Prayer to our Lady of Fatima

PRAYER TO OUR LADY OF FATIMA
by BENEDICT XVI



Our Lady
and Mother of all men and women,
here I am as a son
who comes to visit his Mother
in the company of
a multitude or brothers and sisters.
As Successor of Peter,
to whom has been entrusted
the mission of presiding in charity
in the Church of Christ
and to confirm all in the faith
and in hope,
I wish to present
to your Immaculate Heart
the joys and the hopes
as well as the problems and sufferings
of each of your sons and daughters
who are here in Cova di Iria
or who are with us from afar.

Most loving Mother,
console each one by name,
by face, and by his own story,
and look on everyone
with the maternal benevolence
that flows from the heart of God-Love himself.

I entrust and consecrate each and everyone to you,
Most Blessed Mother,
Mother of God and our Mother.

Choir and assembly: We sing to you and acclaim you, Mary! (v. 1)

The Venerable Pope John Paul II
who visited you here three times in Fatima,
and thanked that 'invisible hand'
which kept him from death
in the assassination attempt on May 13th
in St. Peter's Square almost 30 years ago,
offered to the Shrine of Fatima
the bullet which wounded him seriously,
which has been placed
on your crown as Queen of Peace.

It is a profound comfort
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 problems and sufferings.

I am thankful, beloved Mother,
for the prayers and sacrifices
that the three shepherd children
of Fatima offered for the Pope,
guided by the sentiments
that you inspired in them
in your apparitions.

I also thank all who, every day,
pray for the Successor of Peter
and his intentions
so that the Pope may be strong in faith,
daring in hope, and zealous in love.

Choir and assembly: We sing to you and acclaim you, Mary! (v. 2)

Mother beloved by all of us,
I offer to you here in your Shrine at Fatima,
the Golden Rose I brought from Rome
as a tribute of gratitude from the Pope
for the wonders that the Almighty
has done through you
in the hearts of so many who come as pilgrims
to this your maternal home.

I am sure that the Shepherds of Fatima -
Blessed Francisco and Blessed Jacinta,
and the Servant of God Lucia of Jesus -
are with us in this time
of supplication and of rejoicing.

Choir and assembly: We sing to you and acclaim you, Mary! (v. 5)

Natural Reaction

Our fear of offending others can sometimes numb us to our built-in mechanisms that help us to navigate through life's right and wrong. Popular Catholic and Political blogger Lisa Graas talks of our natural reaction of disgust towards homosexuality.

Regular readers know that I have shared before that I have never used contraception. I’ve never had an abortion. I’ve never engaged in sodomy, nor any homosexual act. Such things have always and ever been disgusting to me, my entire life. I will not apologize to anyone for natural disgust because I know that it’s God’s mechanism at work in me. If you do those things, you’re hurting yourself AND OTHERS. It hurts me to see you accept disgusting things that I know are abhorrent to our Lord. If you continue in these things, it will not be a good outcome for you, but I cannot force you. In the meantime, don’t tell me not to vomit, or that if I vomit it somehow means I don’t care about you. Vomiting is a natural reaction to these things. If you are not vomiting, you are the sick one, not me.

This reminds me of an incident at home while watching "Will and Grace" with my cousin who is gay. There was a kissing scene between two men, and I, instantaneously reacted with "kadiri" (disgusting). My gay cousin whom I am close to and love dearly could only react with a question of how come I do not react that way with a man and a woman kissing.

The Philippine society do accept the gay community as our own family. There was even a joke that the Philippines' second language is the gay lingo.

If the gays in the Philippines would be influenced by the organized gay community abroad, they would have more to lose if they push the boundary to gay marriage. Drawing the line makes all the difference.

The Plight of the Church

The Lord told us that the Church will always be suffering in various ways, up to the end of the world. The important point is that the message, the answer of Fatima, it not substantially addressed to particular devotions, but is the fundamental response: permanent conversion, penance, prayer, and the three cardinal virtues: faith, hope and charity.

Here we see the true, fundamental response the Church must give, which each of us individually must give, in this situation.

In terms of what we today can discover in this message, attacks against the Pope or the Church do not only come from outside; rather the sufferings of the Church come from within, from the sins that exist in the Church.

This too has always been known, but today we see it in a really terrifying way: the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from enemies on the outside, but is born from the sin within the church, the Church therefore has a deep need to re-learn penance, to accept purification, to learn on one hand forgiveness but also the need for justice.

Forgiveness is not a substitute for justice. In short, we have to re-learn these essentials: conversion, prayer, penance, and the theological virtues.

That is how we respond, and we need to be realistic in expecting that evil will always attack, from within and from outside, but the forces of good are also always present, and finally the LORD is STRONGER THAN EVIL, and the Virgin Mary is for us the visible maternal guarantee that the WILL of GOD is always the LAST WORD in HISTORY.

Pope Benedict XVI, May11, 2010 (in flight interview)

No matter how bad things seem to be now, we must remember BXVI's end note, "finally the LORD is STRONGER THAN EVIL, and the Virgin Mary is for us the visible maternal guarantee that the WILL of GOD is always the LAST WORD in HISTORY". This must be his source of strength in his service to the Lord. I, so thank God for giving us Benedict XVI for eight years.

Relationship with the Shepherd

FRIENDSHIP WITH THE GOOD SHEPHERD from Pope Benedict XVI's homily


"The Shepherd calls his own by name (cf. Jn 10:3). He knows me by name. I am not just some nameless being in the infinity of the universe. He knows me personally. Do I know him? The friendship that he bestows upon me can only mean that I too try to know him better; that in the Scriptures, in the Sacraments, in prayer, in the communion of saints, in the people who come to me, sent by him, I try to come to know the Lord himself more and more. Friendship is not just about knowing someone, it is above all a communion of the will. It means that my will grows into ever greater conformity with his will. For his will is not something external and foreign to me, something to which I more or less willingly submit or else refuse to submit. No, in friendship, my will grows together with his will, and his will becomes mine: this is how I become truly myself."

- Benedict XVI, 2011



UNITY OF SHEPHERDS and FLOCK

The contributions which are brought to the liturgy by the Hierarchy and by the faithful are not to be reckoned as two separate quantities, but represent the work of members of the same organism, which acts as a single living entity. The shepherds and the flock, the teaching Church and the Church taught, form a single and unique body of Christ. So there is no reason for entertaining suspicion, rivalries, open or hidden opposition, either in one’s thought or in one’s manner of speaking and acting. Among members of the same body there ought to reign, before all else, harmony, union and cooperation. It is within this unity that the Church prays, makes it offering, grows in holiness. One can declare therefore with justice that the liturgy is the work of the Church whole and entire.

--Pope Pius XII--

Pardon Prayer

Prayer given by the Angel to the children at Fatima.

Treasures Into Junks

The assault on the Treasures of life and of life itself had been aggressive. Birth, marriage, family, and end of life had been perverted that the Truth it holds about God and man had been trampled about. All wrapped in good intentions, unthinking people have been easily swayed.

Likewise is the aggressive and sometimes subtle attack on the Eucharist. The Gift for which Jesus had given Himself to us- body, blood, soul, and divinity.

The uncontrolled innovations in the Novus Ordo Mass just to get a semblance of participation from the people. Liturgical abuses ranging from dancing, clowning, theatrics... that one can no longer recognize the Holy Mass for what it was meant to be.


As they say the devil has no creativity, it can only denigrate or pervert what is true and beautiful.

Satanic and occult masses had been around but people do it in secrecy. With romantic overtures in the movies featuring vampires and other evil minions, people had been conditioned to accept these things as normal and part of our free and educated times. And what will then be marginalized is the truth and the beautiful.

Harvard allows satanic mass while the restrictions on Sacred Images, opposing abortion and same sex marriage remain in many schools, institutions, and businesses.

Such is the world we live in that we wouldn't even know if what we have is a treasure or a junk.