Third Petition to Pope Francis
Maison Saint-Joseph, Saturday, March 2, 2017,
First Saturday of the month
Most Holy Father,
You give me no replies. I conclude from this, according to the adage: “Silence gives consent,” that you are going to do what the Blessed Virgin demands of you. I, however, am addressing myself to you once again like the widow who keeps bothering the judge in the parable (Lk 18:1-8) whom you quoted as an example: “ If the widow could manage to bend the dishonest judge with her incessant requests, how much more will,” I say to myself, our Holy Father, the Pope, “ who is the good and just Father, ‘vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night,’ moreover, will not ‘delay long over them,’ but will act ‘speedily.’” (Wednesday May 25, 2016)
This I hope for with the confidence that your catecheses on the virtue of hope give me. Hope, the theological virtue of which Our Lady of Fatima is the Mother, Mother of Holy Hope.
Before your accession, we did not meditate enough on hope, we did not live enough on acts of hope, as though we had let us ourselves “ be robbed” of it, to use your words, so true and so eloquent!
We must admit that our Péguy considered it to be a “small” virtue wedged between the great virtues of faith and charity. Since then it has been left lagging somewhat behind. Now that you speak about it every Wednesday, however, it has reclaimed its place, while at the same time renewing our zeal for invoking the Blessed Virgin, our Succour, as Mother of Holy Hope which, as you stated straightaway, “ does not disappoint,” (December 7, 2016).
Mary is the Daughter of Abraham, of whom you reminded us that he had hoped against all hope (December 28.)
For Her part, She was filled with hope throughout Her whole earthly life, in hac lacrimarum valle, in this vale of tears. This hope was dictated by Her unequalled knowledge of the Holy Scriptures.
Because She is the Immaculate Conception, She has the same horror of sin as God Himself and the very movement of Her Immaculate Heart impelled Her to hope for the advent of the promised Saviour, Victor over Satan, to such an extent that She ‘conceived’ Him in Her mind before opening Her womb to Him.
With Sara, Abraham’s wife, She rejoiced in advance at the thought of the coming birth of the child of the promise. While meditating on the account of Rebecca’s encounter with Eliezer, She prepared Herself to receive the visit of the angel Gabriel sent by our dearest heavenly Father, in order to give to the Word, His Son, a Mother-Spouse in Whom He would take flesh, becoming but one flesh with Her. While contemplating Abigail throwing herself in front of David to intercede on behalf of her entire household, She disposed Her Immaculate Heart to be the Refuge of sinners, to Whom God wanted to entrust the whole order of mercy.
Thus, She can read Her Name written by a loving God everywhere in creation, not only on the parchment of Holy Scriptures, but on trees, rocks, boulders, on whatever She can find, even in Her own flesh in which “ the Word became flesh and lived among us.”
Oh! Most Holy Father, at the thought of your pilgrimage to the Cova da Iria that is now drawing near, from our hearts of children of Mary bursts forth praise for the Star of the Sea, for the Morning Star, for the Dawn Who announces the Salvation of the sailor at sea, on the “ morning” of the last times, at the “ dawn” of salvation rising on “ the people who walked in darkness” (Is 9:11), i.e. on ourselves, your children, Most Holy Father! In Fatima, during the past century, the Virgin Mary has been preceding and announcing the Advent of Her Son, as dawn precedes sunrise.
Now, what did She tell us from the first to the sixth and last Apparition, from May 13 to October 13?
“ Pray the Rosary every day, in order to obtain peace for the world, and the end of the war.” (May 13, 1917)
Her confidante gave us the reason for this “commandment”: “ By means of the mysteries that we recall at each decade, the recitation of the Rosary nourishes and increases faith, hope and charity in souls,” Sister Lucy said to us.
“ I want... you to say the Rosary every day.” (June 13,) “ I want ” (July 13,) “ I want ” (August 19.) “ I want:” She, Who says in Heaven “ I want,” obviously expresses the divine Will. That is why Sister Lucy said:
“ This prayer (of the Rosary) is not exclusively Marian; it is also a biblical and Eucharistic prayer, addressed to the Most Holy Trinity. At each decade we recite the ‘Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit’ and the ‘Our Father,’ which Christ taught us to pray so that we might address the Father with confidence. We also recite the ‘Ave Maria,’ which is likewise a prayer of praise and of supplication to God through the intercession of Mary.”
On September 13, Our Lady said: “ Continue to say the Rosary every day to obtain the end of the war.”
She did not say: “If you fight well, if you muster courage.” She said: “ If you say the Rosary,” the condition and primary cause of all blessings in the Church: “ By this insistence,” Sister Lucy explained, “ Our Lady indicates that it is crucial for us to pray in order to obtain the grace of peace between nations, in peoples, families, homes and consciences, and between God and souls.”
She did not say that peace would come from “religious freedom!” on the contrary: it will come from the indefatigable recitation of the Rosary and from nothing else: “ There is no difficulty that we cannot solve through the prayer of the Holy Rosary. It is the only way for arriving at a true and just peace. To obtain it, however, it is necessary to pray!” The only way of praying is the Rosary.
It must be said to your face, Most Holy Father, that your predecessors remained deaf to this call, and the punishment for this indocility was World War II and its consequences to the present-day. Sister Lucy tried in vain to warn Pius XI who remained deaf and blind.
You, on the other hand, experienced the power of the Rosary that you had people recite on September 7, 2013, since the mediation of Russia succeeded in making Bashar Al-Assad destroy his chemical weapons on the 9th. Since then, the deadly war has resumed, but it is all up to you. In 1970, Sister Lucy learned that “ in Argentina there had recently been founded a secular institute, the Association of Our Lady of Fatima, the aim of which is to promote this apostolate (of the Rosary). They gather in squares and say the Rosary with the people; large crowds, it is said. They also go and say it in the hospitals and in the prisons. It is reported that they all pray with an incredible fervour. The bishops are so pleased with all this that the Holy See has allowed their foundresses to come and speak to me about it.”
Today, an Argentinian who has become Pope can fully respond to Sister Lucy’s call, the faithful echo of the call of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She in fact concluded this letter to her confidant, Dom Umberto Maria Pasquale with these words: “ I tell you these things so that you may see the fruits that the Rosary can produce. I believe that with the means God has put into your hands, you can do as much and even more. The Rosary is the most powerful weapon for defending us on the battlefield.
“ I pray for you, that the Lord may grant you sufficient length of life, sufficient strength and courage to bring this apostolate to a successful conclusion.”
This, Most Holy Father, will be the main intention of our jubilee pilgrimage to Fatima, next May, following in your footsteps: to procure that you recommend this reparatory devotion of the First Saturdays of the month. It will encourage the faithful to receive the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion inseparable from the recitation of the Rosary, which is a Eucharistic and Trinitarian prayer. The fifteen minutes of meditation that Our Lady required to be joined to these two Sacraments, makes us understand and savour this. Is it not you in person who said that She is above the Pope? This is what gives me the boldness to dare to entreat you to obey Our Lady, Mother of every one of us, forever! The salvation of souls and world peace are at stake!
Brother Bruno of Jesus-Mary.