This coming 13 October Pope Francis will entrust
the world to Mary, as part of the Year of Faith initiative.
This is in
continuation with the acts performed by his predecessors, from Pius XII
to John Paul II and is a demonstration of Francis’ deep devotion to the
Virgin Mary.
The original statue of Our Lady of Fatima, with
the bullet that struck John Paul II (in the 13 May 1981 attempt on his
life) set in the Virgin Mary’s crown, will arrive in St. Peter’s Square
in the afternoon of Saturday 12th and Francis will be there to receive it.
This is the 10th
time in just under a century that the Marian effigy leaves the Chapel
of Apparitions in Fatima, Portugal. In the evening the statue will be
taken to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Divine Love in Rome, where a
prayer vigil will be held.
On morning of October 13th, the
statue will return to St. Peter’s Square, where the Pope will celebrate
mass after the Rosary and will consecrate the world to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary.
The first of these consecrations took place during
Pius XII’s pontificate. On 31 October 1942, right in the middle of the
Second World War, Pius XII consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart
of Mary on the radio in Portuguese, mentioning Russia especially,
according to the instructions received by the three little shepherds
during the apparition at Fatima.
Another consecration was made by John
Paul II on 25 March 1984, when tensions were running high because of the
European missile crisis.
The original statue was brought back to the
Vatican on 8 October 2000, when John Paul II entrusted the new
millennium to Mary in the presence of 1500 bishops from all across the
world. His words –pronounced eleven months before the September 11
attacks – were not understood at the time. He said the world was at a
crossroads and could either transform itself into a blooming garden or
into a pile of ruins.
Pope Francis mentioned the statue of Our Lady of
Fatima in his first Angelus prayer on Sunday 17 March, referring to one
of the replicas of the statue that were travelling around the world. “I
remember, when I had only just become a bishop in the year 1992, the
statue of Our Lady of Fatima had just arrived in Buenos Aires and a big
Mass was celebrated for the sick. I went to hear confessions at that
Mass…” Francis said, before going on to recount a story about an old
woman who came to him for confession and surprised him with the
simplicity of her faith: “If the Lord did not forgive everything, the
world would not exist.”
A month later, the then Patriarch of Lisbon,
Cardinal José Policarpo, announced that Pope Francis had asked him to
consecrate his pontificate to Our Lady of Fatima: “Pope Francis asked me
twice if I could consecrate his new ministry to Our Lady of Fatima.”
Cardinal Policarpo accepted ad the consecration
was carried out last 13 May.
“O Blessed Virgin, we are at your feet to
carry out the request clearly expressed by Pope Francis to consecrate to
you, O Virgin of Fatima, his ministry as Bishop of Rome and universal
pastor,” Cardinal Policarpo said, marking the 96th
anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to the three shepherd
children.
Francis has made his devotion to Our Lady of Fatima very
clear, visiting the Basilica of St. Mary major as many as five times to
pray. His first visit was on 14 March, straight after he was elected
Pope. He laid some flowers before the Salus Populi Romani icon and asked
the Virgin Mary to protect the city of Rome.
The Pope returned there on 4 May to recite the
Rosary and again on the Feast Day of Corpus Domini after the procession
to the basilica. Francis also went to pray before the Salus Populi
Romani before his trip to Rio, to entrust World Youth Day to the care of
the Virgin Mary.
He then visited the basilica again, straight after
landing in Ciampino last 29 July and before returning to the Vatican, to
pray and give thanks to the Virgin Mary. One of Francis’ favourite
Marian devotions is to the Virgin Mary Untier of Knots (Maria
Knotenlöserin), a devotion he helped spread across Argentina. This
devotion is inspired by an 18th century Bavarian image, which currently adorns one of the chapels of the St. Peter am Perlach church in Augsburg, Germany.
Fr. Bergoglio discovered it on one of his study trips
and began to spread word of it in Argentina. When he was appointed
Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he dedicated a shrine in the city to Mary
Untier of Knots and had a prayer printed on the back of an image of the
Virgin Mary which he used to send out with his correspondence; this
roughly translates as: “May evil never ensnare you in its chaotic web…
May you act as an example of how to unravel the knots in our lives and
help us through difficult times with simplicity and patience, through
the intercession of Your Son.”