Our Lady in the
Plan of Salvation

First of all, Our Lady’s Message of Fatima reinforces the profound importance of Our Lady in the plan of salvation.

We know from the Message that the salvation of the world, the conversion of Russia, world peace, depends ultimately on mankind fulfilling God’s desire of establishing in the world devotion to Her Immaculate Heart. Our Lady’s centrality and importance is re-emphasized at Fatima.

Blessed Abbot Marmion (1858-1923)

Now, a good Mariologist could talk all day about how Our Lady is central in the plan of salvation. But I want to focus on one aspect of this truth. That is, Our Lady was absolutely necessary for Christ to become man — or perhaps I should say, Son of Man.

God, who is Almighty, could not have become a member of the human race without Mary, could not have become “Son of Man” without Our Lady.

This is not my own teaching, but it is that of the great Benedictine Abbot Marmion (1858-1923). He was probably the greatest spiritual writer of the 20th Century. Regarding Abbot Marmion’s work, Pope Benedict XV said “read it, it is the pure doctrine of the Church.”

Abbot Marmion, in his books, points out that for Our Lord to become truly a member of our human race, a Son of Adam, a “Son of Man”, He was absolutely dependent on Our Blessed Mother saying “yes” to the angel who asked Her if She would consent to be the Mother of the God-Man, Jesus Christ.

Of course, Our Lord could have become man on His own without the intervention of Our Lady. He could have just assumed a human nature from matter that He created out of nothing then-and-there on the spot, and appeared before us as man.

But had He done that, He would have been, so to speak, like an alien from another planet beaming down onto earth. There is no way we could have looked upon Him as part of our human race. He would have looked like a man, walked like a man, talked like a man. But we could have never regarded Him as being truly part of our human family, part of our bloodline, part of our human race. We could never have regarded Him as an actual, physical descendent of our first parents, Adam and Eve. We would have had no sense of kinship with His humanity.

“In Portugal, the Dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.” We see here proof of the light of their faith and loyalty to Our Lady of Fatima.

In order for Our Lord to come to be truly kin with us, truly part of our human family that was in need of redemption, it was absolutely necessary that He be born of a daughter of Adam and Eve, and this “daughter” was the spotless and immaculate ever-virgin Mary. She was absolutely essential.

God was dependent on Our Lady so that Our Lord Jesus Christ could truly call Himself the “Son of Man”. And as Abbot Marmion points out, it seems that the title “Son of Man” is the description of Himself that Our Lord held dearest to His Heart when He was on earth. Abbot Marmion explains that Our Lord used the term “Son of Man” in reference to Himself more than any other title.

And likewise, the Message of Fatima helps us to remember our dependence on Our Lady. It reminds us that devotion to Our Lady, and particularly to Her Immaculate Heart, is not something on the periphery, not some pretty optional extra. No! Our Lord made devotion to Her Immaculate Heart an inescapable condition for the conversion of Russia, for a period of peace being granted to the world.