By 1917 WWI had been killing the youth of Europe for three years. On 5 May Pope Benedict XV penned a letter in which he turned to our Blessed Mother in prayer for peace in the midst of the terror and darkness that had raged since August, 1914. Benedict was an experienced, well connected diplomat, but all his Vatican diplomacy had failed to bring peace. Now he turned to Mary:
He wrote: Our earnestly pleading voice, invoking the end of the vast conflict, the suicide of civilized Europe, was then and has remained ever since unheard. Indeed it seemed that the dark tide of hatred grew higher and wider among the belligerent nations, and drew other countries into its frightful sweep, multiplying ruin and massacre. Nevertheless Our confidence was not lessened...Since all graces which the Author of all good deigns to grant to the poor children of Adam, by a loving design of His Divine Providence are dispensed through the hands of the most holy Virgin, we wish that the petition of Her most afflicted children, more than ever in this terrible hour, may turn with lively confidence to the august Mother of God.
A week later, on 13 May and again on 13 June 1917, our Blessed Mother responded to Benedict's prayer in the first two of six visitations to three young seers, Jacinta and her brother Francisco Marto, and their cousin Lucia dos Santos, at the village of Fatima in central Portugal. On 13 July 1917 Our Lady appeared to them for the third time and on that day revealed to them in 3 parts heaven's plan to prevent many souls from being lost, and to bring a period of real peace to the world, but told them it was a secret not to be revealed until she gave permission. She asked them to come again on the 13th of the next month and to pray the Rosary daily in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary for world peace and for the end of the war "because only she can help you." She promised to perform a miracle on 13 October "for all to see and believe.. and she kept her promise." On 8 December 1941 Lucia, then a sister of the Order of St. Dorothy wrote out parts One and Two and according to Fatima scholars the first sentence of part three of the Secret as follows:
Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially whenever you make some sacrifice: O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
As our Lady spoke these last words, she opened her hands once more, as she had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form. ...Terrified and as if to plead for succor, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly: 'You 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 illumined 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 will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved; etc...Do not tell this to anybody. Francisco, yes you may tell him.
When you pray the Rosary, say after each mystery: O my Jesus, forgive us, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are most in need.
How are we to understand the Blessed Mother's message that to save sinners from going to hell God wishes to establish in the world devotion to her Immaculate Heart? In Lumen Gentium 61-62 The Second Vatican Council proclaims the perennial Catholic truth that:
By her manifold intercession, she continues to win the gifts of eternal salvation for us. By her motherly love, she takes care of the brothers of her Son who are still in pilgrimage and in dangers and difficulties, until they be led through to the happy fatherland. For this reason, the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, and Mediatrix.
It follows that the most pure, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, not only beckons us to follow her in being pure of heart, free from earthly chains to do the will of God, but also that she is able to obtain for us the divine assistance we require to do so! For, while when baptized we are indwelt by the Blessed Trinity and divinely infused with inclinations to both theological and moral virtue, we can grow strong in the practice of Faith, Hope and Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance only with the help of the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier. By acting within us with his gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety and Fear of God this Sanctifier can mold us ever more perfectly into the image of Jesus that God intends us to be. As his holiness Leo XIII teaches in his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Divinum Illud Munus:
The just man, that is to say he who lives the life of divine grace, and acts by the fitting virtues as by means of faculties, has need of those seven gifts which are properly attributed to the Holy Ghost. By means of them the soul is furnished and strengthened so as to obey more easily and promptly His voice and impulse.
So it is not surprising that God should choose to save sinners by establishing in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As daughter of the eternal Father she, being immaculately conceived and full of grace, cooperated perfectly with the Divine Will to become the new Eve of his heart. As spouse of the eternal Spirit she yielded to his movement within her soul and body to become the Ark of the New Covenant. As mother of the eternal Son she entered a most intimate union with him from the moment of his conception through his death, resurrection and eternal glorification. Finally, from his cross Jesus made her our mother. By choosing to establish devotion in the world to the Immaculate Heart of this uniquely privileged woman he has made to be our Mother and Queen God intends that we gain her most powerful intercession with him to send his eternal Spirit to save with his gifts those sinners who will be open to receive them. Yes, Christ alone is Savior and Redeemer. But as Mediatrix of all Graces, Mary is indispensable to our salvation.
Blessed John Paul II explained the efficaciousness of Mary's motherhood in his homily at Fatima on 13 May 1982:
When Jesus on the Cross said: 'Woman, behold, you son (John 19:26), in a new way he opened his Mother's Heart, the Immaculate Heart, and revealed to it the new dimensions and extent of the love to which she was called in the Holy Spirit by the power of the sacrifice of the Cross...The solicitude of the Mother of the Savior is solicitude for the work of salvation: the work of her Son. It is solicitude for the salvation, the eternal salvation, of all.
End of Part II
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