20th Sunday after Pentecost

Today is October 13. This is the 95th Anniversary of the Miracle at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917. Tens of thousands of people were. Many were skeptics. When the Blessed Mother of Heaven appeared, she performed a miracle that even the skeptics could not explain. Many were converted; even those whose faith had gone cold. On a rainy, muddy day back in 1917, the Sun did sort of a dance in the sky, much to the terror and awe of all on earth in Portugal that day. Even from miles away, it was witnessed.

Our Blessed Mother had warned us, through these kids, what was to happen on earth if her requests were not heeded. FAST FORWARD! Here we are. In a mess that only the mother of our Lord can help us out of. PRAY THE ROSARY!

And now, to the Mass for tomorrow. Jesus will heal the son of the ruler of Capharnaum. Jesus, of course, answers this man's prayer. Our beloved Abbot Gueranger draws from this Gospel, its meaning. The saints of the Church concur:

'The world is drawing towards its end; like the ruler's son, it begins to die. Tormented by the fever of the passions which have been excited in Capharnaum, the city of business and pleasure, it is too weak to go itself to the Physician who could cure it. it is for its father--for the pastors, who, by Baptism, gave it the life of grace, and who govern the Christian people as rulers of holy Church--to go to Jesus, and beseech Him to restore the sick man to health. St. John begins this account by mentioning the place where they were to find Jesus: it was at Cana, the city of the marriage-feast, where He first manifested His power in the banquet-hall; it is in heaven that the God-Man abides, now that He has quitted our earth, where He has left His disciples deprived of the Bridegroom, and having to pass a certain period of time in the field of penance, and of consolation, which penance brings with it. Such was this earth intended to be, when man was driven from Eden; such was the consolation, to which, during this life, the sinner was to aspire; and, because of his having sought after other consolations, because of his having pretended to turn this field of penance into a new paradise, the world is now to be destroyed. Man has exchanged the life-giving delights of Eden for the pleasures which kill the soul, and ruin the body, and draw down the diving vengeance.

There is one remedy for all this, and only one: it is the zeal of the pastors, and the prayers of that portion of Christ's flock which has withstood the torrent of universal corruption. But it is of the utmost importance that, on this point, the faithful and their pastors should lay aside all personal considerations, and thoroughly enter into the spirit which animates the Church herself. Though treated with the most revolting ingratitude, and injustice, and calumny, and treachery of every sort, this mother of mankind forgets all these her own wrongs, and thinks only of the true prosperity and salvation of the very countries which despise her...That we may fulfill her wishes, let us, as Tertullian says, 'assemble together in one body, that we may, so to speak, offer armed force to God by our prayers. God loves such violence as that.'

We need to pray even harder these days, since our pastors do NOT seem to pass on what has been handed on for almost 2000 years.

Kyrie, eleison