Prayer of Entrustment and Consecration to the Virgin of Fatima (13 May 1982)

On Thursday, 13 May 1982, at Fatma, the Holy Father offered a Prayer of Entrustment and Consecration to the Mother of God, asking her to intercede for peace in the world. 

“Under your protection we seek refuge, Holy Mother of God”!

1. Pronouncing the words of this antiphon, with which the Church of Christ has prayed for centuries, I find myself today in this place chosen by you and particularly loved by you, Mother.

I am here, united with all the Pastors of the Church in that particular bond, through which we constitute a body and a college, just as Christ wanted the Apostles in unity with Peter.

In the bond of this unity, I pronounce the words of the present Act, in which I wish to enclose, once again, the hopes and anxieties of the Church in the contemporary world.

Forty years ago and then again ten years later your servant, Pope Pius XII, having before his eyes the painful experiences of the human family, entrusted and consecrated to your Immaculate Heart the whole world and especially the peoples who were the particular object of your love and your concern.

This world of men and nations I also have before my eyes today, at the moment in which I wish to renew the trust and consecration made by my predecessor in the See of Peter: the world of the second millennium which is about to end, the contemporary world , our world today!

The Church mindful of the words of the Lord: “Go. . . and teach all nations. . . Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the world" ( Mt 28, 19-20), she renewed, in the Second Vatican Council, the awareness of her mission in this world .

And therefore, O Mother of men and peoples , you who "know all their sufferings and their hopes", you who maternally feel all the struggles between good and evil, between light and darkness, which shake the world contemporary, accept our cry which, as if moved by the Holy Spirit, we address directly to your Heart and embrace , with the love of the Mother and the Servant, this human world of ours, which we entrust and consecrate to you, full of anxiety for our earthly fate and eternal of men and peoples.

In a special way we entrust to you and consecrate those men and those nations who are particularly in need of this entrustment and this consecration.

“Under your protection we seek refuge, Holy Mother of God”!

Do not despise the pleas of us who are being tested!

Do not despise!

Welcome our humble trust - and our trust!

2. “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” ( Jn 3:16). Precisely this love meant that the Son of God consecrated himself: "For them I consecrate myself, so that they also may be consecrated in the truth" ( Jn 17, 19).

By virtue of that consecration the disciples of all times are called to commit themselves to the salvation of the world, to add something to the sufferings of Christ in favor of his Body which is the Church (cf. 2 Cor 12, 15; Col 1, 24 ).

Before you, Mother of Christ, before your Immaculate Heart, I desire today, together with the whole Church, to unite with our Redeemer in this consecration of his for the world and for men, which only in his divine Heart has the power to obtain forgiveness and provide reparation.

The power of this consecration lasts for all times and embraces all men, peoples and nations, and overcomes every evil, which the spirit of darkness is capable of reawakening in the heart of man and in his history and which, in fact , has reawakened in our times.

The Church, the mystical Body of Christ, joins this consecration of our Redeemer, through the service of Peter's successor .

Oh, how deeply we feel the need for consecration for humanity and for the world: for our contemporary world, in unity with Christ himself! In fact, the redemptive work of Christ must be shared by the world through the Church.

Oh, how much it hurts us, therefore, that everything in the Church and in each of us is opposed to sanctity and consecration! How much it hurts us that the invitation to penance, to conversion, to prayer, did not find the welcome it should have received!

How much it hurts us that many participate so coldly in the work of Christ's Redemption! Thus "what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ" is insufficiently completed in our flesh ( Col 1, 24).

Therefore, may all souls be blessed who obey the call of eternal Love! Blessed be those who, day after day, with inexhaustible generosity welcome your invitation, O Mother, to do what your Jesus says (cf. John 2:5) and give to the Church and the world a serene testimony of life inspired by Gospel.

May you be blessed above all things , Servant of the Lord, who most fully obeys the Divine call!

Be greeted, you who are entirely united to the redemptive consecration of your Son!

Mother of the Church! Enlighten the People of God on the paths of faith, hope and charity! Help us to live with all the truth of Christ's consecration for the entire human family of the contemporary world.

3. Entrusting to you, O Mother, the world, all men and all peoples, we also entrust to you the same consecration for the world , placing it in your maternal Heart.

Oh, Immaculate Heart! Help us to overcome the threat of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of today's men and which in its immeasurable effects already weighs on our contemporaneity and seems to close the paths towards the future!

From hunger and war, free us!

From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us!

From the sins against the life of man since its dawn, deliver us!

From hatred and degradation of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us! From every kind of injustice in social, national and international life, deliver us!

From the ease of trampling on the commandments of God, deliver us! From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us! free us!

Welcome, O Mother of Christ, this cry full of the suffering of all men! Burdened with the suffering of entire societies!

May the infinite power of merciful Love be revealed, once again, in the history of the world ! May it stop evil! Transform consciences! May the light of Hope be revealed to everyone in your Immaculate  Heart !

I still want to address a special prayer to you, O Mother who knows the anxieties and worries of your children.

With heartfelt invocation I beg you to intercede for peace in the world, among the peoples who, in different regions, clashes of national interests or acts of unjust arrogance bloodily oppose each other.

I implore you, in particular, to put an end to the hostilities that have been dividing two large countries in the waters of the South Atlantic for too many days now, causing painful losses of human lives. Ensure that a just and honorable solution is finally found between the two parties, not only for the controversy that divides them and threatens them with unforeseeable consequences, but also and above all for the re-establishment between them of the highest and most profound harmony, which is suitable for their history, their civilization, their Christian traditions.

May the serious and worrying controversy be soon overcome and concluded: so that my planned pastoral trip to Great Britain can also take place happily, in fulfillment not only of my desire, but also of that of all those who ardently await and have this visit with a lot of commitment and with a lot of prepared heart.
 

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