Finding Safety in the Midst of the Storm

I have been seeing the word "schism" used on Catholic websites and blogs many times in the last couple of weeks since the Synod, and even on secular sources.  Many conservative and traditional Catholics feel that the traditions of the Church are under attack by "liberal" priests and bishops, including His Holiness, Pope Francis.  An "us versus them" mentality has truly taken hold among many who call themselves Catholic, and the tragic part is that it is Catholic against Catholic.

Last spring, Bishop Athanasius Schneider gave an interview [HERE] in which he said, "we are in the fourth great crisis [of the Church], in a tremendous confusion over doctrine and liturgy. We have already been in this for 50 years."  His Excellency said in the interview that if God is merciful to us, this crisis will only last another 20 to 30 years.

According to the linked article, Bishop Schneider "can foresee a split coming, leading to an eventual renewal of the Church on traditional lines. But, he believes, this will not be before the crisis has plunged the Church further into disarray."

It surely does seem that many conservative and traditional Catholics are itching to go up against the hierarchy of the Church.  Many on the Internet have no hesitation in calling the Magesterium of the Church "evil".  They attack the Holy Father almost with glee.

Instead of seeing the Internet fueling the growing schism, Bishop Schneider is very grateful for cyberspace.  "Thanks be to God, the internet exists."  His Excellency seems to believe that much of the salvation of the Church lies in Joe Catholic in the pew standing up for "what is right."  The problem is, everyone is convinced of his or her own rightness and the wrongness of anyone who disagrees. The Internet seems to embody the words of Judges 21:25 - "all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes."

So what is a faithful Catholic to do when bishops seem to be aligning against other bishops, and "conservatives" against "liberals"?  How do we maintain our equilibrium and not lose our faith?  Let me ask this.  When you see a storm approaching, do you run out into the storm and try to fight it?  Or do you find the safest place you can go and stay put until the storm passes?

As storms swirl around the Church, is our spiritual safety to be found in our own righteousness?  Are we competent to pass judgments on others, especially the hierarchy, and accuse them of trying to destroy the Church?  Are we able to understand the ways of God and know exactly how He is working through the Church in bringing the saving message of the Gospel to the world?  Just who can we trust?

Credit;  www.godfrey.info

The Church herself has given us many safe places in which to hide. First and foremost, we have Our Lord who is present in all of the tabernacles of the Catholic Church everywhere in the world. Archbishop Fulton Sheen never a let day go by without an hour in front of the tabernacle. In fact, he died while kneeling in front of the tabernacle. Bishop Sheen saw many controversies in his years as priest and bishop, and was the recipient of attacks from other prelates. But nothing ever disturbed him. He was never shaken in his faith. What grounded him?

Here are a few quotes about the benefits of adoration from Bishop Sheen:

"The holy hour becomes like an oxygen tank to revive the breath of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the foul and fetid atmosphere of the world."

"Neither theological action nor social action alone is enough to keep us in love with Christ unless both are proceeded by a personal encounter with Him in Adoration."

"During out Holy Hour we grow more and more into His likeness."

"A Holy Hour of Adoration in our modern rat race is necessary for authentic prayer."

"A Holy Hour becomes a magister and teacher.  Theological insights are gained not only from the covers of a treatise, but on two knees before the Blessed Sacrament."

Bishop Sheen was not the only one who saw the vital importance of time before the Blessed Sacrament:

St. John Paul II:  "The spiritual lives of our families are strengthened through our Holy Hour."

"The future belongs to those who worship God in silence."

St. Alphonsus Ligouri - "Our Lord hears our prayers anywhere, but He has revealed to His servants that those who visit Him in the Eucharist will obtain a more abundant measure of grace."

"Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament consoles a soul far beyond what the world can offer."

"A Holy Hour will give you more strength during life and more consolation at the hour of your death and eternity."

Father John Hardon:  "It is impossible in human terms to exaggerate the importance of being in adoration before the Eucharist as often and for as long as our duties and state of life allow."

"During our Holy Hour our souls are fed in two faculties of the spirit - the Mind and the Will.  In the Mind, we need light; in the Will we need strength."

"I strongly recommend that each of us make a resolution, no matter how much the decision may cost us, to make a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament. . .once a week."

St. John Bosco:  "Do you want the Lord to give you many graces?  Visit Him often.  Do you want Him to give you few graces?  Visit Him rarely.  Do you want the devil to attack you?  Visit Jesus rarely in the Blessed Sacrament.  Do you want him to flee from you?  Visit Jesus often!"

St. Padre Pio:  "A Holy Hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament is worth more than a thousand years of human glory."

St. John XXIII:  "There is no doubt that a flood of graces will descend upon your family and the world if more souls would become docile pupils of adoration."

St. Bernadette Soubirous:  "The Eucharist bathes the tormented soul in light and love.  Then the soul appreciates these word, 'Come all you who are sick.  I will restore your health."

Blessed Mother Teresa:  "In order to convert America and save the World what we need is for every parish to come before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Hours of prayer."

These are just a few quotes from saints and other holy people who so obviously benefited from following their own words.  I would offer that regular visits to the Blessed Sacrament are actually vital to our personal spiritual health and the health of the Church.  There is no safer place from spiritual storms than in the presence of Jesus Christ, which is available wherever there is a Catholic Church.

The Rosary is also another great haven in a storm.  Following are just a few quotes about the efficacy and power of the Rosary:

“Never will anyone who says his Rosary every day be led astray. This is a statement that I would gladly sign with my blood.”
Saint Louis de Montfort

“Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world.”
Pope Blessed Pius IX

“The greatest method of praying is to pray the Rosary.”
Saint Francis de Sales

“When the Holy Rosary is said well, it gives Jesus and Mary more glory and is more meritorious than any other prayer.”
Saint Louis de Montfort

“One day, through the Rosary and the Scapular, Our Lady will save the world.”
Saint Dominic

“If you say the Rosary faithfully unto death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins, ‘you will receive a never-fading crown of glory’ (1 St. Peter 5:4).”
Saint Louis de Montfort

“The Rosary is THE weapon.”
Saint Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio)

“You must know that when you ‘hail’ Mary, she immediately greets you! Don’t think that she is one of those rude women of whom there are so many—on the contrary, she is utterly courteous and pleasant. If you greet her, she will answer you right away and converse with you!”
Saint Bernardine of Siena

“Recite your Rosary with faith, with humility, with confidence, and with perseverance.”
Saint Louis de Montfort

“The Rosary is the most beautiful and the most rich in graces of all prayers; it is the prayer that touches most the Heart of the Mother of God…and if you wish peace to reign in your homes, recite the family Rosary.”

Pope Saint Pius X

“Never will anyone who says his Rosary every day become a formal heretic or be led astray by the devil.”
Saint Louis de Montfort

“Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and will save your soul, if—and mark well what I say—if you say the Holy Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins.”
Saint Louis de Montfort

“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.”
Sister Lucia dos Santos, Fatima seer

There are many other ways to stay sane in the midst of madness: go to Mass every day or as often as you possibly can. Receive the graces from the Sacrament of penance by going a couple times a month. Read the saints. Read the "Imitation of Christ" by Thomas a Kempis. This was a favorite book of St. Therese of Lisieux and many other saints. Read the Bible, the written Word of God. Ground yourself in the words of God rather than a lot of blowhards (including yours truly) on the Internet. Read the Bible.  If you can, pray the Divine Liturgy, which can be found HERE.  

In other words, bury yourself in Jesus Christ.  He is the haven in the storm.  He will keep you safe and warm, and nothing will be able to touch you.

Psalm 121:

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

Credit: www.closerdaybyday.info

Meditation on the Fourth Luminous Mystery of the Rosary: The Transfiguration of Christ

Yesterday, March 2, was the First Saturday of the Month. The First Saturday Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was requested by Our Lady of Fatima on July 13, 1917. After showing the three children a vision of hell she said, "You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace... I shall come to ask for... the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays..." The First Saturday devotion is as follows:

It consists in going to Confession, receiving Communion, reciting five decades of the Rosary and meditating for a quarter of an hour on the mysteries of the Rosary on the first Saturday of five consecutive months. The Confession may be made during the eight days preceding or following the first Saturday of each month, provided that Holy Communion be received in the state of grace. Should one forget to form the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, it may be formed at the next Confession, occasion to go to confession being taken at the first opportunity.

We live in very unsettling and sometimes downright scary times when cultural foundations such as marriage and the family that once seemed unshakable are shifting and changing under our feet. There is a great old song from the 60's called "How Can I Be Sure", which asked the question, "How can I be sure in a world that's constantly changing?" Our wonderful Blessed Lord anticipated this question in the First Century shortly before His Crucifixion. Jesus gave three of the apostles - James, John and Peter - a sign that showed them He was bigger than anything on this earth, and therefore they should not fear anything that man can do.

That sign given to the three apostles is the fourth Luminous Mystery, the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ. As an aside, many traditional Catholics refuse to acknowledge the Luminous mysteries because they were added to the Rosary by Blessed John Paul II in 2002, hundreds of years after the Rosary was initially given by our Lady to St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican Order, in 1214. I believe that to reject these beautiful Mysteries given to us by Blessed John Paul II is a great mistake and anyone who chooses to ignore these mysteries is doing so to his or her own spiritual harm. Read Pope John Paul II's apostolic letter on the rosary, "ROSARIUM VIRGINIS MARIAE", and you will have little doubt that he was directly inspired to add the Luminous Mysteries to the Rosary.

During his ministry, Our Lord did what he could to prepare his apostles for the crucifixion. Matthew 16 tells us in verse 21: "From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life."  This is not what the apostles, and most particularly impetuous Peter, wanted to hear, : "Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” (Verse 22).  This seems like a very normal reaction to hearing that someone you love is going to be killed.  You would naturally want to protect someone who says he is going to be in such danger.

Get Thee Behind Me, Satan, illustration for 'The Life of Christ', c.1886-94

Artist:  James Jacques Joseph Tissot

However, this is not what Our Lord thought: "Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”  

This no doubt left much confusion and consternation in the minds of the apostles. Wasn't Jesus here to free them from the Romans and set up a kingdom? What is all this talk about suffering and dying? Who can accomplish anything when they're dead?

Then Jesus goes on to confuse them even more with the following statement:  "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. . . What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?"  All of this talk about suffering, dying, taking up your cross, losing your soul - this is not the stuff that would inspire confidence in the average person. Christ finished his admonition to the apostles with this most strange statement: “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” I'm sure that at this point at least some of the apostles were just shaking their heads and thinking, there goes Jesus, talking that weird stuff again. First he says he is going to die, he gets mad at Peter for saying he won't let that happen, then Jesus says we will see him coming in his kingdom. Who can figure out any of this?

The very next verses, Matthew 17:1-3, says:

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.  Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

Jesus literally pulled back the veil of his humanity and allowed these three apostles - Peter, James and John - to see him in his glory along with the two men representing the law (Moses) and the prophets (Elijah). As Matthew 17:1 says: "His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light." As the Church dogmatically teaches, Jesus Christ was equally God and man. That means that although he was clothed with humanity while on earth, He was also still God in all his glory and majesty. And this Divine nature is what our Lord showed to the three apostles.  Peter, James and John, as Jesus said in the previous chapter of Matthew, were seeing "the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." There is also the great significance of Moses and Elijah standing with Jesus, as the entire purpose of the law and the prophets was to point to Jesus and His Kingdom.

But in this meditation, I wish to concentrate on the meaning of the Transfiguration in the life of the three apostles and the great meaning it has for us in the 21st Century. As I have shown, just a few days before Jesus revealed his Divine Glory to Peter, James and John, he had been talking of the scandal of the cross and the great suffering he was to endure culminating in his ignominious death. The immediate future for Christ's disciples was one of persecution and ridicule by the world and the death of their leader. This very closely mirrors the future of the Catholic Church in the 21st Century.

The present day Church is entering, and in many way has already entered on, the road to Calvary. Just as it was necessary for our Lord to take on the suffering of the world in His crucifixion, so it is necessary for His Mystical Body, the Church, to suffer to bring salvation to the world. Our Lord died for the very ones who killed him, and so it may be necessary for us to spiritually and in some cases, literally give our lives to help save those who persecute us. As Venerable Fulton Sheen said:

The law He gave us was clear: life is a struggle. Unless there is a cross in our lives, there will never be the empty tomb — unless there is a crown of thorns, there will never be the halo of light — unless there is a Good Friday, there will never be an Easter Sunday.

Mt. Tabor

In the Transfiguration, which tradition says occurred on Mount Tabor, our Lord wanted his apostles to be able to look beyond the ominous dark clouds they could see with their eyes to the glorious future that could be theirs if they would just trust in him. So he gave them a glimpse into the future, to what awaited them at the end of the hardship and pain for which they were destined as His followers.

To get to the reality shown in the Transfiguration, it means we must walk by faith and not by sight, as the Apostle Paul wrote in II Corinthians 5:7.  We must not fear or draw back because of physical circumstances. But where can we get the courage we need to face the trials of this life? When we begin to be weighed down by the physical world around us and it seems we are surrounded by ominous dark clouds, that is when we, like Peter, James and John, must go up to Mount Tabor and see the Glorious Risen Christ, to refresh in our minds what awaits us.

Like these three apostles, this means following Jesus where He goes. The three apostles would have never seen Christ in His Divine Glory if they had not been willing to separate themselves from the others and follow Jesus up the mountain. For us, this means separating ourselves from the world and spending quiet, prayerful time with the Blessed Sacrament in adoration. Unlike Peter, James and John, we will not see the glorified Christ. We will see only the appearance of bread that covers Our Lord. But He is as much there in His glorified state as He was on Mount Tabor. Our physical eyes will not see Him, but our souls will be fed and strengthened.

Jesus wanted the three apostles to see him in His Divine Glory so they could understand why Peter was wrong when he said of Christ's crucifixion, “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” The apostles needed to understand that Mount Tabor was possible only if Jesus walked the road of Calvary.    That is why Jesus addressed Peter as Satan who was trying to stop the Crucifixion.    This message did not resonate with the Apostles right away. In fact, they did not understand the meaning of the Transfiguration until after Christ's resurrection. But when the time came for them to walk their own personal road of Calvary, we can be sure the image of the Glorified Jesus was front and center in their minds, giving them the courage and strength they needed to endure their suffering.

Moses descending from Mt. Sinai with his face glowing

Spending time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament may at times actually seem like a meaningless exercise. The world sees us as just worshiping a piece of bread. But we, the followers of Jesus Christ, don't let our physical sight or our emotions determine our actions. "We walk by faith, not by sight." When Moses spent 40 days and nights on Mt. Sinai receiving the commandments of God, he came back with his face glowing from being in the Lord's Presence. When we spend time with our Lord and open our minds and hearts to Him, we will also be transformed by His Glorified Presence.

When we go before the Blessed Sacrament, we are entering into the Transfiguration. We will receive the encouragement and strength we need to carry on in this world so opposed to Jesus and the saving truth of the Gospel. Our Lord showed the three apostles His Divine Glory to strengthen them to endure the scandal of the Cross. Allow Him to share that same Glory with you, especially as the Church collectively enters on the Road to Calvary.

How can you be sure in a world that is constantly changing? By spending time in the Glorified Presence of the One who will never change.

The Message of Fatima and the Year of Faith: I Am My Brother's Keeper

Our Lady of Fatima

We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete. Here there takes on new life the plan of God which asks humanity from the beginning: “Where is your brother Abel […] Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!” (Gen 4:9). Mankind has succeeded in unleashing a cycle of death and terror, but failed in bringing it to an end… In sacred Scripture we often find that God seeks righteous men and women in order to save the city of man and he does the same here, in Fatima, when Our Lady asks: “Do you want to offer yourselves to God, to endure all the sufferings which he will send you, in an act of reparation for the sins by which he is offended and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?”
Pope Benedict XVI  
May 13, 2010

Today is the 95th Anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, Portugal.  It was on October 13, 1917, when Mary, the Mother of God, appeared for the last time at Fatima, Portugal to three small shepherd children, Francisco, Jacinta and Lucia.  Our Lady first began to appear to the children in May of 1917, giving them messages that resonate to our day and, in fact, are more relevant to our time than when she first appeared at Fatima.  Many at that time began to believe in the apparitions, but there were still many skeptics.  Our Lady promised the children that there were would be a great miracle to prove that she was appearing to them.  True to her promise, the Sun "danced in the sky" on October 13, 1917 at noon time, the day and time she predicted, in front of 70,000 people who had gathered at the apparition site.  From Mystics of the Church:

On October 13th a crowd of 70,000 gathered at the Cova da Iria in response to the children’s claim that a miracle would occur on that day “so that all may believe.” At the appointed time, in the middle of a rainstorm the clouds broke up and the sun was seen as a disk spinning in the sky, throwing off great rays of fantastic colours. As one columnist reported, “Before the astonished eyes of the crowd the sun trembled and danced.” Suddenly it seemed to fall until it almost reached the earth, but then it stopped, slowly making its way back into the sky. Many of those present “wept and prayed” in recognition of the miracle they had awaited. The phenomenon was witnessed by people 40 kilometres away, proving that mass hysteria could not be held responsible.

Fatima, Portugal on October 13, 1917

Our Lady of Fatima said the following to the shepherd children at this final apparition:  "I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day."  She also warned us, "Do not offend the Lord our God any more, because He is already so much offended."  If our Lord was much offended in 1917 when much of the world still believed in God and at the very least recognized His laws and authority in their lives, how much more offended must our Lord be now when we condone homosexuality, promote same sex "marriage", legalize the killing of our unborn children and sick and elderly, promote artificial birth control and fill our entertainment with lewd and immoral images?  And that's just for starters on how evil and godless our world has become.

The World's Answer to God

The message of our Lady of Fatima was all about bringing people back to God through penance and reparations.  At one point Our Lady showed the children a vision of hell and said many poor sinners go there because they have no one to pray for them.  She told us that our prayers are not just for ourselves but for others as well.  Our Blessed Lady told us that we are our brother's keeper.  Part of the blame for the evil in the world must be laid at the feet of those of us who were given the great gift of faith at our baptism, but like the worthless servant spoken of by Christ, we buried this gift instead of using it to help others.  The result is the evil world we see around us.

Below is a clip from the movie, "The 13th Day" which explains the prophecies given by our Lady of Fatima and the consequences of rejecting our Lord:


Here in the United States, our own government feels free to tell the Catholic Church how to practice their religion. The government is forcing Catholics to promote the use of artificial contraception, and the Church rightly rejects this and fights against it. But at the same time most Catholics, in direct disobedience to the Church, use this same contraception.  We were told back in 1968 by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae:

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.

If we had listened to the message of our Lady of Fatima and had been praying the Rosary daily and making reparations, our government would have never felt empowered to move against the Church as it has done.  But in the last 50 years, Marian devotion in general and the practice of regularly praying the Rosary in particular have fallen significantly in the Church. The Rosary has been forgotten by the vast majority of Catholics, as shown in the poll taken by Georgetown in 2008:

Eight percent of Catholics report that they pray the rosary at least once a week.

Another 8 percent of Catholics pray the rosary at least once a month, but less than weekly. One in five do so a few times a year and about one in six (16 percent) do so less than once a year.

Nearly half of Catholics (48 percent) report that they rarely or never pray the rosary. In a 2001 CARA poll, more than four-tenths of Catholics (44 percent) reported that they pray the rosary at least a few times a year. This compares to 36 percent in the present survey.

Our Lady asked us to pray the Rosary daily, and only 8 percent of Catholics pray it even weekly.  Is it just coincidence that at the same time as devotion to our Blessed Mother has faded, the faith of many Catholics has grown either lukewarm or completely died?   It is through her that Christ first came to earth, and it is through her that we must go to Christ. There can be no renewal of faith without the Blessed Mother, and now our Holy Father seeks to remind us of that.

Pope Benedict has declared October 2012 through November 2013 to be the Year of Faith.  The Holy Father is encouraging all Catholics to use this year to rediscover and deepen our faith and to share our faith with others.  This is desperately needed as only 20% of Catholics in the United States attend weekly Mass, and the numbers are dismally lower in Europe and Britain.  Far too many Catholics are woefully ignorant of the teachings of their own Church.  Pope Benedict XVI seems to be trying to remedy this tragic development with the The Year of Faith, which is all about renewing and revitalizing the faith of Catholics, and I find it highly significant that he is putting our Blessed Mother at the center of this.

This past Sunday, on the Feast of our Lady of Victory, Pope Benedict XVI, in his Angelus address after Mass, urged us, in connection with the Year of Faith, to dedicate ourselves to "renew the prayer of the Rosary".

Vatican News gives us the transcript of the Pope's remarks:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We now turn in prayer to Mary, whom we venerate today as Queen of the Holy Rosary. At this time, at the Shrine of Pompeii [see below], the traditional "Supplication"  is being elevated to which countless people throughout the world are joined [this prayer is traditionally said at the Shrine and around the world right at the time the Pope was speaking.  Click on link for prayer]. While we associate ourselves spiritually in this choral prayer, I would like to suggest to everyone to renew the prayer of the Rosary in the upcoming Year of Faith. With the Rosary, we allow ourselves to be guided by Mary, model of faith, in meditating on the mysteries of Christ, and day after day we are helped to assimilate the Gospel, so that it shapes all our lives. Therefore, in the wake of my predecessors, especially the Blessed John Paul II, who ten years ago gave us the Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, I invite you to pray the Rosary personally, in the family and in the community, learning at the school of Mary, which leads us to Christ, the living centre of our faith.

The icon of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii 

presents the image of the Madonna with 

Jesus in her arms, and at her feet are

St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena

Mentioning the Shrine of Pompeii shows even further the emphasis that our Holy Father is placing upon the importance of the Blessed Mother in the renewal of faith.  The Shrine of Pompeii is considered the most important Marian shrine in Italy, visited by four million people every year.  From Wikipedia:

Bartolo Longo started restoring a church in disrepair in October 1873 and promoted a festival in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary. In 1875, Longo obtained a painting of Our Lady of the Rosary from a convent in Naples and raised funds to restore the image so as to locate it in the church.

Miracles began to be reported and pilgrims began flocking in droves to the church. Bartolo Longo was encouraged by Giuseppe Formisano,Bishop of Nola, to begin the construction of a larger church—the cornerstone being laid on the 8 May 1876. The church was consecrated on the 7 May 1891 by Cardinal Raffaele Monaco La Valletta, representing Pope Leo XIII.

Notice, too, that the Pope is not talking about only individual prayer but prayer with others "in the family and in the community". The Rosary can bring us together and revitalize our faith. No one has ever gone astray when they draw close to our Blessed Mother. From the time of her Immaculate Conception she has been at one with the Holy Trinity. We can always find our Lord when we find Mary. Her motherly love for us is all about bringing us to her Son.

Below are the 15 promises given to us by our Blessed Mother if we will regularly and consistently pray the Rosary. Each and every promise made here will change the world, driving out the evil that surrounds us:

1. Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces.

2. I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.

3. The Rosary will be a powerful armor against hell. It will destroy vice, decrease sin and defeat heresies.

4. It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.

5. Those who recommend themselves to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish.

6. Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life.

7. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.

8. Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death, the light of God and the plentitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the saints in paradise.

9. I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.

10. The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in heaven.

11. You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.

12. All those who propagate the holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.

13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death.

14. All who recite the Rosary are my sons, and brothers of my only son, Jesus Christ.

15. Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.

We are all wringing our hands and wondering what to do about the oppressive government in our country.  The answer will not be found in politics or science or the humanities.  With all due respect to our bishops, the answer is not even in campaigns about "religious freedom."  Three small children at Fatima knew the answer that the best minds of our time haven't been able to figure out.  We are our brother's keeper. It is our Christian duty to pray for others and do penances and reparations on the part of others.  That is what the "community of saints" is all about.  Our Blessed Mother holds her loving arms out to us and longs to give us the answer if we will only turn to her.  The Vicar of Christ has pointed the way to her.  Let us turn to her in prayer and supplication and allow her to lead us to her Son.

Below is the trailer to the movie, "The 13th Day" about the story of Fatima.  I think this trailer speaks volumes about the answers to the evil we face in this world.