Today is the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, an optional memorial on the Roman liturgical calendar. Today we commemorate the appearances of our Blessed Mother to the three shepherd children of Fatima, Portugal in 1917, a private revelation recognized by the Church as authentic. We are coming up on the one hundredth anniversary of these apparitions, which offers an opportunity to reflect on the mixed bag of our contemporary world. A lot has changed in the in the years since then, but some things, like sinful human nature, have not changed. Many great technological changes and scientific advancements have completely transformed our world for the better, yet the widespread denial and rejection of objective moral and religious truth in the name of false ideologies and philosophies has caused and is continuing to cause great suffering and misery for millions of people--as was happening in the early twentieth century with World War I and the godless ideology of Communism.
The core message of Fatima--prayer and fasting for the conversion of sinners and for peace in the world--is even more pertinent for us today than it was when first delivered nearly one hundred years ago. Our twenty-first century world, marked by selfish individualism and the "globalization of indifference," is in desperate need of prayer, fasting, conversion, and peace. Let this feast day be a reminder to us to heed Our Blessed Mother's request to pray our Rosaries and give little things up each day for the conversion of sinners and for peace in the world. And let's remember that this all starts right inside of each one of us; we must look honestly into our own hearts and identify the areas in our own lives where we ourselves need conversion. Only when human hearts change will our world really change for the better. Prayer and fasting are the means God uses to change hearts in every age. He can do it again in ours. So let's get to work!
Have a blessed feast day!
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