During the sermon during the Mass celebrated on Sunday, August 20 – the votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary – Bishop Bernard Fellay spoke to the pilgrims in Fatima in French, English, German, Italian, and Spanish.
We give here the English extracts >
He first recalled the vision of hell that the three shepherd children of Fatima contemplated with horror; he explained that this fear is salutary and that those who seek today to anesthetize consciences by offering them a broad path are truly assassins of souls.
Then Bishop Fellay emphasized that the message of Fatima is a message of hope: those who practice the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary will be saved. This divine promise of salvation offers us an easy means: all we have to do is take it seriously. We must make reparation for the offenses against the Most Blessed Mother of God. Like little Francisco, we must seek to console the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Let us accept all trials generously, offer them up, and sacrifice ourselves by faithfully accomplishing our duty of state, seeing souls through the eyes of Jesus Christ as He gazed at them from His Cross, and the eyes of Our Lady, standing at the foot of the same cross, stabat Mater.
In conclusion, the Superior General forcefully repeated that the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is willed by God for the world today. Not a superficial or mechanical devotion, but a profound one: her Heart must be our intimate refuge. The prelate also announced that he would renew the consecration of Russia right after the Mass, just as Archbishop Lefebvre did here in Fatima thirty years ago. Of course, it is up to the Holy Father and all the bishops of the world in union with him to make this consecration. The Society’s act of consecration is a way of expressing its desire to answer Heaven’s request, while fully aware of its limits, with the lively hope that the Vicar of Christ will one day consecrate the country himself.
The Rosary Crusade draws to a close, but its spirit lives on: let us never cease to beg with our fervent prayers the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which will come when God wills. But we are assured it will come!
