Fatima Centenary 5: Second apparition of Our Lady: June 13 1917:

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
June 24-25:  Ordinary Time 12th Sunday

In Portugal, June 13 is a day of great celebration. It is the feast of one of the great patrons of Portugal, Saint Anthony (of  Padua), born in Lisbon in 1195.

About fifty people accompanied the three children for their noon appointment with the beautiful lady from heaven. They joined the children in praying the Rosary as they awaited the coming of our Lady.

 

After finishing the Rosary, the children saw a light coming towards them, and suddenly Our Lady was present on the holmoak tree as she had been in May.

Lucia begins with her usual request: ‘What do you want of me?’
Our Lady asks the children to return on July 13, and again requests the daily Rosary. She also tells Lucia to learn to read. Lucia requests healing for a sick person.  Our Lady responds: “If he is converted he will be cured during the year.” 
Lucia asks on behalf of the three children if the Lady would take them to heaven:
“Yes, I will take Jacinta and Francisco soon. But you are to stay here some time longer. Jesus wishes to make use of you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.”

Lucia asked if she would be alone after her cousins went to heaven. Our Lady replied: “No, my daughter.  Are you   suffering a great deal? I will never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead to God.”

As soon as Our Lady finished speaking, she opened her hands and communicated to the children an immense light that enveloped them, as happened at the end of the first   apparition. In this light the children saw themselves      submerged in God. Jacinta and Francisco appeared to be in a part of the light that was rising to heaven, while Lucia was in a light spreading over the earth. Finally, the children saw the heart of Our Lady surrounded with piercing thorns, which represented the offences committed against her. These were the sins that needed reparation, and the children were eager to offer it.

 

(from: Fr Andrew Apostoli CFR, Fatima For Today.)

Emotional wounds? Bring them to the Eucharist to be healed

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
June 17-18:  Corpus Christi.


...Every time that you go to a Eucharistic celebration, you are near an altar, and you   receive Communion, bring your defenselessness and your emotional paralysis to God. Ask him to touch your body, your heart, your memory, your bitterness, your lack of self-confidence, your self absorption, your weaknesses, your helplessness. Bring your sore body and heart to God. Express your defenselessness in simple and humble words: Touch me. Take my wounds. Take my paranoia. Heal me. Forgive me. Warm my heart. Give me the strength that I  cannot give myself.

Pray this prayer, not only when you are receiving Communion and you are being physically touched by the Body of Christ, but especially during the Eucharistic prayer, because that is when not only are we being touched and healed by a person, Jesus, but we are also being touched and healed by a sacred event.

This is the part of the Eucharist that we generally don’t understand, but it’s also the part of the Mass that celebrates the transformation and healing of wounds and sin.
During the Eucharistic prayer, we commemorate the “sacrifice” of Jesus; that is to say, the event when, as Christian tradition tells us so enigmati-cally, Jesus became sin for our sake. There is a lot packed into that cryptic phrase. In essence: in his suffering and death, Jesus carried our wounds, our weaknesses, our infidelities and our sins; he died in them, and then healed them through love and hope.

Every time we go to the Eucharist, we allow that transformative event to touch us, to touch our wounds, our weaknesses, our infidelities, our sin and our emotional paralysis, and it transforms them into healing, energy, joy and love.
The Eucharist is the source of healing where divine mercy becomes manifest. ..We need to bring our wounds to the Eucharist, because that is where the sacred love and energy that underlie everything that lives and breathes can cauterize and cure everything in us that is un-healthy. 

Extracts from article by Roberto Mena, Spanish edition of Aleteia.

Pope Francis

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
June 10-11: The Most Holy TRINITY.


On March 25, 2017, Pope Francis met with recently confirmed young people in the Meazza-San Siro Stadium of Milan.  In the course of the meeting, the Pontiff answered some questions posed by a recently confirmed young man, a married couple and a catechist.
Married Couple:   How can we transmit the beauty of the faith to our children? Sometimes it seems truly   difficult to be able to talk about this subject without being boring or banal in sharing the faith with them.

Pope Francis:
I think this is one of the key questions that touches our life as parents, as Pastors, as educators. And I would like to address it to you. I invite you to recall who were the persons that left an imprint on your faith and which of them remained most imprinted. I invite you parents to become children again for a minute and to recall the persons that helped you to believe. Father, mother, grandparents, a catechist, an aunt, the parish priest, a neighbor, perhaps . .  We all have in our memory, but     especially in our heart, someone who helped us to believe.

     You will ask me for the reason for this little exercise.  Our children look at us constantly, even if we don’t real-ize it, they observe us all the time and meanwhile they learn. “Children look at us,” I believe is the title of a film. They know our joys, our sadness and worries. They under-stand everything and, given that they are very intuitive, they draw their conclusions and their teachings. They know when we set traps for them and when we don’t. Therefore, one of the first things I’ll say to you is: take care of them, take care of their heart, of their joy and of their hope. Your children’s “little eyes” memorize and read gradually with the heart how the faith is one of the best legacies that you have      received from your parents, from your ancestors. Show them how the faith helps you to go on, to face       the many dramas we have, not with a pessimistic but a   confident attitude, this is the best witness we can give them. There is a saying: “The wind took the words,” but what is sown in the memory, in the heart, stays for ever.

Litany to the Holy Spirit:

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
June 3-4:  PENTECOST SUNDAY.

Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.

Father all-powerful, have mercy on us.    
Jesus, Eternal Son of the Father, Redeemer of the world, save us.    
Spirit of the Father and the Son, boundless life of both, sanctify us.    
Holy Trinity, hear us.

Holy Spirit, Who proceedest from the Father and the Son, enter our hearts. Holy Spirit, Who art equal to the Father and the Son, enter our hearts.

Promise of God the Father, have mercy on us.
Ray of heavenly light, have mercy on us.
Author of all good, have mercy on us. 
Source of heavenly water,  [etc.]     
Consuming fire
Ardent charity
Spiritual unction
Spirit of love and truth
Spirit of wisdom and understanding
Spirit of counsel and fortitude
Spirit of knowledge and piety
Spirit of the fear of the Lord
Spirit of grace and prayer
Spirit of peace and meekness
Spirit of modesty and innocence
Holy Spirit, the Comforter
Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier
Holy Spirit, Who governest the Church
Gift of God, the Most High
Spirit Who fillest the universe
Spirit of the adoption of the children of God
Holy Spirit, inspire us with horror of sin.
Holy Spirit, come and renew the face of the earth.
Holy Spirit, shed Thy light in our souls.
Holy Spirit, engrave Thy law in our hearts.
Holy Spirit, inflame us with the flame of Thy love.
Holy Spirit, open to us the treasures of Thy graces. Holy Spirit, teach us to pray well.
Holy Spirit, enlighten us with Thy heavenly inspirations. Holy Spirit, lead us in the way of salvation.
Holy Spirit, grant us the only necessary knowledge. Holy Spirit, inspire in us the practice of good.
Holy Spirit, grant us the merits of all virtues.
Holy Spirit, make us persevere in justice.
Holy Spirit, be Thou our everlasting reward.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, Send us Thy Holy Spirit.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, pour down into our souls the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, grant us the Spirit of wisdom and piety.

V. Come, Holy Spirit! Fill the hearts of Thy faithful,
R. And enkindle in them the fire of Thy love.

Let us pray. Grant, O merciful Father, that Thy Divine Spirit may enlighten, inflame and purify us, that He may penetrate us with His heavenly dew and make us fruitful in good works, through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who with Thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, liveth and reigneth, one God, forever and ever.

R. Amen.