Sunday, October 10, 2021, The Month of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary
October11,2021
My dear Brothers and Sisters,
In addition to his profound teaching encyclicals, St. John Paul II wrote several books. One of these was Crossing the Threshold of Hope (1994). In this book, he explicitly speaks about Our Lady and her apparitions, especially at Fatima. During his pontificate, he helped the entire Church prepare for the new Millennium with a Marian Year in 1987- 1988. Soon after the communist governments began to collapse in Russia and throughout Eastern Europe. Clearly, Our Lady had a significant part to play in this dramatic turn of events. On pages, 220-221 of the above listed book the saintly pope writes:
“’Be not afraid’ Christ said to his apostles (cf. Luke 24:36) and to the women (cf. Matthew 28:10) after the Resurrection. According to the Gospels, these words were not addressed to Mary. Strong in her faith, she had no fear. Mary’s participation in the victory of Christ became clear to me above all from the experience of my people. Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski told me that his predecessor, Cardinal August Hlond, had spoken these prophetic words as he was dying: ‘The victory, if it comes, will come through Mary.’ During my pastoral ministry in Poland, I saw for myself how these words were coming true.
After my election as Pope, as I became more involved in the problems of the universal Church, I came to have a similar conviction: On this universal level, if victory comes it will be brought by Mary. Christ will conquer through her, because He wants the Church’s victories now and in the future to be linked to her.”
I held this conviction even though I did not yet know very much about Fatima. I could see, however, that there was a certain continuity among La Salette, Lourdes, and Fatima – and, in the distant past our Polish Jasna Gora.
Thus, we come to May 13, 1981, when I was wounded by gunshots fired in St. Peter’s Square. At first, I did not pay attention to the fact that the assassination attempt had occurred on the exact anniversary of the day Mary appeared to the three children at Fatima in Portugal and spoke to them the words that now, at the end of this century, seem to be close to their fulfillment.
With this event, did not Christ perhaps say, once again, ‘Be not afraid’? Didn’t he repeat this Easter exhortation to the Pope, to the Church, and, indirectly, to the entire human family?”
Dear Friend, Mary is counting on you to carry out with her the promise she made at the Fatima apparition of July 13, 1917: “In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”