Today we celebrate the beginning of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother to the Children in Fatima. Here, we recall The Blessed Mother's invitation to the children to pray and do penance for Peace in the world, conversion of Russia, and the end to WWI.
Basically, the Blessed Mother was reminding us of the essential ingredient of prayer not only in the life of a Christian but for the life of the world.
There is power in prayer. It opens us up to the deeper reality of solidarity and human longing for harmony. As St. Paul tells us, the whole creation groans for the salvation, for the freedom of the children of God. Pray is not about telling God what to do it is about allowing God to increase our desires for what is good and just and intensify our will that we might truly become instruments to bring about what God longs to take place.
We think about prayer but not often about penance. Penance is a concrete way of experiencing solidarity; Penance is not punishment it is grace, for St. Paul tells us we fill up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ. Here suffering does not equate itself with pain, but rather suffering directs our attention to true love.
Love is suffering if it is love. Penance removes the false notion of love as a just a good feeling but reminds us it is a life decision, a willful entering into the wounds of Christ that embrace the world; it is willful acceptance of the stigmata, bearing the marks of Christ so that the power of love might fill the world.
Pray and do penance and watch the world slowly be converted to the heart of Christ.
Our Lady of Fatima pray for us as we pray for all.
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