The crossover from May to June in the Church’s liturgical calendar give us much to prayerfully ponder. Beginning with the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity (with Whom communion is the intended end of our very existence), we have a number of other special feast days which show us the way to get there: May 31 (The Visitation), June 2 (Corpus Christi), June 7 (Sacred Heart of Jesus), June 8 (Immaculate Heart of Mary). In the wisdom of the Holy Trinity, the proximity of these feast days is not accidental, and this mystical juxtaposition is an invitation for us to ponder and assimilate God’s unchanging wisdom in our own lives.  Their proximity pints to a theological brilliance accompanied by extraordinary grace to those who interiorize them.

Nothing is mere “coincidence” in the life and history of the Church. And in the troubling times in which we live, we SHOULD be looking for additional significances as to the close proximity of these feasts. God’s involvement in history is never static, in so much that a feast day has only a single significance every year. The Church is an organism who lives and grows and that includes its understanding of herself and the doctrines she possesses. Therefore, the Church’s understanding of the significance of her feast days should increase and their relevance for our times should become more evident as the Church matures and faces new challenges in her life.

Therefore, when we look at events in the life of the Church and the significance of her liturgical calendar, we should look not just to their historical facts — such as what happened at the Battle of Waterloo, but at their supra-historical significance. What does God teach us through them today (e.g. what do Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Battle of Lepanto teach us today). In a certain sense, historical events always live on until the end of time because we are always experiencing and witnessing their effects — philosophies and theologies and their various materializations (Christianity, Islam, Marxism, etc.). In fact, we learn more about these ways of thinking and living by their effects. For example, Our Lady in 1917 at Fatima said, “Russia will spread her errors . . .” What errors? The Russian Revolution of October 1917 wasn’t until AFTER Our Lady said this. We were asked to trust in Mary’s message or suffer the consequences — and we didn’t.  And the evils of Marxism were not understood by the majority until its materialization via Communism was realized and over 20 million were murdered by the Stalinist death machine. The same goes for Hitler, Mao and every other dictator. The underlying philosophies of de-personalization and death assumed greater significance after the death of the tyrants who propagated them — hopefully, so that humanity would learn invaluable lessons so as not to fall into those errors again.

We can apply the same way of thinking regarding events in the life of the Church. Why is understanding Church history so important? In short, it is so that we can penetrate with greater clarity of understanding God’s wisdom acting through the Church when dogmas were proclaimed by her and why they were proclaimed; when she responded with heroism to the evils of the times and with what means, etc.; why heaven intervened in extraordinary ways during dark times of the Church to reveal the solution to the world’s evils. Positively, the Church has come to understand better the intimate relationships we share within the Mystical Body of Christ (Church Triumphant, Church Suffering and Church Militant) and the best spiritual practices to attain the greatest possible holiness and destroy evil via saints like DeMontfort and Kolbe.

In light of this rather lengthy introduction, I wish to offer a brief reflection on the recent feast days of the Church whose timely significance should give us hope and direct our actions in a rapidly deteriorating world, which is more than evident from the economic, social, moral and political spheres–for those with eyes to see.

From May 31 until June 8, the Church celebrated a number of significant feast days, all of which are interrelated. May 31 has been the date shared by three feast days over the last century. Originally, the end of the Marian month possessed the feast day of “Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces” granted under the pontificate of Benedict XV in 1921. This was due to the tireless efforts of Cardinal Mercier who sought a dogmatic definition of the doctrine. The entrance of this Marian doctrine into the lex orandi (liturgical law of the Church) removes any doubt of the truth of this teaching. This liturgical feast served as a fitting bridge to the month of June consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and in which we celebrate the solemnity of Corpus Christi. Thus the close link between the Church’s belief in Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was accentuated.

The feast of “Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces” remained on May 31 until Pope Pius XII in 1954 established the feast of Mary’s universal Queenship and transferred Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces to May 8. In the 1964 Missale Romanum, two other feasts shared May 8: The Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of All Saints and Mother of Fair Love; and The Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. It is a very interesting “coincidence” that Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and the universal Queenship of Mary have a connection to Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces.

Later, the feast of the Queenship of Mary was fittingly transferred to August 22, which immediately followed the dogma of Mary’s Assumption. May 31 eventually became the home of the present day feast day of the Visitation of Mary to St. Elizabeth. Was this just a random feast day assignment or is the Holy Trinity, through the Church, making a further connection between the previous feasts and the Visitation? Has the Church been  utterly confused about all of these feast days? Hardly. As Venerable Fulton Sheen said, there is nothing God does without the greatest finesse of perfection. We will revisit this comment of +Sheen in a moment.

Just a brief word then on the connection of the feasts that have been and are associated with May 31, the bridge day to the month consecrated to the Most Sacred and Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. We are reminded that Mary is the one whom God Himself — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — chose to be the spousal and maternal instrument through Whom all His power and graces would be communicated to the world. There would be no Incarnation had she said “No.” I find it extremely significant that the Church now celebrates the Visitation on May 31, a feast that does not replace or minimize the truth of Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces, but rather illustrates it in the most concrete of ways. It is Mary who brings the Incarnate Word to her cousin “in haste”. It is only at the hearing of Mary’s words that John the Baptist receives the Holy Spirit and begins his life as “saint” John the Baptist, now filled with the Spirit which Mary mediated by her very presence. And the first words of Mary’s great prayer of praise proclaim her role whenever she visits God’s people: to magnify the Lord in the same way a magnifying glass magnifies the light and image projected through it. Mary increases the intensity of the working of the Holy Spirit and together bring Christ to a world in desperate need of healing and true salvation. But only the meek and humble of heart can receive what she comes to bring, for “He has mercy on those who fear him . . . He has scattered the proud in their conceit and . . . and [He] has lifted up the lowly.”

And now, for the last 180 years, the world has been extraordinarily blessed to live in an unprecedented Age of Marian visitation which has carried with it the most extraordinary of graces. It is at these places of special visitation where the truth of Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces is beautifully manifested, for it is only at these places where the number of conversions rapidly reach levels in the millions. Wherever she appears, she brings her spouse the Holy Spirit and together they bring the mystery of the Incarnation anew and in a mighty way. Where she appears, basilicas and churches are built where the sacraments are celebrated almost non-stop, especially the sacrament of mercy, Confession, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Her modern visitations also bring forth great warning to the Church, for she is sent as a messenger on behalf of her Son: Repent, make reparation for your sins and those of the world, and live the Gospel to the full. If not, the sins of the world will call down upon itself a chastisement the world has never seen — a chastisement that will bring about the purification of the world and usher in what Mary has called at Fatima the triumph of her Immaculate Heart. With this triumph will usher in a new era in which the reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus will be lived in a way never experienced on earth.

So, within a period of two weeks bridging the month dedicated to Mary and the month dedicated to the Sacred and Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, the Church gives us a lot to ponder–not abstractly, but concretely within the signs and troubles of our times. Are our eyes open to perceive this? Are our ears open to hear this? Do we understand the grave significance of this extraordinary time of Mary’s visitation?

As I said earlier, the meaning of historical events, especially events surrounding the life of Church, are more understood and appreciated in time as the world either heeds or ignores them at their own peril. This truth can be seen in the message and events at Fatima, which are more relevant to our times than to the tumultuous times of 1917. They are more relevant because we did not learn from them and are now reaping what we sow — and if we do not heed the message of Fatima to a heroic degree, we will be welcoming the greatest period of evil the world has ever witnessed — and it has witnessed indescribable evils already.

On the other hand, if we respond heroically to the message of Fatima — penance for our sins; total consecration of ourselves, our families, our parishes, our nations and the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; daily rosary; adoration of the Blessed Sacrament [remember the Angel’s visit in 1916] — then we will more effectively and quickly crush the evil serpent (who is emerging more as the bold dragon of Revelation 12) and usher in more rapidly the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This isn’t mere devotional sentiment as the devil wishes us to believe. It took 67 years after Our Lady at Fatima called for the consecration of Russia for this request to be fulfilled in 1984 by now Blessed John Paul II. Within 5 years, the needed breach in Communism was made and while it is far from destroyed, its weakness has been revealed–a weakness which is embodied in all that the Blessed Virgin stands for and brings about by her power. Turning to Mary isn’t weakness, it’s power and she made that clear on October 13, 1917, when she showed her power over the atom by making the sun her play thing, as Fulton Sheen described it. Mankind is using its power for enslavement, destruction and death. Mary uses it for life, freedom and the conversion of souls. To whose power do we turn to fight the evils of our times–beginning with the evil within ourselves? History provides numerous precedents to help us make that decision — St. Dominic and the Rosary (13th century), Our Lady of Guadalupe’s 8 million conversions in 8 years (1531), Lepanto and Our Lady of Victory/Rosary (1571), Lourdes and Fatima, to name a few. The real patroness of the worldwide liberty movement

The answer to the evils of George Orwell’s “1984″ world of enslavement is not (at least not initially) another 1776 as many well-intentioned libertarians exclaim. There may sadly come a time when the philosophies which are at war today work themselves out through a material war (as they did in WWI and WWII), but God has revealed that there is always a more powerful and effective way to win the more important underlying philosophical and theological revolution — rebellion from God and His Law. And the feast of the Visitation reminds us that along with courage, we must have humility to seek the divine remedy.

What is that remedy? When the world actually reached 1984, the Church didn’t scream “1776 worldwide!”. Rather, she launched, via the Vicar of Christ, her counter-revolution to the world’s evils by making a total act of consecration of Russia and the world to Mary (as Mary specifically asked in 1917), which brought about quick and powerful results that did not come at the price of bullets and bombs. As long as men fail to believe in the power of consecration to Mary and turn to the world for answers to our problems, we will see the walls of communism being rebuilt — and they are being rebuilt in our very midst — in our very nation.

The Church is not behind the times. It is, as Archbishop Sheen called her, “beyond time”, and we need to pray for the wisdom to understand what she has been trying to tell us and then apply it. And the Church reminds us of God’s wisdom every year in her liturgical life. How do today’s Mass readings (God’s daily wisdom) provide an answer to today’s problems? Have we ever honestly asked ourselves that? When we reflect on God’s wisdom for our crises today, the liturgical calendar in May and June accentuate the truth that the answer to today’s evils are found in the Church tethering herself to two pillars — Mary and the Eucharist (as St. John Bosco’s famous vision of 30 May 1862 powerfully illustrated). Was it mere coincidence that this vision given about very troubling times to come to the Church and heaven’s answer to them was given to Don Bosco at the end of the month of Mary right before the month of the Sacred and Eucharistic Heart of Jesus?

While this reflection offers only one glimpse into this beautiful mystery, I pray many take these words to heart because we are living in times where we can’t afford to misdiagnose the evils plaguing civilization. If we misdiagnose our problems, we will fail to prescribe the proper remedy, which Our Lady has clearly and repeatedly pointed out throughout the Church’s history — especially the last two centuries.

Let us enter this month consecrated to the Eucharistic and Sacred Heart of Jesus with hearts already consecrated to “the Woman” who made these devotions possible as they both rest on the gift of the Incarnation–a gift that God Himself made dependent on Mary’s fiat. Let us perfectly imitate this Wisdom. The success of the new evangelization and the protection of our families depend on it. Fortified in this way, may we be the ones standing and fighting at the turn of the tide and be found worthy of the Reign of the Sacred Heart that is promised to come through the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Infowars.com
June 5, 2013

If you want to see the real consequences of Bilderberg, look at its plans that have come to fruition — austerity and loss of national sovereignty and democracy in Europe, and the massive transfer of wealth and manufacturing from American to the communist elite in China.

Frequent attendee Henry Kissinger has been involved in secret wars, military coups, CIA torture and terrorism — all of which have caused the loss of tens of thousands of lives. But the machinations of his mentor David Rockefeller and the manipulations of the central banks could, if not stopped, cause worldwide economic disaster, famine and war.

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