The Feast of Our Lady of Fatima commemorates the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary on May 13, 1917, in Fatima, Portugal. She appeared to three children ages ten, eight, and seven. The oldest, Lucia, described her as “a lady, clothed in white, brighter than the sun, radiating a light more clear and intense than a crystal cup filled with sparkling water lit by burning sunlight.” She told them not to be afraid and that she came from heaven.
Lucia asked, “What do you want of me?” The woman told her to return for seven consecutive months on the thirteenth day at the same hour. Then the Lady asked: “Do you want to offer yourselves to God to endure all the sufferings that He may choose to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended and as a supplication for the conversion of sinners?” Answering for all three of them, Lucia said “Yes.”
The conversion of sinners and the salvation of souls is so important to Jesus that periodically He sends His own Mother to ask us to pray and make sacrifices for this intention. In her monthly appearance in July, Our Blessed Mother told the children: “Sacrifice yourselves for sinners and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
Mary’s message during her appearances in Fatima can be summed up in one word—“Sacrifice.” It is why the Son of God, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, shared in our humanity, including suffering and death itself. He sacrificed Himself to save sinful souls. Now we, members of His Body through Baptism, are called to share in the ongoing work of salvation. As Christ, the Head, has done, so we, the Body, are called to do.
The most perfect prayer is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. When we celebrate Mass we join ourselves to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus made present at every celebration. Then we go forth and live that offering in our daily lives.
The expression “Offer it up!” is not just a Catholic way of telling someone “Get over it!” When an inconvenience, pain, hardship, or suffering comes our way we have a choice. We can either get angry at God and slip into self-pity, or we can make it a very powerful prayer, one that will help save the world!
At the end of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, the Bishops, in a Message to the Poor, the Sick, and the Suffering wrote the following:
All of you who feel heavily the weight of the cross, … take courage. You are the preferred children of the kingdom of God…. You are the brothers of the suffering Christ, and with Him, if you wish, you are saving the world.