Holy Mass at the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Fatima (13 May 1982)

On Thursday, 13 May 1982, the Holy Father celebrated Holy Mass at the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Fatima. In his homily, the Pope  reflected on Our Lord's words from the Cross, entrusting His Mother to the Apostle John, “And from that moment the disciple took her into his home” ( Jn 19:27).  

1. “And from that moment the disciple took her into his home” ( Jn 19:27).

With these words the Gospel of today's liturgy in Fatima closed. The disciple's name was John. He himself, John, son of Zebedee, apostle and evangelist, heard the words of Christ from the top of the cross: "Behold your mother". Before him, however, Christ had said to his Mother: "Woman, here is your son".

This was a wonderful testament.

Leaving this world, Christ gave his Mother a man who was like a son to her: John. He entrusted it to her. And, as a consequence of this gift and this trust, Mary became the mother of John. The Mother of God became the mother of man.

From that hour John "took her into his home" and became the earthly guardian of the Mother of his Master; it is in fact the right and duty of children to take care of their mother. Above all, however, John became, by the will of Christ, the son of the Mother of God. And in John, every man became her son.

2. “He took her home” can also mean, literally, in his home.

A particular manifestation of Mary's motherhood towards men are the places in which she meets them; the houses in which she lives; homes in which a particular presence of the Mother is felt.

Such places and such houses are very numerous. And they are of a great variety: from the shrines in homes or along the streets, in which the image of the Mother of God shines, to the chapels and churches built in honor of her. However, there are some places in which men feel the Mother's presence particularly alive. Sometimes these places radiate their light widely, attracting people from afar. Their reach can extend to a diocese, an entire nation, sometimes multiple nations and even multiple continents. These are the Marian Sanctuaries.

In all these places that singular testament of the Crucified Lord is realized in a wonderful way: man feels delivered and entrusted to Mary; man flocks there to be with her as with his own Mother; the man opens his heart to her and talks to her about everything about her: “he takes it from her in her house”, that is, all her problems, sometimes difficult ones, inside her. Own and other people's problems. Problems of families, of societies, of nations, of all humanity.

3. Isn't this the case with the Sanctuary of “Lourdes” in nearby France? Isn't “Jasna Góra” on Polish soil, the Sanctuary of my Nation, which celebrates its six hundred year jubilee this year?

It seems that there too, as in many other Marian sanctuaries scattered throughout the world, these words from today's liturgy resonate with a force of particular authenticity:
"You splendid honor of our people" ( Jdt 15.10), and also the others:
" Faced with the humiliation of our race /... you relieved our despondency / by behaving righteously before our God” ( Jdt 13.20).

These words resonate in Fatima as a particular echo of the experiences not only of the Portuguese nation, but also of many other nations and peoples found on the globe: indeed, they are the echo of the experience of all contemporary humanity, of all the human family.

4. I therefore come here today because precisely on this day last year, in St. Peter's Square in Rome, the attempt on the Pope's life occurred, mysteriously coinciding with the anniversary of the first apparition in Fatima, which took place on the 13th May 1917.

These dates met each other in such a way that I seemed to recognize in them a special calling to come here. And behold, today I am here. I have come to thank Divine Providence in this place which the Mother of God seems to have chosen so particularly. “Misericordiae Domini, quia non sumus consumpti” ( Lam 3,22), I repeat once again with the prophet.

I have come above all to confess here the glory of God himself:
"Blessed be the Lord God who created heaven and earth", I say with the words of today's liturgy ( Jdt 13,18).

And towards the Creator of heaven and earth I also raise that special hymn of glory, which is herself, the Immaculate Mother of the Incarnate Word:
“Blessed are you, daughter, before the Most High God more than all the women who live on earth ...

Truly the courage that supported you will not fall from the hearts of men who will forever remember the power of God. May God grant a happy outcome to this undertaking to your perennial exaltation" ( Jdt 13,18-20).

At the basis of this song of praise, which the Church joyfully raises here as in many places on earth, lies the incomparable choice of a daughter of the human race as Mother of God.

And therefore let God be adored above all: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Blessed and venerated be Mary, type of the Church, as "home of the Holy Trinity".

5. From the time when Jesus, dying on the cross, said to John: “Behold your Mother”; since the time when "the disciple took her into her house", the mystery of Mary's spiritual motherhood has had its fulfillment in history with boundless breadth. Motherhood means concern for the life of her child. Now, if Mary is the mother of all men, her concern for man's life is universal in scope. A mother's concern embraces the whole man. Mary's motherhood has its beginning in her maternal care for Christ. In Christ she accepted John under the cross and, in him, she accepted every man and the whole man. Mary embraces everyone with particular concern in the Holy Spirit. It is in fact he, as we profess in our "Creed", who "gives life". It is he who gives the fullness of life open towards eternity.

Mary's spiritual motherhood is therefore participation in the power of the Holy Spirit, of He who "gives life". It is at the same time the humble service of She who says of herself: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord" ( Lk 1:38).

In light of the mystery of Mary's spiritual motherhood, let us try to understand the extraordinary message, which began to resonate in the world from Fatima on May 13, 1917 and lasted for five months until October 13 of the same year.

6. The Church has always taught and continues to proclaim that the revelation of God is brought to completion in Jesus Christ, who is its fullness, and that "no other public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of the Lord" ( Dei Verbum , 4). The Church evaluates and judges private revelations according to the criterion of their conformity with this single public Revelation.

If the Church has accepted the message of Fatima it is above all because it contains a truth and a call, which in their fundamental content are the truth and call of the Gospel itself.

“Repent (do penance) and believe the Gospel” ( Mk 1:15), these are the first words of the Messiah addressed to humanity. The message of Fatima is at its fundamental core the call to conversion and penance, as in the Gospel. This call was made at the beginning of the 20th century, and, therefore, it has been particularly addressed to this century. The Lady of the message seems to read with a special perspicacity the "signs of the times", the signs of our time.

The appeal to penance is maternal and, at the same time, strong and decisive. The charity that "rejoices in the truth" ( 1 Cor 13.6) knows how to be frank and decisive. The call to penance is combined, as always, with the call to prayer. In accordance with the tradition of many centuries, the Lady of the Fatima message indicates the "Rosary", which can rightly be defined as "Mary's prayer": the prayer in which She feels particularly united with us. She herself prays with us. With this prayer we embrace the problems of the Church, of the See of Saint Peter, the problems of the whole world. Furthermore, sinners are remembered, so that they may convert and be saved, and the souls in purgatory.

The words of the message were addressed to children aged 7 to 10 years. Children, like Bernadette of Lourdes, are particularly privileged in these apparitions of the Mother of God.

Hence the fact that his language is also simple, suitable for their understanding. The children of Fatima became the interlocutors of the Lady of the message and also her collaborators. One of them is still alive.

7. When Jesus said on the Cross: “Woman, behold your son” ( Jn 19:26) – in a new way he opened the heart of his Mother, the Immaculate Heart, and revealed to her the new dimension of love and the new scope of love, to which she was called in the Holy Spirit with the strength of the sacrifice of the Cross.

In the words of Fatima we seem to find precisely this dimension of maternal love, which with its ray includes the entire path of man towards God: the one that leads through the earth, and the one that goes, through purgatory, beyond the earth. The concern of the Mother of the Savior is the concern for the work of salvation: the work of her Son. It is concern for salvation, for the eternal salvation of all men. As we now mark 65 years since that May 13, 1917, it is difficult not to see how this saving love of the Mother embraces our century in a particular way.

In the light of maternal love we understand the entire message of the Lady of Fatima. What most directly opposes man's path towards God is sin, persevering in sin, and, finally, the denial of God. The planned cancellation of God from the world of human thought. The detachment from him of all earthly activity of man. Man's rejection of God.

In reality the eternal salvation of man is only in God. The rejection of God by man, if it becomes definitive, logically leads to the rejection of man by God (cf. Mt 7.23; 10.33 ), damnation.

Can the Mother, who with all the power of her love, which she nourishes in the Holy Spirit, desires the salvation of every man, remain silent on what undermines the very foundations of this salvation? No, she can't!

For this reason, the message of the Lady of Fatima, so maternal, is at the same time so strong and decisive. It seems severe. It is as if John the Baptist spoke on the banks of the Jordan. Invites to penance. She warns. She calls for prayer. She recommends the Rosary.

This message is aimed at every man. The love of the Mother of the Savior reaches wherever the work of salvation reaches. The object of her concern are all the men of our era, and together societies, nations and peoples. Societies threatened by apostasy, threatened by moral degradation. The collapse of morality brings with it the collapse of societies.

8. Christ said on the Cross: “Woman, behold your son.” With these words he opened, in a new way, the Heart of his Mother. Shortly afterwards, the Roman soldier's spear pierced the side of the Crucifix.

That pierced Heart became the sign of the redemption accomplished through death by the Lamb of God.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary, opened by the word: "Woman, behold your son", meets spiritually with the Heart of the Son opened by the soldier's spear. Mary's Heart was opened by the same love for man and for the world with which Christ loved man and the world, offering himself for them on the Cross, until that blow of the soldier's spear.

Consecrating the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means drawing us closer, through the intercession of the Mother, to the same Source of Life, which flowed on Golgotha. This Source continually gushes forth with redemption and grace. Reparation for the sins of the world is continually accomplished in it. It is incessantly a source of new life and holiness.

Consecrating the world to the Immaculate Heart of the Mother means returning under the Cross of the Son. More: it means consecrating this world to the pierced Heart of the Savior, bringing it back to the very source of his Redemption. Redemption is always greater than the sin of man and the "sin of the world". The power of Redemption infinitely surpasses the entire range of evil, which is in man and in the world.

The Heart of the Mother is aware of this, like no other in the entire cosmos, visible and invisible.

And that's why he calls.

She calls not only to conversion, she calls us to help us, Mother, to return to the source of Redemption.

9. Consecrating ourselves to Mary means being helped by her to offer ourselves and humanity to "He who is Holy", infinitely Holy; be helped by her - resorting to her Motherly Heart, open under the cross to love towards every man, towards the whole world - to offer the world, and man, and humanity, and all nations, to Him who is infinitely Holy. The holiness of God was manifested in the redemption of man, of the world, of all humanity, of the nations: redemption which occurred through the Sacrifice of the Cross. “For them I consecrate myself,” Jesus said ( Jn 17:19).

With the power of redemption the world and man have been consecrated. They were consecrated to Him who is infinitely Holy. They were offered and entrusted to Love itself, to merciful Love.

The Mother of Christ calls us and invites us to join the Church of the living God in this consecration of the world, in this entrustment through which the world, humanity, the nations, all individual men are offered to the Eternal Father with the power of the Redemption of Christ. They are offered in the Heart of the Redeemer pierced on the Cross.

The Mother of the Redeemer calls us, invites us and helps us to join this consecration, this entrustment of the world. In fact, then we will find ourselves as close as possible to the Heart of Christ pierced on the Cross.

10. The content of the Lady of Fatima's appeal is so deeply rooted in the Gospel and in all of Tradition that the Church feels committed to this message.

She responded to it with the Servant of God Pius XII (whose episcopal ordination took place precisely on 13 May 1917), who wanted to consecrate the human race and especially the peoples of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. With that consecration did he not perhaps satisfy the evangelical eloquence of the Fatima appeal?

The Second Vatican Council, in the dogmatic constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium and in the pastoral constitution on the Church in the contemporary world Gaudium et Spes , extensively illustrated the reasons for the bond that unites the Church with today's world. At the same time, his teaching on the particular presence of Mary in the mystery of Christ and the Church matured in the act with which Paul VI, also calling Mary "Mother" of the Church, indicated in a more profound way the character of her union with the Church, and of her concern for the world, for humanity, for every man, for all nations: her motherhood.

In this way, the understanding of the meaning of consecration has deepened even further, which the Church is called to do by resorting to the help of the Heart of the Mother of Christ and our Mother.

11. With what does John Paul II, successor of Peter, continuer of the work of Pius, John, Paul, and particular heir of the Council present himself today before the Mother of the Son of God, in her Sanctuary of Fatima? Vatican II?

She introduces herself, rereading with trepidation that maternal call to penance, to conversion: that ardent appeal from the Heart of Mary that resonated in Fatima 65 years ago. Yes, she rereads it with trepidation in her heart, because he sees how many men and how many societies, how many Christians, have gone in the opposite direction to that indicated by the message of Fatima. Sin has gained such a strong right of citizenship in the world and the denial of God has spread so widely in human ideologies, conceptions and programs!

But precisely for this reason, the evangelical invitation to penance and conversion, pronounced with the words of the Mother, is always relevant. Even more current than 65 years ago. And even more urgent. Therefore it becomes the topic of the next Synod of Bishops, next year, a Synod for which we are already preparing.

Peter's successor also presents himself here as a witness to the immense suffering of man, as a witness to the almost apocalyptic threats that loom over nations and humanity.

These sufferings he tries to embrace with his own weak human heart, while he places himself before the mystery of the Heart of the Mother, of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In the name of these sufferings, with the awareness of the evil that spreads in the world and threatens man, nations, humanity, the successor of Peter presents himself here with a greater faith in the redemption of the world, in this saving Love that it is always stronger, always more powerful than any evil.

Therefore, if the heart is tightened by the sense of the sin of the world and by the range of threats that are gathering over humanity, this same human heart expands in hope by doing once again what my predecessors have already done: consecrating that is, the world to the Heart of the Mother, consecrate to it especially those peoples who are particularly in need of it. This act means consecrating the world to Him who is infinite Holiness. This Holiness means redemption, it means love more powerful than evil.

No "sin of the world" can ever overcome this Love.

Once again. In fact, Mary's appeal is not for just once. It is open to ever new generations, according to the ever new "signs of the times". We must return to it incessantly. Always take it back again.

12. The Author of the Apocalypse wrote:
“I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Then I heard a powerful voice coming from the throne: "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with men! He will dwell among them, and they will be his people, and he will be God with them" (Rev 21,2ff ).

The Church lives by this faith.

The People of God walks with this faith.

“The dwelling place of God with men” is already on earth.

And in it is the Heart of the Bride and of the Mother, Mary, adorned with the jewel of the immaculate conception: the Heart of the Bride and of the Mother opened under the Cross by the word of the Son to a new great love of man and of the world; the Heart of the Bride and of the Mother aware of all the sufferings of the men and societies of this earth.

The People of God are pilgrims on the roads of this world in an eschatological direction. He makes the pilgrimage towards the eternal Jerusalem, towards the "dwelling of God with men".

There, God will “wipe away every tear from their eyes; there will be no more death, nor mourning, nor crying, nor worry, because the former things have passed away” (cf. Rev 21,4).

But now "the old things" still last. Precisely they constitute the temporal space of our pilgrimage.

Therefore we look towards "He who sits on the throne, who says: 'Behold, I make all things new'" (cf. Rev 21,5).

And together with the evangelist and apostle we try to see with the eyes of faith "the new heaven and earth" because the first heaven and the first earth have already passed away...

But so far "the first heaven and the first earth" persist around us and within us. We cannot ignore it. However, this allows us to recognize what immense grace was granted to man when, in the midst of this wandering, this "great sign: a Woman" was lit on the horizon of faith in our times ( Rev 12.1)!

Yes, truly we can repeat: “Blessed are you, daughter, before the Most High God more than all the women who live on earth!

... by behaving righteously before our God,
... you have relieved our despondency.”

Truly! You are blessed!

Yes, here and throughout the Church, in the heart of every man and in the whole world: be blessed, O Mary, our sweetest Mother!
 

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