Fatima: "Pray the Rosary everyday"

Before Pope John Paul II introduced the Luminous Mysteries, the full Rosary consisted of 150 Hail Marys so that the laity could mimic the 150 psalms in the Bible that the clerics’ Liturgy of the Hours is based on. Furthermore, in Portugal it was not called the Rosary but “Third” since we prayed only one third (50 Hail Marys) of the full Rosary at a time.

The full Rosary was therefore made up of three thirds. It was prayed by meditating on the first third, the Joyful Mysteries, corresponding to the Birth and Infancy of Jesus, then the second third, the Sorrowful Mysteries, corresponding to his Passion and Death, and the last third, the Glorious Mysteries, corresponding to his Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven.

The Church was slow to realize that the Rosary was incomplete with only the mysteries of the incarnation birth, passion and death, and resurrection of the Lord. It was missing the mysteries of his public ministry in which Jesus of Nazareth by his preaching, attitudes, ways of living and acting models for us the new man, the one who is the way of truth and life for all human beings.

With the creation and integration of the Luminous Mysteries by Pope John Paul II in his 2002 apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, the logic of the three thirds making up a complete Rosary didn’t make sense anymore. The full Rosary is now four “thirds” comprising of 50 Hail Marys each thus totaling 200 Hail Marys instead of the original 150. By including Jesus’ public life in the Luminous Mysteries, there are now four sets of mysteries to contemplate.

The structure of the Rosary
It is called the Rosary because the now 200 Hail Marys intertwined into groups of ten, forms a “Crown of Roses” which is offered to Mary, Mother of the Lord and our Mother.  The twenty mysteries which recall the events in the Lord’s life are divided into four series of 5 mysteries each. In each recitation of the Rosary, we pray only five mysteries of one of the following series:

In the Joyful Mysteries, we meditate the beginning of the redemption of humanity, from the annunciation to Mary and the incarnation of the Son of God in her womb until Jesus’ adolescence.

In the Luminous Mysteries, we meditate the most important moment of Jesus’ public ministry, from his inauguration at Baptism until the institution of the Eucharist as the memorial of his Passion. It is during these years that Jesus truly revealed himself to be the Light of the World (John 8:12), by his attitude before the most diverse situations he encountered in life, by the doctrines that he taught, and by his actions.

In the Sorrowful Mysteries, we meditate on the events of the passion and death of Jesus, from his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane to his last breath on the cross. When we say that Jesus died for our sins, we imply not only that he paid off our debt in full which we are incapable of paying, but also that the sins of those who intervened in his death are still being committed today, and always will till the end of time. For this we can conclude that Jesus was killed by the sins of all humanity.

In the Glorious Mysteries, we meditate on Jesus’ triumph over death by his Resurrection. Death has been conquered once for all just like the sin that caused it. After Jesus’ Resurrection, death is no longer the final destiny of mankind, but rather a passage to eternal life for those who choose him as the way, the truth and the life. Jesus’ life that began with a ‘Yes’ from Mary to God’s plan ends now with the glorification of the one who is for all a model of Christian life.

The Our Father – The Lord’s Prayer, which precedes each mystery, is much more than a simple prayer that the Lord taught us to recite occasionally. It summarizes the most important aspects of the Gospel; it is in this sense an entire pocket Gospel because it contains all we should know and do, the words to live by.

Since it is made up of several unrelated statements, it can be viewed as a “shopping list” that we make in order not to forget the important things that need to be done. As a list, it concerns with the protocol of our relationship with God, that is, how our prayer should be structured: how is God to be addressed, to be praised, and in what ways can we ask for our needs, in what order, and when. Therefore, more than a prayer, it is basically a practical guide on how to pray and live.

The Hail Mary – This prayer is divided into two parts. The first part is biblical and is made up of two greetings, one by the Angel Gabriel and the other by Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth. The second half has its origin in the faith of the Church, it is not known how or when or where it was first used. For this reason, the Hail Mary prayer represents the perfect union between the Bible as the Word of God and the Church as the community of believers.

In an upward movement, the first part which is descended from the Bible, is made up of 5 ladders that ascend to Jesus. In a downward movement, the second part is also made up of 5 ladders that descend to a human reality, our death.

This cannot be understood by our Protestant brothers and sisters, the advocates of the “sola fide sola scriptura solus Christus” because the Scripture, the Word of God described in the first part, is united in a harmonious way with the Tradition, that is, the history of the Christian faith throughout the ages embodied in the second. Jesus who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, and the center of human history is the hinge that unites these two parts.

The Glory Be – It is an invocation of God as One and Triune. One single God in three different persons united in a triangle of love. It is the solution to the dialectic of Greek philosophy between the one and the multiple. This prayer also helps to remind us that made in the image and likeness of God we human beings are also one and triune: we do not exist nor subsist outside the family.

The origin and history of the rosary
As an instrument of prayer, the beads of the rosary have their origin in India, in the third century BC. In Christianity, it was the desert fathers in the third and fourth century who started using this counting instrument for prayers, especially for praying the Our Father.

Furthermore, in the antiquity, the Greeks and the Romans used to crown the statues of their gods with crowns of roses as a way to show their love and gratitude. Perhaps following this tradition the Christian women who were led to martyrdom were dressed to the hilt, wearing on their head a crown of roses, a symbol of their joy and surrender as they made their way to meet Christ the Bridegroom. After their martyrdom, other Christians collected these crowns and prayed, one prayer for each rose, for the souls of the martyrs.

At Fatima, Lucia and Jacinta liked to put flowers in their hair. On the days of the apparitions, the three shepherd children wore their Sunday best as if they were going to Mass; the two girls placed flowers in their hair, especially Jacinta who was photographed wearing a crown of roses on her head for the occasion of the apparitions.

The praying of the Rosary came out from the shadows of the monasteries as the psalter of the laity in the year 800. It was only in 1214, however, that the Church accepted the Rosary in its present form. Tradition says that it was given to the Church by Saint Dominic de Guzman who had in turn received it from the Virgin Mary as a powerful weapon against the enemies of the faith.

The Rosary gained great momentum after the naval battle of Lepanto where Christians defeated the Turks thus eliminating once and for all the danger of Islam subjugating Christianity in Europe. Just before the battle, Pope Pius V bid Christians to pray the Rosary to support the Christian fleet. After the unexpected victory, he instituted the feast day of Our Lady of Victory on the 7th of October, the day of the 1517 battle of Lepanto. This day was later changed to the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Mary’s insistent call to pray the Rosary every day at most of her apparitions, especially those at Fatima, made this practice distinctively Catholic in contrast to the rest of Christendom, the Orthodox and the Protestants.

The way to pray the Rosary
Each day of the week we meditate on a different group of mysteries: on Mondays and Saturdays we meditate on the Joyful Mysteries, on Tuesdays and Fridays the Sorrowful Mysteries, on Wednesdays and Sundays the Glorious Mysteries, and finally Thursdays are reserved for the Luminous Mysteries.

There are several ways of praying the Rosary but for the most part people start praying by making the sign of the cross, followed by the Creed, then one Our Father, three Hail Marys and a Glory Be. After saying these introductory prayers, the first mystery is announced which may or may not be accompanied by a short meditation and then one Our Father and ten Hail Marys follow.

After the tenth Hail Mary in each decade is recited, the Glory Be is prayed followed by several pious small prayers depending on where the Rosary is recited and by whom, and ends with the prayer that Our Lady recommended at Fatima to be prayed after each mystery: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy. Amen”.

For a more complete ending, we add three Hail Marys for the intentions of the Holy Father so that we may be united to all Christendom, represented by him, and ends with the Hail Holy Queen preceded or not, according to the time available, by the Litany of Our Lady.

The importance of the Rosary
The Rosary is at the same time a Marian and a Christ-centered prayer because we repeatedly invoke Mary as Mother of God and our Mother, and ask her to join us in our prayers to the Father as we recite the Our Father and to the Holy Trinity as we pray the Glory Be, and to help us to contemplate the mysteries of the life of her Son, our elder brother and saviour, of whom she is also an integrant part.

At Fatima, as at many Marian apparitions, Mary never draws attention to herself, but rather she exclusively points to her Son. Her joy comes not when we praise her, but when we praise her Son. As the proverb says, “Whoever my son kisses, my lips sweeten”.

One does not love the son without loving the mother, therefore all the love directed to the son is indirectly directed to the mother. Every praise given to the mother is given to the son, as was the case of the woman who in the midst of the crowd, raised her voice and said to Jesus, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ (Luke 11:27)

The Rosary is not a prayer of thanksgiving, nor a prayer of petition, and not even a prayer of lamentation like some of the psalms found in the Bible. The Rosary is fundamentally a prayer of meditation and contemplation. In fact, we announce and enunciate each mystery by saying that in this mystery we contemplate…

It has been told that one day when someone confessed to Pope John XXIII his difficulty in praying the Rosary because he is often distracted by the mechanical and repetitive nature of the Hail Marys, to which the pope replied, ‘What is the purpose of the Rosary but to distract us?’

Being a contemplative prayer, the repetitive recitation of the Hail Marys in the Rosary acts like the mantras in the Buddhist spirituality; they engage the mind by preventing it from jumping from thought to thought, thus enabling the person to contemplate strictly on the mysteries of the Lord’s life. The goal, however, is not to put our attention on each Hail Mary and Our Father that we recite, but to occupy the mind with these prayers as with the mantras and thus surge us into the contemplation of the divine.

The Rosary and Fatima
At the apparitions in Fatima, Our Lady asked the little shepherds to pray the Rosary every day, not just at one or two apparitions, but at all the ones that took place in 1917, as well as those that happened in Tuy and Pontevedra to Sister Lucia alone. Why the Rosary, Lucia had asked Our Lady, because it is a prayer accessible to all, young and old, wise and ignorant alike.

Soon after the apparitions, praying the Rosary became an integral part of the evening prayer routine in a Catholic home. Before or after supper by the warmth of the fireplace the father or mother would lead the prayer, and no child would ask for a bedtime blessing from his parents before saying the Rosary, no matter how tired he was.

The family that prays together stays together. The television, however, like a Trojan horse came to disturb this candor and harmony in the homes and soon the Rosary was replaced by the soap operas. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the divorce rate has increased so drastically.

The little shepherds who already prayed the Rosary before the apparitions, albeit hurriedly, began to pray it as Our Lady wanted. Especially Francisco, to whom the Lady said that he had to pray many Rosaries before he could make it to Heaven.

In effect, the Rosary identified Francisco in his earthly life because there were days when he prayed ten Rosaries a day, and it also identified his bones when his body was exhumed. Among the many corpses that were buried in the same common grave, Mr. Marto, Francisco’s father, identified the bones of his son because clinging to them was the rosary still intact that Francisco used to pray.

Penance and prayer is what Mary asked of us and others at Fatima. The Rosary catapults us into the contemplation of the Mystery of God, above all the Incarnate Word. Therefore, meditating or not, distracted or not, those who profoundly love the Rosary and cannot go one day without praying it are “ipso facto” truly people of prayer.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: Prayer as a way of being a Missionary

Prayer and penance are the spirituality and the heart of the message of Fatima. The main objective of prayer and penance that the Blessed Virgin Mary asked of the little shepherds at Fatima was not to achieve their personal perfection. Our Lady did not exhort the three children to pray and to make sacrifices for their own sanctification.

The spirituality of Fatima is, therefore, not an egocentric spirituality, that is, a set of spiritual practices where the objective is to benefit and perfect the one who practices them; for this reason, it is not comparable to the asceticism of the monks which has sanctification, mysticism and beatific vision as the final goal.  

Quite the opposite, both the prayer and penance that Mary asked of the shepherd children had a concrete and specific goal: the conversion of “the poor sinners” and the reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It is, therefore, an altruistic spirituality.

It is true that through these practices the little shepherds became sanctified, but the practices were not done by the children with the intention to sanctify themselves but to contribute to the spiritual welfare of others. In other words, it was not to save themselves that they did what they did, but rather to save others. In this sense, both their personal prayer and penance are their contribution to the universal mission of salvation.

Even when the children decided not to sin anymore the fundamental reason that led them to do so was not to become saints, a thought that never entered into their minds. It was their great love for God that propelled them to do all that they could not to offend Our Lord further. In other words, even in their avoidance of sin, their objective is altruistic.

Prayer of intercession
Then Abraham came near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it?” (…) “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake”. (Genesis 18:23-26)

Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. (Exodus 17:11)

The two great patriarchs of our faith, Abraham and Moses, experienced the value and the efficacy of intercessory prayer to God for the sake of their people. Later the task of asking God for the well-being of the people was assigned to the priests who were descendants of Aaron. The medieval Christian society was divided into classes, and each class was given a specific task: the nobles defended the clergy and the people, the clergy interceded for the nobles and the people, and the people provided material support for the clergy and the nobles.

Nowadays prayer is not an exclusive task of a particular class of people. Instead, we are all called to pray. Prayer is a means for us to express not only our love for God but also for our neighbours when we pray for them. Prayer can be our answer to God when He asks us where is our brother (Genesis 4:9). Unlike Cain, we ought to see ourselves as guardians of our brother by caring for him, wanting what is good for him, and acting in his favour.  All these are realized not only through deeds but also through prayers as we intercede for him to the One who can do him the most good, more than we can ever do especially in areas beyond our reach.

The Our Father and the Hail Mary prayers, as well as most Christian prayers, never exclude others. Even when we pray them in the privacy of our rooms and in our hearts, others are always there with us because we address ourselves to God in the plural form as a community; and whatever we ask in these and other prayers, we do not ask for ourselves exclusively, but also for the entire community of believers.

Chapter 17 of Saint John's Gospel presents the so-called priestly prayer which happens to be the longest prayer in the entire Bible.  In the second and third part of this prayer, Jesus prays to the Father for his disciples and then for all the believers. The important point of this prayer is the unity among all faithful and it is in this oneness where we are all members of the Mystical Body of Christ that all intercessory prayers rest upon.

The communion of saints is very dear to Catholicism. It consists of solidarity that is established among all the baptized, whether they live in space and time, or beyond in purgatory or in the bosom of God. It is on the basis of this communion that the Portuguese people has a special devotion in praying and offering the Eucharistic sacrifice for the most abandoned souls in purgatory, those who have no one to intercede for them.

When I had already decided not to go and cut my hair today, I began to hear a voice inside of me urgently imploring me to go; the more I ignored it the more insistent the voice became until it turned into an obsession. I gave up then and went. As I entered the shop, the barber surprised me by saying that he was at that very moment praying to the Lord that I would come in today.

“… Prayer is the most effective supplement after traditional medicine, surpassing acupuncture, herbs, vitamins and other alternative remedies.” (Washington Post, March 24, 2006)

It is difficult to quantify the efficacy of prayers. At the apparitions in Fatima, Lucia presented many intentions to Our Lady and she responded that some would be answered while others not. Faced with this reality, we can only say with certainty that it is easier for our requests to be answered if we formulate them than if we don't. However, whether our petitions are answered or not, it is God’s will that is fulfilled not ours; a will which we are called to accept unconditionally, because God is our Father and no one knows better than Him what we really need and what is more beneficial for our salvation.

Matthew 5:44 – Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you – Even enemies cease to be one when we have the courage to pray for them as the Gospels ask us to do. It is in fact something mysterious that we can all experience; the moment we succeed in praying for those who want us harm, our hatred for them ceases.

Francisco and Jacinta the reparators of humanity
In the summer of 1916 while they were playing in Lucia’s backyard, near the well of Arneiro, an Angel appeared and said to them:

--What are you doing? Pray, pray much! The most holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy on you. Offer prayers and sacrifices constantly to the Most High.

With the passage of time, Sister Lucia interpreted this interjection of the Angel not as a reprimand because they were at play, but as a call to something of supreme importance, that is, to prayer. This call to attention must still echo in our hearts because as Christians we get distracted with too many things; very much like Marta in the Gospel, we tend to waste time on less important things… instead of sitting, despite the frenzy of our days, at Our Lord's feet like Mary, the sister of Marta, and fixing our gaze on Him who is all in all.

The little shepherds answered faithfully to the wake-up call of the Angel and again one year later, to the exhortations of Our Lady to pray and offer sacrifices in their daily lives according to their capabilities as the Angel had suggested, for the conversion of sinners. They took upon themselves this task like a mission, and embodied it in accordance to their personality and character.

Jacinta being the emotional one, and without neglecting prayer especially to the Blessed Sacrament or the “Hidden Jesus”, was more drawn to offer sacrifices because she had great pity for sinners and the more she could save the better. Francisco being the most intuitive of the three, without neglecting sacrifice like his sister, was more inclined to prayer; he was especially sensitive to the sadness of Jesus and used to spend hours and hours alone in consoling Him.

Prayer and sacrifice is an inseparable binomial like theory and praxis. To pray without making sacrifices is comparable to that character in the Gospel who says “Lord, Lord”, but does nothing to embody the Word, that is, to put it into practice (Matthew 7:21).

On the other hand, sacrifices without prayer would not be Christian either; therefore, the Blessed Virgin Mary also taught the little shepherds a prayer to go with all the sacrifices that they make: “O my Jesus, it is for love of You, in reparation for the offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for the conversion of poor sinners.”

Using a letter from the post office as an analogy to explain the relationship between sacrifice and prayer: sacrifice is what is written in the letter, prayer is the envelope where the address is written, in this case to God in Heaven.

Francisco the consoler of the Lord
One day Lucia asked Francisco:
--“Francisco, why don’t you tell me to pray with you, and Jacinta too?”
--“I prefer praying by myself,” he answered, “so that I can think and console Our Lord, Who is so sad!”
I asked him one day:
--“Francisco, which do you like better – to console Our Lord, or to convert sinners, so that no more souls will go to hell?”
--“I would rather console Our Lord. Didn’t you notice how sad Our Lady was that last month, when she said that people must not offend Our Lord any more, for He is already much offended? I would like to console Our Lord, and after that convert sinners so that they won’t offend Him anymore.”

Francisco recognized simultaneously the transcendence of God and the jubilation derived from His presence. He confessed: “What I loved the most was to see Our Lord in that light which Our Lady which put in our hearts. I love God so much!” Francisco felt himself “on fire in that light which is God (…)” and affirmed, “What is God? … We could never put it into words!”

It was in this union with God that made him perceive the pain that human offenses cause Jesus. Francisco empathized greatly with Him for “He is so sad” and, for this reason drew from him the touching response, “If I could console Him!” (Cf. Portuguese Episcopal Conference 2017)

Perhaps this will be the most contemplative part of the Fatima message. Francisco was in fact a contemplative, used to separate himself from his companions, and probably would have become a monk had he lived to adulthood. However, the contemplation that made him spend the entire morning day after day in the Church of Fatima praying in front of the Hidden Jesus while Lucia and Jacinta went to school was not to make himself feel good by being in God’s company, but solely to console Jesus who is sad from all the offenses of sinners.

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
… I will take Jacinta and Francisco soon. But you are to stay here some time longer. Jesus wishes to make use of you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” (I promise salvation to those who embrace it, and those souls will be loved by God like flowers placed by me to adorn His Throne).

The cold modern world of technology pays little attention to symbolism. In order to better understand what the Hearts of Jesus and Mary mean, it is helpful for us to enter into the world of poetry. We all know that the expression to wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve means being emotional about certain topic or situation. This is how the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary are presented – as a display of distress and concern for the situation of humanity, so the faithful can see and do something about it.

In the biblical sense and also in the message of Fatima, the heart is not only a pear-shaped muscle that pumps blood throughout the body, but it is also the symbol of the very innermost part of man where thoughts, affections and will all come together.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus – The image of Jesus with his heart in his chest, and sometimes in his hand, is a graphic representation to make it very clear how much Jesus loved the people of his time to the point of suffering and giving his life for them, his friends and all humanity. Devotion to this image has inspired Christianity since the apparitions to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque between 1673 and 1675. These visions are not out of the historical and biblical context if we think that it was really the soldier who pierced Jesus and opened his chest to show us his heart.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary – The image of Mary represented like that of Jesus with the heart in her chest means love, dedication and suffering for her son from conception till death on the cross. Crucified and before giving up his spirit, Jesus gave us his mother to be our mother, thus starting her passion for the brothers and sisters of her son, the whole humanity.

The Virgin Mary communicates to the shepherd children that her son wants to establish this devotion on earth, hence the reason why Lucia were to remain living while Jacinta and Francisco were soon to be taken up to Heaven. This image is also not out of historical and biblical context if we think of old Simeon’s prophecy that a sword will pierce Mary’s soul.

“You can only pay love with love” – The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus like that to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and all other devotions and acts of love to God are not needed by God. It is us who need them, for the fact that it is only when we are open to the love of God that His love produces fruits in our lives.

But as long as we turn our backs on God, His love which never stops will not have any effect in our lives. On the other hand, it is not possible to be at the same time open to the love of God without loving Him, hence why this proverb makes perfect sense that God needs our love to love us. Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. (John 14:23)

The Immaculate Heart of Mary is the mediator of all graces; it was this heart, immaculate for being conceived without sin, that agreed to God’s plan of conceiving His son for the salvation of humanity. By being the mediatrix of the primordial Grace that is Christ, and also in the smaller graces, Mary is always the mediatrix between Heaven and Earth.

For this reason Jacinta was fervently devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, exhorting her cousin Lucia to propagate this devotion, for which reason she was to stay many years on earth:

“It will not be long now before I go to Heaven. You will remain here to make known that God wishes to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. When you are to say this, don’t go and hide. Tell everybody that God grants us graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; that people are to ask her for them; and that the Heart of Jesus wants the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be venerated at His side. Tell them also to pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace since God has entrusted it to her. If I could only put into the hearts of all, the fire that is burning within my own heart, and that makes me love the Hearts of Jesus and Mary so very much!”

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC