It is through our devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that we best make this self-offering to God.

Luke 18; 1-8 Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time. October 20th, 2013

Last week we witnessed an important event in the history of our modern times. Pope Francis made an act of consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. By doing so, Francis, as the Vicar of Christ on Earth, renewed a previous act done by Blessed John Paul II back in 1984. This act of John Paul was made in order to fulfill part of a request given by the Blessed Virgin Mary in Fatima Portugal in the year 1917 to three little shepherd children when she asked that the pope in union with all the bishops of the world would consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart.

Importantly, according to the eldest of the Children, Sister Lucia, who just died in 2005, John Paul’s act of consecration did indeed fulfilled this part of the urgent request from heaven given by Our Lady of Fatima. The only problem with John Paul’s part of the act of consecration was that it was done some 67 years too late. Sadly, if Our Lady’s requests would have been fulfilled right away after she appeared in 1917, the twentieth century and now the twenty-first century would have been saved from wars, persecution, diseases, natural disasters and so from great suffering.

The important thing to understand however is not that the popes somehow failed us by not making sooner the consecration of Russia and the world to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. No, the popes did not fail us, we failed ourselves. In other words, not enough people took seriously the heavenly warnings given to the three little shepherd Children; people refused to repent of their sins. They failed to make their own personal consecration of their lives to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of His Mother in order to convert back to God. You see this too was part of Our Lady’s request—our own personal repentance and personal conversion.

The warning of Fatima is then so very current; it is for our day. The greatest of the prophecies of Fatima have not yet been fulfilled. Fatima is really a call to return to God and stop sinning. It is the same call of the Gospel: Repent and be converted. If not the world will experience a punishment from God of biblical proportion, greater than even the flood. But it will not be a punishment of the Father’s making but of man’s own making. Pope John Paul and now Pope Francis know that even though these warnings from heaven are serious, they are given to us as a message of Great Hope. But will we listen before it is too late? Will we make the same mistake, as did the majority of the world after Heaven’s visit in 1917 and ignore the warnings?

We are starting to see the warnings come true, something is happening to our world and it is not good and deep down everybody knows it. We are in trouble, already so much suffering. And there are greater trials ahead for everyone. Listen to what Blessed John Paul II said in November 1980 at Fulda, Germany:

“We must be ready to face great trials, which could also require the sacrifice of our life for Christ…the trials could be reduced through your and our prayer, but they can’t “anymore” be avoided, because a true renewal of the Church can take place only this way…Let’s be strong and let’s get ready, having faith in Christ and in His Mother. Let’s pray much and often the Holy Rosary.”

We have been given a way to lessen the severity of the trials and bring an error of peace to our world. It is through our own repentance and conversion through devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. God does not wish the purification of the world by fire, but by grace. And so, God wishes for you and I, by our holiness of life, to become instruments of His grace and His mercy, so He can use us to convert our world so steeped in the mire of sin and so death.

Fatima reminds us that Sin, not God, is what is the cause of all unhappiness into the world; sin causes all wars in our world, in our communities and families, sin causes division and a lack of peace even within our selves. It was sin that caused physical death to come into the world, and, if it is serious, sin can cause spiritual death, which if left unrepentant can cause eternal death. Is important to note that Mother of God actually showed these three little Children the reality of hell, that it does exist contrary to the denial of so many, even so many churchmen; those who deny it, risk ending up there. And so the Blessed Mother warns us her children of the great loss of souls that will occur if men do not heed heaven’s warning through her, and repent from their sins and convert, that is turn back to the All loving, but all Holy and Just God.

The modern world is really living in a dream world, which is quickly turning into a nightmare; it is ignoring the reality of sin and its devastating effects. One of the gravest of sins in our modern society pointed to at Fatima is what the Second Vatican Council referred to as practical atheism. Practical atheism is seen in the fact that while many say they believe in God, they in all practicality live their lives as if He doesn’t exist. For the most part they ignore him by how they live their lives, even though they may continue to give him “lip service.”

This practical atheism or we may call it secularism; this practical denial of God must be repented of. How….? By man paying attention to God. And the best way to do this is first of all by prayer. Fatima then, as the Gospel, is a call to pray always. For Man must pray to God the source of everything, talk to Him, meditation on Him and on His truths, and contemplate His mysteries all in an effort to achieve an intimate loving union with God. The goal of Prayer is not just to receive something from God; it is not just to talk to God; it is to become unite with God in a union of love where the soul seeks to become one with God as a drop of water becomes one with the ocean when the two meet.

It is God our heavenly Father who loves us and so who calls us into this union with Him. He initiates the contact, but we must in faith then give our response to His Call. And we must then pray to God not only for ourselves but also for all of the millions who ignore Him. We must seek Him on behalf of the indifferent souls who live their lives as if He didn’t exist and who never think of their death and the judgment that comes after, heaven or hell. We must try to love God in order to make up for all of those who don’t love Him; we must pray always in order to become instruments for the conversion of others, to become instruments of mercy for us and for our whole world, in order to help save souls from an eternal separation from God for ever.

Today Jesus desires to help us answer Fatima’s call to pray always in order to renew and save our world. In today’s Gospel, He uses the image of a widow in great need; she persistently bothers the unjust judge, who because of her constant supplication, finally gives into her request. Jesus makes a contrast here between the judge and our Heavenly Father; if even this unjust Judge will grant the widow’s request because of her perseverance, how much more will Our Father in heaven who loves us grant our requests when we persevere in our prayer to Him. The lesson is of course this, because prayer is that action which put us into direct Contact with the living God we must pray always, without ceasing or becoming weary.

Jesus himself gives us the example of praying always. Prayer was the connecting thread of his whole life. His mind was always on His Father, everything He did was done for love of His Father. So intimate was and is this conversation and relationship, that Jesus and his Father are one. Of Jesus, it is said that he prayed during the day, in the evening, early in the morning, and sometimes he passed the whole night in prayer. We are deceiving ourselves if we think that we can pray from the heart if we do not set aside every day, fixed times for prayer, times when we are free from every other distraction.

Jesus shows us that prayer should be the first act of our day and the last of act of our day, along with times in between to pray as well, including before and after meals. Part of our ceaseless prayer are those specific schedule times of our day, which should be devoted to contemplation and private prayer; It is during these times in the silence away from the cares of the world, if only for a little while, that we come to know God’s holy will for us and are strengthened to perform our daily duties in a way that is pleasing to Our Lord.

The call of Fatima and of the Gospels to pray always means then living in a personal, constant union with God. It doesn’t mean spending all day in church, and it certainly doesn’t mean neglecting our daily duties of life in order to pray. No, praying always is simply fulfilling our daily duties with our mind and heart centered on God and on our love for Him and His love for us. Your work, everything you do, no matter how insignificant is done for love of God and offered to God in love and for love of neighbor for love of God; your whole life becomes a living prayer and gives God glory. This begins with a morning offering; that is with an act of our will in which we offer all our thoughts, words and actions to God with a prayer such as: all for the Sacred and Eucharist heart of Jesus, all through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, all in union with St. Joseph. The key here is that as we offer our daily activities we do so with a desire to show our love for God who loves us beyond our imagining.

You see, prayer can never be about calculating the time we spend, or checking it off our list of things to do. Does a mother ask how often she should love her child or a friend how often he should love a friend? Does a Mother ever see it has a burden to talk to her child, or friend to talk to his friend, the one he loves. St. Augustine says that the essence of prayer is desire. And so, if the desire for God is constant, so also is prayer. But if there is no interior desire, then you can howl as much as you want – to God you are mute.

And so, praying always is above all is an act of love, and love takes great effort. We truly need the Holy Spirit's help to help us pray always, for we do not know how to pray, as we ought. Because we have a fallen human nature we are so weak and so easily become weary, we so often want to take the easy way out when prayer is a struggle, when we don’t feel anything or we don’t seem to get anything out of it. The devil too, gives us senseless reasons the enemy for abandoning our prayer, ‘I have no time’ – when we are constantly wasting it. ‘This not for me.’ ‘My heart is dry…’ and on and on.

Prayer however, is not a question of what we say or feel, but of love; it is a choice to love and be with the one we love; it is a matter of the heart; the whole person, mind, intellect and will…it rises above the emotions. The great effort is worth it. Many of our difficulties and obstacles in prayer will disappear if we just pause throughout our daily activities to consider that we are always in the presence of a God who loves us more than we love ourselves. He is at our side as much as with the ones who heard and spoke to him in today’s Gospel; in fact He is closer. He never leaves us and longs to enter into intimate conversation with us, not just once in while, but always.

Also an essential part of our scheduled daily prayer must be the prayer of the Holy Rosary. The three little shepherds (at Fatima) understood the value of the Rosary as a call to prayer and an easy way of responding to Jesus’ call to us to pray always. Sister Lucia, one of the children of Fatima wrote, “Those who say the Rosary daily are like children who, every day, manage to find a few moments just to be with their father, to keep him company, to show him their gratitude, to do some service for him, to receive his advice and his blessing. It is an exchange of love, the love of the father for the child and the child for the father; it is a mutual giving.”

The Rosary leads us to another essential part of how we pray always. In the Rosary, Our Mother leads us by the hand to a deep intimate loving encounter with her Son, Jesus. In the Rosary, we contemplate the mysteries of Jesus through the eyes of His Mother and our Mother; through her we learn to imitate the life of her Son. And so, the Rosary is really a Eucharistic prayer; if it is prayed correctly and with love and devotion it leads us to Jesus truly present in His human body and soul along with His divinity, in the Holy Eucharist. Love and devotion for the Eucharist is then an essential part of praying always, for the Eucharist is the only way to God, because it is God in His human nature and His human nature is the door way to His Divinity—Intimacy with the Eucharist is then the goal of prayer-for it is the way to oneness with God.

And so it is absolutely essential for our prayer that we set aside, as the Church as always done, a special day dedicated to worship, prayer and study, yes studying our faith is part of prayer. This special day is of course Sunday; it was previously known as the Lord's day, because it was suppose to be a day set aside for the Eucharistic Lord; by the way not just one hour, at Holy Mass but the whole day.

The whole day of Sunday should really be set aside for God, especially as families; that is families united together praying and focusing on the things of God to grow closer as family to God. The early Church did this; Sunday began with Mass, continued with catechism, learning about God, time for resting, recreation and relaxation with God, and then ended by the family returning to the Church for a holy Hour with God in the Eucharist. After the Sunday Holy Hour, families would then join the clergy in chanting Sunday Evening prayer. Every family did this in order to grow closer to God and one another. This is why in my former parish I held Family and Children Holy hour, to bring children and whole families to a privileged time outside of Mass to be with the one we love, Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.

If we are to pray always we must do whatever we can so that this day, Sunday, can return to being, as God intended, a day of serene joy that strengthens our communion with God, and through Him, with each other, in the family, and with emphasis, "the parish family." Out of this will flow a renewal of our whole society. We will never straighten out our Society and answer Fatima’s call to pray always without restoring Sunday as the Lord's day; again the whole day.

Let us today, each one of us take seriously heaven’s message of hope given at Fatima by responding to its call to pray always in order make up for the worlds great sin of ignoring God. With help of God grace, which comes to us only from Holy Mother Church through her Sacraments, let us struggle more to turn away from all sin and turn more fully to God who is already so greatly offended by the sins of the world. Let pray always as individuals and as a world turn to God by living our lives with greater fidelity to His Commandments and so with greater fidelity to all the Teachings of His One, Holy, True Catholic and Apostolic Church, which is the font of all grace that souls need in order to be converted and so be saved

The infinite grace made available by the most perfect of all prayers will help us. Fatima reminded us that the most perfect all prayers is of course the Holy Mass because it is the sacrificial prayer of Jesus to the Father on our behalf. But for Holy Mass to be effective in our lives, we must, as members of the Mystical Body of Christ, offer ourselves fully to the one we Love, God. This is the prayer of adoration in which we must surrender ourselves, consecrate ourselves, offer ourselves along with Jesus’s own self-offering to the Father. For it is the Father who out of His love for us, first offers us everything, even Himself, through the Spirit, in the gift of His Son; in order that we may one forever in the love and unity of the Triune God.

It is through our devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that we best make this self-offering to God. By praying her rosary and wearing her brown Scapular with faith in her Son and in Her, Her hands will become for us the living paten on which our hearts will become acceptable to Her Son and by Her Son through the Father. As the Spouse of the Holy Spirit she will obtain for us the strength we need to live this offering faithfully and fully and so become more and more transformed in other Christ’s for the conversion of others in our families, in our parishes and in our world. Our lives will then become lives of prayer in imitation of Christ, for the salvation of our world.