Christian Perspectives

Fatima message and devotion to Immaculate Heart of Mary

The Hearts of Jesus and Mary must be the focus of all our love and also these Hearts must reign over the hearts, minds and wills of each individual. Our Lord said to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, "I will reign by my Sacred heart". The home Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a means of establishing this reign in our homes. For what is enthronement? It is more than devotion. It is to install someone on a throne as a recognition of that person's authority.

Further, the Fifth Glorious Mystery tells us of the Coronation of Our Lady as Queen of Heaven and Earth. Our lady is crowned Queen by the Most Blessed Trinity itself.

This will induce us to conduct ourselves more in a manner that always proclaims the Hearts of Jesus and Mary as sovereign rulers of our hearts, minds and wills. Others should see by our words, our actions and our habits that the hearts of Jesus and Mary truly reign over every aspect of our being. This will also be a seed to re-establish the reign of Our Lord and Our Lady in society, so that states, governments and social institutions recognize their dependence on God for their very existence, and their duties to God as outlined by the Gospel and the Church.

The Enthronement of the Sacred Heart was zealously preached by Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey, SS, CC., the great apostle of the Sacred Heart. It enjoys the full approval of the Catholic Church.

At least for Popes of the 20th Century warmly endorsed this practice. Pope St. Pius X called it "a work of social salvation". Benedict XV wrote to Father Mateo, its founder, "Nothing is more opportune than your undertaking". Pope Pius XI blessed the work many times. Pope Pius XII praised Father Mateo and his work, urging him to continue the work of "the Enthronement, which is so well suited to foster the reign of love and mercy of the Sacred Heart in the family".

From the very beginning of the Fatima Message, even before Our lady's visitations, the "Two Hearts" are emphasized. In 1916 the angel told the three Fatima children, "The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are attentive to the voice of your supplications".

Basis for Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Through the centuries, Popes, Saints and good and holy theologians have taught the importance of devotion and prayers addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is necessary that we pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary as the saints have taught.

The Holy Catholic Church, the pillar and ground of the truth, inspired and directed by the holy Ghost down through the centuries has consistently taught this doctrine and this practice. The Blessed Virgin Mary is; "Our Life, Our Sweetness and our Hope" as the Salve Regina - the Hail Holy Queen prayer of 1000-years expresses so well. These titles and realities are defended against Protestant and Modernist attacks by St. Alphonsus Liguori in his book. The Glories of Mary.

Pope Leo XIII tells us that all graces come to us from God, through the sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ, then through the Hands of the Blessed Virgin Mary to us. The Blessed Virgin's role in leading souls to Heaven is more widely and better understood by the Catholic Faithful (in the past 150 years) since the definition of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 and the Dogma of the Assumption defined in 1950.

Fathima and the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Our Lady appeared to three shepherd children at Fatima in Portugal for six consecutive months from May to October. The appointed dates to was the 13th of each month.

We focus here on just a part of the apparitions and the dialogue between Lucy, who spoke to Our Lady while the other two children watched and listened. We take these passages of Sister Lucy's Memoirs which record these events because they focus on the importance of devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

June 13, 1917

On June 13, 1917, Our Lady appeared to the three children and asked them to return on July 13. She again requested them to pray the Rosary each day. The conversation continued.

Lucy asked: "I would like to ask you to take us to Heaven".

Our Lady: Yes, I will take Jacinta and Francisco soon. But you are to stay here some time longer. Jesus wishes to make use of you to make Me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. To whoever embraces this devotion I promise salvation: these souls shall be dear to God, as flowers placed by Me to adorn His throne.

Lucy asked sadly: 'Am I to stay here alone?'

Our Lady: "No, My daughter. Do you suffer a great deal? Don't lose heart. I will never forsake you. My immaculate Heart will be your refugee and the way that will lead you to God". Lucy: "As Our Lady spoke these last words, She opened Her hands for the second time. In front of the palm of Our Lady's right hand was a heart encircled by thorns which pierced it. We understand that this was the Immaculate Heart of Mary, outraged by sins of Humanity, and seeking reparation.

July 13, 1917

The theme of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is especially stressed in the July 13 apparition. Its central importance, for our time and for each of us, is seen by reflecting on the apparition. We quote here from Sister Lucy's Memoirs. Lucy is speaking first.

"What does Your Grace want of me?" I asked.

"I want you to come here on 13th of next month, to continue reciting the Rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace in the world and the end of the war, because only She can help you".

"I should like to ask You to tell us who You are, and to work a miracle so that everyone will believe that Your Grace appearing to us".

"Continue to come here every month. In October, I will say who I am and what I want, and I will perform a miracle so that all might see in order to believe.

"Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say often to Jesus, especially whenever you make a sacrifice: O Jesus it is for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary".

Sister Lucy continues

"As Our Lady spoke these last words, She opened Her hands once more, as She had done during the two previous months.

The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shricks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear.

The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals". (Here, her Third Memoir, Lucy added) "that vision lasted only a moment, thanks to Our Good Mother of Heaven. Who, at the first apparition, had promised to bring us to Heaven. Without that, I think we would have died of terror and fear.

"Terrified and as if to plead for succour, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and sadly: "You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart".

Our Lady continued to speak, and what follows constitutes the second part of the Secret of Fatima.

"If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the reign of Pius XI. When you see an unknown light, know that this is a great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine,and persecutions of the Church and the Holy Father.

The Fatima requests for devotion to Immaculate Heart of Mary

As noted above in the Second Secret, Our Lady, on July 13, 1917, promised to return later to sister Lucy to ask for the Communions of Reparation on the first Saturdays. Our Lady came on December 10, 1925, to Sister Lucy in the Spanish city of Pontervedra. The following extract is from Frere Michel who further explains this apparition and devotion.

What an admirable, stupefying promise made June 13, 1917, when Our Lady said: "To whomever embraces this devotion, I promise salvation. Yet in spite of this promise we are still tempted to doubt. Jacinta of Fatima, by a special grace, felt her heart consumed by an ardent love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But we? We are cold, or our fervour is so short-lived! Could we ever know if we had sufficient devotion so that Our Lady would be bound to keep Her promise to us?"

Adapted from a booklet published by The Fatima Centre

Rev. Fr. William Evans Liyanarachchi,
National Seminary,
Ampitiya

Pontiff's pilgrimage to Portugal

Soon after his visit to Malta his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI is journeying to Portugal from May 11 to 14 for celebration of the 10th anniversary of beatification of Francisco and Jacinta Marto, the shepherd children who received visions of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

Portugal traditionally is a rich enclave of Catholicism. Even today 88.3 percent Portuguese identify themselves as Catholics of its total 10.6 million population. As history records, Portugal was a province of Spain until 1129.

In an audacious move, that year a noble man named Alfonso Henrique defeated his enemies at the Battle of Sao Mamede and claimed the title of 'Prince of Portugal'; he was only 20 years old then.

In quest for legitimacy and recognition of the new nation from some great powers outside the Liberian Peninsula, Alfonso asked the Holy See to recognize the sovereignty of Portugal. Pope Lucius II gave his blessings to Alfonso for creation of a new nation and the new dynasty entailed. In 1179 Pope Alexander III had reaffirmed Alfonso as the King of Portugal.

It was Portugal that first that carried the Catholic faith to the sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. About 1415, Portugal's Prince Henry, the Navigator began to organize voyages for duel goal of commercial and spread of Christianity to the far-reaching regions of West Africa to India.

Relatively our linkage with Portugal also must be noted here that in modern times first Europeans to arrive in Sri Lanka, were Portuguese. Francisco de Almeida captured the coastal provinces in 1505 and ruled us until 1658, thus the Catholicism was introduced to Ceylon and spread by the Jesuit Priests. Papacy encouraged these efforts.

Nowadays, no Catholic can think of Portugal without thinking of Fatima. In 1917, three shepherd children, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, reported six visions of the Blessed Mother.

Devotion to Our Lady of Fatima became one of the dominant religious phenomena of the 20th century. Typically, every year on May 13 and October 13, the anniversaries of the first and last apparitions, a million pilgrims attend the Mass and participate in the procession at the Fatima Basilica.

This year Pope Benedict will be among the pilgrims. On May 12, after praying at the Chapel of the Apparitions, he will celebrate vespers in the Basilica with Portuguese Priests, deacons, religious and seminarians. The next day Pope Benedict will celebrate Mass on the Plaza outside the Basilica.

Ten years after the death of its first king, Portugal's greatest saint was born. Although known as St. Anthony of Padua, he was, in fact, a Portuguese, born in 1195 in a house just steps away from Lisbon's Cathedral of Santa Maria Maior.

St. Anthony joined the Franciscans and was sent as a missionary to Morocco. When he fell ill, his superiors ordered him to return home, but a storm at sea drove Anthony's ship to Italy, and it was there that he spent the rest of his life.

In Italy he became renowned as a preacher, as a priest who brought sinners and the unorthodox back to the faith, and as a worker of miracles. Quite significantly, it was only about a couple of months back during 7th to 21st March that the visit of the Holy Relics of St. Anthony to Sri Lanka, brought tens of thousands of Catholics flocking to pay homage to one of their best loved Saints: truly a Portuguese, St. Anthony of Padua.

Meno Thiruchelvam

'Imitate St. Joseph by becoming obedient to God's word' - Bishop Valence Mendis in Padua:

Fr. Shamindra Jayawardena OSB, in Rome

The Basilica of St. Anthony and the surroundings were filled with thousands of Sri Lankans coming from all parts of Italy and the neighbouring European countries on May 1.

The first of May has been, for the last 13 years, a special day for all the Sri Lankan migrants working in Italy to come together as one family, to meet friends and relatives who are working in other parts of the country and to go in pilgrimage to the Sacred Basilica where the remains of the body and the incorruptible tongue of St. Anthony is preserved even after more than 700 years after his death as a sign from God for the purity of his words. This year too, around 12,000 Sri Lankans gathered to celebrate the feast of St. Anthony of Padua.

He is one of the most popular saints in the whole Catholic Church, venerated not only in Padua, where a splendid basilica was built, which houses his mortal remains, but in the whole world.

Dear to the faithful are images and statues that represent him with the lily, symbol of purity, or with the Child Jesus in his arms, in memory of a miraculous apparition mentioned in some literary sources. He, St. Anthony, was born in Lisbon in 1195 and died on June 13, 1231 in Padua, Italy. The entire world calls St. Anthony its own, but his home city of Lisbon, Portugal, delights to name him its most saintly native son. St. Anthony is considered to be the protector of souls in purgatory, porpitiator of happy marriages, defender of animals, defender of lost property, and many other miraculous configurations of popular imagination. Pope Gregory IX himself, after hearing him preach, described him as the "Arc of the Testament," and canonized him on May 30 in 1232, also as a result of the miracles that happened through his intercession. The Venerable Pope Pius XII proclaimed Anthony a doctor of the Church, attributing to him the title of "Evangelic Doctor".

The celebration on the May 1, was organized by Rev. Fr. Neville Joe Perera, the National Coordinator of the Italian Bishops' Conference for the Sri Lankan migrants. Organizing such a feast is not an easy task since it is now considered the biggest and the grandest Sri Lankan gathering of any nature outside Sri Lanka. The main event was the Eucharistic celebration held in the main Basilica, built in the form of a Latin cross and immersed in semi-darkness, giving a harmonious blend of the imposing power of Romanesque architecture and soaring Gothic style.

One of the most treasured relics of the Basilica is the incorruptible tongue of the Saint (the instrument with which he had glorified God and sanctified His people), which is preserved in a splendid reliquary made by the goldsmith Giuliano of Firenze.

The Most Rev. Bishop Valence Mendis, the Chairman of the Commission for Migrants of the Catholic Bishop Conference of Sri Lanka, was the main celebrant, while Most Rev. Dr. Cletus Perera OSB, the Bishop of Ratnapura concelebrated together with nearly 20 priests from Sri Lanka and Italy.

The Mass was celebrated in both languages, Sinhala and Tamil, giving a national flavour to the whole service.

After mass, the relic of the Saint was taken in procession to the building outside of the Basilica by the Sri Lankans.

This was a traditional Sri Lankan procession which included Kandyan dancers. His Lordship Bishop Cletus Perera blessed the congregation with the sacred relic of the Saint.