Now, in the month of October, the month of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, the powers of darkness are gathering force over the Vatican. Their victory seems inevitable but we know to whom victory has been given and that is what gives this October, this month of the Holy Rosary, such a poignancy.

It is through her holy Rosary that Our Lady of Fatima chooses to lead us to victory. As the Church has recognised for centuries, the Blessed Virgin Mary protects her Church (for she is Mother of the Church!) by means of her Holy Rosary. Our time with her each day, as the beads slip quietly through our fingers and we murmur our loving prayers, is the time she nourishes our souls with the graces Our Lord desires for us to have in order to know Him, and to increase in His love.

In our writings here at Return to Fatima, we see the Rosary as an intimate conversation between Mother and child, a loving exchange wherein such a deep union occurs as cannot be expressed in mere words.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ROSARY

But it is words that I must use, and although I am perhaps destined to fall short in the attempt, this short essay is my best effort. To understand the importance of the Rosary, we should first grasp the importance of the Immaculate Mother of God, she who “comes forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array”. (Canticles 6, 9)

Why is Mary so great? Because from the beginning of creation, God willed this most blessed, perfect creature to be the Mother of His only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. She is the Sacred Tabernacle wherein the Holy Ghost fathered forth the Saviour of the world. Through her, entered salvation, although He might have chosen from an infinite variety of other ways… He chose Mary!

It was Mary’s humility, her humbleness before Him, so pure and so obedient, that made her such a perfect model for all of us, who are destined to become the heirs of His eternal Kingdom. St. Louis-Marie de Montfort assures us that Mary manifests her splendid power in these latter times because the salvation of the world began through Mary, and through her it will also be brought to completion.

 

GRACE HAS EBBED FROM THE WORLD

We have often noted that as a result of disobedience and indifference to the commands of our heavenly Father given to us  through the Immaculata, grace has ebbed from the world, leaving it in a state of darkness, death and despair. And now, we see this especially in this looming Synod which begins in less than a week.  And so we must recall, now more than ever, that it is precisely in these darkest of times when the working of God in His Church may be seen through the Immaculata, Mediatrix of Grace.

In his masterwork, “Who are you, O Immaculata?“, Father Stehlin assures us,

… Mary comes to the help of endangered Christendom and brings about a victory over its enemies despite their overwhelmingly superior strength. The popes themselves have acknowledged over and over again this victory of Mary’s, particularly over the Turks, and have introduced special feast days in honor of the Blessed Virgin on the occasion of various miraculous interventions of the Mother of God. In his consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pius XII summarizes this faith in Mary’s great power and entrusts to her the salvation of the Christian order: she establishes peace for a world at war and peace for souls; she leads those who have gone astray back to Christ’s sheepfold; she stops the onslaught of neo-paganism; she brings about the victory of Christ the King.

“In times of the greatest distress, God comes to the aid of the world by sending the Immaculata herself. Through her His actio comes to its full expression, because except for her all the other ways that God has of reaching us have been cut off, as it were, by the Enemy and the devil has occupied and controls all the bastions. God wills to save mankind, even in the end times. But how can this happen, when man can no longer find God’s truth in the confusion of the errors that prevail throughout the world, when he is tempted on all sides to be unfaithful to God and His law and to stray from the path of truth? Through the Immaculata!

“First God reveals to the world the true situation and the great danger through the personal intervention of the Immaculata, especially in her great messages of La Salette and Fatima. Then He sends His graces to the world as the “last means of salvation”, concentrating them in the Heart of the Immaculata:

‘With great longing I desire the spread of the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for this Heart is the magnet that draws souls to Me, the hearth that radiates to the world the streams of My light and My love. It is, finally, the inexhaustible spring from which flows into the world the living water of My mercy.’ “ (“Who Are You, O Immaculata?“)

Dear readers, we continue to call for the Irresistible Novena of Rosaries, as our weapon of choice against the dark forces gathered in Rome, determined to complete their victory over Christ’s Church. They believe that their victory is assured, and I hope that you understand that, when this month closes, it may well appear to be so. Certainly, the Church appears to be shattered into fragments as never before. Many faithful seem determined to relieve what has become an intolerable anxiety by urging us all to proclaim Benedict the true Pope and formally reject Francis as an anti-pope. Regardless of which is the “true pope”,  we need to understand this one thing clearly:

THE CHURCH IS GOD’S

It was founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, by His Sacred Blood, poured out for us on the Cross. He is the true Head of the Church. He established it as an absolute Monarchy, reserving to Himself the right to reign over the Pope, who serves only as His representative, His Vicar.

GOD HAS GIVEN US THE REMEDY

In the tragic event of a defective pope, and despite all the confusion and clamor, Christ Himself has decreed the solution to be through His own Immaculate Mother, to whom the Church is entrusted by His dying words from that same Cross of our salvation. Now this most Holy Mother of God has told us what to do. Her words were clear and simple and they were entrusted to little children at Fatima.

THE REMEDY IS THE IMMACULATA

Jacinta, Francisco and Lúcia, understood them. They were not able to read or write, they did not even know the name of the pope, much less feel confident of their ability to decide for themselves whether the pope was truly the pope, or opine on deep matters of theology and church history. And yet they were entrusted with the Message of Our Lady of Fatima. Think of this!

Obedience to the Immaculata’s message is not some sort of spiritual passivity. It requires that we put devotion to her, obedience to her message first, setting her will above our own. We must be totally consecrated to her Immaculate Heart. Only then will we all be given a leader and a way to follow the Immaculata to her inevitable victory over the powers of evil usurping the Church.

Anyone who presumes to lead the faithful to a solution of the present crisis will be, clearly and unequivocally a servant of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, proclaiming her message as fully and clearly as she gave it to us without any modernist obfuscation.

It is only when one of two things happen that the Church will truly be free of the present evils:

Either sufficient of us arise and follow Our Lady as she has commanded in her message of Fatima, in penance and reparation, in humility and obedience, -OR- Through the provident justice of God, reparation will be made by a spiritual and material chastisement far surpassing anything that has been proposed or could be imagined.

As darkness closes over us and false shepherds arise among us, leading many astray, we pray our Rosaries and look to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Our Most Holy Mother, “the seat of mercy, of goodness and of pardon, and as the certain door by which we are to enter Heaven.” (Sr. Lúcia)

A reader suggested we add the Consecration to the Immaculata here, and so, here are two:

SAINT LOUIS MARIE DE MONTFORT’S

Act of Consecration to Jesus through Mary

O ETERNAL and incarnate Wisdom! O sweetest and most adorable Jesus! True God and true man, only Son of the Eternal Father, and of Mary, always virgin! I adore Thee profoundly in the bosom and splendors of Thy Father during eternity; and I adore Thee also in the virginal bosom of Mary, Thy most worthy Mother, in the time of Thine incarnation.

I give Thee thanks for that Thou hast annihilated Thyself, taking the form of a slave in order to rescue me from the cruel slavery of the devil. I praise and glorify Thee for that Thou hast been pleased to submit Thyself to Mary, Thy holy Mother, in all things, in order to make me Thy faithful slave through her. But, alas! Ungrateful and faithless as I have been, I have not kept the promises which I made so solemnly to Thee in my Baptism; I have not fulfilled my obligations; I do not deserve to be called Thy child, nor yet Thy slave; and as there is nothing in me which does not merit Thine anger and Thy repulse, I dare not come by myself before Thy most holy and august Majesty. It is on this account that I have recourse to the intercession of Thy most holy Mother, whom Thou hast given me for a mediatrix with Thee. It is through her that I hope to obtain of Thee contrition, the pardon of my sins, and the acquisition and preservation of wisdom.

Hail, then, O immaculate Mary, living tabernacle of the Divinity, where the Eternal Wisdom willed to be hidden and to be adored by angels and by men! Hail, O Queen of Heaven and earth, to whose empire everything is subject which is under God. Hail, O sure refuge of sinners, whose mercy fails no one. Hear the desires which I have of the Divine Wisdom; and for that end receive the vows and offerings which in my lowliness I present to thee.

I, ________________, a faithless sinner, renew and ratify today in thy hands the vows of my Baptism; I renounce forever Satan, his pomps and works; and I give myself entirely to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom, to carry my cross after Him all the days of my life, and to be more faithful to Him than I have ever been before. In the presence of all the heavenly court I choose thee this day for my Mother and Mistress. I deliver and consecrate to thee, as thy slave, my body and soul, my goods, both interior and exterior, and even the value of all my good actions, past, present and future; leaving to thee the entire and full right of disposing of me, and all that belongs to me, without exception, according to thy good pleasure, for the greater glory of God in time and in eternity.

Receive, O benignant Virgin, this little offering of my slavery, in honor of, and in union with, that subjection which the Eternal Wisdom deigned to have to thy maternity; in homage to the power which both of you have over this poor sinner, and in thanksgiving for the privileges with which the Holy Trinity has favored thee. I declare that I wish henceforth, as thy true slave, to seek thy honor and to obey thee in all things.

O admirable Mother, present me to thy dear Son as His eternal slave, so that as He has redeemed me by thee, by thee He may also receive me! O Mother of mercy, grant me the grace to obtain the true Wisdom of God; and for that end receive me among those whom thou lovest, teachest, and protectest as thy children and thy slaves.

O faithful Virgin, make me in all things so perfect a disciple, imitator and slave of the Incarnate Wisdom, Jesus Christ thy Son, that I may attain, by thine intercession and by thine example, to the fullness of His age on earth and of His glory in Heaven. Amen.

(St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Monfort, “True Devotion to Mary, with Preparation for Total Consecration”, by Catholic Way, Kindle Edition).

SAINT MAXIMILIAN KOLBE’S

Act of Consecration to Mary Immaculate

O Immaculata, Queen of Heaven and Earth, Refuge of sinners and our most loving Mother, whom God has made the treasurer of His mercy, I, an unworthy sinner, throw myself at thy most holy feet and humbly beseech thee to accept me, whole and entire as thy property and possession.

To thee, O Mother, I offer all the faculties of my soul and body, and I place my life, my death and my eternity in thy hands, that thou may use my entire being according to thy will. Use me, O Immaculate Virgin as thou will, to fulfill that which was written of thee – “She shall crush thy head”, and “Thou hast destroyed all heresies in all the world”.

Deign that I may become in thy most pure and merciful hands a useful instrument to make thee known and loved by so many erring and indifferent souls, and also to increase as much as possible the number of those who truly admire and love thee in order that the Kingdom of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus may be spread throughout the world.

This I can do, O Most Holy and Immaculate Mother, only with thy help, for wherever thou bestow thy grace, there alone can the conversion and sanctification of souls be achieved, and there alone can the sweet Kingdom of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus be established. Amen.

Remember – Our Lady needs us to obey:  First Saturdays of Reparation, daily rosary, at least 5 mysteries, wear her brown scapular and live our Total Consecration to her Immaculate Heart, offering daily duties in reparation and for the conversion of poor sinners.

Open your hearts to the Lord and serve Him only: and He will free you from the hands of your enemies. With all your heart return to Him, and take away from your midst any strange gods” (I Kings 7:3)

†  Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of our hearts, Mother of the Church, do thou offer to the Eternal Father the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the conversion of poor sinners, especially our Pontiff.
†  Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy kingdom come! Viva Cristo Rey!
†  St. Joseph, protect us, protect our families, protect our priests.
†  St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

~ by evensong for love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, King.
Vouchsafe that I may praise thee, O Sacred Virgin! Give me strength against thine enemies!