St. Josemaria Escriva: A Pilgrim at Fatima

St. Josemaria made many Marian pilgrimages throughout his lifetime, seeking Our Lady’s intercession for his continual conversion and of the whole world.  Today’s meditation commemorates in a special way St. Josemaria’s pilgrimages to Fatima and his personal friendship with Sister Lucia, one of the visionaries of the apparition.  

Fr. Marty Miller offers a brief historical account of St. Josemaria at Fatima and reflects on the message of Our Lady calling us to deeper prayer, conversion, and love for God. 

Listen and reflect on: 

• The message of Our Lady of Fatima 
• The call to prayer and daily conversion 
• Offering sacrifice in reparation 
• Trusting in God through Mary 
• Living the message of Fatima today 

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Transcript

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my Father and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for these days of celebration in the month of May, especially the maternity of our Lady, of your mother and our mother, celebrating motherhood in general as well, in many places throughout the world. Celebrate this month as a month in celebration of motherhood, Mother's Day in many countries during the month of May, of course, and special emphasis and attention to the maternity of Our Lady for all of us Christians. Saint Jose Maria liked to say very much Mother of God and my mother, or Mother of God and our Mother. We are very connected with that sentiment and with that call to have a greater awareness of Mary as our mother. We are aware of during the centuries of there being interventions and moments in the history of the church in which the Blessed Virgin Mary has even made it more clear that she is our mother and that she is praying and constantly vigilant for the well-being of her children on earth, uh, and guiding us to keep close to Jesus or to draw us near to Jesus. And in a way, uh she is mother not of only of all Christians and Catholics in particular, but of uh all peoples, really. Uh Mary is the mother of humanity, uh redeemed in Christ now, as the document of Vatican II, Gaudi Metzpez, says that Christ, through his incarnation, somehow has united himself in his sacred humanities, to the humanity of every person, that we are united to Jesus through our humanity, and to that we have to be very grateful to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who gave Jesus all of his humanity that came from her, and continues to be in heaven, to uh redeem us from heaven. Jesus is there in body and blood and soul and divinity, the right hand of God the Father. Jesus' sacred humanity is present, really present in Holy Communion, in the Blessed Sacrament. Jesus is truly present also in his sacred humanity, in a way, through his mystical body, which is the church. And to this we have to be extra grateful to our lady as an instrument of God, as Mother of God, to share and to unite our humanity with the sacred humanity of Jesus. We know that theologically, Lord, but we have to be reminded of it in a motherly family way. Uh just like our natural mothers, uh human moms, we celebrate this month, at least in the countries of the West, uh United States and Canada. Uh I don't know a lot of the other countries uh and their exact Mother's Day celebrations, but I know in this part of the world Mother's Day is celebrated at some point during May. And you say, well, I always love my mother. I mean, that's uh kind of an automatic uh reaction of who I am as her child. I think about my mom a lot, even if our mothers have already gone to heaven, have completed their journeys. We think about our mothers a lot. We are reminded of their care for us. We have lots of memories stored up that uh as we grow older, we fondly look upon, and even some of the smells of our mom's kitchen or her voice, uh, even if she was kind of upset with us, we in a way, if if we think about that as older persons, and even if our moms are not with us anymore, we still kind of look fondly even upon those corrections and those small uh admonitions that moms lovingly give us because they know we need it. It's not that they want to chide us or something like that, get a joy out of uh ruling over us as our mothers or something like that, uh, but that they really care for us and they know that sometimes we get a bit off track or in the baseball season now, a little bit off base, and we need to keep close to uh the reality of the game we are playing, we need to keep attentive to our next steps. So our lady is really helpful for us as our mother, and she reminds us through history of that, um, especially in the those apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary through history. We don't have time today to go through all of them. But uh the feast day of May 13, and if you're listening to this edition on May 13, this episode, well, you and I are celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, which is a relatively recent, uh just over a hundred-year event in which the Blessed Virgin Mary made it very clear to the church and to the world that she was watching over us, that she cared very much for our spiritual, emotional, and physical health, uh even social health, right? Because as we'll consider Mary, our Lady of Fatima, warned a lot about and asked us to pray very much for world peace, which is continued intention for the church in these days, and to pray for peace and to um pray for conversion of those who wage war, of those who are at the time were spreading errors uh throughout the world and doing a lot of political violence and these kinds of things through the communist revolutions at the time in Russia and Mexico, and then later in Spain and other parts of the world. Uh, and even then, of course, the uh the calamities of World War II and everything, Our Lady was warning us against the dangers of not turning to God and to pray for peace and to trust our lives and our efforts to God. And she did so in a very strong way through the apparitions of Our Lady Fatima. But it was it was also in a very loving way, in a very motherly way. Um, these kinds of warnings of the secrets of Fatima that were revealed to the children. Um I'm not a particular specialist in the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima. Personally, I've I've not been there yet. I hope to go one day to pray at the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, but I try to put into practice, as I'm sure you do too, try to put into practice the basics of the teachings of Fatima, which were to pray the rosary, to be devoted to Our Lady, uh, to uh try to live some sort of devotions up to Our Lady on set on the first Saturdays of the month. Um and you can look at a website, uh, a couple of websites about those devotions. They're trying to promote those devotions on first Saturdays more in some parishes, and there's some very good people promoting those devotions. Um and and praying for peace, and uh, and above all, uh, which seems to be the general message of all the apparitions of Our Lady to the world, is prayer and conversion, right? To turn to God in prayer, to turn away from selfishness and sin. It's the basic dynamic that Mary teaches us as a mother throughout history, uh, as our own mothers would tell us, you know, hey, you know, stop being bad. Start being good, try to be good, stop, stop being bad. So, I mean, it's kind of the same dynamic of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Turn away from sin, turn to Jesus, turn to God, turn to the life of faith, not the life of yourselves and your your just your own pursuits and things like that. So uh in that way, the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima were very much in the uh consistence consistently uh line, lined up with with previous uh uh appearances of Our Lady for different reasons throughout history. And so we we celebrate today that motherly care that Mary has for us. Perhaps we look at today being also uh consideration in the month of May, the our overall devotion to Mary, and of course, this episode of the podcast of the St. Jose Maria Institute, we can look at a little bit the uh devotion uh St. Jose Maria had toward Our Lady of Fatima in particular. Um within the context of his overall devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was immense, which was great, and as big as his devotion to Mary was, was greater his love for Jesus, because the more he loved our lady, the more he loved the Lord Jesus, which is the this is the proper order, the proper dynamic to live there, to to know and love Jesus more in a particular way through the intercession of Mary, through the leadership of Mary, through the motherly care of Mary. Uh it is true we call out to you, Jesus, directly from our in our prayer, in our hearts and in our minds. We do that frequently too. So it's not like it always has to be, you know, a sort of Marian intervention at all times, uh, because we we are free to address the three persons of the Blessed Trinity through the sacred humanity of Christ. We reach out to God the Father, who loves us as the greatest of our fathers, could could ever be, uh, and the Holy Spirit who guides us in the church day after day is all-knowing, all-powerful, inspires us day after day. So we have uh a contemplative and a real relationship with all the three plus persons of the Blessed Trinity. But I bet if you peel it back a little bit in your own personal, you can consider this in your own personal prayer today, that if you peel it back a little bit, you will see, as I do too, that somehow our lady is involved in all of those aspects. You know, she is daughter of God the Father, mother of God the Son, spouse of God the Holy Spirit, as stands to reason because Mary, conceived without original sin and assumed into heaven, is given the life in Christ as the greatest of all saints and queen of heaven, to have particular intercessory power for all the faithful and to continue to guide us. And so we shouldn't be surprised at that. But also always kind of a little bit in the background, like during the Easter season, we pray that uh Mary is is we we pray to her as mother of God, mother of the church, mother of the apostles, but we don't see her in the Acts of the Apostles, other than right at the beginning on the day of Pentecost where she is present with the apostles. Did the Blessed Virgin Mary ever say anything else? Of course she did. Uh did she did she comment on aspects of the apostles how they were doing? Probably, you know, at some point giving them some advice or giving them some encouragement. We just don't have it written down. Um but we know that she's present. I think it's overall, that's a it's kind of a summary of Marian devotion for us Catholics, is that we have a constant awareness and appeal to our lady, but but without somehow distracting us and just the opposite of drawing us closer to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's the whole point of Marian devotion. It's the whole point of the rosary, for example, as St. John Paul II said, that the rosary is more than anything a Christological meditation on the life of Jesus. It's not just a devotional prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but it actually, those mysteries of the rosary, the meditation on the words of the Bible and the Hail Mary and the Our Father, they lead us to a deeper meditation on the life of Jesus. So I know that uh those who pray the rosary in a month of May is a great time. If you don't have a big habit of praying the rosary, just to pick it up and start praying the rosary more regularly. And you will find, as did St. Jose Maria and all the other uh saints who prayed the rosary devoutly, that the rosary led them to Jesus. It leads us to Jesus. And so getting back to St. Jose Maria's devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, um, he went to Fatima a number of times. The first time was at the behest of one of the little girls, the shepherd girls, who survived uh the the apparitions uh and the time uh afterwards, because perhaps as you know, that the brother and sister Francisco and Jacinta Marta, they were two of the uh sheoung shepherds, they died shortly after 1917. But Sister Lucia, she she lived to 2005. Amazing, huh? So she lived uh quite a long life. Uh she's venerable, she is not uh declared blessed yet. She's in a way a contemporary still of us, making it into the 2000s. Well, she was when she was a contemplative nun, she reached out uh to St. José Maria and asked him about coming to Portugal and Fatima in the early days of Opus Day, and to uh come and and and and visit with her and uh bring the message of the sanctification of ordinary work, the formation activities of Opus Day. She was instrumental in helping those getting more started uh in Portugal at the time. So uh St. Josemaria, he said, no, maybe in a few years. No, he did not say that. Okay, no, he he went right away to go see. I'm just joking, sorry, shouldn't joke about those kinds of things, perhaps. But no, he went right away and uh made a uh pilgrimage to Fatima for the first time on February 6, 1945. Uh he went to visit Sister Lucia, who at the time was living in Spain, but uh then soon moved to Portugal herself into the Carmelite Monastery there at Coimbra. And St. José Maria was then facilitated his uh visit, the Fanama um first Fanima visit, and as well as um helping to make arrangements, however, those are made, to begin and start to uh have the activities of Opus Day start in in Portugal. And so that's a great thing, you know, as our as this St. Jose Maria liked to say that Our Lady opened the doors uh of the work to Portugal and uh considered that a very nice intervention uh for his part of Our Lady. Um but that's not the only reason that he had such a devotion to Our Lady Fatima. Um of course uh that was 20, 30 years later, after the uh apparitions in 1917, uh and you know, in night up until 1945, St. Jose Maria had suffered a lot of violence himself in Spain, um, and then difficulties throughout that uh in the early efforts to get the uh apostolic works of Opus Day going, to have it understood by uh ecclesiastical authorities at the time, to help find people, to find vocations for people who would then do the work of Opus Day in in Spain and eventually in Rome and eventually in places like Portugal and throughout the world. So these were the earliest, earliest days. You know, St. José Maria received the light of the founding of Opiste in October 2nd, 1928, um nine years after Fatima. And then you it began kind of a period of of hard work and really of suffering and and then uh of opposition and eventually persecution of the church in Spain, and and so he knew suffering, and he knew that Our Lady of Fatima w had predicted what you know what really transpired. Um and maybe he thought, well, it would even be worse if we weren't praying the rosary. Those of us who are praying the rosary, maybe it could even be worse. And the uh the world had was going through world the ends of World War II there in 1945, and and had gone through massive uh destructions and violence and persecutions and different forms of of genetic uh uh cleansing and racism and the Holocaust and and all the all the just the mess and the and the the uh horrors of of totalitarianism and and the fight against it and all the violence, all these things that were a part of the reality of those times. So St. Rosie Maria was very aware of this and and I imagine very grateful to Our Lady to not only have spared him physically, uh he had almost lost his life a number of times in those years, during those persecutions um as a martyr, but he was spared. And and so and so was Opus Day. You know, Opus Day had survived all of that uh difficulty and persecution of the church and and the the the violence and the confusion, um the vocations that had come, some had gone, uh even things like the destruction of property, you know, at the early center, the work had been destroyed uh during the uh Spanish Civil War. Uh you know, it seemed like everything was, you know, re as far as resources, physical and financial resources were you know impossible. And yet uh the the faith of St. Jose Maria uh and the faith of the Christians who made it through the had made it through the uh persecutions of those communist uh wars and the sp um revolutions and things that were by no means over in 1945, of course, but at least that wave had sort of was coming to a close with the with the end of World War II and everything, that he must have been just sort of amazed at the intervention of Our Lady and how she had looked after him and protected him personally through throughout all of that, and had protected the the life of the work through the and and the apostolates of the work and the the good doctrine that had been uh preserved during that time of persecution. And so I think more than anything he went to Fatima in the first, probably in that first pilgrimage out of gratitude, out of thanksgiving to the intervention. And protection of Our Lady over the work. And looking forward to the beginnings and the continuation of the apostolates in Portugal and throughout the rest of the world. But in humility, right, as a pilgrim, as someone who realizes that this is, I'm in charge of something that God has given me to carry out, like the apostles or like other saints throughout the ages who had to do this, they realized that it was not just up to their own abilities or virtues, but it was going to depend on divine intervention. St. Jose Maria would visit quite a few times Fatima. I don't have the exact number. I think it's somewhere around nine or ten times that he he went to visit Our Lady of Fatima. And uh but I but I don't I'm not sure about that. Lord help us to to see that uh well, any chance that we have to be close to our lady is a is a great chance and a great opportunity. Um in the earliest days they say that uh their the road system was not that developed, and so it was it was very hard, you know, and uh and St. Jose Maria was in a car and they were getting to the sanctuary area, and he was amazed at all the people on foot who were walking or who are walking on their knees, as they do sometimes on in pilgrimage. And so he was very moved by all of that, that simple piety and openness of of those people. Uh I think the the fact that Our Lady of Fatima revealed the messages of such magnitude and uh worldwide import, I guess you could say, uh, to three little shepherd children who it's not clear if they were even able to write or read. I'm not I'm not sure. Sister Lucia obviously later was able to read and write as she as she got older and went to went into a form of uh of uh education and everything. But uh maybe at the time they didn't even know how to read and write very well as as farming kids, as shepherd kids. And you think, wow, how you think the magnitude of that message, right? The the basics of the message of Our Lady of Fatima, right? To to uh pray for the conversion of sinners, to pray the rosary frequently, even every day, to pray for the church, to pray for souls who are being lost unless they live, unless they are converted. Um, and she even showed at one point during one of the uh revelations, uh, the personal revelations she offered was a vision of hell that were shown to the three children. The reality of purgatory, uh that um Our Lady assured the uh the kids that a friend of theirs who had died uh was not in hell, but was in purgatory and would remain in purgatory until the end of time, um, which is consoling, but yet at the same time kind of scary, right? To think, well, a friend of theirs was going to be in purgatory until the end of time, according to that conversation that Mary had with the children, the conversion of Russia, right? And so like you're basically asking the kids to pray for the overturning of the communist ideology throughout the world, especially in Russia, of overcoming atheism. I mean, these are these are massive problems, these are massive uh ideologies and efforts to to make. You say three little kids, what I mean, what what are they going to be able to do, right? As far as overcoming the uh communist revolutions in Russia or in different places, how are the wars, you know, pray the end of war and things. Uh well, it is mysterious. It's a mystery. Why, well the simple uh people are given these revelations of such great magnitude and worldwide and universal import. But I think I'd like to, as we kind of end this meditation, I would like to have you think about it a bit more. You know, Jesus said these things are revealed to the babes, right, the children, not to the wise, right? Uh the things of the gospel, the things of the of heaven are revealed to those who are simple. And it is showed, I think, among other things, that our lady is to remind us, she reminds us by by giving us these really hard tasks, like she gave these children this these tasks that were so overwhelmingly, you know, humanly speaking, impossible, to show that it is God's, it is God's will that it is will be done. He can He can He can call anyone He wants to do His His will. That could be you or me for whatever we may be asked to do, be asked to have done as well. And that through a motherly way that God God has confidence in us, that we can do this, you can do this, you know? And just like the kids who just yeah, they basically pulled out their rosaries and started praying the rosary, right? And they it if they began uh before Our Lady of Fatima, they would sort of pray a shorter version of the rosary and they'd get on to other games. But after uh the in the after the appearances of Our Lady, you you you can bet, and it is true, that they started praying the full rosary, you know, all the way through and everything. So uh and encouraged others, you know, to pray that, you know, no shortcuts. I mean, you pray the whole rosary, right? You know, they were going, yes, this is for this is for great intentions, you know. So they started right away, you know, that and that God would give them the graces, whatever they needed to do. They even, you know, in one of the apparitions uh uh of the six times that the Blessed Virgin Mary visited the children, one of the times was not on the 13th of the month, it was in August, but I believe it was on the 19th of the month. It's because they were in jail. The kids had been put in jail because they were trying to stop them from going to the place where they were had been receiving these revelations. So they put them in a kind of a holding tank. And uh, and our lady appeared to them there, you know, a couple days later. So, you know, to remind him, no, you you can do this, even if it's hard, even if it's, you know, people are against you and everything, you can you can keep praying and you you'll carry out this great mission. Of course, Francisco and Jacinta Marta were Marta were uh beatified, and um then they were canonized in the year uh 2000. Um and uh and then no, I'm sorry, they were beatified in the year 2000, and they were canonized in the year uh 2017, on the 100th anniversary of the first appearance of Our Lady of Fatima, May 13, 2017, by uh Pope Francis. So that that's great, you know, that they Our Lady really called them to be saints, to do God's will, to do what was humanly impossible, and then help them to carry it out. And while Sister Lucia lived to be um quite old, she lived to be uh to the year 2005, she's now venerable, and we can, I think, be sure that she will be beatified and then canonized also a saint for her time of continued prayer, reminding the world uh as a messenger of the of the messages of Fatima, um, especially the most obvious ones and the ones that our lady wanted to be uh promoted throughout the world, the the ones we have covered in this meditation. And we pray for the continued devotion to our lady of Fatima. We pray for the continued uh intentions of peace, of prayer, and of penance. Perhaps you could look at those as the three P's of Fatima peace, prayer, and penance. Uh, and all of that leading to a greater joy and presence of God in our lives. There's your there's our fourth P, the presence of God in our lives through the constant concern, attention, and motherly care of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and as well the saints who have had devotion to her have been drawn closer to Jesus and to the mission they have been given and inspire us in that way as well. I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations you communicated to me in this meditation. I ask your help to put them into effect. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.