In these last days of Advent let us join Our Lady in anticipation of the birth of the Savior. She trusted that the words given to her at the Annunciation would be fulfilled and that the promise made to our fallen first parents would soon become a reality. The O antiphons that mark the final days of this Advent season of preparation give us the sense of the Old Testament anticipation that the righteous experienced. Considering the Church’s rich tradition of Advent, I am dismayed by the increasingly intense commercialism which ignites after Thanksgiving, obscuring the time of preparation for the coming of the Lord.
Mary knew that the imminent birth of the Savior would ignite a revolution and buck the status quo. His humble beginning in a stable in Bethlehem was a statement that He was not going to descend to Earth clothed in regal splendor, but in the essence of poverty, entering through hearts and not through minds conditioned by preconceived notions of the Messiah. Instead, a new era was beginning. As we approach the joy of Christmas day, we would be well served to contemplate the heart of Mary and strive to emulate it. It is especially appropriate to unite our hearts with hers during this special year as we enter the Extraordinary Marian Jubilee.
As an Apostolate dedicated to the Immaculate Heart, we were honored to attend the centennial celebration at the Sanctuary in Pontevedra, Spain on December 10th. In 1925 Our Lady appeared to Sr. Lucia in this chapel and presented the devotion of the Five First Saturdays. Why did Our Lady and Our Lord ask for reparation for the blasphemies committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary? When we ponder this, we come to understand that these blasphemies are a direct attack against the very essence of our Faith.
- The blasphemy of denying Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception, and the special nature of the one who would bear the Messiah.
- The blasphemy of denying her Divine Maternity.
- The blasphemy of denying her Perpetual Virginity
- The blasphemy of instilling in the hearts of children contempt for her.
- The blasphemy of desecration of her sacred images.
Why does God ask us for reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary? In 1926 the Child Jesus answered this profound question when He appeared to Sr. Lucia and said:
“Have compassion on the Heart of your most holy Mother, covered with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one who does an act of reparation to remove them.”
The heart is more than just the organ that pumps blood throughout our bodies. It represents the very essence of our being. When the priest or deacon proclaims the gospel at Mass, we make a cross on our foreheads, our mouths and on our chest, asking that God instill the Word in our minds, on our lips and in our hearts.
Unfortunately, the First Saturdays Devotion remains the unfulfilled part of the message of Fatima. It asks us to enter into the heart of Mary, to truly become children of our spiritual mother. It asks us to make reparation for the blasphemies committed against her Immaculate Heart, her pure human heart which remained free from sin and the vanities of this world. This is the Heart that we must strive to imitate if we hope to attain heavenly perfection. Sr. Lucia received this apparition eight years after the apparitions at Fatima. She once said that the apparitions of the Angel of Peace in 1916 were in many ways the most important manifestations given to the three children because they were formed spiritually. We need to consider how Lucia was further formed in the years after the 1917 apparitions, after Saints Francisco and Jacinta went to heaven as Our Lady had promised; and Lucia was now in that period when she remained “a while longer” to make our Lady known and loved. Her developing maturity in these years allowed her to now have an adult view of what was asked of them at Fatima and what was now being presented to her. In this Advent season and the season of Christmas which begins on December 25th let us ask for the grace to be formed more fully in our understanding of our duties as Catholics and promoters of the message of Fatima.
There was a sense of great optimism in the air in Pontevedra as we were filled with a belief that this extraordinary Marian Jubilee Year will bring an abundance of grace to the world torn apart by hatred. St Carlo Acutis related to his mother that Sr. Lucia, soon after her death in 2005, came to him in a dream and told him that the First Saturdays Devotion could change the destiny of the world. We have always believed this and must work even harder going forward to bring more people to this practice.
The National Blue Army Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in New Jersey is the center of our operations in the United States. During the Extraordinary Marian Jubilee Year, we have been granted by the Apostolic Penitentiary the designation of a place of pilgrimage so that visitors can receive a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions while visiting our shrine.
People are hungering for the grace that this special year affords. We can change the world by fulfilling the requests of Our Lady. The World Apostolate of Fatima/Our Lady’s Blue Army is dedicated to this goal. Please join our First Saturday Virtual Pilgrimage. For more information and to obtain your Passport, visit: BLUEARMY.COM/FIRST-SATURDAY-PILGRIMAGE.
I wish you a blessed and merry Christmas and a happy and holy new year.
God bless you and Mary keep you in her Immaculate Heart.
David M. Carollo Executive Director
If you wish to contact me, please do so at [email protected].
David M. Carollo is the Executive Director of the World Apostolate of Fatima USA/National Blue Army Shrine. He wrote this for his Voice of Fatima column.
If you would like to comment on this post, please contact him at [email protected].
