By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
Part 3
This is the third article in a series which looks at Marian devotion, and the New Evangelization, in the light of the teaching of recent Popes.
It is noteworthy, that even before St. John Paul II became Pope in 1978, he had adopted the Latin phrase “Totus Tuus” as his episcopal motto, as an expression of his personal consecration to our Lady, following the example of St. Louis de Montfort, whose writings he had studied closely as a young man.
Throughout his pontificate, the Pope did what he could to spread devotion to the Blessed Virgin, by means of his encyclicals, pastoral letters, general audiences, and homilies, realizing that an understanding of her role was vital if the New Evangelization he was promoting was to be a success.
He was also very keen to promote the rosary, and issued his own apostolic letter on it, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, in 2002. In this, amongst other things, he acknowledged how devoted he was to the rosary, and noted how many of his Predecessors had attributed great importance to it.
He also wrote: “The Rosary, reclaimed in its full meaning, goes to the very heart of Christian life; it offers a familiar yet fruitful spiritual and educational opportunity for personal contemplation, the formation of the People of God, and the new evangelization” (RVM, n. 3). He proclaimed the year from October 2002 to October 2003 the “Year of the Rosary,” and instituted the new “Mysteries of Light.”
Following the failed assassination attempt on May 13, 1981, the anniversary day of the first apparition at Fatima on May 13, 1917, and his subsequent recovery, in thanksgiving he visited Fatima in 1982. Later on, the Pope credited our Lady with saving his life, saying, “One hand fired the shot, another guided it.”
It is worth pondering what would have happened if he had died in May 1981: In essence, we would have been deprived of over two decades more of his inspired teaching and example, which would have been a great loss to the Church.
All the Popes since Pius XII have strongly approved of Fatima, but it was actually Pope St. John Paul II who fulfilled our Lady’s request for the collegial consecration, when, on March 25, 1984, he carried out the consecration in Rome. Following this consecration, Sr. Lucia was visited by the apostolic nuncio at her Carmelite convent at Coimbra, Portugal, and she confirmed that the consecration of Russia had indeed been accomplished, and that God had accepted it.
The power of the Fatima message is certainly evident in the huge changes that have taken place in Russia and its former satellites since 1984. But although the power of Communism has been largely broken, its inner essence, its atheistic ideology, which is based on pure materialism, has continued to evolve, and has now become a worldwide phenomenon which is actively working to remove what is left of Christian morality from the public domain.
Pope St. John Paul II promoted the New Evangelization strongly during his pontificate, and in 1983 spoke of the need for the Church to be new in its ardor, methods, and expression, with the implication that the way the Church was passing on the Gospel message — that is, evangelizing — was not working as it should, and so a new approach was needed, one that would have much more of an impact on our “post-Christian” society, with a particular focus on personal holiness.
The Pope was, of course, also a great champion of marriage and the family, and believed that the family had a very important role to play in the New Evangelization, to the extent that if it could be renewed in a Christian sense, then it could act powerfully to change both secular culture and the world as a whole, and thus help to establish a new “civilization of love.”
We can find his views on this topic most cogently expressed in his apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, which was issued in November 1981. Here, he boldly stated: “The future of the world and of the Church passes through the family” (n. 170), having previously said that “the future of evangelization depends in great part on the Church of the home” (n. 124). Thus he closely associated the spiritual health of the family with the New Evangelization.
Pope St. John Paul II’s encyclical letter Redemptoris Mater (“The Mother of the Redeemer”), which was issued on March 25, 1987, focuses on the Blessed Virgin in relation to her Son and His Church, and was regarded as a landmark in reinvigorating Marian devotion and theology amongst Catholics. In this letter, the Pope mentioned St. Louis de Montfort as one of the vital influences on his Marian thinking. It is divided into three main parts: The first looks at Mary in terms of the mystery of Christ, while the second part deals with Mary’s role as the Mother of God within the pilgrim Church, and the third part focuses on Mary’s maternal mediation.
Apart from this, in his general audiences between September 1995 and November 1997, the Pope delivered 70 talks on the Blessed Virgin Mary, thus providing a powerful series of catecheses on the role and importance of our Lady for Catholics worldwide.
In his apostolic exhortation, Christifideles Laici, on the Vocation and Mission of the Lay Faithful, issued on December 30, 1988, Pope 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, citing 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).
Following this, the Pope issued a papal encyclical on missionary activity, Redemptoris Missio (“Mission of the Redeemer”), in December 1990. In this he focused on the fact that Jesus Christ is the only Savior, that the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of the whole of the Church’s mission, and that the Church as a whole is meant to have a missionary focus, given that the horizons for missionary activity today are so vast, since so many millions of people do not know Christ.
In his conclusion, the Pope focused on the role of the Blessed Virgin, saying: “We too, like the apostles, need to be transformed and guided by the Spirit. . . . Mary is the model of that maternal love which should inspire all who cooperate in the Church’s apostolic mission for the rebirth of humanity” (n. 92).
Look To Mary
In his apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (n. 40), issued in 2001, Pope St. John Paul II, discussed the importance and necessity of the New Evangelization, and described the Blessed Virgin as the “Star of the New Evangelization,” having previously entrusted the Third Millennium to her at the Jubilee Mass of the Bishops on October 8, 2000.
In June 2003, the Pope issued his post-synodal apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Europa (“The Church in Europe”), and focused on signs of hope, and challenges, facing the Church on the continent.
He concluded by entrusting the future of both the Church in Europe and its citizens to the Blessed Virgin, saying, “The whole Church . . . looks to Mary” (n. 124). He also said: “Church in Europe! Continue to contemplate Mary, in the knowledge that she is ‘maternally present and sharing in the many complicated problems which today beset the lives of individuals, families, and nations’.”
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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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