On greeting the Polish pilgrims, during the General Audience of May 12, 2021, Pope Francis recalled that tomorrow, Thursday the 13th, is the Liturgical Memorial of the Most Holy Virgin of Fatima and the 40th anniversary of the attack on Saint John Paul II.
In this connection, the Holy Father pointed out that John Paul II himself “highlighted with conviction that he owed his life to Our Lady of Fatima,” and that “this event makes us aware that our lives and the world’s history are in God’s hands.” He entrusted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary “the Church, ourselves and the whole world. In prayer we ask for peace, for the end of the pandemic, a spirit of penance and our conversion,” he added.
The Virgin’s Maternal Intervention
Last year, at the height of the COVID-19 health crisis, the Pontiff also took advantage of the General Audience of May 13 to recall the Liturgical Memorial of the Virgin of Fatima. “Our thought goes to Her apparitions and to Her message to the world, as well as to the attack against Saint John Paul II, who saw the maternal intervention of the Most Holy Virgin in the salvation of his life.”
He also informed that the following Monday, May 18, 2020 would be the centenary of Saint John Paul II’s birth, day in which he presided over a Mass dedicated to him on the altar of his tomb: “Let us thank God for having given us this Bishop of Rome, this Holy Bishop, and let’s ask him to help us. May he help this Church of Rome to convert and to move forward.”
Apparitions in Fatima
As “Vatican News” recalled, “Do not be afraid” were the words with which the Virgin Mary addressed the three little Portuguese shepherds of Aljustrel on May 13, 1917. On a Sunday morning, Lucia Dos Santos, 10, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, 9 and 7, after having gone to Mass in the Fatima parish, went to pasture their sheep on the hillside of Cova da Iria. As was their custom, on hearing the bell of the Angelus, they prayed the Rosary and then, while playing, were frightened by an unexpected brightness.
Confusing it with lightening and fearing the arrival of a storm, they started to take the flock back to the sheepfold. A new brilliance stopped them shortly after and they saw before them a beautiful Lady dressed in white on an oak, resplendent with light. “I have come to ask you to come here for six consecutive months, on the 13th at this same time. Then I will tell you want I want,” She said to them.
The Lady’s dress was adorned with golden borders, with a gold cord as girdle, a white mantle and a Rosary of white beads in Her hand. Lucia talked with Her; Jacinta listened to the conversation while Francisco heard nothing. “Do you want to offer yourselves to God to endure all the sufferings that He will send you, as an act of reparation for the sins with which He is offended and as prayer for the conversion of sinners?” Mary asked them. “Yes, we do,” answered Lucia. And Mary said: “Then, you will have to suffer much, but God’s grace will be your consolation.”
Attack in Saint Peter’s Square
“Vatican News” also recalled how the Pope of the family suffered a grave attack in Saint Peter’s Square in May 13, 1981, when greeting the crowds gathered for the Audience. He was wounded by a pistol shot. After a long convalescence in the hospital, he went to visit his attacker in prison, Turk Ali Agca. John Paul II forgave him there and then they had a long conversation.
As a sign of gratitude to God for having saved his life, thanks to the maternal hand of the Mother of God, the Pope had the bullet placed in the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima; bullet that also recalled that God saved his life precisely on the feast of the Fatima apparitions. Conscious of having received a new life, from then on John Paul II intensified his pastoral commitments with heroic generosity.
