Written by Miriam Gruner
Our small Fatima Center team has started to arrive in Ireland for the World Meeting of Families, which begins tomorrow in Dublin. Together with a small group of Irish volunteers, we hope to report back to you on this conference, but far more importantly, to do reparation for the many indignities, slights, attacks and outrages that are scheduled to be perpetrated by this conference against the Sacred Heart of Our Lord and the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady.
I came to Ireland a few days in advance of the conference to visit with some of my relatives on my late mother’s side of my family who live on the Emerald Isle. It was my first visit in 28 years. Two days ago, I visited the church where my mom was baptized and many other relatives received the Sacraments. It is a beautiful, old church with stained glass windows, an ornate wooden roof, many statues, and a marble high altar. While some unfortunate renovations have been done to accommodate the New Mass, the church still has a Catholic sensibility.
On both sides of the sanctuary, there were two identical, large posters advertising the World Meeting of Families. They had a photo of a smiling, waving Pope Francis with a quote from him: “How much better family life would be if we used the words, ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry.’”
At first, the sentiment conveyed by the posters struck me positively. The Pope is right to suggest that life in our family, as well as many others, would benefit from more courtesy and a willingness to apologize when one is wrong.
But as his words sat with me, I became more uneasy. The quotation from the Pope to advertise the World Meeting of Families is true, but is also rather beside the point. Families today are challenged on multiple fronts. Parents who want a Catholic family life for their children and themselves must battle with powerful enemies arrayed against them – a secular and materialistic culture that wallows in impurity, state institutions and schools that pursue and teach an anti-life and anti-family agenda, and a Church that no longer forthrightly proclaims the truths about marriage and family that have been given to it by God Himself. Will teaching family members to say “please” and “thank you” really remedy all of this?
A willingness to apologize when one is wrong is certainly a good thing. Before we apologize, however, we must truly understand that we are in the wrong and have true sorrow and a firm purpose of amendment. Otherwise, saying “I’m sorry” is a platitude that signifies nothing. Will the World Meeting of Families truly teach Catholic families right from wrong on issues which families must confront today? From the list of scheduled speakers and topics, it seems doubtful.
Moreover, as the clerical abuse scandal in the Church comes to the fore yet again – as stories of depravity and filth perpetrated by priests on children and covered up by bishops swirl – will Pope Francis himself live up to his own advice and truly understand the evil that is now rife throughout the hierarchy of the Church, have true sorrow for it, and take all necessary steps for the Church to amend her ways (including the sacking of multiple bishops and rooting out the homosexual subculture that exists in many seminaries)? If he does, then the apology he is expected to give while on Irish soil will be impactful; if not, the apology will be meaningless.
So, more courtesy in family life would certainly be good, but what the Catholic family and the Church really need is more holiness. The purpose of the Church and the family is not to encourage harmonious relationships between family members but to help ensure the salvation of the souls of those same individuals.
Over one hundred years ago, the Church and the world were given a Message from Heaven intended to sanctify the lives of those who live it during these very times. The Message calls for prayer (The Rosary), reparation (The Five First Saturdays), sacrifice, and living under the mantle of Our Lady (The Brown Scapular). Were the Church to propagate this Message throughout the World and heed its call for a solemn consecration of Russia, the ills that beset the families of the world would come to an end.
How much better would family life be if the Message of Our Lady of Fatima were known and obeyed in the Church today?
Please keep our Fatima Center team and Irish volunteers in your prayers this week as we bring the Message of Fatima to the World Meeting of Families.