I'm dusting off the ol' blog after nearly 5 years! God seems to always tap on my shoulders when it comes to Our Lady of Fatima....that's what I've come here to write about today and that was my last post from 2017!
Holy Father! In these hours of immeasurable pain and terrible ordeal for our people, we, the bishops of the Episcopal Conference of Ukraine, are spokesmen for the unceasing and heartfelt prayer, supported by our priests and consecrated persons, which comes to us from all Christian people that Your Holiness will consecrate our Motherland and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Responding to this prayer, we humbly ask Your Holiness to publicly perform the act of consecration to the Sacred Immaculate Heart of Mary of Ukraine and Russia, as requested by the Blessed Virgin in Fatima.
May the Mother of God, Queen of Peace, accept our prayer: Regina pacis, ora pro nobis!
This is not the only calling for the consecration to be done in recent years....U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke and supposedly Vladimir Putin have both asked our Pope to do the same. Whether you pay attention to the signs of the times and approved Catholic prophecies or not, this brings again to the surface if Our Lady's (Mary, Mother of Jesus) request beginning in 1917 to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart has truly taken place AS she requested. If done as she asked, she promised an Era of Peace for the world. If not done accordingly, she warned that "Russia would spread its errors throughout the world, raising up wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer and various nations will be annihilated." She also told of another, worse war (WWII) if man did not change his ways.
I'm not here to debate whether or not the request of Our Lady and the consecration has been fulfilled or done properly or not, but it is a reminder to the two-part call to all of us, Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
1) Have you heeded the Lord's call as His disciple? "When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom He loved, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold, your son. Then He said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his home." (Jn 19: 26-27)
Christ, from the cross, gave all of us His mother. What a noble act of love, to give up His own mother...to become our own. Have we accepted His gift and brought her into our homes? into our lives? Archbishop Sheen writes: " Here was a love that was strong enough to forget itself, in order that others might never want for love. He made the sacrifice of His mother so that...we might be nourished by her motherhood...the only real escape from the demands of the flesh to love...Mary is the refuge of sinners."
Even Martin Luther (and other Protestant founders) was quite devoted to Our Lady. Luther was very outspoken about doctrines he opposed, but he did not deny the doctrines regarding Mary which keep with Catholic piety. Here are a few quotes he has on the prayer of the Hail Mary- which I note were spoken/written after 1517 and his 95 theses:
Whoever possesses a good(firm)faith, says the Hail Mary without danger! Whoever is weak in faith can utter no Hail Mary without danger to his salvation. (Sermon, March 11, 1523)
Our prayer should include the Mother of God...What the Hail Mary says is that all glory should be given to God, using these words: Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of they womb, Jesus Christ, Amen! You see that these words are not concerned with prayer, but purely with giving praise and honor.. .We can use the Hail Mary as a mediation in which we recite what grace God has given her. Second, we should add a wish that everyone may know and respect her...He who has no faith is advised to refrain from saying the Hail Mary. (Personal Prayer Book, 1522)
These words lead me to my second reminder that we must do our part of prayer, penance, sacrifice, reparation, and consecration.
2) Have you heeded Our Mother's call? Not only did she ask for the consecration of Russia, she also told the 3 children at Fatima in 1917 that "if people do what I tell you, many souls will be saved and there will be peace." Here is what she has asked each of us:
PRAYER: Each time she appeared to the children, she repeated her request that we pray the Rosary each day. But how many of us know where our rosary is, let alone how to pray it? Considered Heaven's weapon, the Rosary is form of both vocal (consisting of the Our Father and the Hail Mary prayers) and mental (where one reflects on the lives of Jesus and Mary). To learn more about the rosary, the Brown Scapular, which Mary desires us to wear as a sign of our devotion, and the Fatima Messages in general, visit fatima.org.
SACRIFICE/PENANCE/REPARATION: Mary told the 3 seers that Our Lord is much offended by sin and told them "people must amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins. Telling them that she would later return to ask for a new devotion in reparation to save souls, she asked in 1925 that we make the 5 First Saturday Devotion. How full are our churches on the mornings of First Saturday each month...if we are even able to find Mass available? Again to learn more about this devotion, visit fatima.org. (Tomorrow is a First Saturday!)
She also told the 3 children to sacrifice for sinners for many souls to to hell. How many of us can fast from earthly pleasures, let alone handle a headache or suffer an inconvenience for the sake of others? Do we make reparation for our sins and those of others or are we too busy working on gaining earthy possessions instead of spiritual treasures...only those can be taken with us when we die. Many a hardened heart has been converted by example of virtue and a soul in love with the Lord.
CONSECRATION: The plan for peace was a call for both public (see above pertaining to Russia) and personal consecration. To consecrate (to make holy, dedicate to God) our lives to her Immaculate Heart shows that we willingly let the Mother of God become that gateway to Her Son as the Mediatrix of all grace! Our allegiance should be none other than to God, with Mary leading us by the hand to her Son.
No peace was evident in the most recent disease where fear ruled our lives and we were scared to lose our body, with little to no concern for our souls. full trust in God's way give life to Him
The peace that is promised would leave the world unrecognizable. Can we agree that peace is missing in so many parts of our lives? The world is full of confusion and fear. Whether it be the looming famine, current events of wars and rumors of wars. What's real and what's just a false flag, lie, deception, fear mongering, distraction, propaganda, political agenda? Who really is the enemy? What about the New World Order and the chaos it is already causing? Feared ruled our lives in the most recent disease and what it might do to the body. Rights were taken away, lives turned upside down, families torn apart.
What about the fears that attack family life? Fear of what another child will do to our career, our bank account or our self image. Fear of speaking the truth: that marriage is between 1 man and 1 woman, that marital acts are sinful before marriage and with anyone one is not married to, that God didn't make a mistake in the gender He chose to give us, that God deigned man to be the head of the home and woman the heart where she helps her husband and raises the children in the faith instead of pawning them off for many hours of the day, that killing of the most innocent in the womb is murder no matter what stage after conception (currently in one state a bill is being pushed to allow a baby to be killed 28 days AFTER birth). Not to mention the deluge of sinful influences the family is attacked by daily: drugs, porn, sex trafficking...
What about the ills that plague the Church? Sexual abuse is swept under the rug, but priests who have the courage to preach the truth are canceled. Some spiritual leaders slyly give money to organizations that stand against what the Church teaches. A watered down, make you feel good version of the faith is preached from the pulpit and in some cases, flat out heresies. And let us not forget the shutting down of our sacraments because suddenly our bodies became more important than our souls in the midst of a so called pandemic.
Fortunately, Our Lady has promised that in the end, her Immaculate Heart would triumph. Mary's requests is a message from Heaven for love for us! The road to peace is all laid out for us. Repent! Make reparation! Pray! Consecrate yourself!
We are at war; a spiritual war. Do we know our enemy and what he is capable of? Satan is a deceiver and lover of chaos. Our God is not a God of confusion or disorder. Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. His mother wants to lead us to Him. What mother out of true love, would not warn her children and try to protect them at every level? Do you choose Christ or chaos? The plan for peace is so simple. Can we not return our love to our Heavenly Mother?
If Christ should come on Earth some summer day
And walk unknown upon our busy street
I wonder how 'twould be if we should meet,
And being God-if He would act that way.
Perhaps the kindest thing that He would do
Would be just to forget I failed to pray
And clasp my hand, forgivingly, and say,
"My child, I've heard My Mother speak of you."
Mrs. Frederick V. Murphy
