Our Lady of Fatima: Talk after Mass on Friday, October 13th, 2017

Notes:

Awesome book!

1917 in Portugal

·      Apparition with an angel

o   Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta continued to practice what the Angel had taught them, praying and offering sacrifices to the Lord.

·      Then with Mother Mary

o   May, June, July, August (19^th), September, October

o   Apparition = “An apparition, however, is a charismatic gift granted by God for some greater purpose of His than the benefit of the one receiving it.  It says nothing necessary about the sanctity of the recipient(s); although God usually chooses simple and good Christians…”

o   Just before: May 5^th, Pope Benedict XV “had made a direct appeal to Mary to intercede in ending the Great War…”

o   Few are supported by our Catholic Church

§  Lourdes (France), Guadalupe (Mexico), Knock (Ireland), Fatima (Portugal)

Our Lady of the Rosary: title

·      Diocese of Duluth patroness

Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta

·      World War I

·      Rosary

·      Russia

John Paul II

·      Mystic = a person who having persevered in the Christian spiritual life, usually a notable length of time, receives by God's free choice the infused supernatural grace of contemplative prayer

·      Apostolic motto: Totus Tuus = “totally yours” = Mary à God

·      Shot on March 13^th, 1981 at 5:13pm

·      He put the bullet in a statue of Mother’s crown

Communism

·      = “a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs”

·      Marx quote: “Religion is the opium of the people”

·      Mother Mary going against Russia à communism

·      No God…the state is the god

·      Abortion and divorce

Many popes had challenged communism

·      Leo XIII, Pius XI, Pius XII, Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI

·      John Paul II

o   Lived against nazism then communism in Poland

o   War against them, not with guns, but through spiritual lives

Today?

·      Who is really in charge?  Our president?  Our government?  Our economy?  Nope…God

·      Is religion an opium?  What about real opium…opiates today, alcohol, drugs, pornography?

·      Religion (St. Thomas Aquinas through New Advent) = Religion in its simplest form implies the notion of being bound to God; the same notion is uppermost in the word religion in its most specific sense, as applied to the life of poverty, chastity, and obedience to which individuals voluntarily bind themselves by vows more or less solemn. Hence those who are thus bound are known as religious.

·      Private vs. public

·      Up or down?

·      Rosary

Eucharistic Adoration with a procession