Heart has also been involved in (and been depicted) in saintly apparitions such as those to Saint Catherine Labouré in 1830 and appears on the Miraculous Medal.
On the Miraculous Medal, the Sacred Heart is crowned with thorns. The Immaculate Heart of Mary also appears on the medal, next to the Sacred Heart, but is pierced by a sword, rather than being crowned with thorns. The M on the medal signifies the Blessed Virgin at the foot of the Cross when Jesus was being crucified.
Religious imagery depicting the Sacred Heart is frequently featured in Roman Catholic, and sometimes Anglican and Lutheran homes. Sometimes images display beneath them a list of family members, indicating that the entire family is entrusted to the protection of Jesus in the Sacred Heart, from whom blessings on the home and the family members are sought. The prayer "O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in Thee" is often used. One particular image has been used as part of a set, along with an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In that image, Mary too was shown pointing to her Immaculate Heart, expressing her love for the human race and for her Son, Jesus Christ. The mirror images reflect an eternal binding of the two hearts.
The Scapular of the Sacred Heart and the Scapular of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary are worn by Roman Catholics.
In Eastern Catholicism
Devotion to the Sacred Heart may be found in some Eastern Catholic Churches, but is a contentious issue. Those who favour purity of rite are opposed to the devotion, while those who are in favour of the devotion cite it as a point of commonality with their Latin Catholic brethren.
Promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Jesus Christ, in his appearances to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, promised these blessings to those who practice devotion to his Sacred Heart. This tabular form of promises was not made by Saint Margaret Mary or her contemporaries. It first appeared at 1863. In 1882, an American businessman spread the tabular form of the promises profusely throughout the world, the twelve promises appearing in 238 languages. In 1890, Cardinal Adolph Perraud deplored this circulation of the promises in the tabular form which were different from the words and even from the meaning of the expressions used by St. Margaret Mary, and wanted the promises to be published in the full, authentic texts as found in the writings of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque:
- I will give them all the graces necessary for their state of life.
- I will give peace in their families.
- I will console them in all their troubles.
- I will be their refuge in life and especially in death.
- I will abundantly bless all their undertakings.
- Sinners shall find in my Heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy.
- Tepid souls shall become fervent.
- Fervent souls shall rise speedily to great perfection.
- I will bless those places wherein the image of My Sacred Heart shall be exposed and venerated.
- I will give to priests the power to touch the most hardened hearts.
- Persons who propagate this devotion shall have their names eternally written in my Heart.
- In the excess of the mercy of my Heart, I promise you that my all powerful love will grant to all those who will receive Communion on the First Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance: they will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the sacraments; and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.
The last promise has given rise to the pious Roman Catholic practice of making an effort to attend Mass and receive Communion on the first Friday of each month.
Great efficacy of converting people has been attached to the use of the image of the Sacred Heart.
"Even at the hour of death, incredulous, indifferent, hardened souls have been converted by simply showing them a picture of the Sacred Heart, which sufficed to restore these sinners to the life of hope and love, in a word, to touch the most hardened. It would, indeed, be a great misfortune to any apostolic man to neglect so powerful a means of conversion, and in proof of this I will mention a single fact which will need no comment. A religious of the Company of Jesus had been requested by the Blessed Margaret Mary to make a careful engraving of the Sacred Heart. Being often hindered by other occupations, there was much delay in preparing this plate. ' This good father,' writes the saint, 'is so much occupied by Mon- signor d'Autun in the conversion of heretics, that he has neither time nor leisure to give to the work so ardently desired by the Heart of our Divine Master. You cannot imagine, my much-loved mother, how greatly this delay afflicts and pains me. I must avow confidently to you my belief that it is the cause of his converting so few infidels in this town. I seem constantly to hear these words : ' That if this good father had acquitted himself at once of his promise to the Sacred Heart, Jesus would have changed and converted the hearts of these infidels, on account of the joy He would have felt at seeing Himself honoured in the picture He so much wishes for. As, however, he prefers other work, even though to the glory of God, to that of giving Him this satisfaction, He will harden the hearts of these infidels, and the labours of this mission will not be crowned with much fruit.'
Scapular of the Sacred Heart
The devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus also involve the Scapular of the Sacred Heart. It is a Roman Catholic devotional scapular that can be traced back to Saint Margaret Marie Alacoque who herself made and distributed badges similar to it. In 1872 Pope Pius IX granted an indulgence for the badge and the actual scapular was approved by the Congregation of Rites in 1900. It bears the representation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on one side, and that of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Mother of Mercy on the other side. Prayer, Almighty and everlasting God, look upon the Heart of Thy well-beloved Son and upon the acts of praise and satisfaction which He renders unto Thee in the name of sinners; and do Thou, in Thy great goodness, grant pardon to them who seek Thy mercy, in the name of the same Thy Son, Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, world without end.
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Snippet IV: Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
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| Immaculate heart of Mary Scapular |
The Immaculate Heart of Mary (also known as The Sacred Heart of Mary) is a devotional name used to refer to the interior life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, her joys and sorrows, her virtues and hidden perfections, and, above all, her virginal love for God the Father, her maternal love for her son Jesus, and her compassionate love for all persons. The consideration of Mary's interior life and the beauties of her soul, without any thought of her physical heart, does not constitute the traditional devotion; still less does it consist in the consideration of the heart of Mary merely as a part of her pure body. In 1855 the Mass of the Most Pure Heart formally became a part of Catholic practice. The two elements are essential to the devotion, just as, according to Roman Catholic theology, soul and body are necessary to the constitution of man.
Eastern Catholic Churches occasionally utilize the image, devotion, and theology associated with the Immaculate Heart of Mary. However, this is a cause of some controversy, some seeing it as a form of liturgical instillation. The Roman Catholic view is based on Mariology, as exemplified by Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae which builds on the total Marian devotion pioneered by Louis de Montfort.
Traditionally, the heart is pierced with seven wounds or swords, in homage to the seven dolors of Mary. Consequently, seven Hail Marys are said daily in honor of the devotion. Also, roses or another type of flower may be wrapped around the heart
Veneration and devotion
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| Immaculate Heart Mary, Seven Dolors |
Veneration of the Heart of Mary is analogous to worship of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is, however, necessary to indicate a few differences in this analogy, the better to explain the character of Roman Catholic devotion to the Heart of Mary. Some of these differences are very marked, whereas others are barely perceptible. The Devotion to the Heart of Jesus is especially directed to the "Divine Heart" as overflowing with love for humanity, presented as "despised and outraged". In the devotion to the Mary, on the other hand, the attraction is the love of this Heart for Jesus and for God. Its love for humans is not overlooked, but it is not so much in evidence nor so dominant.
A second difference is the nature of the devotion itself. In devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Roman Catholic venerates in a sense of love responding to love. In devotion to the Heart of Mary, study and imitation hold as important a place as love. Love is more the result than the object of the devotion, the object being rather to love God and Jesus better by uniting one's self to Mary for this purpose and by imitating her virtues. It would also seem that, although in the devotion to the Heart of Mary the heart has an essential part as symbol and sensible object, it does not stand out as prominently as in the devotion to the Heart of Jesus; devotion focuses rather on the thing symbolized, the love, virtues, and sentiments of Mary's interior life.
The Immaculate Heart has also been involved in (and been depicted) in saintly Marian apparitions such as those to Saint Catherine Labouré in 1830 and appears on the Miraculous Medal. On the Miraculous Medal, the Immaculate Heart is pierced by a sword. The Sacred Heart of Jesus also appears on the medal, next to the Immaculate Heart, but is crowned with thorns, rather than being pierced by a sword. The M on the medal signifies the Blessed Virgin at the foot of the Cross when Jesus was being crucified.
Our Lady of Fatima asked that, in reparation for sins committed against her Immaculate Heart, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months the Catholic:
- Go to Confession (within 8 days before or after the first Saturday)
- Receive Holy Communion
- Recite five decades of the Rosary
- Keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary
She promised that, whoever would ever do this, would be given at the hour of his death, the graces necessary for salvation.
History of devotion
The history of the devotion to the Heart of Mary is connected on many points with that to the Heart of Jesus. The attention of Christians was early attracted by the love and virtues of the Heart of Mary. The gospels recount the prophecy delivered to her at Jesus' presentation at the temple: that her heart would be pierced with a sword. This image (the pierced heart) is the most popular representation of the Immaculate Heart. The St. John's Gospel further invited attention to Mary's heart with its depiction of Mary at the foot of the cross at Jesus' crucifixion. St. Augustine said of this that Mary was not merely passive at the foot of the cross; "she cooperated through charity in the work of our redemption".
Statue depicting the Immaculate Heart of Mary as described by Sister Lucia of Fátima.
Another Scriptural passage to help in bringing out the devotion was the twice-repeated saying of Saint Luke, that Mary kept all the sayings and doings of Jesus in her heart, that there she might ponder over them and live by them. A few of Mary's sayings, also recorded in the Gospel, particularly the Magnificat (the words Mary is reported to have said to describe the experience of being pregnant with Jesus), disclose new features in Marian psychology. Some of the Church Fathers also throw light upon the psychology of Mary, for instance, Saint Ambrose, when in his commentary on The Gospel of Luke he holds Mary up as the ideal of virginity, and Saint Ephrem, when he poetically sings of the coming of the Magi and the welcome accorded them by the humble mother. Some passages from other books in the Bible are interpreted as referring to Mary, in whom they personify wisdom and her gentle charms. Such are the texts in which wisdom is presented as the mother of lofty love, of fear, of knowledge, and of holy hope. In the New Testament Elizabeth proclaims Mary blessed because she has believed the words of the angel who announced that she would become pregnant with Jesus, although she was still a virgin; the Magnificat is an expression of her humility. In answering the woman of the people, who in order to exalt the son proclaimed the mother blessed, Jesus himself said: "Blessed rather are they that hear the word of God and keep it." The Church Fathers understood this as an invitation to seek in Mary that which had so endeared her to God and caused her to be selected as the mother of Jesus, and found in these words a new reason for praising Mary. St. Leo said that through faith and love she conceived her son spiritually, even before receiving him into her womb, and St. Augustine tells us that she was more blessed in having borne Christ in her heart than in having conceived him in the flesh.
It is only in the twelfth, or towards the end of the eleventh century, that slight indications of a regular devotion are perceived in a sermon by St. Bernard (De duodecim stellis), from which an extract has been taken by the Church and used in the Offices of the Compassion and of the Seven Dolours. Stronger evidences are discernible in the pious meditations on the Ave Maria and the Salve Regina, usually attributed either to St. Anselm of Lucca (d. 1080) or St. Bernard; and also in the large book "De laudibus B. Mariae Virginis" (Douai, 1625) by Richard de Saint-Laurent, Penitentiary of Rouen in the thirteenth century. In St. Mechtilde (d. 1298) and St. Gertrude (d. 1301) the devotion had two earnest adherents. A little earlier it had been included by St. Thomas Becket in the devotion to the joys and sorrows of Mary, by Blessed Hermann (d.1245), one of the first spiritual children of Saint Dominic, in his other devotions to Mary, and somewhat later it appeared in St. Bridget's "Book of Revelations". Johannes Tauler (d. 1361) beholds in Mary the model of a mystical soul, just as St. Ambrose perceived in her the model of a virginal soul. St. Bernardine of Siena (d.1444) was more absorbed in the contemplation of the virginal heart, and it is from him that the Church has borrowed the lessons of the second nocturn for the feast of the Heart of Mary. St. Francis de Sales speaks of the perfections of this heart, the model of love for God, and dedicated to it his "Theotimus."
During this same period one finds occasional mention of devotional practices to the Heart of Mary, e.g., in the "Antidotarium" of Nicolas du Saussay (d. 1488), in Julius II, and in the "Pharetra" of Lanspergius. In the second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth, ascetic authors dwelt upon this devotion at greater length. It was, however, reserved to Saint Jean Eudes (d. 1681) to propagate the devotion, to make it public, and to have a feast celebrated in honor of the Heart of Mary, first at Autun in 1648 and afterwards in a number of French dioceses. He established several religious societies interested in upholding and promoting the devotion, of which his large book on the Coeur Admirable (Admirable Heart), published in 1681, resembles a summary. Jean Eudes' efforts to secure the approval of an office and feast failed at Rome, but, notwithstanding this disappointment, the devotion to the Heart of Mary progressed. In 1699 Father Pinamonti (d. 1703) published in Italian a short work on the Holy Heart of Mary, and in 1725, Joseph de Gallifet combined the cause of the Heart of Mary with that of the Heart of Jesus in order to obtain Rome's approbation of the two devotions and the institution of the two feasts. In 1729, his project was defeated, and in 1765, the two causes were separated, to assure the success of the principal one.
Alliance with the Sacred Heart
The Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary is based on the historical, theological and spiritual links in Catholic devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The joint devotion to the hearts was first formalized in the 17th century by Saint Jean Eudes who organized the scriptural, theological and liturgical sources relating to the devotions and obtained the approbation of the Church, prior to the visions of Saint Marguerite Marie Alacoque.
In the 18th and 19th centuries the devotions grew, both jointly and individually through the efforts of figures such as Saint Louis de Montfort who promoted Catholic Mariology and Saint Catherine Labouré's Miraculous Medal depicting the Heart of Jesus thorn-crowned and the Heart of Mary pierced with a sword. The devotions, and the associated prayers, continued into the 20th century, e.g. in the Immaculata prayer of Saint Maximillian Kolbe and in the reported messages of Our Lady of Fatima which stated that the Heart of Jesus wishes to be honored together with the Heart of Mary.
Popes supported the individual and joint devotions to the hearts through the centuries. In the 1956 encyclical Haurietis Aquas, Pope Pius XII encouraged the joint devotion to the hearts. In the 1979 encyclical Redemptor Hominis Pope John Paul II explained the theme of unity of Mary's Immaculate Heart with the Sacred Heart. In his Angelus address on September 15, 1985 Pope John Paul II coined the term The Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and in 1986 addressed the international conference on that topic held at Fátima, Portugal.
Feast days
Fatima Statue of Pope Pius XII, who consecrated Russia and the World: Just as a few years ago We consecrated the entire human race to the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, so today We consecrate and in a most special manner We entrust all the peoples of Russia to this Immaculate Heart...
In 1799 Pius VI, then in captivity at Florence, granted the Bishop of Palermo the feast of the Most Pure Heart of Mary for some of the churches in his diocese. In 1805 Pius VII made a new concession, thanks to which the feast was soon widely observed. Such was the existing condition when a twofold movement, started in Paris, gave fresh impetus to the devotion. The two factors of this movement were, first of all, the revelation of the "miraculous medal" in 1830 and all the prodigies that followed, and then the establishment at Notre-Dame-des-Victoires of the Archconfraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Refuge of Sinners, which spread rapidly throughout the world and was the source of numberless alleged graces. On 21 July 1855, the Congregation of Rites finally approved the Office and Mass of the Most Pure Heart of Mary without, however, imposing them upon the Universal Church.
During the third apparition at Fátima, Portugal on 13 July 1917, the Virgin Mary allegedly said that "God wishes to establish in the world devotion to her Immaculate Heart" in order to save souls from going into the fires of hell and to bring about world peace, and also asked for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart. Pope Pius XII, in his Apostolic Letter of 7 July 1952, Sacro Vergente consecrated Russia to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.
On 25 March 1984, Pope John Paul II fulfilled this request again, when he made the solemn act of consecration of the world, and implicitly Russia, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary before the miraculous statue of the Virgin Mary of Fatima brought to Saint Peter's Square in the Vatican for the momentous occasion. Sister Lucia, OCD, then the only surviving visionary of Fatima, confirmed that the request of Mary for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was accepted by Heaven and therefore, was fulfilled. Again on 8 October 2000, Pope John Paul II made an act of entrustment of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the new millennium.
Roman Catholic feast days
Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1944 to be celebrated on 22 August, coinciding with the traditional octave day of the Assumption. In 1969, Pope Paul VI moved the celebration of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to the day, Saturday, immediately after the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This means in practice that it is now held on the day before the third Sunday after Pentecost.
At the same time as he closely associated the celebrations of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pope Paul VI moved the celebration of the Queenship of Mary from 31 May to 22 August, bringing it into association with the feast of her Assumption.
Those who use the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal or an earlier one (but not more than 17 years before 1962) observe the day established by Pius XII.
References:
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.
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THE MYSTICAL CITY OF GOD
Mystical City of God, the miracle of His omnipotence and the abyss of His grace the divine history and life of the Virgin Mother of God our Queen and our Lady, most holy Mary expiatrix of the fault of eve and mediatrix of grace. Manifested to Sister Mary of Jesus, Prioress of the convent of the Immaculate Conception in Agreda, Spain. For new enlightenment of the world, for rejoicing of the Catholic Church, and encouragement of men. Completed in 1665.
THE DIVINE HISTORY AND LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD
Venerable Mary of Agreda
Translated from the Spanish by Reverend George J. Blatter
1914, So. Chicago, Ill., The Theopolitan; Hammond, Ind., W.B. Conkey Co., US..
IMPRIMATUR: +H.J. Alerding Bishop of Fort Wayne
Translation from the Original Authorized Spanish Edition by Fiscar Marison (George J. Blatter). Begun on the Feast of the Assumption 1902, completed 1912.
This work is published for the greater Glory of Jesus Christ through His most Holy Mother Mary and for the sanctification of the Church and her members.
Book 8, Chapter 5
SAINT
GABRIEL BRINGS NOTICE OF DEATH
In writing of what still remains of
the history of our Lady, of our only and heavenly Phoenix, the
blessed Mary, it is no more than right that our hearts be filled with
tenderness and our eyes with tears at the sweet and touching marvels
of the last years of her life. I should wish to exhort the devout
faithful not to read of them nor consider them as past and absent,
since the powerful virtue of faith can make these truths present to
the mind; and if we look upon them with the proper piety and
Christian devotion, without a doubt we shall gather the sweetest
fruit, and our hearts shall feel the effects and rejoice in the good,
which our eyes cannot see.
The most holy Mary had arrived at the
age sixty–seven years without having tarried in her career,
ceased in her flight, mitigated the flame of her love, or lessened
the increase of her merits from the first instant of her Conception.
As all this had continued to grow in each moment of her life, the
ineffable gifts, benefits and favors of the Lord had made Her
entirely godlike and spiritual; the affectionate ardors and desires
of her most chaste heart did not allow Her any rest outside the
centre of her love; the bounds of the flesh were most violently
irksome; the overwhelming attraction of the Divinity to unite Itself
with Her with eternal and most close bonds, (according to our mode of
speaking) had attained the summit of power in Her; and the earth
itself, made unworthy by the sins of mortals to contain the Treasure
of heaven, could no longer bear the strain of withholding Her from
her true Lord. The eternal Father desired his only and true Daughter;
the Son his beloved and most loving Mother; and the Holy Ghost the
embraces of his most beautiful Spouse. The angels longed for their
Queen, the saints for their great Lady; and all the heavens mutely
awaited the presence of their Empress who should fill them with
glory, with her beauty and delight. All that could be alleged in
favor of Her still remaining in the world and in the Church, was the
need of such a Mother and Mistress, and the love, which God himself
had for the miserable children of Adam.
But as some term and end was to be
placed to the career of our Queen, the divine consistory (according
to our mode of understanding), conferred upon the manner of
glorifying the most blessed Mother and established the kind of loving
reward due to Her for having so copiously fulfilled all the designs
of the divine mercy among the children of Adam during the many years
in which She had been the Foundress and Teacher of his holy Church.
The Almighty therefore resolved to delight and console Her by giving
Her definite notice of the term still remaining of her life and
revealing to Her the day and hour of the longed for end of her
earthly banishment. For this purpose the most blessed Trinity
despatched the archangel Gabriel with many others of the celestial
hierarchies, who should announce to the Queen when and how her mortal
life should come to an end and pass over into the eternal.
The holy prince descended with the rest to the
Cenacle in Jerusalem and entered the oratory of the great Lady where
they found Her prostrate on the ground in the form of a cross, asking
mercy for sinners. But hearing the sound of their music and
perceiving them present, She rose to her knees in order to hear the
message and show respect to the ambassador of heaven and his
companions, who in white and refulgent garments surrounded Her with
wonderful delight and reverence. All of them had come with crowns and
palms in their hands, each one with a different one; but all of them
represented the diverse premiums and rewards of inestimable beauty
and value to be conferred upon their great Queen and Lady. Gabriel
saluted Her with the Ave Maria, and added thereto: “Our Empress
and Lady, the Omnipotent and the Holy of the holy sends us from his
heavenly court to announce to Thee in his name the most happy end of
thy pilgrimage and banishment upon earth in mortal life. Soon, O
Lady, is that day and hour approaching which, according to thy
longing desires, Thou shalt pass through natural death to the
possession of the eternal and immortal life, which awaits Thee in the
glory and at the right hand of thy divine Son, our God. Exactly three
years from today Thou shalt be taken up and received into the
everlasting joy of the Lord, where all its inhabitants await Thee,
longing for thy presence.”
The most holy Mary heard this message with
ineffable jubilee of her purest and most loving spirit, prostrating
herself again upon the earth, She answered in the same words as at
the incarnation of the Word: “Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat mihi
secundum verbum tuum.” “Behold the handmaid of the Lord,
be it done according to thy word” (Luke 1, 38). Then She asked
the holy angels and ministers of the Most High to help Her give
thanks for this welcome and joyful news. The blessed Mother
alternately with the seraphim and other angels sang the responses of
a canticle that lasted for two hours. Although by their nature and
supernatural gifts the angelic spirits are so subtle, wise and
excellent, they were nevertheless excelled in all this by their Queen
and Lady, as vassals are by their sovereign; for in Her, grace and
wisdom abounded as in a Teacher, in them, only as in disciples.
Having finished this canticle and humiliating herself anew, She
charged the supernal spirits to beseech the Lord to prepare Her for
her passage from mortal to eternal life, and to ask all the other
angels and saints in heaven to pray for the same favor. They offered
to obey Her in all things, and therewith saint Gabriel took leave and
returned with all his company to the empyrean heaven.
The great Queen
and Lady of all the universe remained alone in her oratory, and amid
tears of humble joy prostrated Herself upon the earth, embraced it as
the common mother of us all, saying: “Earth, I give thee thanks
as I ought, because without my merit thou hast sustained me
sixty–seven years. Thou art a creature of the Most High and by
his will thou hast sustained me until now. I
ask thee now to help me during the rest of my dwelling
upon thee, so that, just as I have been created of thee and upon
thee, I may through thee and from thee be raised to the blessed
vision of my Maker.’’ She addressed also other creatures,
saying: “Ye heavens, planets, stars and elements, created by
the powerful hands of my Beloved, faithful witnesses and proclaimers
of his greatness and beauty, you also I thank for the preservation of
my life; help me then from today on, that, with the divine favor, I
may begin anew to perfect my life during the time left of my career,
in order that I may show myself thankful to my and your Creator.”
The devout Queen resolved to take
leave of the holy places before her departure into heaven, and having
obtained the consent of saint John She left the house with him and
with the thousand angels of her guard. Although these sovereign
princes had always served and accompanied Her in all her errands,
occupations and journeys, without having absented themselves for one
moment since the instant of her birth; yet on this occasion they
manifested themselves to Her with greater beauty and refulgence, as
if they felt special joy in seeing themselves already at the
beginning of her last journey into heaven. The heavenly Princess,
setting aside human occupations in order to enter upon her journey to
the real and true fatherland, visited all the memorable places of our
Redemption, marking each with the sweet abundance of her tears,
recalling the sorrowful memories of what her Son there suffered, and
fervently renewing its effects by most fervent acts of love, clamors
and petitions for all the faithful, who should devoutly and
reverently visit these holy places during the future ages of the
Church. On Calvary She remained a longer time, asking of her divine
Son the full effects of his redeeming Death for all the multitudes of
souls there snatched from destruction. The ardor of her ineffable
charity during this prayer rose to such a pitch, that it would have
destroyed her life, if it had not been sustained by divine power.
The Queen asked also the angels of the sanctuaries
and the Evangelist to give Her their blessing in this last
leave–taking; and therewith She returned to her oratory
shedding tears of tenderest affection for what She loved so much upon
earth. There She prostrated Herself with her face upon the earth and
poured forth another long and most fervent prayer for the Church; and
She persevered in it, until in an abstractive vision of the Divinity,
the Lord had given Her assurance that He had heard and conceded her
petitions at the throne of His mercy. In order to give the last touch
of holiness to her works, She asked permission of the Lord to take
leave of the holy Church, saying: “Exalted and most high God,
Redeemer of the world, head of the saints and the predestined,
Justifier and Glorifier of souls, I am a child of the holy Church,
planted and acquired by thy blood. Give me, O Lord, permission to
take leave of such a loving Mother, and of all my brethren, thy
children, belonging to it.” She was made aware of the consent
of the Lord and therefore turned to the mystical body of the Church,
addressing it in sweet tears as follows:
“Holy
Catholic Church, which in the coming ages shall be called the Roman,
my mother and Mistress, true treasure of my soul, thou hast been the
only consolation of my banishment; the refuge and ease of my labors;
my recreation, my joy and my hope ; thou hast sustained me in my
course; in thee have I lived as a pilgrim to the Fatherland and thou
hast nourished me after I had received in thee my existence in grace
through thy head, Christ Jesus, my Son and my Lord. In thee are the
treasures and the riches of his infinite merits; thou shalt be for
his faithful children the secure way to the promised land, and thou
shalt safeguard them on their dangerous and difficult pilgrimage.
Thou shalt be the mistress of the nations to whom all owe reverence;
in thee are the rich and inestimable jewels of the anxieties, labors,
affronts, hardships, torments, of the cross and of death, which are
all consecrated by those of my Lord, thy Progenitor, thy Master, thy
Chief, and are reserved for his more distinguished servants and his
dearest friends. Thou hast adorned and enriched me with thy jewels in
order that I might enter in the nuptials of the Spouse; thou hast
made me wealthy, prosperous and happy, and thou containest within
thee thy Author in the most holy Sacrament. My happy Mother, Church
militant, rich art thou and abundant in treasures! For thee have I
always reserved my heart and my solicitude; but now is the time come
to part from thee and leave thy sweet companionship, in order to
reach the end of my course. Make me partaker of thy great goods;
bathe me copiously in the sacred liquor of the blood of the Lamb,
preserved in thee as a powerful means of sanctifying many worlds. At
the cost of my life a thousand times would I bring to thee all the
nations and tribes of mortals, that they might enjoy thy treasures.
My beloved Church, my honor and my glory, I am about to leave thee in
mortal life; but in the eternal life I will find thee joyful in an
existence which includes all good. From that place I shall look upon
thee with love, and pray always for thy increase, thy prosperity and
thy progress.
This was the parting of the most blessed Mary from
the mystical body of the holy Roman Catholic Church, the mother of
the faithful, in order that all who should hear of Her, might know by
her sweet tears and endearments, in what veneration, love and esteem
She held that holy Church. After thus taking leave, the great
Mistress, as the Mother of Wisdom, prepared to make her testament and
last Will. When She manifested this most prudent wish to the Lord, He
deigned to approve of it by his own royal presence. For this purpose,
with myriads of attending angels, the three Persons of the most
blessed Trinity descended to the oratory of their Daughter and
Spouse, and when the Queen had adored the infinite Being of God, She
heard a voice speaking to Her: “Our chosen Spouse, make thy
last will as thou desirest, for We shall confirm it and execute it
entirely by our infinite power.’’ The most prudent Mother
remained for some time lost in the profoundness of her humility,
seeking to know first the will of the Most High before She should
manifest her own. The Lord responded to her modest desires and the
person of the Father said to Her: “My Daughter, thy will shall
be pleasing and acceptable to Me; for thou art not wanting in the
merits of good works in parting from this mortal life, that I should
not satisfy thy desires.” The same encouragement was given to
her by the Son and the Holy Ghost. Therewith the most blessed Mary
made her will in this form:
‘‘Highest
Lord and eternal God, I, a vile wormlet of the earth, confess and
adore Thee with all the reverence of my inmost soul as the Father,
the Son and the Holy Ghost, three Persons distinct in one undivided
and eternal essence, one substance, one in infinite majesty of
attributes and perfection. I confess Thee as the one true Creator and
Preserver of all that has being. In thy kingly presence I declare and
say, that my last will is this: Of the goods of mortal life and of
the world in which I live, I possess none that I can leave; for never
have I possessed or loved anything beside Thee, who art my good and
all my possession. To the heavens, the stars and planets, to the
elements and all creatures in them I give thanks, because according
to thy will they have sustained me without my merit, and lovingly I
desire and ask them to serve and praise Thee in the offices and
ministries assigned to them, and that they continue to sustain and
benefit my brethren and fellowmen. In order that they may do it so
much the better, I renounce and assign to mankind the possession, and
as far as possible, the dominion of them, which thy Majesty has given
me over these irrational creatures, so that they may now serve and
sustain my fellowmen. Two tunics and a cloak, which served to cover
me, I leave to John for his disposal, since I hold him as a son. My
body I ask the earth to receive again for thy service, since it is
the common mother and serves Thee as thy creature; my soul, despoiled
of its body and of all visible things, O my God, I resign into thy
hands, in order that it may love and magnify Thee through all thy
eternities. My merits and all the treasures, which with thy grace
through my works and exertions I have acquired, I leave to the holy
Church, my mother and my mistress, as my residuary heiress, and with
thy permission I there deposit them, wishing them to be much greater.
And I desire before all else they redound to the exaltation of thy
holy name and procure the fulfillment of thy will earth as it is done
in heaven, and that all the nations come to the knowledge, love and
veneration of Thee, the true God.”
“In the
second place I offer these merits for my masters the Apostles and
priests, of the present and of the future ages, so that in view of
them thy ineffable clemency may make them apt ministers, worthy of
their office and state, filled with wisdom, virtue and holiness by
which they may edify and sanctify the souls by thy blood. In the
third place I offer them for the spiritual good of my devoted
servants, who invoke and call upon me, in order that they may receive
thy protection and grace, and afterwards eternal life. In the fourth
place I desire that my services and labors may move Thee to mercy
toward all the sinning children of Adam, in order that they may
withdraw from their sinful state. From this hour on I propose and
desire to continue my prayers for them in thy divine presence, as
long as the world shall last. This, Lord and my God, is my last will,
always subject to thy own.” At the conclusion of this testament
of the Queen, the most blessed Trinity approved and confirmed it; and
Christ the Redeemer, as if authorizing it all, witnessed it by
writing in the heart of his Mother these words: “Let it be done
as thou wishest and ordainest.”
If all we children of Adam, and
especially we who are born in the law of grace, had no other
obligation toward the most blessed Mary than this of having been
constituted heirs of her immense merits and of all that is mentioned
in this short and mysterious testament, we could never repay our
debt, even if in return we should offer our lives and endure all the
sufferings of the most courageous martyrs and saints.
WORDS OF THE QUEEN
The Virgin Mary
speaks to Sister Mary of Agreda, Spain
Among the absurd fallacies introduced
by the demon into the world none is greater or more pernicious than
the forgetfulness of the hour of death and of what is to happen at
the court of the rigorous Judge. Consider, my daughter, that through
this portal sin entered into the world; for the serpent sought to
convince the first woman principally, that she would not die and need
not think of that matter (Gen. 11, 4). Thus continually deceived,
there are uncountable fools who live without thought of death and who
die forgetful of the unhappy lot that awaits them. In order that thou
mayest not be seized by this human perversity, begin to convince
thyself now that thou must die irrevocably; that thou hast received
much and paid little; that the account shall be so much the more
rigorous, as the Judge has been more liberal in the gifts and talents
lavished upon thee in thy sphere. I do not ask of thee more, and also
not less, than what thou owest to thy Spouse and to thy Lord, which
is always to operate the best in all places, times and occasions,
without permitting any forgetfulness, intermission or carelessness.
Book 8, Chapter 6
THE
GLORIOUS TRANSITION OF THE VIRGIN MARY
And now, according to the decree of
the divine will, the day was approaching in which the true and living
Ark of the covenant was to be placed in the temple of the celestial
Jerusalem, with a greater glory and higher jubilee than its prophetic
figure was installed by Solomon in the sanctuary beneath the wings of
the cherubim (III King 8, 8). Three days before the most happy
Transition of the great Lady the Apostles and disciples were gathered
in Jerusalem and in the Cenacle. The first one to arrive was saint
Peter, who was transported from Rome by the hands of an angel. At
that place the angel appeared to him and told him that the passing
away of the most blessed Mary was imminent and the Lord commanded him
to go to Jerusalem in order to be present at that event. Thereupon
the angel took him and brought him from Italy to the Cenacle. Thither
the Queen of the world had retired, somewhat weakened in body by the
force of her divine love; for since She was so near to her end, She
was subjected more completely to love’s effects.
The great Lady
came to the entrance of her oratory in order to receive the vicar of
Christ our Savior. Kneeling at his feet She asked his blessing and
said: “I give thanks and praise to the Almighty, that He
brought to me the holy Father for assisting me in the hour of my
death.’’ Then came saint Paul, to whom the Queen showed
the same reverence with similar tokens of her pleasure at seeing him.
The Apostles saluted Her as the Mother of God, as their Queen and as
Mistress of all creation; but with a sorrow equal to their reverence,
because they knew that they had come to witness her passing away.
After these Apostles came the others and
the disciples still living. Three days after, they were all assembled
in the Cenacle. The heavenly Mother received them all with profound
humility, reverence and love, asking each one to bless Her. All of
them complied, and saluted Her with admirable reverence. By orders of
the Lady given to saint John, and with the assistance of saint James
the less, they were all hospitably entertained and accommodated.
Some of the Apostles who had been transported by
the angels and informed by them of the purpose of their coming, were
seized with tenderest grief and shed abundant tears at the thought of
losing their only protection and consolation. Others were as yet
ignorant of their approaching loss, especially the disciples, who had
not been positively informed by the angels, but were moved by
interior inspirations and a sweet and forcible intimation of God’s
will to come to Jerusalem. They immediately conferred with saint
Peter, desirous of knowing the occasion of their meeting; for all of
them were convinced, that if there had been no special occasion, the
Lord would not have urged them so strongly to come. The apostle saint
Peter, as the head of the Church, called them all together in order
to tell them of the cause of their coming, and spoke to the assembly:
“My dearest children and brethren, the Lord has called and
brought us to Jerusalem from remote regions not without a cause most
urgent and sorrowful to us. The Most High wishes now to raise up to
the throne of eternal glory his most blessed Mother, our Mistress,
our consolation and protection. His divine decree is that we all be
present at her most happy and glorious Transition. When our Master
and Redeemer ascended to the right hand of his Father, although He
left us orphaned of his most delightful presence, we still retained
his most blessed Mother and our light now leaves us what shall we do?
What help or hope have we to encourage us on our pilgrimage? I find
none except the hope that we all shall follow Her in due time.”
Saint Peter could speak no farther, because
uncontrollable tears and sighs interrupted him. Neither could the
rest of the Apostles answer for a long time during which, amid
copious and tenderest tears, they gave vent to the groans of their
inmost heart. After some time the vicar of Christ recovered himself
and added: “My children, let us seek the presence of our Mother
and Lady. Let us spend the time left of her life in her company and
ask Her to bless us.” They all betook themselves to the oratory
of the great Queen and found Her kneeling upon a couch, on which She
was wont to recline for a short rest. They saw Her full of beauty and
celestial light, surrounded by the thousand angels of her guard.
The natural condition and appearance of her sacred
and virginal body were the same as at her thirty–third year;
for, as I have already stated, from that age onward it experienced no
change. It was not affected by the passing years, showing no signs of
age, no wrinkles in her face or body, nor giving signs of weakening
or fading, as in other children of Adam, who gradually fall away and
drop from the natural perfection of early man or womanhood. This
unchangeableness was the privilege of the most blessed Mary alone, as
well because it consorted with the stability of her purest soul, as
because it was the natural consequence of her immunity from the sin
of Adam, the effects of which in this regard touched neither her
sacred body nor her purest soul. The Apostles and disciples, and some
of the other faithful occupied her chamber, all of them preserving
the utmost order in her presence. Saint Peter and saint John placed
themselves at the head of the couch. The great Lady looked upon them
all with her accustomed modesty and reverence and spoke to them as
follows: “My dearest children, give permission to your servant
to speak in your presence and to disclose my humble desires.”
Saint Peter answered that all listened with attention and would obey
Her in all things; and He begged Her to seat Herself upon the couch,
while speaking to them. It seemed to saint Peter that She was
exhausted from kneeling so long and that She had taken that position
in order to pray to the Lord, and that in speaking to them, it was
proper She should be seated as their Queen.
But She, who was the Teacher of humility and
obedience unto death, practiced both these virtues in that hour. She
answered that She would obey in asking of their blessing, and
besought them to afford Her this consolation. With the permission of
saint Peter She left the couch and, kneeling before the Apostle, said
to him: “My lord, I beseech thee, as the universal pastor and
head of the holy Church, to give me thy blessing in thy own and in
its name. Pardon me thy handmaid for the smallness of the service I
have rendered in my life. Grant that John dispose of my vestments,
giving them to the two poor maidens, who have always obliged me by
their charity.” She then prostrated Herself and kissed the feet
of saint Peter as the vicar of Christ, by her abundant tears
eliciting not less the admiration than the tears of the Apostle and
of all the bystanders. From saint Peter She went to saint John,
kneeling likewise at his feet, said: “Pardon, my son and my
master, my not having fulfilled toward thee the duties of a Mother as
I ought and as the Lord had commanded me, when from the Cross He
appointed thee as my son and me as thy mother (John 19, 27). I humbly
and from my heart thank thee for the kindness which thou hast shown
me as a son. Give me thy benediction for entering into the vision and
company of Him who created me.”
The sweetest
Mother proceeded in her leave–taking, speaking to each of the
Apostles in particular and to some of the disciples; and then to all
the assembly together; for there were a great number. She rose to her
feet and addressed them all, saying: “Dearest children and my
masters, always have I kept you in my soul and written in my heart. I
have loved you with that tender love and charity, which was given to
me by my divine Son, whom I have seen in you, his chosen friends. In
obedience to his holy and eternal will, I now go to the eternal
mansions, where I promise you as a Mother I will look upon you by the
clearest light of the Divinity, the vision of which my soul hopes and
desires in security. I commend unto you my mother, the Church, the
exaltation of the name of the Most High, the spread of the
evangelical law, the honor and veneration for the words of
my divine Son, the memory of his Passion and Death, the practice of
his doctrine. My children, love the Church, and love one another with
that bond of charity which your Master has always inculcated upon you
(John 13, 34). To thee, Peter, holy Pontiff, I commend my son John
and all the rest.”
The words of the
most blessed Mary, like arrows of a divine fire, penetrated the
hearts of all the Apostles and hearers, and as She ceased speaking,
all of them were dissolved in streams of tears and, seized with
irreparable sorrow, cast themselves upon the ground with sighs and
groans sufficient to move to compassion the very earth. All of them
wept, and with them wept also the sweetest Mary, who could not resist
this bitter and well–founded sorrow of her children. After some
time She spoke to them again, and asked them to pray with Her and for
Her in silence, which they did. During this quietness the incarnate
Word descended from heaven on a throne of ineffable glory,
accompanied by all the saints and innumerable angels, and the house
of the Cenacle was filled with glory. The most blessed Mary adored
the Lord and kissed his feet. Prostrate before Him She made the last
and most profound act faith and humility in her mortal life. On this
occasion the most pure Creature, the Queen of the heavens, shrank
within Herself and lowered Herself to the earth more profoundly than
all men together ever have or ever will humiliate themselves for all
their sins. Her divine Son gave Her His blessing and in the presence
of the courtiers of heaven spoke to Her these words: “My
dearest Mother, whom I have chosen for my dwelling–place, the
hour is come in which thou art to pass from the life of this death
and of the world into the glory of my Father
and Mine, where thou shalt possess the throne prepared for thee at my
right hand and enjoy it through all eternity. And since, by my power
and as my Mother have caused thee to enter the world free and exempt
from sin, therefore also death shall have no right or permission to
touch thee at thy exit from this world. If thou wishest not to pass
through it come with Me now to partake of my glory, which thou hast
merited.”
The most prudent Mother prostrated Herself at the
feet of her Son and with a joyous countenance answered: “My Son
and my Lord, I beseech Thee let thy mother and thy servant enter into
eternal life by the common portal of natural death, like the other
children of Adam. Thou, who art my true God, hast suffered death
without being obliged to do so; it is proper that as I have followed
Thee in life, so I follow Thee also in death.’’ Christ
the Savior approved of the decision and the sacrifice of his most
blessed Mother, and consented to its fulfillment. Then all the angels
began to sing in celestial harmony some of the verses of the
Canticles of Solomon and other new ones. Although only saint John and
some of the Apostles were enlightened as to the presence of Christ
the Savior, yet the others felt in their interior its divine and
powerful effects; but the music was heard as well by the Apostles and
disciples, as by many others of the faithful there present. A divine
fragrance also spread about, which penetrated to the street. The
house of the Cenacle was filled with a wonderful effulgence, visible
to all, and the Lord ordained that multitudes of the people of
Jerusalem gathered in the streets as witnesses to this new miracle.
When the angels began their music, the most
blessed Mary reclined back upon her couch or bed. Her tunic was
folded about her sacred body, her hands joined and her eyes fixed
upon her divine Son, and She was entirely inflamed with the fire of
divine love. And as the angels intoned those verses of the second of
the Canticles: “Surge, propera, amica mea,” that is to
say: “Arise, haste, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one, and
come, the winter has passed,” etc., She pronounced those words
of her Son on the Cross: “Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my
spirit.” Then She closed her virginal eyes and expired. The
sickness which took away her life was love, without any other
weakness or accidental intervention of whatever kind. She died at the
moment when the divine power suspended the assistance, which until
then had counteracted the sensible ardors of her burning love of God.
As soon as this miraculous assistance was withdrawn, the fire of her
love consumed the life–humors of her heart and thus caused the
cessation of her earthly existence.
Then this most pure Soul passed from her virginal
body to be placed in boundless glory, on the throne at the right hand
of her divine Son. Immediately the music of the angels seemed to
withdraw to the upper air; for that whole procession of angels and
saints accompanied the King and Queen to the empyrean heavens. The
sacred body of the most blessed Mary, which been the temple and
sanctuary of God in life, continued to shine with an effulgent light
and breathed forth such a wonderful and unheard of fragrance, that
all the bystanders were filled with interior and exterior sweetness.
The thousand angels of her guard remained to watch over the
inestimable treasure of her virginal body. The Apostles and
disciples, amid the tears and the joy of the wonders they had seen,
were absorbed in admiration for some time, and then sang many hymns
and psalms in honor of the most blessed Mary now departed. This
glorious Transition of the great Queen took place in the hour in
which her divine Son had died, at three o’clock on a Friday,
the thirteenth day of August, she being seventy years of age, less
the twenty–six days intervening between the thirteenth day of
August, on which She died, and the eighth of September, the day of
her birth. The heavenly Mother had survived the death of Christ the
Savior twenty–one years, four months and nineteen days; and his
virginal birth, fifty–five years. This reckoning can be easily
made in the following manner: when Christ our Savior was born, his
virginal Mother was fifteen years, three months and seventeen days of
age. The Lord lived thirty–three years and three months; so
that at the time of his sacred Passion the most blessed Lady was
forty–eight years, six months and seventeen days old; adding to
these another twenty–one years, four months and nineteen days,
we ascertain her age as seventy years, less twenty–five or
twenty–six days. *(Age at death, 69 years, 11 months, 5 or 6
days.)
Great wonders and prodigies happened
at the precious death of the Queen; for the sun was eclipsed (as I
have mentioned above) and its light was hidden in sorrow for some
hours. Many birds of different kinds gathered around the Cenacle, and
by their sorrowful clamors and groans for a while caused the
bystanders themselves to weep. All Jerusalem was in commotion, and
many of the inhabitants collected in astonished crowds, confessing
loudly the power of God and the greatness of his works. Others were
astounded and as if beside themselves. The Apostles and disciples
with others of the faithful broke forth in tears and sighs. Many sick
persons came who all were cured. The souls in purgatory were
released. But the greatest miracle was that three persons, a man in
Jerusalem and two women living in the immediate neighborhood of the
Cenacle, died in sin and impenitent in that same hour, subject to
eternal damnation; but when their cause came before the tribunal of
Christ, His sweetest Mother interceded for them and they were
restored to life. They so mended their conduct, that afterwards they
died in grace and were saved. This privilege was not extended to
others that died on that day in the world, but was restricted to
those three who happened to die in that hour in Jerusalem. What
festivities were celebrated on that occasion in heaven I will
describe in another chapter, lest heavenly things be mixed up with
the sacred things of earth.
WORDS OF THE QUEEN
The Virgin Mary
speaks to Sister Mary of Agreda, Spain
My daughter, besides what thou hast
understood and written of my glorious Transition, I wish to inform
thee of another privilege, which was conceded to me by my divine Son
in that hour. Thou hast already recorded, that the Lord offered me
the choice of entering into beatific vision either with or without
passing through the portals of death. If I had preferred not to die,
the Most High would have conceded this favor, because sin had no part
in me, and hence also not its punishment, which is death. Thus it
would also have been with my divine Son, and with a greater right, if
He had not taken upon Himself the satisfaction of the divine justice
for men through his Passion and Death. Hence I chose death freely in
order to imitate and follow Him, as also I did during his grievous
passion. Since I had seen my Son and true God die, I would not have
satisfied the love I owe Him, if I had refused death, and I would
have left a great gap in my conformity to and my imitation of my Lord
the Godman, whereas He wished me to bear a great likeness to Him in
his most sacred humanity. As I would thereafter never be able to make
up for such a defect, my soul would not enjoy the plenitude of the
delight of having died as did my Lord and God.
Hence my choosing to die was so
pleasing to Him, and my prudent love therein obliged Him to such an
extent, that in return He immediately conceded to me a singular favor
for the benefit of the children of the Church and conformable to my
wishes. It was this, all those devoted to me, who should call upon me
at the hour of death, constituting me as their Advocate in memory of
my happy Transition and of my desiring to imitate Him in death, shall
be under my special protection in that hour, shall have me as a
defense against demons, as a help and protection, and shall be
presented by me before the tribunal of his mercy and there experience
my intercession. In consequence the Lord gave me a new power and
commission and He promised to confer great helps of His grace for a
good death and for a purer life on all those who in veneration of
this mystery of my precious death, should invoke my aid. Hence I
desire thee, my beloved daughter, from this day on to keep in thy
inmost heart a devout and loving memory of this mystery, and to
bless, praise, and magnify the Omnipotent, because he wrought such
sacred miracles for me and for the mortals. By this solicitude thou
wilt oblige the Lord and me to come to thy aid in that last hour.
And since death follows upon life and
ordinarily corresponds with it, therefore the surest pledge of a good
death is a good life; a life in which the heart is freed and detached
from earthly love. For this it is, which in that last hour afflicts
and oppresses the soul and which is like a heavy chain restraining
its liberty and preventing it from rising above the things loved in
this world. O my daughter! How greatly do mortals misunderstand this
truth, and how far they err from it in their actions! The Lord gives
them life in order that they may free themselves from the effects of
original sin, so as to be unhampered by them at the hour of their
death; and the ignorant and miserable children of Adam spend all
their life in loading upon themselves new burdens and fetters, so
that they die captives of their passions and in the tyranny of their
hellish foes. I had no share in original sin and none of its effects
had any power over my faculties; nevertheless I lived in the greatest
constraint, in poverty and detached from earthly things, most perfect
and holy; and this holy freedom I did indeed experience at the hour
of my death. Consider then, my daughter, and be mindful of this
living example; free thy heart more and more each day, so that with
advancing years thou mayest find thyself more free, more detached and
averted from visible things, and so that when the Spouse shall call
thee to his nuptials, thou wilt not need to seek in vain the required
freedom and prudence.
Book 8, Chapter 7
BURIAL
AND ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN
In order that the Apostles, the
disciples, and many others of the faithful might not be too deeply
oppressed by sorrow, and in order that some of them may not die of
grief caused by the passing away of the blessed Mary, it was
necessary that the divine power, by an especial providence, furnish
them with consolation and dilate their heart for new influences in
their incomparable affliction. For the feeling, that their loss was
irretrievable in the present life, could not be repressed; the
privation of such a Treasure could never find recompense; and as the
most sweet, loving and amiable interactions and conversation of their
great Queen had ravished the heart of each one, the ceasing of her
protection and company left them as it were without the breath of
life. But the Lord, who well knew how to estimate the just cause of
their sorrow, secretly upheld them by his encouragements and so they
set about the fitting burial of the sacred body and whatever the
occasion demanded.
Accordingly the holy Apostles, on
whom this duty specially devolved, held a conference concerning the
burial of the most sacred body of their Queen and Lady. They selected
for that purpose a new sepulchre, which had been prepared
mysteriously by the providence of her divine Son. As they remembered,
that, according to the custom of the Jews at burial, the deified body
of the Master had been anointed with precious ointments and spices
and wrapped in the sacred burial cloths; they thought not of doing
otherwise with the virginal body of His most holy Mother. Accordingly
they called the two maidens, who had assisted the Queen during her
life and who had been designated as the heiresses of her tunics, and
instructed them to anoint the body of the Mother of God with highest
reverence and modesty and wrap it in the winding–sheets before
it should be placed in the casket. With great reverence and fear the
two maidens entered the room, where the body of the blessed Lady lay
upon its couch; but the refulgence issuing from it barred and blinded
them in such a manner that they could neither see nor touch the body,
nor even ascertain in what particular place it rested.
In fear and reverence still greater than on their
entrance, the maidens left the room; and in great excitement and
wonder they told the Apostles what had happened. They, not without
divine inspiration, came to the conclusion, that this sacred Ark of
the covenant was not to be touched or handled in the common way. Then
saint Peter and saint John entered the oratory and perceived the
effulgence, and at the same time they heard the celestial music of
the angels who were singing: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the
Lord is with thee.” Others responded: “A Virgin before
childbirth, in childbirth and after childbirth.” From that time
on many of the faithful expressed their devotion toward the most
blessed Mary in these words of praise; and from them they were handed
down to be repeated by us with the approbation of the holy Church.
The two holy Apostles, saint Peter and saint John, were for a time
lost in admiration at what they saw and heard of their Queen; and in
order to decide what to do, they sank on their knees, beseeching the
Lord to make it known. Then they heard a voice saying: “Let not
the sacred body be either uncovered or touched.”
Having thus been informed of the will
of God they brought a bier, and, the effulgence having diminished
somewhat, they approached the couch and with their own hands
reverently took hold of the tunic at the two ends. Thus, without
changing its posture, they raised the sacred and virginal Treasure
and place it on the bier in the same position as it had occupied on
the couch. They could easily do this, because they felt no more
weight than that of the tunic. On this bier the former effulgence of
the body moderated still more, and all of them, by disposition of the
Lord and for the consolation of all those present, could now perceive
and study the beauty of that virginal countenance and of her hands.
As for the rest, the omnipotence of God protected this His heavenly
dwelling, so that neither in life nor in death anyone should behold
any other part except what is common in ordinary conversation, her
most inspiring countenance, by which She had been known, and her
hands, by which She had labored.
So great was the care and solicitude
for His most blessed Mother, that in this particular He used not so
much precaution in regard to his own body, as that of the most pure
Virgin. In her Immaculate Conception He made Her like to Himself;
likewise at her birth, in as far as it did not take place in the
common and natural manner of other men. He preserved Her also from
impure temptations and thoughts. But, as He was man and the Redeemer
of the world through his Passion and Death, He permitted with his own
body, what He would not allow with Hers, as that of a woman, and
therefore He kept her virginal body entirely concealed; in fact the
most pure Lady during her life had herself asked that no one should
be permitted to look upon it in death; which petition He fulfilled.
Then the Apostles consulted further about her burial. Their decision
becoming known among the multitudes of the faithful in Jerusalem,
they brought many candles to be lighted at the bier, and it happened
that all the lights burned through that day and the two following
days without any of the candles being consumed or wasted in any shape
or manner.
In order that this and many other
miracles wrought by the power of God on this occasion might become
better known to the world, the Lord himself inspired all the
inhabitants of Jerusalem to be present at the burial of his most
blessed Mother, so that there was scarcely any person in Jerusalem,
even of the Jews or the gentiles, who were not attracted by the
novelty of this spectacle. The Apostles took upon their shoulders the
sacred body and the tabernacle of God and, as priests of the
evangelical law, bore the Propitiatory of the divine oracles and
blessings in orderly procession from the Cenacle in the city to the
valley of Josaphat. This was the visible accompaniment of the
dwellers of Jerusalem.
In the midst of this celestial and
earthly accompaniment, visible and invisible, the Apostles bore along
the sacred body, and on the way happened great miracles, which would
take much time to relate. In particular all the sick, of which there
were many of the different kinds, were entirely cured. Many of the
possessed were freed from the demons; for the evil spirits did not
dare to wait until the sacred body came near the persons thus
afflicted. Greater still were the miracles of conversions wrought
among many Jews and gentiles, for on this occasion were opened up the
treasures of divine mercy, so that many souls came to the knowledge
of Christ our Savior and loudly confessed Him as the true God and
Redeemer, demanding Baptism. Many days thereafter the Apostles and
disciples labored hard in catechizing and baptising those, who on
that day had been converted to the holy faith. The Apostles in
carrying the sacred body felt wonderful effects of divine light and
consolation, which the disciples shared according to their measure.
All the multitudes of the people were seized with astonishment at the
fragrance diffused about, the sweet music and the other prodigies.
They proclaimed God great and powerful in this Creature and in
testimony of their acknowledgment, they struck their breasts in
sorrow and compunction.
When the procession came to the holy
sepulchre in the valley of Josaphat, the same two Apostles, saint
Peter and saint John, who had laid the celestial Treasure from the
couch onto the bier, with joyful reverence placed it in the sepulchre
and covered it with a linen cloth, the hands of the angels performing
more of these last rites than the hands of the Apostles. They closed
up the sepulchre with a large stone, according to custom at other
burials. The celestial courtiers returned to heaven, while the
thousand angels of the Queen continued their watch, guarding the
sacred body and keeping up the music as at her burial. The concourse
of the people lessened and the holy Apostles and disciples, dissolved
in tender tears, returned to the Cenacle. During a whole year the
exquisite fragrance exhaled by the body of Queen was noticeable
throughout the Cenacle, and in her oratory, for many years. This
sanctuary remain a place of refuge for all those that were burdened
with labor and difficulties; all found miraculous assistance, as well
in sickness as in hardships and necessities of other kind. After
these miracles had continued for some years in Jerusalem, the sins of
Jerusalem and of its inhabitants drew upon this city, among other
punishments, that of being deprived of this inestimable blessing.
Having again gathered in the Cenacle,
the Apostles came to the conclusion that some of them and of the
disciples should watch at the sepulchre of their Queen as long as
they should hear the celestial music, for all of them were wondering
when the end of that miracle should be. Accordingly some of them
attended to the affairs of the Church in catechizing and baptizing
the new converts; and others immediately returned to the sepulchre,
while all of them paid frequent visits to it during the next three
days. Saint Peter and saint John, however, were more zealous in their
attendance, coming only a few times to the Cenacle and immediately
returning to where was laid the treasure of their heart.
If on this account the glory even of
the least of the saints is ineffable, what shall we say of the glory
of the most blessed Mary, since among the saints She is the most holy
and She by Herself is more like to her Son than all the saints
together, and since her grace and glory exceed those of all the rest,
as those of an empress or sovereign over her vassals? This truth can
and should be believed; but in mortal life it cannot be understood,
or the least part of it be explained; for the inadequacy and
deficiency of our words and expressions rather tend to obscure than
to set forth its greatness. Let us in this life apply our labor, not
in seeking to comprehend it, but in seeking to merit its
manifestation in glory, where we shall experience more or less of
this happiness according to our works.
Our Redeemer Jesus entered heaven conducting the
purest soul of his Mother at his right hand. She alone of all the
mortals deserved exemption from particular judgment; hence for Her
there was none; no account was asked or demanded of Her for what She
had received; for such was the promise that had been given to Her,
when She was exempted from the common guilt and chosen as the Queen
privileged above the laws of the children of Adam. For the same
reason, instead of being judged with the rest, She shall be seated at
the right hand of the Judge to judge with Him all the creatures. If
in the first instant of her Conception She was the brightest Aurora,
effulgent with the rays of the sun of the Divinity beyond all the
brightness of the most exalted seraphim, and if afterwards She was
still further illumined by the contact of the hypostatic Word, who
derived his humanity from her purest substance, it necessarily
follows that She should be His Companion for all eternity, possessing
such a likeness to Him, that none greater can be possible between a
Godman and a creature. In this light the Redeemer himself presented
Her before the throne of the Divinity; and speaking to the eternal
Father in the presence of all the blessed, who were ravished at this
wonder, the most sacred humanity uttered these words: “Eternal
Father, my most beloved Mother, thy beloved Daughter and the
cherished Spouse of the Holy Ghost, now comes to take possession of
the crown and glory, which We have prepared as a reward for her
merit. She is the one who was born as the rose among thorns,
untouched, pure and beautiful, worthy of being embraced by Us and
being placed upon a throne to which none of our creatures can ever
attain, and to which those conceived in sin cannot aspire. This is
our chosen and our only One, distinguished above all else, to whom We
communicated our grace and our perfections beyond the measure
accorded to other creatures; in whom We have deposited the treasure
of our incomprehensible Divinity and its gifts; who most faithfully
preserved and made fruitful the talents, which We gave Her; who never
swerved from our will, and who found grace and pleasure in our eyes.
My Father, most equitous is the tribunal of our justice and mercy,
and in it the services of our friends are repaid in the most
superabundant manner. It is right that to my Mother be given the
reward of a Mother; and if during her whole life and in all her works
She was as like to Me as is possible for a creature to be, let Her
also be as like to Me in glory and on the throne of our Majesty; so
that where holiness is in essence, there it may also be found in its
highest participation.’’
This decree of the incarnate Word was
approved by the Father and the Holy Ghost. The most holy soul of Mary
was immediately raised to the right hand of her Son and true God, and
placed on the royal throne of the most holy Trinity, which neither
men, nor angels nor the seraphim themselves attain, and will not
attain for all eternity. This is the most exalted and supereminent
privilege of our Queen and Lady, that She is seated on the throne
with the three divine Persons and holds her place as Empress, while
all the rest are set as servants and ministers to the highest King.
To the eminence and majesty of that position, inaccessible to all
other creatures, correspond her gifts of glory, comprehension, vision
and fruition; because She enjoys, above all and more than all, that
infinite Object, which the other blessed enjoy in an endless variety
of degrees. She knows, penetrates and understands much deeper the
eternal Being and its infinite attributes; She lovingly delights in
its mysteries and most hidden secrets, more than all the rest of the
blessed.
Just as little can be explained the
extra joy, which the blessed experienced on that day in singing the
new songs of praise to the Omnipotent and in celebrating the glory of
his Daughter, Mother and Spouse; for in Her He had exalted all the
works of his right hand. Although to the Lord himself could come no
new or essential glory because He possessed and possesses it
immutably infinite through all eternity; yet the exterior
manifestations of His pleasure and satisfaction at the fulfillment of
his eternal decrees were greater on that day.
On the third day after the most pure
soul of Mary had taken possession of this glory never to leave it,
the Lord manifested to the saints His divine will, that She should
return to the world, resuscitate her sacred body and unite Herself
with it, so that She might in body and soul be again raised to the
right hand of her divine Son without waiting for the general
resurrection of the dead. The appropriateness of this favor, its
accordance with the others received by the most blessed Queen and
with her supereminent dignity, the saints could not but see; since
even to mortals it is so credible, that even if the Church had not
certified it, we would judge those impious and foolish, who would
dare deny it. But the blessed saw it with greater clearness, together
with the determined time and hour as manifested to them in God
himself. When the time for this wonder had arrived, Christ our Savior
himself descended from heaven bringing with Him at His right hand the
soul of his most blessed Mother and accompanied by many legions of
the Angels, the Patriarchs and ancient Prophets. They came to the
sepulchre in the valley of Josaphat, and all being gathered in sight
of the virginal temple, the Lord spoke the following words to the
saints.
“My Mother
was conceived without stain of sin, in order that from Her virginal
substance I might stainlessly clothe Myself in the humanity in which
I came to the world and redeemed it from sin. My flesh is her flesh;
She co–operated with Me in the works of the Redemption; hence I
must raise Her, just as I rose from the dead, and this shall be at
the same time and hour. For I wish to make Her like Me in all
things.” All the ancient saints of the human race then gave
thanks for this new favor in songs of praise and glory to the Lord.
Those that especially distinguished themselves in their thanksgiving
were our first parents Adam and Eve, saint Anne, saint Joachim and
saint Joseph, as being the more close partakers in this miracle of
his Omnipotence. Then the purest soul of the Queen, at the command of
the Lord, entered the virginal body, reanimated it and raised it up,
giving it a new life of immortality and glory and communicating to it
the four gifts of clearness, impassibility, agility and subtlety,
corresponding to those of the soul and overflowing from it into the
body.
Endowed with these gifts the most
blessed Mary issued from the tomb in body and soul, without raising
the stone cover and without disturbing the position of the tunic and
the mantle that had enveloped her sacred body. Since it is impossible
to describe her beauty and refulgent glory, I will not make the
attempt. It is sufficient to say, that just as the heavenly Mother
had given to her divine Son in her womb the form of man, pure,
unstained and sinless, for the Redemption of the world, so in return
the Lord, in this resurrection and new regeneration, gave to Her a
glory and beauty similar to his own. In this mysterious and divine
interchange each One did what was possible: most holy Mary engendered
Christ, assimilating Him as much as possible to Herself, and Christ
resuscitated Her, communicating to Her of his glory as far as She was
capable as a creature.
Then from the sepulchre was started a
most solemn procession, moving with celestial music through the
regions of the air and toward the empyrean heaven. This happened in
the hour immediately after midnight, which also the Lord had risen
from the grave; and therefore not all of the Apostles were witness of
this prodigy, but only some of them, who were present and watching at
the sepulchre. The saints and angels entered in the order in which
they had started; and in the last place came Christ our Savior and at
his right hand the Queen, clothed in the gold of variety (as David
says Ps. 44, 10), and so beautiful that She was the admiration of the
heavenly court. All of them turned toward Her to look upon Her and
bless Her with new jubilee and songs of praise. Thus were heard those
mysterious eulogies recorded by Solomon: Come, daughters of Sion, to
your Queen, who is praised by the morning stars and celebrated by the
sons of the Most High. Who is She that comes from the desert, like a
column of all aromatic perfumes? Who is She, that rises like the
aurora, more beautiful than the moon, elect as the sun, terrible as
many serried armies? Who is She that comes up from the desert resting
upon her Beloved and spreading forth abundant delights? (Cant. 3,6–9;
8,5). Who is She in whom the Deity itself finds so much pleasure and
delight above all other creatures and whom He exalts above them all
in the heavens! O novelty worthy of the infinite Wisdom! O prodigy of
his Omnipotence, which so magnifies and exalts Her!
Amid this glory the most blessed Mary arrived body
and soul at the throne of the most blessed Trinity. And the three
divine Persons received Her on it with an embrace eternally
undissoluble. The eternal Father said Her: “Ascend higher, my
Daughter and my Dove.” The incarnate Word spoke: “My
Mother, of whom I received human being and full return of my work in
thy perfect imitation, receive now from my hand the reward thou hast
merited.” The Holy Ghost said: “My most beloved Spouse,
enter into the eternal joy, which corresponds to the most faithful
love; do Thou now enjoy thy love without solicitude; for past is the
winter of suffering for Thou hast arrived at our eternal embraces.”
There the most blessed Mary was absorbed in the contemplation of the
three divine Persons and as it were overwhelmed in the boundless
ocean and abyss of the Divinity, while the saints were filled with
wonder and new accidental delight. Since, at the occasion of this
work of the Omnipotent happened other wonders, I shall speak of them
as far as possible in the following chapter.
WORDS OF THE QUEEN
The Virgin Mary
speaks to Sister Mary of Agreda, Spain
My daughter, lamentable and
inexcusable is the ignorance of men in so knowingly forgetting the
eternal glory, which God has prepared for those who dispose
themselves to merit it. I wish that thou bitterly bewail and deplore
this pernicious forgetfulness; for there is no doubt, that whoever
wilfully forgets the eternal glory and happiness is in evident danger
of losing it. No one is free from this guilt, not only because men do
not apply much labor or effort in seeking and retaining the
remembrance of this happiness; but they labor with all their powers
in things that make them forget the end for which they were created.
Undoubtedly this forgetfulness arises from their entangling
themselves in the pride of life, the covetousness of the eyes, and
the desires of the flesh (John 2, 16); for employing therein all the
forces and faculties of their soul during the whole time of their
life, they have no leisure, care or attention for the thoughts of
eternal felicity. Let men acknowledge and confess, whether this
recollection costs them more labor than to follow their blind
passions, seeking after honors, possessions or the transitory
pleasures, all of which have an end with this life, and which, after
much striving and labor, many men do not, and can never attain.
This is a sorrow beyond all sorrows, and a
misfortune without equal and without remedy. Afflict thyself, lament
and grieve without consolation over this ruin of so many souls bought
by the blood of my divine Son. I assure thee, my dearest, that, if
men would not make themselves so unworthy of it, my charity would
urge me, in the celestial glory where thou knowest me to be, to send
forth a voice through the whole world exclaiming: “Mortal and
deceived men, what are you doing? For what purpose are you living? Do
you realize what it is to see God face to face, and to participate in
his eternal glory and share his company? Of what are you thinking?
Who has thus disturbed and fascinated your judgment? What will you
seek, if once you have lost this true blessing and happiness, since
there is no other? The labor is short, the reward is infinite glory,
and the punishment is eternal.”
Book 8, Chapter 8
THE CORONATION OF THE MOTHER OF GOD
We call that the throne of the
Divinity, from which God manifests Himself to the saints as the
principal cause of their glory and as the infinite, eternal God,
independent of all things and on whose will all creatures depend,
from which He manifests Himself as the Lord, as the King, as the
Judge and Master of all that is in existence. This dignity Christ the
Redeemer possesses, in as far as He is God, essentially, and as far
as He is man, through the hypostatic union, by which He communicates
his Godhead to the humanity. Hence in heaven He is the King, the Lord
and supreme Judge; and the saints, though their glory exceeds all
human calculation, are as servants and inferiors of this inaccessible
Majesty. In this the most holy Mary participates in a degree next
inferior and in a manner otherwise ineffable and proportionate to a
mere creature so closely related to the Godman; and therefore She
assists forever at the right hand of her Son as Queen (Ps. 44, 10),
Lady and Mistress of all creation, her dominion extending as far as
that of her divine Son, although in a different manner.
After placing the most blessed Mary on this
exalted and supereminent throne, the Lord declared to the courtiers
of heaven all the privileges She should enjoy in virtue of this
participation in his majesty. The Person of the eternal Father, as
the first principle of all things, speaking to the angels and saints,
said to them: “Our Daughter Mary was chosen according to our
pleasure from amongst all creatures, the first one to delight Us, and
who never fell from the title and position of a Daughter, such as We
had given Her in our divine mind; She has a claim on our dominion,
which We shall recognize by crowning Her as the legitimate and
peerless Lady and Sovereign.” The incarnate Word said: “To
my true and natural Mother belong all the creatures which were
created and redeemed by Me; and of all things over which I am King,
She too shall be the legitimate and supreme Queen.” The Holy
Ghost said: “Since She is called my beloved and chosen Spouse,
She deserves to be crowned as Queen for all eternity.”
Having thus spoken the three divine Persons placed
upon the head of the most blessed Mary a crown of such new splendor
and value, that the like has been seen neither before nor after by
any mere creature. At the same time a voice sounded from the throne
saying: “My Beloved, chosen among the creatures, our kingdom is
Thine; Thou shalt be the Lady and the Sovereign of the seraphim, of
all the ministering spirits, the angels and of the entire universe of
creatures. Attend, proceed and govern prosperously over them, for in
our supreme consistory We give Thee power, majesty and sovereignty.
Being filled with grace beyond all the rest, Thou hast humiliated
Thyself in thy own estimation to the lowest place; receive now the
supreme dignity deserved by Thee and, as a participation in our
Divinity, the dominion over all the creatures of our Omnipotence.
From thy royal throne to the centre of the earth Thou shalt reign;
and by the power We now give Thee Thou shalt subject hell with all
its demons and inhabitants. Let all of them fear Thee as the supreme
Empress and Mistress of those caverns and dwelling–places of
our enemies. In thy hands and at thy pleasure We place the influences
and forces of the heavens, the moisture of the clouds, the growths of
the earth; and of all of them do Thou distribute according to thy
will, and our own will shall be at thy disposal for the execution of
thy wishes. Thou shalt be the Empress and Mistress of the militant
Church, its Protectress, its Advocate, its Mother and Teacher. Thou
shalt be the special Patroness of the Catholic countries; and
whenever they, or the faithful, or any of the children of Adam call
upon Thee from their heart, serve or oblige Thee, Thou shalt relieve
and help them in their labors and necessities. Thou shalt be the
Friend, the Defender and the Chieftainess of all the just and of our
friends; all of them Thou shalt comfort, console and fill with
blessings according to their devotion to Thee. In view of all this We
make Thee the Depositary of our riches, the Treasurer of our goods;
we place into thy hands the helps and blessings of our grace for
distribution; nothing do We wish to be given to the world, which does
not pass through thy hands; and nothing do We deny, which Thou
wishest to concede to men. Grace shall be diffused in thy lips for
obtaining all that Thou wishest and ordainest in heaven and on earth,
and everywhere shall angels and men obey Thee; because whatever is
ours shall be thine, just as Thou hast always been ours; and Thou
shalt reign with Us forever.”
In the execution of this decree and
privilege conceded to the Mistress of the world, the Almighty
commanded all the courtiers of heaven, angels and men, to show Her
obedience and recognize Her as their Queen and Lady. There was
another mystery concealed in this wonder, namely, it was a recompense
for the worship and veneration, which, as is clear from this history,
the most blessed Mary, notwithstanding that She was the Mother of
God, full of grace and holiness above the angels and saints, had
bestowed upon the saints during her mortal pilgrimage. Although
during the time when they were comprehensors and She yet a pilgrim,
it was for her greater merit, that She should humble Herself beneath
them all according to the ordainment of the Lord; yet now, when She
was in possession of the kingdom, it was just, that She should be
venerated, worshipped and extolled by them as her inferiors and
vassals. This they also did in that most blessed state, in which all
things are reduced to their proper proportion and order. Both the
angelic spirits and the blessed souls, while rendering their
adoration to the Lord with fear and worshipful reverence, rendered a
like homage in its proportion to His most blessed Mother; and the
saints who were there in their bodies prostrated themselves and gave
bodily signs of their worship. All these demonstrations at the
coronation of the Empress of heaven redounded wonderfully to her
glory, to the new joy and jubilee of the saints and to the pleasure
of the most blessed Trinity. Altogether festive was this day, and it
produced new accidental glory in all the heavens. Those that partook
more especially therein were her most fortunate spouse saint Joseph,
saint Joachim and Anne and all the other relatives of the Queen,
together with the thousand angels of her guard.
Within the glorious body of the
Queen, over her heart, was visible to the saints a small globe or
monstrance of singular beauty and splendor, which particularly roused
and rouses their admiration and joy. It was there in testimony and
reward of her having afforded to the sacramental Word an acceptable
resting–place and sanctuary, and of her having received holy
Communion so worthily, purely and holily, without any defect or
imperfection, and with a devotion, love and reverence attained by
none other of the saints. In regard to the other rewards and crowns
corresponding to her peerless works and virtues, nothing that can be
said could give any idea; and therefore I refer it to the beatific
vision, where each one shall perceive them in proportion as his
doings and his devotion shall have merited.
WORDS OF THE QUEEN
The Virgin Mary
speaks to Sister Mary of Agreda, Spain
My daughter, if anything could lessen
the enjoyment of the highest felicity and glory which I possess, and
if, in it, I could be capable of any sorrow, without a doubt I would
be grieved to see the holy Church and the rest of the world in its
present state of labor, notwithstanding that men know me to be their
Mother, Advocate and Protectress in heaven, ready to guide and assist
them to eternal life. In this state of affairs, when the Almighty has
granted me so many privileges as his Mother and when there are so
many sources of help placed in my hands solely for the benefit of
mortals and belonging to me as the Mother of clemency, it is a great
cause of sorrow to me to see mortals force me to remain idle, and
that, for want of calling upon me, so many souls should be lost. But
if I cannot experience grief now, I may justly complain of men, that
they load themselves with eternal damnation and refuse me the glory
of saving their souls.
How much my intercession and the power I have in heaven are worth has
never been hidden in the Church, for I have demonstrated my ability
to save all by so many thousands of miracles, prodigies and favors
operated in behalf of those devoted to me. With those who have called
upon me in their needs I have always shown myself liberal, and the
Lord has shown himself liberal to them on my account. The Most High
still wishes to give liberally of his infinite treasures and resolves
to favor those who know how to gain my intercession before God. This
is the secure way and the powerful means of advancing the Church, of
improving the Catholic reigns, of spreading the faith, of furthering
the welfare of families and of states, of bringing the souls to grace
and to the friendship of God.
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Catholic Catechism
PART FOUR - CHRISTIAN PRAYER
SECTION ONE - PRAYER IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
CHAPTER ONE - THE REVELATION OF PRAYER
THE UNIVERSAL CALL TO PRAYER
ARTICLE 2 - IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME
2598 The drama of prayer is fully revealed to us in the Word who became flesh and dwells among us. To seek to understand his prayer through what his witnesses proclaim to us in the Gospel is to approach the holy Lord Jesus as Moses approached the burning bush: first to contemplate him in prayer, then to hear how he teaches us to pray, in order to know how he hears our prayer.
Jesus prays
2599 The Son of God who became Son of the Virgin also learned to pray according to his human heart. He learns the formulas of prayer from his mother, who kept in her heart and meditated upon all the "great things" done by the Almighty.41 He learns to pray in the words and rhythms of the prayer of his people, in the synagogue at Nazareth and the Temple at Jerusalem. But his prayer springs from an otherwise secret source, as he intimates at the age of twelve: "I must be in my Father's house."42 Here the newness of prayer in the fullness of time begins to be revealed: his filial prayer, which the Father awaits from his children, is finally going to be lived out by the only Son in his humanity, with and for men.
2600 The Gospel according to St. Luke emphasizes the action of the Holy Spirit and the meaning of prayer in Christ's ministry. Jesus prays before the decisive moments of his mission: before his Father's witness to him during his baptism and Transfiguration, and before his own fulfillment of the Father's plan of love by his Passion.43 He also prays before the decisive moments involving the mission of his apostles: at his election and call of the Twelve, before Peter's confession of him as "the Christ of God," and again that the faith of the chief of the Apostles may not fail when tempted.44 Jesus' prayer before the events of salvation that the Father has asked him to fulfill is a humble and trusting commitment of his human will to the loving will of the Father.
2601 "He was praying in a certain place and when he had ceased, one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray."'45 In seeing the Master at prayer the disciple of Christ also wants to pray. By contemplating and hearing the Son, the master of prayer, the children learn to pray to the Father.
2602 Jesus often draws apart to pray in solitude, on a mountain, preferably at night.46 He includes all men in his prayer, for he has taken on humanity in his incarnation, and he offers them to the Father when he offers himself. Jesus, the Word who has become flesh, shares by his human prayer in all that "his brethren" experience; he sympathizes with their weaknesses in order to free them.47 It was for this that the Father sent him. His words and works are the visible manifestation of his prayer in secret.
2603 The evangelists have preserved two more explicit prayers offered by Christ during his public ministry. Each begins with thanksgiving. In the first, Jesus confesses the Father, acknowledges, and blesses him because he has hidden the mysteries of the Kingdom from those who think themselves learned and has revealed them to infants, the poor of the Beatitudes.48 His exclamation, "Yes, Father!" expresses the depth of his heart, his adherence to the Father's "good pleasure," echoing his mother's Fiat at the time of his conception and prefiguring what he will say to the Father in his agony. The whole prayer of Jesus is contained in this loving adherence of his human heart to the mystery of the will of the Father.49
2604 The second prayer, before the raising of Lazarus, is recorded by St. John.50 Thanksgiving precedes the event: "Father, I thank you for having heard me," which implies that the Father always hears his petitions. Jesus immediately adds: "I know that you always hear me," which implies that Jesus, on his part, constantly made such petitions. Jesus' prayer, characterized by thanksgiving, reveals to us how to ask: before the gift is given, Jesus commits himself to the One who in giving gives himself. The Giver is more precious than the gift; he is the "treasure"; in him abides his Son's heart; the gift is given "as well."51
- The priestly prayer of Jesus holds a unique place in the economy of salvation.52 A meditation on it will conclude Section One. It reveals the ever present prayer of our High Priest and, at the same time, contains what he teaches us about our prayer to our Father, which will be developed in Section Two.
2606 All the troubles, for all time, of humanity enslaved by sin and death, all the petitions and intercessions of salvation history are summed up in this cry of the incarnate Word. Here the Father accepts them and, beyond all hope, answers them by raising his Son. Thus is fulfilled and brought to completion the drama of prayer in the economy of creation and salvation. The Psalter gives us the key to prayer in Christ. In the "today" of the Resurrection the Father says: "You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession."62
- The Letter to the Hebrews expresses in dramatic terms how the prayer of Jesus accomplished the victory of salvation: "In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him."63
2607 When Jesus prays he is already teaching us how to pray. His prayer to his Father is the theological path (the path of faith, hope, and charity) of our prayer to God. But the Gospel also gives us Jesus' explicit teaching on prayer. Like a wise teacher he takes hold of us where we are and leads us progressively toward the Father. Addressing the crowds following him, Jesus builds on what they already know of prayer from the Old Covenant and opens to them the newness of the coming Kingdom. Then he reveals this newness to them in parables. Finally, he will speak openly of the Father and the Holy Spirit to his disciples who will be the teachers of prayer in his Church.
2608 From the Sermon on the Mount onwards, Jesus insists on conversion of heart: reconciliation with one's brother before presenting an offering on the altar, love of enemies, and prayer for persecutors, prayer to the Father in secret, not heaping up empty phrases, prayerful forgiveness from the depths of the heart, purity of heart, and seeking the Kingdom before all else.64 This filial conversion is entirely directed to the Father.
2609 Once committed to conversion, the heart learns to pray in faith. Faith is a filial adherence to God beyond what we feel and understand. It is possible because the beloved Son gives us access to the Father. He can ask us to "seek" and to "knock," since he himself is the door and the way.65
2610 Just as Jesus prays to the Father and gives thanks before receiving his gifts, so he teaches us filial boldness: "Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will."66 Such is the power of prayer and of faith that does not doubt: "all things are possible to him who believes."67 Jesus is as saddened by the "lack of faith" of his own neighbors and the "little faith" of his own disciples68 as he is struck with admiration at the great faith of the Roman centurion and the Canaanite woman.69
2611 The prayer of faith consists not only in saying "Lord, Lord," but in disposing the heart to do the will of the Father.70 Jesus calls his disciples to bring into their prayer this concern for cooperating with the divine plan.71
2612 In Jesus "the Kingdom of God is at hand."72 He calls his hearers to conversion and faith, but also to watchfulness. In prayer the disciple keeps watch, attentive to Him Who Is and Him Who Comes, in memory of his first coming in the lowliness of the flesh, and in the hope of his second coming in glory.73 In communion with their Master, the disciples' prayer is a battle; only by keeping watch in prayer can one avoid falling into temptation.74
2613 Three principal parables on prayer are transmitted to us by St. Luke:
- The first, "the importunate friend,"75 invites us to urgent prayer: "Knock, and it will be opened to you." To the one who prays like this, the heavenly Father will "give whatever he needs," and above all the Holy Spirit who contains all gifts.
- The second, "the importunate widow,"76 is centered on one of the qualities of prayer: it is necessary to pray always without ceasing and with the patience of faith. "And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
- The third parable, "the Pharisee and the tax collector,"77 concerns the humility of the heart that prays. "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" The Church continues to make this prayer its own: Kyrie eleison!
2614 When Jesus openly entrusts to his disciples the mystery of prayer to the Father, he reveals to them what their prayer and ours must be, once he has returned to the Father in his glorified humanity. What is new is to "ask in his name."78 Faith in the Son introduces the disciples into the knowledge of the Father, because Jesus is "the way, and the truth, and the life."79 Faith bears its fruit in love: it means keeping the word and the commandments of Jesus, it means abiding with him in the Father who, in him, so loves us that he abides with us. In this new covenant the certitude that our petitions will be heard is founded on the prayer of Jesus.80
2615 Even more, what the Father gives us when our prayer is united with that of Jesus is "another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth."81 This new dimension of prayer and of its circumstances is displayed throughout the farewell discourse.82 In the Holy Spirit, Christian prayer is a communion of love with the Father, not only through Christ but also in him: "Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."83
Jesus hears our prayer
2616 Prayer to Jesus is answered by him already during his ministry, through signs that anticipate the power of his death and Resurrection: Jesus hears the prayer of faith, expressed in words (the leper, Jairus, the Canaanite woman, the good thief)84 or in silence (the bearers of the paralytic, the woman with a hemorrhage who touches his clothes, the tears and ointment of the sinful woman).85 The urgent request of the blind men, "Have mercy on us, Son of David" or "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" has-been renewed in the traditional prayer to Jesus known as the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!"86 Healing infirmities or forgiving sins, Jesus always responds to a prayer offered in faith: "Your faith has made you well; go in peace."
- St. Augustine wonderfully summarizes the three dimensions of Jesus' prayer: "He prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to by us as our God. Therefore let us acknowledge our voice in him and his in us."87
2617 Mary's prayer is revealed to us at the dawning of the fullness of time. Before the incarnation of the Son of God, and before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, her prayer cooperates in a unique way with the Father's plan of loving kindness: at the Annunciation, for Christ's conception; at Pentecost, for the formation of the Church, his Body.88 In the faith of his humble handmaid, the Gift of God found the acceptance he had awaited from the beginning of time. She whom the Almighty made "full of grace" responds by offering her whole being: "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word." "Fiat": this is Christian prayer: to be wholly God's, because he is wholly ours.
2618 The Gospel reveals to us how Mary prays and intercedes in faith. At Cana,89 the mother of Jesus asks her son for the needs of a wedding feast; this is the sign of another feast - that of the wedding of the Lamb where he gives his body and blood at the request of the Church, his Bride. It is at the hour of the New Covenant, at the foot of the cross,90 that Mary is heard as the Woman, the new Eve, the true "Mother of all the living."
2619 That is why the Canticle of Mary,91 the Magnificat (Latin) or Megalynei (Byzantine) is the song both of the Mother of God and of the Church; the song of the Daughter of Zion and of the new People of God; the song of thanksgiving for the fullness of graces poured out in the economy of salvation and the song of the "poor" whose hope is met by the fulfillment of the promises made to our ancestors, "to Abraham and to his posterity for ever."
IN BRIEF
2620 Jesus' filial prayer is the perfect model of prayer in the New Testament. Often done in solitude and in secret, the prayer of Jesus involves a loving adherence to the will of the Father even to the Cross and an absolute confidence in being heard.
2621 In his teaching, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray with a purified heart, with lively and persevering faith, with filial boldness. He calls them to vigilance and invites them to present their petitions to God in his name. Jesus Christ himself answers prayers addressed to him.
2622 The prayers of the Virgin Mary, in her Fiat and Magnificat, are characterized by the generous offering of her whole being in faith.
41 Cf. Lk 1:49; 2:19; 2:51.
42 Lk 2:49.
43 Cf. Lk 3:21; 9:28; 22:41-44.
44 Cf. Lk 6:12; 9:18-20; 22:32.
45 Lk 11:1.
46 Cf. Mk 1:35; 6:46; Lk 5:16.
47 Cf. Heb 2:12, 15; 4:15.
48 Cf. Mt 11:25-27 and Lk 10:21-23.
49 Cf. Eph 1:9.
50 Cf. Jn 11:41-42.
51 Mt 6:21, 33.
52 Cf. Jn 17.
53 Lk 22:42.
54 Lk 23:34.
55 Lk 23:43.
56 Jn 19:26-27.
57 Jn 19:28.
58 Mk 15:34; cf. Ps 22:2.
59 Jn 19:30.
60 Lk 23:46.
61 Cf. Mk 15:37; Jn 19:30b.
62 Ps 2:7-8; cf. Acts 13:33.
63 Heb 5:7-9.
64 Cf. Mt 5:23-24, 44-45; 6:7,14-15,21,25,33.
65 Cf. Mt 7:7-11,13-14.
66 Mk 11:24.
67 Mk 9:23; cf. Mt 21:22.
68 Cf. Mk 6:6; Mt 8:26.
69 Cf. Mt 8:10; 15:28.
70 Cf. Mt 7:21.
71 Cf. Mt 9:38; Lk 10:2; Jn 4:34.
72 Mk 1:15.
73 Cf. Mk 13; Lk 21:34-36.
74 Cf. Lk 22:40,46.
75 Cf. Lk 11:5-13.
76 Cf. Lk 18:1-8.
77 Cf. Lk 18:9-14.
78 Jn 14:13.
79 Jn 14:6.
80 Cf. Jn 14:13-14.
81 Jn 14:16-17.
82 Cf. Jn 14:23-26; 15:7,16; 16:13-15; 16:23-27.
83 Jn 16:24.
84 Cf. Mk 1:40-41; 5:36; 7:29; Cf. Lk 23:39-43.
85 Cf. Mk 25; 5:28; Lk 7:37-38.
86 Mt 9:27, Mk 10:48.
87 St. Augustine, En. in Ps. 85,1:PL 37,1081; cf. GILH 7.
88 Cf. Lk 1:38; Acts 1:14.
89 Cf. Jn 2:1-12.
90 Cf. Jn 19:25-27.
91 Cf. Lk 1:46-55.
ARTICLE 2 - THE WAY OF PRAYER
2663 In the living tradition of prayer, each Church proposes to its faithful, according to its historic, social, and cultural context, a language for prayer: words, melodies, gestures, iconography. The Magisterium of the Church15 has the task of discerning the fidelity of these ways of praying to the tradition of apostolic faith; it is for pastors and catechists to explain their meaning, always in relation to Jesus Christ.
Prayer to the Father
2664 There is no other way of Christian prayer than Christ. Whether our prayer is communal or personal, vocal or interior, it has access to the Father only if we pray "in the name" of Jesus. The sacred humanity of Jesus is therefore the way by which the Holy Spirit teaches us to pray to God our Father.
Prayer to Jesus
2665 The prayer of the Church, nourished by the Word of God and the celebration of the liturgy, teaches us to pray to the Lord Jesus. Even though her prayer is addressed above all to the Father, it includes in all the liturgical traditions forms of prayer addressed to Christ. Certain psalms, given their use in the Prayer of the Church, and the New Testament place on our lips and engrave in our hearts prayer to Christ in the form of invocations: Son of God, Word of God, Lord, Savior, Lamb of God, King, Beloved Son, Son of the Virgin, Good Shepherd, our Life, our Light, our Hope, our Resurrection, Friend of mankind. . . .
2666 But the one name that contains everything is the one that the Son of God received in his incarnation: JESUS. The divine name may not be spoken by human lips, but by assuming our humanity The Word of God hands it over to us and we can invoke it: "Jesus," "YHWH saves."16 The name "Jesus" contains all: God and man and the whole economy of creation and salvation. To pray "Jesus" is to invoke him and to call him within us. His name is the only one that contains the presence it signifies. Jesus is the Risen One, and whoever invokes the name of Jesus is welcoming the Son of God who loved him and who gave himself up for him.17
2667 This simple invocation of faith developed in the tradition of prayer under many forms in East and West. The most usual formulation, transmitted by the spiritual writers of the Sinai, Syria, and Mt. Athos, is the invocation, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners." It combines the Christological hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 with the cry of the publican and the blind men begging for light.18 By it the heart is opened to human wretchedness and the Savior's mercy.
2668 The invocation of the holy name of Jesus is the simplest way of praying always. When the holy name is repeated often by a humbly attentive heart, the prayer is not lost by heaping up empty phrases,19 but holds fast to the word and "brings forth fruit with patience."20 This prayer is possible "at all times" because it is not one occupation among others but the only occupation: that of loving God, which animates and transfigures every action in Christ Jesus.
2669 The prayer of the Church venerates and honors the Heart of Jesus just as it invokes his most holy name. It adores the incarnate Word and his Heart which, out of love for men, he allowed to be pierced by our sins. Christian prayer loves to follow the way of the cross in the Savior's steps. The stations from the Praetorium to Golgotha and the tomb trace the way of Jesus, who by his holy Cross has redeemed the world.
"Come, Holy Spirit"
2670 "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit."21 Every time we begin to pray to Jesus it is the Holy Spirit who draws us on the way of prayer by his prevenient grace. Since he teaches us to pray by recalling Christ, how could we not pray to the Spirit too? That is why the Church invites us to call upon the Holy Spirit every day, especially at the beginning and the end of every important action.
- If the Spirit should not be worshiped, how can he divinize me through Baptism? If he should be worshiped, should he not be the object of adoration?22
- Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.25 Heavenly King, Consoler Spirit, Spirit of Truth, present everywhere and filling all things, treasure of all good and source of all life, come dwell in us, cleanse and save us, you who are All Good.26
In communion with the holy Mother of God
2673 In prayer the Holy Spirit unites us to the person of the only Son, in his glorified humanity, through which and in which our filial prayer unites us in the Church with the Mother of Jesus.27
2674 Mary gave her consent in faith at the Annunciation and maintained it without hesitation at the foot of the Cross. Ever since, her motherhood has extended to the brothers and sisters of her Son "who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties."28 Jesus, the only mediator, is the way of our prayer; Mary, his mother and ours, is wholly transparent to him: she "shows the way" (hodigitria), and is herself "the Sign" of the way, according to the traditional iconography of East and West.
2675 Beginning with Mary's unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their prayer to the holy Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ manifested in his mysteries. In countless hymns and antiphons expressing this prayer, two movements usually alternate with one another: the first "magnifies" the Lord for the "great things" he did for his lowly servant and through her for all human beings29 the second entrusts the supplications and praises of the children of God to the Mother of Jesus, because she now knows the humanity which, in her, the Son of God espoused.
2676 This twofold movement of prayer to Mary has found a privileged expression in the Ave Maria:
Hail Mary [or Rejoice, Mary]: the greeting of the angel Gabriel opens this prayer. It is God himself who, through his angel as intermediary, greets Mary. Our prayer dares to take up this greeting to Mary with the regard God had for the lowliness of his humble servant and to exult in the joy he finds in her.30
Full of grace, the Lord is with thee: These two phrases of the angel's greeting shed light on one another. Mary is full of grace because the Lord is with her. The grace with which she is filled is the presence of him who is the source of all grace. "Rejoice . . . O Daughter of Jerusalem . . . the Lord your God is in your midst."31 Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is "the dwelling of God . . . with men."32 Full of grace, Mary is wholly given over to him who has come to dwell in her and whom she is about to give to the world.
Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. After the angel's greeting, we make Elizabeth's greeting our own. "Filled with the Holy Spirit," Elizabeth is the first in the long succession of generations who have called Mary "blessed."33 "Blessed is she who believed. . . . "34 Mary is "blessed among women" because she believed in the fulfillment of the Lord's word. Abraham. because of his faith, became a blessing for all the nations of the earth.35 Mary, because of her faith, became the mother of believers, through whom all nations of the earth receive him who is God's own blessing: Jesus, the "fruit of thy womb."
2677 Holy Mary, Mother of God: With Elizabeth we marvel, "And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"36 Because she gives us Jesus, her son, Mary is Mother of God and our mother; we can entrust all our cares and petitions to her: she prays for us as she prayed for herself: "Let it be to me according to your word."37 By entrusting ourselves to her prayer, we abandon ourselves to the will of God together with her: "Thy will be done."
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death: By asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the "Mother of Mercy," the All-Holy One. We give ourselves over to her now, in the Today of our lives. And our trust broadens further, already at the present moment, to surrender "the hour of our death" wholly to her care. May she be there as she was at her son's death on the cross. May she welcome us as our mother at the hour of our passing38 to lead us to her son, Jesus, in paradise.
2678 Medieval piety in the West developed the prayer of the rosary as a popular substitute for the Liturgy of the Hours. In the East, the litany called the Akathistos and the Paraclesis remained closer to the choral office in the Byzantine churches, while the Armenian, Coptic, and Syriac traditions preferred popular hymns and songs to the Mother of God. But in the Ave Maria, the theotokia, the hymns of St. Ephrem or St. Gregory of Narek, the tradition of prayer is basically the same.
2679 Mary is the perfect Orans (pray-er), a figure of the Church. When we pray to her, we are adhering with her to the plan of the Father, who sends his Son to save all men. Like the beloved disciple we welcome Jesus' mother into our homes,39 for she has become the mother of all the living. We can pray with and to her. The prayer of the Church is sustained by the prayer of Mary and united with it in hope.40
IN BRIEF
2680 Prayer is primarily addressed to the Father; it can also be directed toward Jesus, particularly by the invocation of his holy name: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners."
2681 "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord', except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 12:3). The Church invites us to invoke the Holy Spirit as the interior Teacher of Christian prayer.
2682 Because of Mary's singular cooperation with the action of the Holy Spirit, the Church loves to pray in communion with the Virgin Mary, to magnify with her the great things the Lord has done for her, and to entrust supplications and praises to her.
15 Cf. DV 10.
16 Cf. Ex 3:14; 33:19-23; Mt 1:21.
17 Rom 10:13; Acts 2:21; 3:15-16; Gal 2:20.
18 Cf. Mk 10:46-52; Lk 18:13.
19 Cf. Mt 6:7.
20 Cf. Lk 8:15.
21 1 Cor 12:3.
22 St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio, 31,28:PG 36,165.
23 Cf. Lk 11:13.
24 Cf. Jn 14:17; 15:26; 16:13.
25 Roman Missal, Pentecost Sequence.
26 Byzantine Liturgy, Pentecost Vespers, Troparion.
27 Cf. Acts 1:14.
28 LG 62.
29 Cf. Lk 1:46-55.
30 Cf. Lk 1:48; Zeph 3:17b.
31 Zeph 3:14,17a.
32 Rev 21:3.
33 Lk 1:41, 48.
34 Lk 1:45.
35 Cf. Gen 12:3.
36 Lk 1:43.
37 Lk 1:38.
38 Cf. Jn 19:27.
39 Cf. Jn 19:27.
40 Cf. LG 68-69.
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RE-CHARGE: Heaven Speaks to Young Adults
To all tween, teens and young adults, A Message from Jesus: "Through you I will flow powerful conversion graces to draw other young souls from darkness. My plan for young men and women is immense. Truly, the renewal will leap forward with the assistance of these individuals. Am I calling you? Yes. I am calling you. You feel the stirring in your soul as you read these words. I am with you. I will never leave you. Join My band of young apostles and I will give you joy and peace that you have never known. All courage, all strength will be yours. Together, we will reclaim this world for the Father. I will bless your families and all of your relationships. I will lead you to your place in the Kingdom. Only you can complete the tasks I have set out for you. Do not reject Me. I am your Jesus. I love you...Read this book, upload to your phones/ipads.computers and read a few pages everyday...and then Pay It Forward...
Reference
- Recharge: Directions For Our Times. Heaven Speaks to Young Adults. recharge.cc.
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