By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
This article will look at the Marian dimension of the New Evangelization in the documents of Vatican II, and also in the teaching of Popes John Paul II and Benedict, as well as further aspects of the Fatima message.
We can see the documents of Vatican II as a blueprint for the New Evangelization. The problem is that for various reasons — mainly the rise of the counterculture from the 1960s onwards — that blueprint hasn’t been put into practice, and Marian devotion, has, in general, been on the decline.
The fact that Lumen Gentium, Vatican II’s dogmatic Constitution of the Church, has a whole section devoted to our Lady, rather than dealing with her in a separate document, means that we are meant to understand the importance of her role at the heart of the Church, and also that Marian devotion and action are not just optional extras.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 905) also speaks about evangelization, quoting Lumen Gentium, as follows: “Lay people also fulfill their prophetic mission by evangelization, ‘that is, the proclamation of Christ by word and the testimony of life.’ For lay people, ‘this evangelization…acquires a specific property and peculiar efficacy because it is accomplished in the ordinary circumstances of the world’.”
Regarding evangelization, renewal, and holiness, Pope John Paul II said: “The Church needs above all great currents, movements, and witnesses of holiness among the ‘Christifideles’ because it is from holiness that is born every authentic renewal of the Church, all intelligent enrichment of the faith and of the Christian life, the vital and fecund re-actualization of Christianity with the needs of man, a renewed form of presence in the heart of human existence and of the culture of nations” (Address for the 20th Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Conciliar Decree Apostolicam Actuositatem, November 18 1985).
The Church has never ceased to call all her children without exception to holiness, the perfection of charity, and to strive to become saints. In his apostolic exhortation, Christifideles Laici, on the Vocation and Mission of the Lay Faithful, issued on the Feast of the Holy Family, December 30, 1988, St John Paul II devoted several paragraphs to the subject of holiness (nn. 16, 17), which he said was “the prime and fundamental vocation” of the lay faithful, and he cited the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in 1985, which declared that “today we have the greatest need of saints whom we must assiduously beg God to raise up” (n. 16).
Fatima was very close to the heart of John Paul II, and regarding Fatima, and catechesis, we could have whole program of catechesis based on the message of Fatima, because, as part of it, practically every important aspect or teaching of the faith is mentioned. So in that sense Fatima is a great boost to the traditional teaching of the Church.
We can go through what happened during our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, what she said or did, or the things that took place, and see how this is the case. The Catholic themes or truths dealt with at Fatima include God, the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Family, the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts, Angels, grace, salvation, and miracles.
The Fatima message also emphasizes the Eucharist, adoration, prayer, the rosary, the brown scapular, the Five First Saturdays devotion, the Church, the papacy, the episcopate, and the Sacrament of Confession, plus the importance of faith and the theological virtues. And it also deals with topics such as reparation, penance, sacrifice, conversion, and suffering, plus highlighting the importance of the four last things, death, judgment, Heaven and Hell, as well as Purgatory.
As can be seen from the above, the Fatima Message in itself comprises a “catechism” of the faith, and it helps to boost our faith in the Church and the Gospel, because it brings the events of 2,000 years ago alive in our own time, particularly since, to prove what she was saying, our Lady worked the miracle of the sun on October 13, 1917, the greatest miracle since the Resurrection, and moreover a miracle prophesied three months in advance.
Regarding prophecies, the one she made about Russia spreading its errors throughout the world, if people did not heed her words, has turned out to be only too tragically true. But other things she spoke of have also come true, including the beginnings of the conversion of Russia, which we saw in the collapse of Communism in the late 1980s. So all of this puts Fatima in category of its own.
Following the failed assassination attempt in 1981, St. Pope John Paul II visited Fatima in 1982 in thanksgiving. During his homily, the Pope said: “If the Church has accepted the message of Fatima, it is above all because that message contains a truth and a call whose basic content is the truth and call of the Gospel itself.” He further stated that “the appeal of the Lady of the message of Fatima is so deeply rooted in the Gospel and the whole of Tradition that the Church feels that the message imposes a commitment on her.”
And in a letter to the bishop of Leiria-Fatima, dated October 1, 1997, John Paul II said: “As we observe the signs of the times in this 20th century, Fatima is certainly one of the greatest, among other reasons because its message announces many of the later events and conditions them on the response to its appeals”
In his address to the bishops of Portugal, during his visit to Fatima in May 2010, his Successor, Benedict XVI, issued the same call for holiness:
“The times in which we live demand a new missionary vigor on the part of Christians, who are called to form a mature laity, identified with the Church and sensitive to the complex transformations taking place in our world…[in this situation] what is decisive is the ability to inculcate in all those engaged in the work of evangelization a true desire for holiness, in the awareness that the results derive above all from our union with Christ and the working of the Holy Spirit.”
Pope Benedict also said that owing to the adverse influence of the “gods” and masters of this world, only with great difficulty can the faith touch the hearts of people by means of simple speeches or moral appeals, and even less by a general appeal to Christian values.
And while “the courageous and integral appeal to principles is essential and indispensable; yet simply proclaiming the message does not penetrate to the depths of people’s hearts, it does not touch their freedom, it does not change their lives. What attracts is, above all, the encounter with believing persons who, through their faith, draw others to the grace of Christ by bearing witness to him.”
A Message To Be Lived
It’s also worth noting that Pope Benedict XVI made a number of important pronouncements at Fatima, the most important of which was his declaration on May 13, 2010 that it was “mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete.”
And even before that, at a Mass in St. Peter’s on May 13, 2006, he expressed the hope that the message of Fatima will be “increasingly accepted, understood, and lived in every community.”
This final article in this series will look at how Pope Francis has promoted the Marian dimension of the New Evangelization, and also at some prophetic announcements relevant to this theme.
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(Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian apparitions, and maintains a related website at www.theotokos.org.uk.)
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