Yesterday was the memorial of Saint Leopold Mandic, who one day said to a congregant, the Blessed Virgin was present at the crucifixion as the mother of the divine victim.
She is surely present from heaven at the unbloody sacrifice that is offered daily on the altar in the Holy Mass for the benefit of mankind.
So we have a mother's heart in heaven.
From heaven, a loving mother, this loving heart looks down upon us, especially at Mass.
A mother's heart worries about the dangers her children face and tries to protect and warn them.
Some mothers worry too much, but that could never be the case with the Virgin most prudent.
She worries especially about sin, which is the cause of all the suffering on earth, and of the damnation of the poor sinners who do not repent.
It's the cause of all that we heard of in the first reading, the tears, the death, mourning, wailing and pain.
All those things belong to the old order of sin that must pass away.
And in order to free her children from these problems, Our Lady came to Fatima on May 13, 1917.
She is a new Jerusalem that came down out of heaven.
She is like a city, like Jerusalem, because she holds all her children in her heart.
She is prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, who is God.
She is adorned with graces, virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and so radiates the light that is God, that light that the shepherd children said.
Thanks to her, yes, to the angel, God's dwelling place is with men.
She came to ask for the shepherds, yes, to God's plan.
So she asked them, are you willing to offer yourselves to God to bear all the sufferings he wills to send you as an act of reparation for the sins by which he is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?
They answered, yes, we are willing.
And Our Lady replied, then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.
When we say yes to God, we will have to suffer, but we will be comforted by God's grace.
Those who say no to God also suffer, but they do not have this comfort.
The place where she appeared is called Cova da Iria.
Some say this name means Valley of Peace, and if so, that would be very appropriate, because she wanted to put an end to World War I, which the sins of men had caused and were continuing.
She called for conversion and for solidarity with poor sinners, asking the children to offer sacrifices to obtain their conversion.
For if they did not repent in sufficient numbers, a second world war would come, worse than the first.
Unfortunately, the necessary repentance to avoid this did not take place, and history tells of the terrible consequences, the millions of dead, and that war even gave us the atomic bomb.
War is the bitter fruit of sin, and it proves ever more bitter as new ways to kill are invented.
Worse still are the eternal consequences of sin and hell, which the shepherd children saw.
They were so terrified that they would have died if a miracle had not kept them alive.
After this vision, Our Lady said, you have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go.
To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart.
This is the plan of God in order to save poor sinners from hell, devotion to the Immaculate Heart, establishing this devotion in the world, spreading it to all Christians.
And of course, all are called to be Christians.
Sister Lucia explains, to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means to bring people to a full consecration through conversion, self-dedication, intimate esteem, veneration, and love.
Thus, it is in this spirit of consecration and conversion that God wishes to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Quite obviously, the more this devotion flourishes, the fewer people will go to hell because surely no one can go to hell who is seeking Our Lady's help, who has an intimate esteem, veneration, and love for Her, who wishes to imitate Her.
We can distinguish three levels of devotion, a plea for help, imitation, and consecration.
The first level sees in Our Lady a mother who can help us and so asks for Her intercession in spiritual and temporal difficulties, like praying the rosary for the end of the war.
This is how World War I was brought to an end.
The natural reaction to being helped is gratitude and love.
We love Her because we see in Her a goodness that deserves love.
The second level of devotion is the fruit of filial love.
We recognize that if we are true children, we should resemble our mother.
But we are not physically but spiritually children of Mary, and so it is spiritually that we must resemble her.
Therefore we strive to imitate her virtues.
The more we resemble her, the more we resemble Christ, because no one resembles Him more than she does.
Quite obviously, no one who resembles very much Our Lady, very much Christ, is at very little risk of going to hell.
The third level is consecration to Our Lady.
This word is sometimes used to mean just entrusting oneself or one's country to Her.
This is certainly a good thing because it recognizes that Our Lady is a mother who will protect her children, and it makes her freer to do so because we have asked her to do so.
But there is some self-interest in doing this.
It's something we do for our own benefit, certainly not as a benefit.
It's something that God wants for us, but it's not something that we're doing simply for the glory of God, but also because we get something out of it.
Sister Lucia says that the devotion to the Immaculate Heart should lead to a full consecration.
A full consecration is based on the recognition that Our Lady is the most perfect means of giving glory to God, and if we are sons of God, we should seek to give glory to God.
In Her, the Word became flesh.
By Her cooperation, the redemption was won, and all graces of the redemption are entrusted to Her and distributed through Her.
We can glorify God in no more perfect way than by giving all we are and have to Her, by placing ourselves completely at Her disposition.
She is the Immaculate, and we'll make what we offer to God through Her immaculate before presenting it to Him.
And She is the Mediatrix of all graces, and so if we are working for Her, we will share in this mediation of grace.
And this is how the Immaculate Heart will triumph, through the consecration of individuals and of peoples, who give themselves to Her to save poor sinners.
Today's Gospel is an example of consecration.
The evangelist took Our Lady to himself.
Translation says, took Her into his home, but really it says, took Her to his own, which is a bit obscure.
What does it mean to take to his own?
Well, it could mean, and quite probably does mean, that he took Her among those things which were his own, those things which were most precious to him.
And so, She was so precious to him that he says little about it openly, because words cannot express Her greatness.
She's like the sun, that we're not able to look at directly, but we know as it's reflected in other creatures.
We know that the sun is up, because we see that there's light everywhere, that we see the grass and the trees, and we see the sky is blue, but we don't look directly at the sun, because that hurts our eyes.
It's too much for us, it's more than we can, than we have the capacity to see.
And so, with Our Lady, we look at the symbols and figures of Her that are all around.
We look at the saints who have been made saints by their devotion to Her.
So with Her as his treasure, his inestimable treasure, St. John became a great saint.
And perhaps it's no accident that he, who lay on Jesus' breast, close to the Sacred Heart, was given and gave himself to the Immaculate Heart.
So let us too consecrate ourselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Let us pray and make sacrifices to save poor sinners.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.