Friday, August 30, 2013

Francis and Fatima

Our Lady of FatimaThis 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.”