Exactly 98 years ago, the simple solution to cure the world’s and our country’s freefall into turmoil was given to us. But how many have paid attention to the prescription or the instructions?

We have yet another chance to start this week. We have to pick up what St. Padre Pio called “the weapon.” Hint: It’s what Our Lady of Fatima, whose feast we celebrate on May 13, told us over and over to use for peace when she appeared in 1917.

This week, the Franciscan Daughters of Mary are leading the way, asking and hoping that scores of people will join them in a Rosary novena.

As our country and the world are in great need of peace, “the novena was inspired by Our Lady of Fatima, who told the shepherd children to pray the Rosary for peace and an end to war, said Mother Seraphina Marie from the sisters’ convent in Covington, Ky.

More on when the novena begins in a minute.

First, Mother Seraphina recalled that the guardian of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima recently reminded the faithful that, in 1917, Pope Benedict XV began a novena to the Queen of Peace for an end to World War I; and on the eighth day, in answer, she appeared for the first time in Fatima as Our Lady of the Rosary.

On that opening day, Benedict XV wrote that, since God’s graces “are dispensed through the hands of the Most Holy Virgin,” we turn our petitions “more than ever in this terrible hour” confidentially to the “Mother of God.”

Then Our Lady appeared at Fatima.

“Pray the Rosary every day, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war," she instructed in that first apparition, on May 13, 1917.

In the third apparition on July 13, she again repeated the call for the daily Rosary, as she did in each of her appearances: “Continue to say the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, to obtain the peace of the world and the end of the war, because only she can obtain it.”

She called for sacrifices for sinners and said if her requests and directives were not heeded, a worse war would come. (We know it did.) She showed the children a vision of hell for our instruction. As one priest close to Fatima pointed out, “She came to tell us how to keep out of hell.”

In the sixth apparition, on Oct. 13, she again instructed them “to continue saying the Rosary every day” and said that people “must amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins. They must not offend Our Lord anymore, for he is already too much offended!"

Early on, Our Lady of Fatima gave a strong ray of hope, saying, “But in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”

We as a world need to listen to her.

“We have the perfect opportunity from the Ascension to Pentecost, which is our Church’s first novena and which Mary took part in,” Mother Seraphina explained. “Novenas have a lot of spiritual strength.”

The timing is perfect for this Rosary novena, beginning on the Ascension, May 14, and leading up to Pentecost, which the Church celebrates May 24 (see the novena at the bottom of this post or get a copy to print from here).

As Mother Seraphina said, “So much more is brought through prayer than anything else. Look at the Battle of Lepanto and how things turned around with the Rosary and how devotion to Fatima brought peace to Portugal, a war-torn country then.”

On May 13, 2010, at the Fatima shrine, another Pope Benedict — Benedict XVI — said in his homily, “We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete.”

On May 13 at Fatima 18 years earlier, in his homily, St. Pope John Paul II made it clear, “While the message of Our Lady of Fatima is a motherly one, it is also strong and decisive. It sounds severe. … It invites to repentance. It gives a warning. It calls to prayer. It recommends the Rosary.

“The message is addressed to every human being. … Her care extends to every individual of our tim, and to all the societies nations and peoples, societies menaced by apostasy, threatened by moral degradation. The collapse of morality involves the collapse of societies. … Mary's appeal is not for just once. Her appeal … must be unceasingly returned to.”

We can do that right now as we join the Rosary novena for peace.

As Mother Seraphina summed it up to me, “One of the promises she made was: In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. We need peace in the world, especially with Christians being persecuted in the Middle East, and peace in our country, with social unrest going on. The novena prayer brings it all together.”

 

THE NOVENA

Those who observe this novena would:

1) Pray at least five decades of the Rosary with the intention of peace in our country and peace throughout the world.

2) Visit Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament for at least one hour during the nine days with the same intention.

3) Pray the following prayer each day:

 

Novena Prayer to be Prayed Each Day

Queen of the Rosary, sweet Virgin of Fatima, who hast deigned to appear in the land of Portugal and hast brought peace, both interior and exterior, to that once-so-troubled country, we beg of thee to watch over our dear homeland and to assure its moral and spiritual revival.

Bring back peace to all nations of the world, so that all, and our own nation in particular, may be happy to call thee their Queen and the Queen of Peace.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for our country. Our Lady of Fatima, obtain for all humanity a durable peace. Amen.