What Can You Do?

What Can Catholics Do?

What can Catholics, both lay and clerical, do to bring about fulfillment of the Message of Fatima? Above all, Catholics must pray! No word shall be impossible with God. (Luke 1:37) Jesus said: “All things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive”. (Matt 21:22) He also said: “Without me, you can do nothing.” (John 15:5). We need God’s help in all things, but especially in those things that are beyond our human power or control.

What should we pray? We should pray above all for those things necessary for our own salvation and then those things necessary for our neighbor’s salvation. We must pray for the ends that Our Lady of Fatima came to secure: the salvation of souls and world peace. For these ends nothing is more important, in our time, than the collegial consecration of Russia. We cannot dictate the Pope’s actions, but we can pray that he will have a change of heart. Sacred Scripture tells us that the heart of the King is in the hand of God. By our prayers we can move the Pope’s heart so that he will order his bishops to participate with him in the authentic Consecration of Russia, by name, to Mary’s Immaculate Heart.

As Jesus told Sister Lucy, and as she confided in turn to her confessor, “[T]hey [the Pope and bishops] will repent and will do it [the Consecration], but it will be late. Russia will have already spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions against the Church; the Holy Father will have much to suffer.” This repentance, however, requires a movement of God’s grace. And how will they receive this grace if people do not pray for it? “Pray and make sacrifices for sinners,” Our Lady of Fatima told us. Let us pray that the Pope soon has a change of heart and performs the consecration — before it is too late for many more people.

It is Never Too Late

There are those that have said it is already too late to prevent the final consequences of failure to obey the Fatima Message. That is not so. Jesus, in speaking to Sister Lucy, said: “It is never too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary.” It is never too late to ask Mary Mediatrix of All Graces to obtain from Jesus all the graces needed to actually lead the Pope and bishops to obey Her requests in time. As Pope Benedict XVI himself declared during his visit to Brazil in 2007: “There is not a single fruit of grace in the history of salvation which does not have as a necessary instrument the mediation of Our Lady.”⁹¹ We can obtain the graces necessary for the Consecration of Russia by praying for Our Lady’s intercession with Jesus.

"Only the Lady of the Rosary Can Help"

How then, should we pray? Here too the Message of Fatima provides the answer. At Fatima Our Lady said: “Only Our Lady of the Rosary can help you.” To obtain Our Lady of the Rosary’s help we must ask for Her help, and we must ask for it by praying the Rosary.

As Sister Lucy has explained:

“There is no problem in the world, either physical or moral, either national or international, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. ”

The problem of the Consecration of Russia can be solved. It can be solved by enough Catholics praying the Rosary, fervently and frequently, for the intention that the Pope and bishops consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the specific manner She requested in the Fatima Message.

This, then is the most important thing we Catholics can do: Pray, and pray the Rosary — frequently and fervently — for the proper Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart by the Pope and the Catholic bishops of the world.

Besides praying ourselves, let us also convince others to pray the Rosary for this intention. Let us, then, organize and pray the Block Rosary once a week, the Rosary before Sunday Mass, the Rosary before daily Mass. Let us form Rosary prayer groups and Rosary processions. Let us initiate and maintain Rosary Crusades in our towns, our parishes, our dioceses, and throughout our own countries.

The Message of Fatima makes it clear to all that we must join our sacrifices to our prayer. Our Lady’s counsel, remember, was to “Pray and make sacrifices for sinners.”

A local parish priest once complained to the holy Curé of Ars that “God does not hear my prayers for the conversion of the parish sinner.” The Curé of Ars replied: “Did you join fasting with your prayers? Your prayers become more powerful when joined to sacrifices for the conversion of sinners.” The parish priest took this advice, and only a few weeks later he obtained the grace of that sinner’s conversion.

Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are the three means Sacred Scripture itself admonishes us to employ if we seek to obtain God’s graces. 

Now, the reader of this booklet, either priest or layman, might ask himself: Besides prayer and sacrifices what else can I do concerning Fatima if the Pope and the bishops will not act? 

What Can All Men of Good Will Do?

Some years ago Father Nicholas Gruner, one of the foremost proponents of the Message of Fatima, found himself in conversation with an earnest young man who professed to be an agnostic in search of the truth. As they conversed, the subject turned to Fatima. The young man listened with great attention as Father Gruner explained the Fatima apparitions, the great public miracle which confirmed their heavenly origin, and the Virgin’s promise of the magnificent blessings the Church and the world would receive from God if only Her simple requests were heeded. Deeply moved by what he had heard, the young man exclaimed: “That is the first sign of hope I have seen for the world in a long time.”

The example of this young man shows us that the Message of Fatima has the power to appeal to all men of good will. For indeed, as Pope John Paul II declared in his sermon at Fatima on May 13, 1982, the Message “is addressed to every human being. The love of the Saviour’s Mother reaches every place touched by the work of salvation. Her care extends to every individual of our time, and to all societies, nations and peoples.”

On the same occasion the Pope, speaking precisely from the perspective of Fatima, referred to “the almost apocalyptic menaces looming over nations and mankind as a whole.” Men of good will can readily see that those menaces have grown immeasurably since the Pope’s words were spoken more than 25 years ago.

Today non-Catholic men of good will, confronted with the Message of Fatima, find themselves in a situation remarkably similar to that of Naaman. They are not Catholics, just as Naaman was not a member of the nation of Israel, but they have reason to believe that if a particular command of a prophet of God is followed, they will be made the beneficiaries of a great miracle. Naaman was cured of his leprosy only because he had the faith to try a remedy which, although it seemed strange and pointless to him, offered the prospect of an immense benefit in return for the most minimal effort on his part.

What is There to Lose? 

Even if you remain skeptical about the Message of Fatima — indeed, even if you do not believe in it at all — the question that confronts you now is the same as that which confronted Naaman: What is there to lose by performing such a simple ceremony, involving no expense or inconvenience to yourself? On the other hand, consider what you could lose if the Consecration is not performed and various nations are annihilated, as the Virgin warned in a prophecy whose every other warning has thus far been fulfilled.

Therefore, to all men of good will who may read this booklet we extend an earnest invitation to join us in our cause. There is nothing to preclude non-Catholics from joining with Catholics to petition the Pope and bishops for the Consecration of Russia. For, as the Pope himself has declared, the Message of Fatima is addressed to every human being. It was in recognition of this truth that the young agnostic spoke of the Message as a sign of hope for the whole world. And so it is.