A One-of-a-Kind Calendar
It is my hope that The Fatima Center’s 2023 calendar will find its way into the hands of many Catholics, to serve as a devotional tool by which those who love God may advance in holiness through fervent prayer and penance, and by faithfully living Our Blessed Mother’s Fatima Message.
This calendar has many unique features which make it a true spiritual resource, guiding our devotions on a daily basis:
- Beautiful images and quotations to help foster your devotion to Our Lady of Fatima;
- Visual monthly reminder of every First Friday and First Saturday;
- An explanation of the First Saturday devotion and a checklist for practicing it monthly;
- A Fatima Timeline and an easy reference chart to 14 papal consecrations;
- A guide to the Church’s feast days, days of penance, and penitential norms in place when Our Lady appeared at Fatima, to encourage you to pray and do penance as She requested;
- A saint for each day whose powerful intercession you can invoke and who is profiled in the “Saint of the Day” feature on The Fatima Center’s website, fatima.org;
- A reminder of the litany traditionally recommended for each month. (The text of each litany is also available on The Fatima Center’s website in the Monthly Litanies booklet.)
Monthly Devotions
In her wisdom, Holy Mother Church provides us with monthly devotions which focus on specific mysteries of the Faith. This calendar therefore highlights an important Catholic devotion for each month.
These monthly devotions are drawn from the Temporal Cycle of the liturgical year, following the major events in Our Lord’s life: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost.
Most Catholics are familiar with the awesome mysteries commemorated in the Christmas and Easter cycles, but perhaps less so regarding those commemorated during the Time after Pentecost – mysteries which nevertheless are central to the life of the Church and of every Christian, and which have been given particular emphasis in the Message of Fatima. I believe it was Our Lady of Fatima’s intention to draw our attention to these distinctively Catholic dogmas by appearing precisely during the months of May through October, in the Season of Pentecost.
Devotion to God’s Most Holy Mother (which the Church especially commemorates in May) is essential for salvation, as She is the Mediatrix of All Graces. The Holy Rosary (October) is Her privileged spiritual weapon by which the devil and his minions are crushed. Through Her Sorrows (September), She shows us how to stand at the foot of the Cross – Holy Mass! – so as to profit from the merits of Christ’s Precious Blood (July). Finally, the Sacred Heart (June), emblematic of Christ’s great love for mankind, will reign with the Immaculate Heart (August) over the whole world in the Era of Peace promised by Our Lady. Her apparition at Pontevedra in December 1925 lends emphasis to Her Immaculate Conception, while Her apparition at Tuy in June 1929 further highlights the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist (Corpus Christi).
I have compiled a prayer book that complements this calendar, also available from The Fatima Center, containing traditional litanies which correspond to each month’s highlighted devotion. I urge you to pray these litanies throughout the corresponding months, on Sundays or even daily, possibly in connection with the family Rosary, as an aid to meditating upon and truly living these wondrous mysteries of the season.
Please also make a habit of consulting The Fatima Center’s website, where you can accompany us as we pray these litanies each month (either in video or podcast format). CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO
Powerful Intercession of the Saints
The Church’s liturgical year also includes the Sanctoral Cycle, by which we honor and seek the intercession of the saints in Heaven. Only a relatively few saints are honored with a special Mass Proper in the Church’s liturgical calendar, but compendiums such as Butler’s Lives of the Saints and the Roman Martyrology list many saints associated with every single day of the year, these feast days customarily being the day on which the saint died and entered eternal life.
As our “Catholic sense” tells us, and as saintly mystics such as St. Gertrude the Great have confirmed, God grants greater power to His chosen saints on their patronal day. While we do well to invoke the aid of the saints at any time, it especially behooves us to do so on their feast days. I recommend the custom of ending one’s regular prayers (such as morning and night prayers, prayers before and after meals, and prayers before we begin an activity) by simply invoking the day’s saint, “Saint N., pray for us.” Hence, for each day of the year, this calendar notes at least one saint whose feast is celebrated on that date.
While on pilgrimage to Our Lady of Buen Suceso (in Quito, Ecuador), I was greatly edified to see a magnificent reliquary with 365 saints’ relics, one for each day of the year. Very few oratories can boast such a priceless treasure, but my hope is that this calendar can serve you in a spiritually analogous manner.
“Unless You Shall Do Penance, You Shall All Likewise Perish.” – St. Luke 13:3
In the Vision from the Third Secret of Fatima, an angel with a flaming sword points at the earth and cries out: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” This call is at the heart of both Christ’s Gospel and His Mother’s Fatima Message. Much prayer and penance is needed to make reparation for men’s blasphemies, sacrileges, and insults which so offend God. Yes, God is infinitely merciful, but He is also perfectly just and ‘He will not be mocked’ (Gal 6:7). Every evil requires atonement; every grace must be gained though someone’s corresponding sacrifice. We, the members of Christ’s Mystical Body, must join with Him, our Head, in fulfilling this obligation of justice and of charity.
Unfortunately, a diabolical disorientation has blinded many in our time, and as a consequence the world has been inundated with the most heinous sins imaginable. Hardly any prelates or priests preach on the necessity of penance, and few Catholics today heed Our Lady’s call for penance, even though it is needed now more than ever before. Thus, I constantly exhort the faithful to voluntarily perform ever more penance, for example by adhering to the traditional disciplines of fast and abstinence found in the 1917 Code of Canon Law (or even previous, more rigorous norms). By doing so, you will live the Message of Fatima more faithfully and merit many graces for the salvation of countless souls, including your own.
An Invaluable Spiritual Resource
This calendar is certainly beautiful and practical. Yet its true value lies in being a powerful and unique spiritual resource, especially by encouraging penance as it was practiced in 1917. These are the kinds of tools we need to recover and restore all our Catholic Tradition, in doctrine, liturgy, morality, piety and asceticism. I know of no other calendar like it and I am sure it will make an ideal gift to family, friends, parishioners, and priests.
As a shepherd of souls, I urge you to use this calendar throughout the year, making a habit of consulting the Church’s arrangement of feasts so as to maximize the benefits of daily meditation and of invoking the saints. May it serve to increase your daily application to prayer and penance and thereby help bring about (soon!) the Triumph of Mary’s Immaculate Heart.