Fatima Mission Sermon 1 - Why Fatima? - Fr Kevin Robinson. Pilgrim Virgin of Fatima at Phoenix Why Mary? 1. She is the BEAUTY men need to admire and love, point us to the most loving God in heaven. 2.…More
Fatima Mission Sermon 1 - Why Fatima? - Fr Kevin Robinson.
Pilgrim Virgin of Fatima at Phoenix
Why Mary?
1. She is the BEAUTY men need to admire and love, point us to the most loving God in heaven.
2. She is the VIRGIN men need to aspire to perfect purity of heart, without which we will not see God.
3. She is the MOTHER, without whom we know not how to sanctify married love with the perfection of self sacrifice for the love of God.
4. She is the QUEEN, who teaches us perfect respect for authority seated in God and exercised with mercy and justice.
Why Fatima?
1. She came to teach us humility, the childlike faith and virtue, without which we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
2. She came to reveal the plan of God for peace in our world, by conversion to the true God and Our Lord Jesus Christ.
3. She came to show us the role we must play to bring about true peace and spare the world from divine chastisements: Esp. Daily Rosary, penance of self sacrifice, and Total Consecration to Her Immaculate Heart.
4. She came to help the Church hierarchy overcome the errors of today, by overturning the false liberty, equality and fraternity of Vatican II, so that the Pope and Bishops may do their part in the consecration and conversion of Russia.
Why do we know it is all true and must be believed?
1. God has confirmed the events and message by a series of miracles and prophecies fulfilled, and also the most spectacular miracle of the sun.
2. God’s Holy Church has formally approved, even if elements of the sacred hierarchy have suppressed and distorted the message for political advantage, we have evidence of its truth by the supreme authority.
3. The events and messages conform to the traditional magisterium and catechisms of the Catholic Church.
4. The messengers and the faithful followers of Our Lady of Fatima show the true fruits of goodness an holiness that show us “the finger of God is here”.
HERE IS A PRAYER FOR THIS YEAR COMPOSED BY A MONASTERY IN IRELAND OF MONKS DEVOTED TO TRADITION:
O Immaculate Virgin Mary, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, Woman clothed with the sun, thou who didst visit Fatima one hundred years ago to make known to all men thy maternal and Immaculate Heart, receive our act of total consecration to thee.
Welcome us into the safe refuge of thy Immaculate Heart as into the ark of salvation prepared by the Holy Ghost for us and for all the children of the Catholic Church in East and West.
Let each one of us find in thy Immaculate Heart this year a sanctuary of ceaseless prayer, a tabernacle of intimacy with the Most Holy Trinity, a hospital for the healing of every infirmity, a harbour of peace in the midst of the confusion that threatens even the bravest and most faithful souls.
Inspire us to take up the rosary that thou so lovest, and to make it during this year the ceaseless prayer of our hearts and the expression of our desire to live and to die consecrated to thy Immaculate Heart.
Turn our hearts to the Lamb who, once immolated upon the altar of the Cross, offers Himself still for our sakes from the altars of the Church and from the tabernacles where He abides hidden, silent, and so often forsaken.
Let this year be for us a great and powerful manifestation of thy compassion for poor sinners and the beginning of the triumph of thy Immaculate Heart in the Church from the rising of the sun to its setting, and indeed in the whole world.
Overcoming every resistance, be it of demons or of men, reveal to all souls the flame of love that burns in thy maternal Heart and the glory of the Father that shines on the face of His Christ, Jesus, the blessed fruit of thy womb. O clement! O loving! O sweet Virgin Mary!
Pilgrim Virgin of Fatima at Phoenix
Why Mary?
1. She is the BEAUTY men need to admire and love, point us to the most loving God in heaven.
2. She is the VIRGIN men need to aspire to perfect purity of heart, without which we will not see God.
3. She is the MOTHER, without whom we know not how to sanctify married love with the perfection of self sacrifice for the love of God.
4. She is the QUEEN, who teaches us perfect respect for authority seated in God and exercised with mercy and justice.
Why Fatima?
1. She came to teach us humility, the childlike faith and virtue, without which we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
2. She came to reveal the plan of God for peace in our world, by conversion to the true God and Our Lord Jesus Christ.
3. She came to show us the role we must play to bring about true peace and spare the world from divine chastisements: Esp. Daily Rosary, penance of self sacrifice, and Total Consecration to Her Immaculate Heart.
4. She came to help the Church hierarchy overcome the errors of today, by overturning the false liberty, equality and fraternity of Vatican II, so that the Pope and Bishops may do their part in the consecration and conversion of Russia.
Why do we know it is all true and must be believed?
1. God has confirmed the events and message by a series of miracles and prophecies fulfilled, and also the most spectacular miracle of the sun.
2. God’s Holy Church has formally approved, even if elements of the sacred hierarchy have suppressed and distorted the message for political advantage, we have evidence of its truth by the supreme authority.
3. The events and messages conform to the traditional magisterium and catechisms of the Catholic Church.
4. The messengers and the faithful followers of Our Lady of Fatima show the true fruits of goodness an holiness that show us “the finger of God is here”.
HERE IS A PRAYER FOR THIS YEAR COMPOSED BY A MONASTERY IN IRELAND OF MONKS DEVOTED TO TRADITION:
O Immaculate Virgin Mary, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, Woman clothed with the sun, thou who didst visit Fatima one hundred years ago to make known to all men thy maternal and Immaculate Heart, receive our act of total consecration to thee.
Welcome us into the safe refuge of thy Immaculate Heart as into the ark of salvation prepared by the Holy Ghost for us and for all the children of the Catholic Church in East and West.
Let each one of us find in thy Immaculate Heart this year a sanctuary of ceaseless prayer, a tabernacle of intimacy with the Most Holy Trinity, a hospital for the healing of every infirmity, a harbour of peace in the midst of the confusion that threatens even the bravest and most faithful souls.
Inspire us to take up the rosary that thou so lovest, and to make it during this year the ceaseless prayer of our hearts and the expression of our desire to live and to die consecrated to thy Immaculate Heart.
Turn our hearts to the Lamb who, once immolated upon the altar of the Cross, offers Himself still for our sakes from the altars of the Church and from the tabernacles where He abides hidden, silent, and so often forsaken.
Let this year be for us a great and powerful manifestation of thy compassion for poor sinners and the beginning of the triumph of thy Immaculate Heart in the Church from the rising of the sun to its setting, and indeed in the whole world.
Overcoming every resistance, be it of demons or of men, reveal to all souls the flame of love that burns in thy maternal Heart and the glory of the Father that shines on the face of His Christ, Jesus, the blessed fruit of thy womb. O clement! O loving! O sweet Virgin Mary!
Quo Primum
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Mary’s Providential Bridge to Islam
Posted by Matthew E. Bunson on Monday May 15th, 2017 at 12:46 PM
COMMENTARY: How should we approach the message she sends to the world at this historical moment?
From the time of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother at Fatima, Portugal, many have wondered about the possible significance of Our Lady choosing a location with such an apparent connection to Islam. …More
Mary’s Providential Bridge to Islam
Posted by Matthew E. Bunson on Monday May 15th, 2017 at 12:46 PM
COMMENTARY: How should we approach the message she sends to the world at this historical moment?
From the time of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother at Fatima, Portugal, many have wondered about the possible significance of Our Lady choosing a location with such an apparent connection to Islam.
As a matter of historical importance, Fatima was the favorite daughter of Muhammad — a woman considered of the highest dignity in Islam, save for only one person: the Virgin Mary. Indeed, after Fatima's death at around the age of 26, her father wrote to his dead daughter: “Thou shalt be the most blessed of women in Paradise after Mary.”
Is there a relationship between the appearance of Our Lady and the Muslim world? Surely, it was not a random choice by the Blessed Mother, and so how should we approach the possible message it sends to the world at this historical moment?
It is a surprise to many that Islam traditionally has thought so highly of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is called by Muslims Miriam or Maryam in Arabic, and also Umm Isa, or “Mary, the mother of Jesus,” or simply, Sayyida, the Lady.
Mary is the only woman named in the Quran, and she is revered as a righteous woman in her own right and as the most pious, chaste and virtuous woman in history. The Quran affirms the virgin birth, but it also makes clear that her son was not divine. The 19th sura (chapter) of the Quran is both named after her and provides what it says are many details about her life, although scholars have long noted that much in the 19th sura bears a striking resemblance to the Gospel of Luke. She is also one of only eight people in the Muslim holy book to have a sura named after them.
The expression, “Jesus son of Mary” appears 13 times in the Quran, while “Jesus, the Messiah, son of Mary,” is found three times. There are also 45 other times in the text that there is a reference to Mary’s name.
There is a natural assumption that the village of Fatima was named directly after the daughter of Muhammad. In truth, its origins are a bit more complicated and romantic than that.
In the middle of the eighth century, Muslim armies from North Africa conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula and established what became known as the Moorish Kingdoms. Gradually, Christian states were formed to resist the Moors, leading to what became known as the Reconquista, the centuries-long campaign to end Islamic domination in the peninsula. The Reconquista extended to what became Portugal, as well.
According to the early 17th-century Portuguese chronicler and Cistercian Bernardo de Brito, during the fighting in 1158, a knight by the name of Gonçalo Hermigues and his fellow warriors captured a Muslim princess named Fatima, daughter of the last Muslim ruler in the region. She had been named in honor of the daughter of Muhammad. Fatima and Gonçalo fell in love, and the two were married.
But first, Fatima was baptized into the Christian faith and changed her name to Oureana. As a wedding gift from her husband, she was given a nearby town that she called Ourem in recognition of her new name. She did not live long after the marriage, sadly, and to honor her memory further, her husband changed the name of another nearby village to Fatima.
It was in the very village named after a convert from Islam — a convert initially named after Muhammad’s daughter — that the Blessed Mother chose to appear to the three shepherd children May 13, 1917. What does it mean? What is Our Lady trying to teach us? Is she telling us that just as she shows us the way to her Son that the path ahead in evangelization and overcoming the savagery of jihadism might also pass through her loving heart?
Venerable Fulton Sheen thought so.
In his 1952 book, The World’s First Love, he devoted a chapter to Mary and the Muslims. He prophetically observed, “At the present time, the hatred of the Moslem countries against the West is becoming a hatred against Christianity itself. Although the statesmen have not yet taken it into account, there is still grave danger that the temporal power of Islam may return and, with it, the menace that it may shake off a West which has ceased to be Christian and affirm itself as a great anti-Christian world power.”
Archbishop Sheen, however, did not despair. Instead, he looked to Fatima and to Mary. “Since nothing ever happens out of heaven except with a finesse of all details,” he wrote, “I believe that the Blessed Virgin chose to be known as ‘Our Lady of Fatima’ as a pledge and a sign of hope to the Moslem people, and as an assurance that they, who show her so much respect, will one day accept her Divine Son, too.”
He added:
“Missionaries in the future will, more and more, see that their apostolate among the Moslems will be successful in the measure that they preach Our Lady of Fatima. Mary is the advent of Christ, bringing Christ to the people before Christ himself is born. In any apologetic endeavor, it is always best to start with that which people already accept. Because the Moslems have a devotion to Mary, our missionaries should be satisfied merely to expand and to develop that devotion, with the full realization that Our Blessed Lady will carry the Moslems the rest of the way to her Divine Son. She is forever a ‘traitor,’ in the sense that she will not accept any devotion for herself, but will always bring anyone who is devoted to her to her Divine Son. As those who lose devotion to her lose belief in the divinity of Christ, so those who intensify devotion to her gradually acquire that belief. … The Moslems should be prepared to acknowledge that, if Fatima must give way in honor to the Blessed Mother, it is because she is different from all the other mothers of the world and that without Christ she would be nothing.”
We seek bridges to Islam. Mary is a way. Pope Francis said it very well at the Rosary and vigil for the centenary of Fatima on the evening of May 12.
“No other creature ever basked in the light of God’s face as did Mary; she, in turn, gave a human face to the Son of the eternal Father,” the Holy Father said.
Our task is to help others see her clearly, and in so doing see Christ for who he truly is.
Posted by Matthew E. Bunson on Monday May 15th, 2017 at 12:46 PM
COMMENTARY: How should we approach the message she sends to the world at this historical moment?
From the time of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother at Fatima, Portugal, many have wondered about the possible significance of Our Lady choosing a location with such an apparent connection to Islam.
As a matter of historical importance, Fatima was the favorite daughter of Muhammad — a woman considered of the highest dignity in Islam, save for only one person: the Virgin Mary. Indeed, after Fatima's death at around the age of 26, her father wrote to his dead daughter: “Thou shalt be the most blessed of women in Paradise after Mary.”
Is there a relationship between the appearance of Our Lady and the Muslim world? Surely, it was not a random choice by the Blessed Mother, and so how should we approach the possible message it sends to the world at this historical moment?
It is a surprise to many that Islam traditionally has thought so highly of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is called by Muslims Miriam or Maryam in Arabic, and also Umm Isa, or “Mary, the mother of Jesus,” or simply, Sayyida, the Lady.
Mary is the only woman named in the Quran, and she is revered as a righteous woman in her own right and as the most pious, chaste and virtuous woman in history. The Quran affirms the virgin birth, but it also makes clear that her son was not divine. The 19th sura (chapter) of the Quran is both named after her and provides what it says are many details about her life, although scholars have long noted that much in the 19th sura bears a striking resemblance to the Gospel of Luke. She is also one of only eight people in the Muslim holy book to have a sura named after them.
The expression, “Jesus son of Mary” appears 13 times in the Quran, while “Jesus, the Messiah, son of Mary,” is found three times. There are also 45 other times in the text that there is a reference to Mary’s name.
There is a natural assumption that the village of Fatima was named directly after the daughter of Muhammad. In truth, its origins are a bit more complicated and romantic than that.
In the middle of the eighth century, Muslim armies from North Africa conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula and established what became known as the Moorish Kingdoms. Gradually, Christian states were formed to resist the Moors, leading to what became known as the Reconquista, the centuries-long campaign to end Islamic domination in the peninsula. The Reconquista extended to what became Portugal, as well.
According to the early 17th-century Portuguese chronicler and Cistercian Bernardo de Brito, during the fighting in 1158, a knight by the name of Gonçalo Hermigues and his fellow warriors captured a Muslim princess named Fatima, daughter of the last Muslim ruler in the region. She had been named in honor of the daughter of Muhammad. Fatima and Gonçalo fell in love, and the two were married.
But first, Fatima was baptized into the Christian faith and changed her name to Oureana. As a wedding gift from her husband, she was given a nearby town that she called Ourem in recognition of her new name. She did not live long after the marriage, sadly, and to honor her memory further, her husband changed the name of another nearby village to Fatima.
It was in the very village named after a convert from Islam — a convert initially named after Muhammad’s daughter — that the Blessed Mother chose to appear to the three shepherd children May 13, 1917. What does it mean? What is Our Lady trying to teach us? Is she telling us that just as she shows us the way to her Son that the path ahead in evangelization and overcoming the savagery of jihadism might also pass through her loving heart?
Venerable Fulton Sheen thought so.
In his 1952 book, The World’s First Love, he devoted a chapter to Mary and the Muslims. He prophetically observed, “At the present time, the hatred of the Moslem countries against the West is becoming a hatred against Christianity itself. Although the statesmen have not yet taken it into account, there is still grave danger that the temporal power of Islam may return and, with it, the menace that it may shake off a West which has ceased to be Christian and affirm itself as a great anti-Christian world power.”
Archbishop Sheen, however, did not despair. Instead, he looked to Fatima and to Mary. “Since nothing ever happens out of heaven except with a finesse of all details,” he wrote, “I believe that the Blessed Virgin chose to be known as ‘Our Lady of Fatima’ as a pledge and a sign of hope to the Moslem people, and as an assurance that they, who show her so much respect, will one day accept her Divine Son, too.”
He added:
“Missionaries in the future will, more and more, see that their apostolate among the Moslems will be successful in the measure that they preach Our Lady of Fatima. Mary is the advent of Christ, bringing Christ to the people before Christ himself is born. In any apologetic endeavor, it is always best to start with that which people already accept. Because the Moslems have a devotion to Mary, our missionaries should be satisfied merely to expand and to develop that devotion, with the full realization that Our Blessed Lady will carry the Moslems the rest of the way to her Divine Son. She is forever a ‘traitor,’ in the sense that she will not accept any devotion for herself, but will always bring anyone who is devoted to her to her Divine Son. As those who lose devotion to her lose belief in the divinity of Christ, so those who intensify devotion to her gradually acquire that belief. … The Moslems should be prepared to acknowledge that, if Fatima must give way in honor to the Blessed Mother, it is because she is different from all the other mothers of the world and that without Christ she would be nothing.”
We seek bridges to Islam. Mary is a way. Pope Francis said it very well at the Rosary and vigil for the centenary of Fatima on the evening of May 12.
“No other creature ever basked in the light of God’s face as did Mary; she, in turn, gave a human face to the Son of the eternal Father,” the Holy Father said.
Our task is to help others see her clearly, and in so doing see Christ for who he truly is.