Medjugorje inquiry completed

22 January, 2014

Pilgrims peruse religious articles in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 2011. Photo: Paul Haring, CNS THE VATICAN has confirmed that the international Vatican commission investigating the events at Medjugorje is ready to submit its findings to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Rome-based Zenit news agency has reported. In a statement last Saturday, the director of the Holy See Press Office, Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi confirmed that the four-year old commission “held its last meeting on 17 January”. The commission, created by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and headed by Cardinal Camillo Ruini “has reportedly completed its work and will submit the outcomes of its study to the congregation”. Once the congregation has examined the commission’s findings, they will be given to Pope Francis who will have the final say. There is no indication how long it will be until a final decision is known. The commission, formed in 2010, is made up of an international panel of cardinals, bishops, theologians and other experts. Their investigation covers mainly the first phase of apparitions that began in 1981. The apparitions are claimed to continue regularly to the present, attracting hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year. It was opposition from the local hierarchy in Bosnia where the apparitions are alleged to take place which prompted the Vatican to carry out the investigation. Pope Francis met Bosnian Cardinal Vinko Puljic, Archbishop of Vrhbosna, Sarajevo, in private audience last week. Although many conversions have been witnessed in Medjugorje and countless people helped in their faith, the authenticity of the apparitions has remained highly contentious. Last November Archbishop Gerhard Mueller, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, unsettled devotees of the pilgrimage destination when he issued an instruction to US bishops warning against allowing ‘seer’ Ivan Dragicevic to go on a speaking tour of the country. Donal Foley, an expert on Medjugorje and author of Medjugorje Revisted – 30 Years of Visions or Religious Fraud, told Zenit on 20 January that it is “very difficult” to know exactly what the Pope’s ruling will be. “There have been some signs that a negative verdict, of some sort, may well be forthcoming,” he said, noting Pope Francis’ recent comments, in particular that Our Lady is a Mother “not a postmaster of the post office sending out messages every day”. But he added that a “compromise verdict” is still possible that could allow Medjugorje to continue to be a place of pilgrimage without approval. The Vatican currently does not forbid anyone visiting Medjugorje, but visitors are asked not to engage in public celebrations that take for granted the authenticity of the apparitions. Some have argued that the Vatican cannot complete an investigation on apparitions that are still continuing. .... Taken from: http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=1&subclassID=3&articleID=13182

Marian Conclusion to “Evangelii Gaudium”.



II. Mary, mother of evangelization

284. With the Holy Spirit, Mary is always present in the midst of the people. She joined the disciples in praying for the coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:14) and thus made possible the missionary outburst which took place at Pentecost. She is the Mother of the Church which evangelizes, and without her we could never truly understand the spirit of the new evangelization.

Jesus’ gift to his people

285. On the cross, when Jesus endured in his own flesh the dramatic encounter of the sin of the world and God’s mercy, he could feel at his feet the consoling presence of his mother and his friend. At that crucial moment, before fully accomplishing the work which his Father had entrusted to him, Jesus said to Mary: “Woman, here is your son”. Then he said to his beloved friend: “Here is your mother” (Jn 19:26-27). These words of the dying Jesus are not chiefly the expression of his devotion and concern for his mother; rather, they are a revelatory formula which manifests the mystery of a special saving mission. Jesus left us his mother to be our mother. Only after doing so did Jesus know that “all was now finished” (Jn 19:28). At the foot of the cross, at the supreme hour of the new creation, Christ led us to Mary. He brought us to her because he did not want us to journey without a mother, and our people read in this maternal image all the mysteries of the Gospel. The Lord did not want to leave the Church without this icon of womanhood. Mary, who brought him into the world with great faith, also accompanies “the rest of her offspring, those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus” (Rev 12:17). The close connection between Mary, the Church and each member of the faithful, based on the fact that each in his or her own way brings forth Christ, has been beautifully expressed by Blessed Isaac of Stella: “In the inspired Scriptures, what is said in a universal sense of the virgin mother, the Church, is understood in an individual sense of the Virgin Mary... In a way, every Christian is also believed to be a bride of God’s word, a mother of Christ, his daughter and sister, at once virginal and fruitful... Christ dwelt for nine months in the tabernacle of Mary’s womb. He dwells until the end of the ages in the tabernacle of the Church’s faith. He will dwell forever in the knowledge and love of each faithful soul”.[212]

286. Mary was able to turn a stable into a home for Jesus, with poor swaddling clothes and an abundance of love. She is the handmaid of the Father who sings his praises. She is the friend who is ever concerned that wine not be lacking in our lives. She is the woman whose heart was pierced by a sword and who understands all our pain. As mother of all, she is a sign of hope for peoples suffering the birth pangs of justice. She is the missionary who draws near to us and accompanies us throughout life, opening our hearts to faith by her maternal love. As a true mother, she walks at our side, she shares our struggles and she constantly surrounds us with God’s love. Through her many titles, often linked to her shrines, Mary shares the history of each people which has received the Gospel and she becomes a part of their historic identity. Many Christian parents ask that their children be baptized in a Marian shrine, as a sign of their faith in her motherhood which brings forth new children for God. There, in these many shrines, we can see how Mary brings together her children who with great effort come as pilgrims to see her and to be seen by her. Here they find strength from God to bear the weariness and the suffering in their lives. As she did with Juan Diego, Mary offers them maternal comfort and love, and whispers in their ear: “Let your heart not be troubled… Am I not here, who am your Mother?”[213]

Star of the new Evangelization

287. We ask the Mother of the living Gospel to intercede that this invitation to a new phase of evangelization will be accepted by the entire ecclesial community. Mary is the woman of faith, who lives and advances in faith,[214] and “her exceptional pilgrimage of faith represents a constant point of reference for the Church”.[215] Mary let herself be guided by the Holy Spirit on a journey of faith towards a destiny of service and fruitfulness. Today we look to her and ask her to help us proclaim the message of salvation to all and to enable new disciples to become evangelizers in turn.[216] Along this journey of evangelization we will have our moments of aridity, darkness and even fatigue. Mary herself experienced these things during the years of Jesus’ childhood in Nazareth: “This is the beginning of the Gospel, the joyful good news. However, it is not difficult to see in that beginning a particular heaviness of heart, linked with a sort of night of faith – to use the words of Saint John of the Cross – a kind of ‘veil’ through which one has to draw near to the Invisible One and to live in intimacy with the mystery. And this is the way that Mary, for many years, lived in intimacy with the mystery of her Son, and went forward in her pilgrimage of faith”.[217]

288. There is a Marian “style” to the Church’s work of evangelization. Whenever we look to Mary, we come to believe once again in the revolutionary nature of love and tenderness. In her we see that humility and tenderness are not virtues of the weak but of the strong who need not treat others poorly in order to feel important themselves. Contemplating Mary, we realize that she who praised God for “bringing down the mighty from their thrones” and “sending the rich away empty” (Lk 1:52-53) is also the one who brings a homely warmth to our pursuit of justice. She is also the one who carefully keeps “all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19). Mary is able to recognize the traces of God’s Spirit in events great and small. She constantly contemplates the mystery of God in our world, in human history and in our daily lives. She is the woman of prayer and work in Nazareth, and she is also Our Lady of Help, who sets out from her town “with haste” (Lk 1:39) to be of service to others. This interplay of justice and tenderness, of contemplation and concern for others, is what makes the ecclesial community look to Mary as a model of evangelization. We implore her maternal intercession that the Church may become a home for many peoples, a mother for all peoples, and that the way may be opened to the birth of a new world. It is the Risen Christ who tells us, with a power that fills us with confidence and unshakeable hope: “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev 21:5). With Mary we advance confidently towards the fulfilment of this promise, and to her we pray:

Mary, Virgin and Mother,
you who, moved by the Holy Spirit,
welcomed the word of life
in the depths of your humble faith:
as you gave yourself completely to the Eternal One,
help us to say our own “yes”
to the urgent call, as pressing as ever,
to proclaim the good news of Jesus.

Filled with Christ’s presence,
you brought joy to John the Baptist,
making him exult in the womb of his mother.
Brimming over with joy,
you sang of the great things done by God.
Standing at the foot of the cross
with unyielding faith,
you received the joyful comfort of the resurrection,
and joined the disciples in awaiting the Spirit
so that the evangelizing Church might be born.

Obtain for us now a new ardour born of the resurrection,
that we may bring to all the Gospel of life
which triumphs over death.
Give us a holy courage to seek new paths,
that the gift of unfading beauty
may reach every man and woman.



Virgin of listening and contemplation,
Mother of love, Bride of the eternal wedding feast,
pray for the Church, whose pure icon you are,
that she may never be closed in on herself
or lose her passion for establishing God’s kingdom.

Star of the new evangelization,
help us to bear radiant witness to communion,
service, ardent and generous faith,
justice and love of the poor,
that the joy of the Gospel
may reach to the ends of the earth,
illuminating even the fringes of our world.

Mother of the living Gospel,
wellspring of happiness for God’s little ones,
pray for us.

Amen. Alleluia!

Consecration of Russia - has it been done?



  

Be calm and pray.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph!

 



Definitely, Pope John Paul II effected the Consecration in 1984. Sadly, however, it was done late (about six decades), just as Our Lord had said regretfully that it would be:

 

"HE (THE POPE) WILL DO IT BUT IT WILL BE LATE."

 

On another occasion, Our Lord spoke to Sister Lucy. She records the conversation as follows: "LATER ON THROUGH AN INTIMATE COMMUNICATION, OUR LORD COMPLAINED: 'THEY HAVE NOT CHOSEN TO HEED MY REQUEST . . . AS THE KING OF FRANCE THEY WILL REGRET IT AND THEN WILL DO IT, BUT IT WILL BE LATE. RUSSIA WILL ALREADY HAVE SPREAD HER ERRORS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, PROVOKING WARS AND PERSECUTIONS AGAINST THE CHURCH, THE HOLY FATHER WILL HAVE MUCH TO SUFFER'."

 

This contains the answer to the question: “… has the pope consecrated Russia to the BVM?”

By 1984 Russia's errors had ‘already spread’, so that the entire world was now Russia's errors, so to speak. In the 1920's this could not have been the case. So we can't view Fatima in 1984 in the same way as we might have done in the 1920's.

Frits Albers, again, had pressed this latter point, and hence the following became included in our book, The Five First Saturdays (http://amaic2.blogspot.com.au/2008/04/five-first-saturdays-of-our-lady-of.html):

 

1920’s

 

In the 1920’s, Fatima, by the provident Wisdom of God, had not yet been officially approved by the Church. The simple narrative of the events which took place in 1917, though meaning the same as it does today, must of necessity have been viewed from a different perspective by the faithful of that era. When Our Lady and her Divine Child appeared to Lucia at Pontevedra and at Tuy between 1925 and 1929, there had been little by way of positive reaction form the official Church in regard to the Fatima apparitions. This is understandable enough as, outwardly, the Church can never pronounce on a series of apparitions unless the series has been completed, which, as far as the Fatima apparitions are concerned, did not take place until 1929. A notable exception in this regard had been the encouraging letter written by Pope Benedict XV in 1918, in reply to a report by the Portuguese bishops. The Holy Father had informed the bishops on this occasion that he had always hoped that the depressing situation of the Church in Portugal was a passing one, because the ardent devotion of that country to the Immaculate Conception merited for it an extraordinary aid from the Mother of God (Fatima in Lucia’s Own Words, p. 195).

Back in the 1920’s, without the full body of Church teaching on Fatima that we enjoy today, and, yes, even without the strong support of ecclesiastical approbation, Lucia and the other chosen souls of that time were taught by God to build the universal and global destiny of Fatima on prayer and suffering, in the light of Faith and Hope alone; but firmly anchored on the unprecedented public Miracle of the Sun. Like Esther of old, these chosen souls had been called by God to follow Him in tremendous Faith; to trust Him in His apparently impossible demands. They were to be the suffering members of His Mystical Body, at the same time allowing Christ to be the omnipotent Head of that Body, so as to achieve the seemingly impossible: saving the world by hastening the triumph of the Immaculate Heart.

In this way Lucia, and the other chosen souls of the 1920’s era, were called in anticipation of all the subsequent teaching of the Catholic Church, which, ultimately, would make their seemingly impossible Faith look so reasonable.

The historical perspective is a highly important factor for us to keep in mind when looking back on the events which occurred in 1917 and in the 1920’s. Again we find comfort and understanding in the analogy of the drama of Queen Esther, a development which is quite obscure in its early stages, and cannot be fully comprehended until near the end, when it has all been unravelled. Similarly, neither shall we properly unravel the meaning of Fatima if we go no further than studying the early events, up to and including the 1920’s. We must be careful, therefore, not to look at Fatima of 1917, and Fatima of the 1920’s, merely from a 1920’s perspective; otherwise there will be for us a certain strangeness, something enigmatic, about what Lucia was called to do prior to official Church approval of the Fatima apparitions in 1930.

In other words, our restrospective view of Fatima from the vantage point of [today], must consider Fatima in the light of the subsequent decades of Church teaching, from the 1930’s until now, which Lucia naturally did not have in those early days, but that were, of course, known to God. Today, the age of Mary has grown, from a fresh beginning at Fatima in 1917, to a great maturity in our own time, through the action of the Holy Spirit. We live in the age of the second Vatican Council, whose fruits have included a host of Marian initiatives, especially during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. ….

                        [End of quote]

 

The Consecration of Russia, so necessary until, say, 1946 (when Sr. Lucia commented that things were at the stage when “Russia was about to spread her errors throughout the world”), was no longer, by 1984, sufficient alone to stem the tide. Russia’s errors had spread to the ends of the earth. It now had to be the consecration of the entire world (which, of course, included the consecration of Russia) as the great John Paul II had fully realised.

What an unspeakable tragedy that the message of Fatima was not heeded those six decades earlier! We would have been living in a world far more blessed and happy than we do today.

We Catholics have only ourselves to blame.