In his address, the Holy Father stressed the value of the Solemnity celebrated by the Church on 8 December, that of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, according to which Mary was never touched by original sin and evil. This dogma was proclaimed in 1854, a few years before the apparitions in Lourdes, where the “Lady” described her as the “Immaculate Conception”.

“Sadly, every day we experience evil,” the Pontiff said, “which manifests itself in many ways in relationships and events, but is rooted in the heart of man, a wounded and sick heart, incapable of healing itself. The Holy Scriptures tell us that disobedience to the will of God is the origin of each evil and that death has taken over because human freedom has succumbed to the temptation of the Evil One. However, God does not fail in his plan of love and life. Through a slow and patient journey of reconciliation he has prepared a new and everlasting covenant, sealed by the blood of his Son who, to offer himself in atonement, was “born of a woman” (Gal 4:4). This woman, the Virgin Mary, benefited in advance from the redeeming death of her Son for she was preserved from the contagion of guilt since conception. Therefore, with her immaculate heart, she tells us: Trust in Jesus, He will save you!”

The Pope went on to explain the meaning of the title “Full of Grace” the Church uses when addressing Mary in the Hail Mary (Ave Maria) prayer. “This expression, so familiar [to us] since infancy because we repeat it every time we recite the Hail Mary, offers us the explanation for the mystery we celebrate today. In fact, Mary, since the moment her parents conceived her, was the object of a singular preference on the part of God, who, in his eternal design, chose her to be the mother of his Son, who was made man, and consequently preserved her from original sin. Therefore, the Angel spoke to her using this name, which literally means to ‘be always filled with God’s love and grace’.”

Before reciting the Angelus prayer and greeting various groups, Benedict XVI reminded those present that at 4 pm (CET) he would be in Piazza di Spagna for the traditional tribute to the statue of the Immaculate that is located at the top of the column that overlooks the square.

“With this act of devotion,” the Pontiff said, “I speak for the love of the faithful of Rome and the world for the Mother who gave us Christ. I entrust to her intercession the most urgent needs of the Church and the world. May she help us especially have faith in God, believe in his Word, always reject evil and choose what is good.”

“Mary, as I see it, pointed out at Fatima that these things were going to happen,” said Fr. Andrew Apostoli, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal and the author of “Fatima For Today” (Ignatius Press, $19.95), in an interview one day before the 94th anniversary of the last apparition in the Portuguese city.

“She said that an evil will begin in Russia, and will spread its errors around the world,” Fr. Apostoli noted, recalling Mary's words in 1917.

“Those errors – an atheistic form of government, life, and society – have come upon us now, in the form of secularism, and the attack on life, the family, and religious freedom.”

Mary's appearance on October 13, 1917, included one of the most dramatic public miracles of modern times, a well-documented event known today as the “Miracle of the Sun.” On that day, 70,000 people watched as the sun appeared to make three circles and “dance” in the sky in a zig-zag pattern.

Five months before, the mother of Christ had first appeared to three children to make a series of requests and predictions about prayer, penance, war and peace. The solar miracle accompanied her last appearance, for the benefit of those in doubt.

The Virgin also spoke of suffering for the Church and an assault on the Pope. Blessed John Paul II, who was wounded by an assassin in 1981, later performed a public consecration of the world that many people, including Fr. Apostoli, say fulfilled Mary's request for the Pope to consecrate Russia to her.

Fr. Apostoli told EWTN News that Bl. John Paul II repeatedly stressed the importance of the message of Fatima – a call to conversion, prayer, and penance – during his pontificate, as he saw the Church entering a “life-and-death struggle” involving billions of souls.

“In 1976, even before he became the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II stated that the Catholic Church is involved in the greatest spiritual struggle of her 2,000 year history,” Fr. Apostoli recalled.

“And he said that what's at stake is not one nation, or one facet of life, but the entire Christian culture is at stake in this struggle. It's a struggle between the Gospel and the anti-Gospel, between the Church and the anti-Church.”

The Franciscan priest noted that the recently-beatified Pope continued to speak of this struggle between “truth and anti-truth” after his election – particularly after the attempt on his life, which came on the May 13 anniversary of Mary's first appearance in Fatima.

“Before he made the consecration in 1984,” Fr. Apostoli recalled, “he made the statement that Fatima is more important today, than it was in 1917.”

In the time since that papal pronouncement, virtually every historically Catholic country in Western Europe has embraced an attitude of indifference or hostility to religion. Today, several of those traditional Catholic homelands, including Portugal, appear headed for financial and demographic ruin.

“I was talking about somebody who's into finances, when I was over in Europe,” Fr. Apostoli recalled. “He told me it's unavoidable – there's going to be a great crisis, financially.”

Fr. Apostoli recently returned from Ireland, where a million people waited to see Bl. John Paul II during his visit in 1979. The author of “Fatima for Today” said that during his own recent trip, “one lady there even told me that Ireland's probably the most anti-Catholic country in the world now.”

In Europe, and increasingly the U.S., the Fatima expert sees a spread of the “errors” that seized Russia in 1917, especially atheism.

Even the anti-Christian French Revolution had publicly acknowledged a “Supreme Being,” whereas Russian Communism went further by making atheism state policy.

The United States, Fr. Apostoli said, “would never have accepted communism if it had that label on it, directly. America would have opposed that.”

“But that's being broken down, and we're gradually getting many things that were a part of communism.”

“Pope Benedict has said that a wind has come over Western Europe, over North America, and has brought a darkness which prevents people from being able to tell right from wrong, truth from distortions,” Fr. Apostoli observed.

“We don't have the secret police, coming into our houses and arresting us for saying the Rosary – we don't have that. But gradually, all of our religious rights are being taken away. Things that we support as part of the moral teaching of Christ are being suppressed, and things are being forced upon us.”

“They'll say, 'Oh, you can worship any way you want, but don't bring it into the public square. Leave it in church on Sunday, and don't bring it to work on Monday. Don't bring it into society.'”

“That, to me, is a sign of communism.”

U.S. bishops' conference president Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, the local bishop of Fr. Apostoli's own community, agrees with the friar about the spread of aggressive secularism.

The archbishop and the rest of the bishops’ conference recently established a national committee to monitor threats to religious freedom, saying it was “increasingly and in unprecedented ways under assault in America.”

Archbishop Dolan cited several alarming cases in his letter establishing the committee – including the proposed federal contraception mandate, the Obama administration's moves toward redefining marriage, and a Justice Department attack on churches' self government in the Supreme Court.

“In some countries, even to speak against homosexuality will become a 'hate crime,'” Fr. Apostoli predicted. “It's not a hate crime, it's speaking about what we believe is right and wrong. But we're going to be muzzled by that.”

Fr. Apostoli noted that as official atheism grows, so does the importance of Our Lady of Fatima's message – which involves daily prayer of the Rosary, personal sanctification, reparation for offenses against God, and the practice of attending Mass on the first Saturday of five consecutive months.

“This message is not over,” Fr. Apostoli stated. “Our Lady said that the Rosary can stop wars, and can bring world peace. We have to do what she said, and live good lives.”

“There's no other plan from Heaven that's so specific, for what we're going through now. She spelled it out. Prayer, penance, the 'First Five Saturdays' devotion – and live a good, holy life. That's the answer.”

During World War I Pope Benedict XV made repeated but forlorn pleas for peace, and finally, in May 1917, made a direct appeal to Mary to intercede for peace in the world. The response was Mary's first appearance at Fatima just over a week later. At this time Fatima was just a small village about seventy miles north of Lisbon; the three children to whom she appeared were Lucia dos Santos, aged ten, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, brother and sister, aged eight and seven respectively.

The proclamation of a public miracle caused the most intense speculation throughout Portugal, and the journalist Avelino de Almeida, published a satirical article on the whole business in the anti-religious newspaper O Seculo. People from other parts of the country descended, in their tens of thousands, on the Cova, despite the terrible storm that lashed the mountain country around Fatima, on the eve of the 13th. Many pilgrims went barefooted, reciting the rosary as they went, all crowding into the area around the Cova, as by midmorning the weather again turned bad and heavy rain began to fall.

The children reached the holmoak around noon, and then saw the flash of light as Mary appeared before them. For the last time, Lucia asked what she wanted: "I want to tell you that a chapel is to be built here in my honour. I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day. The war is going to end, and the soldiers will soon return to their homes."

Again Lucia made her requests, being informed that people must amend their lives, and ask forgiveness of their sins, if they wanted healings or conversions. She reported too that Mary grew very sad and said: "Do not offend the Lord our God any more, because He is already so much offended." Then rising into the air and opening her hands towards the sun, growing more brilliant as she did, she disappeared, being replaced by various visions seen only by the children.

The Miracle of the Sun

At the same time the vast crowd saw a true miracle. The black clouds parted, and the sun became visible, looking like a dull grey disc that could be looked at directly quite easily. In O Seculo Avelino de Almeida would adopt a very different tone from his earlier satirical article on Fatima:

"...one could see the immense multitude turn towards the sun, which appeared free from clouds and at its zenith. It looked like a plaque of dull silver and it was possible to look at it without the least discomfort. It might have been an eclipse which was taking place. But at that moment a great shout went up and one could hear the spectators nearest at hand shouting: "A miracle! A miracle!" Before the astonished eyes of the crowd, whose aspect was Biblical as they stood bareheaded, eagerly searching the sky, the sun trembled, made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws - the sun "danced" according to the typical expression of the people. ...

"People then began to ask each other what they had seen. The great majority admitted to having seen the trembling and dancing of the sun; others affirmed that they saw the face of the Blessed Virgin; others, again, swore that the sun whirled on itself like a giant Catherine wheel and that it lowered itself to the earth as if to burn it with its rays. Some said they saw it change colours successively. ..."

Other witnesses too, such as Maria Carreira, testified to the terrifying nature of the solar miracle: "It turned everything different colours, yellow, blue, white, and it shook and trembled; it seemed like a wheel of fire which was going to fall on the people. They cried out: 'We shall all be killed, we shall all be killed!' ... At last the sun stopped moving and we all breathed a sigh of relief. We were still alive and the miracle which the children had foretold had taken place."

Other people witnessed the solar miracle from a distance thus ruling out the possibility of any type of collective hallucination. A final intriguing, and important, point was that the heat of the sun, as it descended on the people, also had the effect of drying their clothes and the ground, so that they went from being completely soaked to being dry in about ten minutes. [original post]

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St. Fauastina Kowalska
Divine Mercy in My Soul