11/06/2022
The church’s annual liturgical commemoration of Our Lady of Fatima May 13 brings to mind Mary’s six apparitions to Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta during 1917.
Our response to Our Lady’s message has several components.
— Knowledge. We would do well to become students of Fatima. Although many Catholics have given a cursory glance to these apparitions of Our Lady, few know Fatima in detail.
Why should we know about Mary’s appearances? True, the Fatima message adds nothing to the deposit of faith, which is sacred Scripture and the apostolic tradition. Yet, Fatima complements divine revelation. Fatima offers to us a contemporary lens through which we may consider Our Lord and his benevolent plan for us.
God intends that the Fatima message of prayer, penance and conversion find root deep within us.
—Appreciation. What most concerns the Mother of God is our salvation. Such maternal compassion can only move our hearts to gratitude.
The best appreciation that we show Our Lord and Our Lady for the Fatima message is our sincere conversion. Nothing compares to our change of heart.
— Application. What Our Lady said at Fatima can be seen as being under the umbrella of “encouragement.”
Spiritual authors agree that, based on Our Lady’s words to the children and her subsequent directives to Sister Lucia, we are to: receive the church’s sacraments, particularly confession and the Eucharist, worthily and often; recite the rosary daily; wear the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel; pray for sinners, especially for “those in most need of thy mercy”; make sacrifices in reparation for the sins that offend the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary; perform our “daily duty,” which is our personal vocation and that which it entails.
Pope Benedict XVI, in the Chapel of Apparitions at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima May 12, 2010, said: “Brothers and sisters, in this place it is amazing to think how three children entrusted themselves to the interior force which had enflamed them in the apparitions of the angel and of our heavenly Mother. In this place where we were repeatedly requested to recite the rosary, let us allow ourselves to be attracted by the mysteries of Christ, the mysteries of Mary’s rosary.”
Great effort and courage are needed to live the Fatima message. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we reply positively to what Mary desires of us.
— Evangelization. The message of Our Lady at Fatima is good news to be shared. We can do much in our families and parishes to promote Our Lady’s message. We can recite the rosary at home with our family, and we can also ask our pastor for permission to pray it in the church before or after Mass; make Brown Scapulars that are presented to the pastor so that he can enroll both children and adults in the Brown Scapular; provide materials about Mary and Fatima at the doors of the church and which may be used in the parish religious education classes; invite someone who is well-versed in the Fatima apparitions to address parishioners, etc.
During the same pilgrimage to Fatima in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI clarified what should be our reply to Our Lady. “The important thing is that the message, the response of Fatima, in substance is not directed to particular devotions, but precisely to the fundamental response, that is, to ongoing conversion, penance, prayer and the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity. Thus we see here the true, fundamental response which the church must give — which we, every one of us, must give in this situation. … In a word, we need to relearn precisely this essential: conversion, prayer, penance and the theological virtues. This is our response … in the end, the Lord is more powerful than evil and Our Lady is for us the visible, motherly guarantee of God’s goodness, which is always the last word in history.”
Fatima is about loving God. We want to do as Our Lady asked, which is to live as the Two Hearts desire.
Fatima is for our era. Fatima is for us.
Msgr. Mangan is on the faculty of Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md.
