1. "Woman, behold your son!" (Jn 19:26). As we near the end of
this Jubilee Year, when you, O Mother, have offered us Jesus anew, the
blessed fruit of your womb most pure, the Word made flesh, the world's
Redeemer, we hear more clearly the sweet echo of his words entrusting
us to you, making you our Mother: "Woman, behold your son!" When he
entrusted to you the Apostle John, and with him the children of the
Church and all people, Christ did not diminish but affirmed anew the
role which is his alone as the Saviour of the world. You are the
splendour which in no way dims the light of Christ, for you exist in
him and through him.
Everything in you is fiat: you are the Immaculate One, through
you there shines the fullness of grace. Here, then, are your children
gathered before you at the dawn of the new millennium. The Church
today, through the voice of the Successor of Peter, in union with so
many Pastors assembled here from every corner of the world, seeks
refuge in your motherly protection and trustingly begs your
intercession as she faces the challenges which lie hidden in the
future.
2. In this year of grace, countless people have known the
overflowing joy of the mercy which the Father has given us in Christ.
In the particular Churches throughout the world, and still more in this
centre of Christianity, the widest array of people have accepted this
gift. Here the enthusiasm of the young rang out, here the sick have
lifted up their prayer. Here have gathered priests and religious,
artists and journalists, workers and people of learning, children and
adults, and all have acknowledged in your beloved Son the Word of God
made flesh in your womb. O Mother, intercede for us, that the fruits of
this Year will not be lost and that the seeds of grace will grow to the
full measure of the holiness to which we are all called.
3. Today we wish to entrust to you the future that awaits
us, and we ask you to be with us on our way. We are the men and women
of an extraordinary time, exhilarating yet full of contradictions.
Humanity now has instruments of unprecedented power: we can turn this
world into a garden, or reduce it to a pile of rubble. We have devised
the astounding capacity to intervene in the very wellsprings of
life: man can use this power for good, within the bounds of the moral
law, or he can succumb to the shortsighted pride of a science
which accepts no limits, but tramples on the respect due to every human
being. Today as never before in the past, humanity stands at a
crossroads. And once again, O Virgin Most Holy, salvation lies fully
and uniquely in Jesus, your Son.
4. Therefore, O Mother. like the Apostle John, we wish to
take you into our home (cf. Jn 19:27), that we may learn from you to
become like your Son. "Woman. behold your son!" Here we stand before
you to entrust to your maternal care ourselves, the Church, the entire
world. Plead for us with your beloved Son that he may give us in
abundance the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth which is the fountain of
life. Receive the Spirit for us and with us, as happened in the first
community gathered round you in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (cf.
Acts 1:14). May the Spirit open our hearts to justice and love, and
guide people and nations to mutual understanding and a firm desire for
peace. We entrust to you all people, beginning with the weakest: the
babies yet unborn, and those born into poverty and suffering, the young
in search of meaning, the unemployed, and those suffering hunger and
disease. We entrust to you all troubled families, the elderly with no
one to help them, and all who are alone and without hope.
5. O Mother, you know the sufferings and hopes of the
Church and the world: come to the aid of your children in the daily
trials which life brings to each one, and grant that, thanks to the
efforts of all, the darkness will not prevail over the light. To you,
Dawn of Salvation, we commit our journey through the new Millennium, so
that with you as guide all people may know Christ, the light of the
world and its only Saviour, who reigns with the Father and the Holy
Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
Those were the (translated) words of
our Heavenly Mother on July 13, 1917, as She revealed a secret to
Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco at what is known today as Fátima,
Portugal. (2)
May God have Mercy on us all because
the Queen of Heaven and Earth, the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ and
our Mother knows the difference between Russia and theWorld;
and She requested Russia
