The second Sunday of May is Mother’s Day in the United States (and some other countries). We honor our mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers. We also send well wishes to expectant mothers and women who desire to be mothers one day. For Catholics, in addition to honoring our earthly mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers, we honor our Mother, Mary the Blessed Virgin.
Yes, Mary is the mother of Jesus, as it is she, in
whom he was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:30-35), and who
gave birth to him (Luke 2:7). And he commissioned her to be our mother before
his expiration on the Cross (John 19:27).
Why did Jesus do this to his mother, making her also
our mother?
This way, we are assured to be guided on the right
path.
Yes, Jesus the Parakletos (1 John 2:1) asked
the Father to send the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, as another
Parakletos (John 14:16) so that we will not get lost after his ascension
back to the Father (i.e. John 14:26; cf. Luke 12:12). This way, as he promised,
we will not be left in the world as orphans (John 14:18; cf. 14:28).
And we do have the mother, who comes down from heaven
to guide us to make sure that we stay with her Son, Jesus to save us from
troubles, as she directed servers during wedding reception at Cana to him (John
2:5), even if we do not listen to another Parakletos.
So, we cannot forget to honor Mary, our Mother, on Mother’s
Day. And we thank her for her motherly care, keeping us from troubles – keeping
us to her Son, the Parakletos, and to listen to another Parakletos,
the Holy Spirit.
It is no coincidence that the memorial of Our Lady of
Fatima (May 13) comes around Mother’s Day. On this memorial, we honor Mary, our
Mother, as Our Lady of Fatima, commemorating her first apparition to three
peasant children, Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco, in Fatima, Portugal, on May
13, 1917. Henceforth, she appeared on June 13, July 13, August 13, September
13, and October 13, as a messenger from heaven.
Through these apparitions, our Mother gave us solemn
warnings against going away from God, negligence in observing her Son’s
teaching and commandments, via these children. Her messages are rather
prophetic – showing grave consequences of our unrepentance. She even showed a
glimpse of purgatory and hell.
These apparitions of our Mother in 1917 were series of
wake-up calls for us. We had been slumbered by rising erroneous modernism.
Though since Pope Gregory XVI’s Mirari Vos in
1832, the Church had been pointing against errors in modernism, the Catholics
did not heed Papal warnings. In 1864, People Pius IX issued Quanta Cura
with the syllabus of errors. Then, from 1878 until 1903, Pope Leo XIII vigorously
issued more warnings against spiritual venoms of modernism’s errors. Yet, many
Catholics continued to played with devils of modernism. As a result, the world
was full of conflicts. And World War I broke out in 1914. It was during this
great war, our Mother made these apparitions to warn us on the Father’s wrath.
As many did not listen to Jesus, did not believe in
him, during his public ministry, as the Israelites did not listen to judges and
prophets, as reminded in the Old Testament, the world did not listen to the
papal warnings against errors in modernism. World War I, in a way, was a grave
consequence of this.
The hell on earth was unfolding as World War I
continued on, while “lost sheep” kept killing one another, in their own pursuit
of what modernism teaches. And this would bring even greater man-made hells
(and so the Bolshevik Revolution happened and World War II broke out, bringing
the Cold War, and escalating nuclear arms race, to further bring the creation
on the blink of extinction).
It was the historical context where our Mother made
series of apparition as Our Lady of Fatima to call for our conversion from destructive
modernism to the truth in her Son’s teaching and commandments, pressing us to
pray the Holy Rosary with contrite heart.
In the Gospel Reading of her memorial (Luke 11:27-28),
we hear an unnamed woman among the crowd, saying to Jesus, "Blessed is
the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed." And to
this, Jesus replied:
Rather, blessed are those who hear the
word of God and observe it.
Our most blessed mother, Mary, appeared in Fatima, to directs
our hearts to her Son, to listen to the word of God in his teaching and
commandments, so that we can be spared from the Father’s wrath, as we come to
realize how devilishly erroneous the modernism is. She reminds us that we
cannot attain salvation in modernism, which is relativistic.
It has been more than 100 years since the first
apparition of Our Lady of Fatima to issue series of solemn warning against
errors of modernism and their grave consequences in a prophetic way. Yet, the
world continues to head to the extinction, while many have lost faith in God,
rather drifting to relativism, which has brought by modernism. This also has
brought numbers of false teachers within the Church, only to sow seeds of more
divisions.
Do we listen to our Mother this time?
We had not listened to her well. So, she made another series of apparitions from 1973 to 1979 in Akita, Japan, reiterating her messages in Fatima with a more pressing tone.
If we do not, this Mother’s Day would
be meaningless.
Remember, Our Mother is also the heavenly Gebirah (Queen Mother) to her Son, who is the King of the Universe. And she is God’s most favored one, the Immaculate Conception, being full of grace (Luke 1:28). So Elizabeth greeted Mary with these words upon the visitation, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”(Luke 1:42-43). In response, Mary sung the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). And this joyful canticle of Mary to God is a reflection of the First Reading (Isaiah 61: 9-11).
With the Father, and her Son, and the Holy Spirit, and
us, our Mother’s joy is in full. She wants what her Son wants, and it is that
we are in him, he in us, as he is in the Father, He in him (John 17:21; cf.
14:20). This is how God’s blessed family should be (i.e. Galatians 4:1-7).
So let us honor our most blessed Mother by listening
to her message in Fatima, turning away from erroneous modernism and to her Son –
to be in him and to let him in us, as he is in the Father and He in him.
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