Continued from LAST WEEK
By Prof. Michael Ogunu
To appease God and console our Lord Jesus Christ and His Blessed Mother for the sins of the world for which mankind is being punished by means of the coronavirus pandemic and wars, the Catholic Bishops’ Conferences in Africa and Asia, in union with our Holy Father the Pope should prevail on the Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of the United States and all European countries which have legalised all types of sexual immorality including adultery abortion, samesex marriages and incest to work hard to get their governments to delegalise the acts of sexual immorality. All Bishops should strongly appeal to the entire faithful in their countries to acknowledge their sins, seek for forgiveness and make reparation for them and for the sins of their nations and stop offending God “who is already too much offended”.
•• Pray the Rosary everyday. All Catholics should pray the Rosary everyday as requested by Our Lady, meditating on the mysteries in reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the conversion of sinners, for their own salvation and the salvation of all mankind and for peace in the world.
•• Do penance and offer sacrifices for the salvation of souls. The Virgin Mary told the three shepherd children that many souls go to Hell because no one offers sacrifices to Jesus for their salvation. In 1943, Sr. Lucia disclosed that on a Thursday midnight, when she was in the Chapel with her Superior’s permission, Our Lord said to her: “The sacrifice required of every person is the fulfilment of his duties in life and the observance of My Law. This is the penance I now seek and require”. Sacrifice not only saves souls from eternal damnation but shows Jesus how much we love Him. By it, we remove the thorns that pierce the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
•• Practice Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In the second apparition of Our Lady to the three shepherd children on July 13, 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary said, “Jesus wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. I promise salvation to all those who embrace it and these souls will be loved by God like flowers placed to adorn His throne”. We should practice devotion to the Immaculate Heart and try to get others to do so. An attempt to make the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary popular in the Universal Church was made by Pope Pius XII in 1954. He issued the encyclical Ad Coeli Regina, in which he “commanded” that an act of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary be made annually in every parish in the world on the feast of the Queenship of Our Lady. Pope John Paul II after consecrating Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25, 1984 said that “every Christian, everyone has to be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Every Bishop has to consecrate his diocese, every head of a family, the family’s father, the family’s mother has to consecrate his or her own family
. Every one of us has to consecrate himself or herself to our Lady”. An excellent book on Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is the one titled: “Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary – Practices and Prayers” by the writer of this article (with the Imprimatur of Most Rev. Dr. Ignatius Kaigama, President of the Episcopal Conference of West Africa). It explains the different types of devotion to the Immaculate Heart of the Mother of God, including First Saturday Devotion with focus on devotion through consecration and reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and presents various acts (prayers) of consecration and reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary including personal acts of consecration as well as prayers for consecration of a family, a parish, a diocese and a nation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and how to prepare for them. Copies are available from the author (E-mail: mogunu@yahoo.com)
•• Practice the Five First Saturdays Devotion of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Our Lady told Sr. Lucia, “I promise to help at the hour of death with the graces needed for salvation those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, go to confession, receive Holy Communion, say five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the mysteries, with the intention of making reparation to my Immaculate Heart”. The Immaculate Heart of Mary is pierced with thorns because of the five major blasphemies and offences committed against it. These are:
1. The blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception;
2. Blasphemies against Her Virginity;
3. Blasphemies against Her Divine Maternity and for the offences of those who refuse to recognise Her as the Mother of all mankind;
4. Blasphemies of those who try publicly to implant in the children’s hearts indifference, contempt and even hate against this Immaculate Mother;
5. The offences of those who insult her directly in her sacred statues. We should practice the Five First Saturdays Devotion of reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and encourage others to do so. Priests The signs of the times and the urgent need to implement the message of Our Lady of Fatima By Prof. Michael Ogunu and leaders of religious communities should initiate parish/community practice of the devotion in the same way as the First Friday devotion. On September 14, 2017 the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines in a circular letter (signed by Rev. Fr. Marvin S. Mejia – Secretary General of the Bishops’ Conference) addressed to all the Cardinals, Bishops and Reverend Diocesan Administrators requested them to initiate the Diocesan promotion and implementation of the First Saturday Devotion which they described as “the forgotten message of Fatima” in their respective areas of jurisdiction.
Conclusion
Our world today is in dire need of peace: individual peace, peace in our families and communal peace.The peace promised to us by Our Lady of Fatima can be achieved through daily meditative recitation of the Rosary, calling on the Mother of Jesus, who is ever ready to come to our assistance, performing our daily duties well and treating our fellow human beings with justice and dignity. The message of Fatima came with a warning of dire consequences if the world continues to shun God. The world still shuns God as evidenced in unending wars, killing of the innocents in the womb, etc. Instead of paying heed to the merciful appeal of Our Lady of Fatima, men appear to have chosen the way of perdition. As explained by Prof. Americo Lopez Ortiz, International President of the World Apostolate of Fatima, The goal Our Lady strives for are clear: world peace, the repentance of sinners, and the establishment of the “Kingdom of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary”, with everything that it implies. The goals of Our Lady should become the guiding goals of our own lives.
Our collective national and international projects should be based on the prophetic vision of Our Lady of Fatima, striving for a new era for humanity, which will be the product of the Triumph of Her Immaculate Heart over the enemies of Christ. We should renew our dedication to the Holy Rosary and pray it at every opportunity. Prayer and Penance can bring our sinful world back to God. The Servant of God, Sr. Lucia warned while she was alive that mankind cannot know the “promised peace” unless a sufficient number responds to Our Lady of Fatima’s requests. We need that sufficient number, we need peace in our homes, in our families, in our towns and villages, in our country and in the whole world. How can we contribute to make this possible? We can do so by our life of prayer, penance, sacrifice and reparation.
It is in the context of this spiritual challenge that we should all join in the renewal of our commitment to Jesus and His Blessed Mother and in the rededication of our lives and all we have to their service. Together as God’s family, let us join in prayers of reparation, adoration and thanksgiving to God the Most High. As we come to ‘the throne of grace’, as we come to ‘the heart most pure’, let our thoughts, our words, our actions and interactions be always a living testimony of the prayer of the Angel of Fatima: Most holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I adore thee profoundly, I offer thee the most precious body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ present in all the tabernacles of the world in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference by which he is offended. By the infinite merits of his Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of you the conversion of poor sinners.
• Prof. Michael Ogunu is the President and Coordinator of the World Apostolate of Fatima in Africa.