The Rosary as a Prayer of Reparation

(Sharing at the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help on 9 October 2010)

Dear brothers and sisters,

My sharing today on “The Rosary as a Prayer of Reparation” will focus on Our Lady’s messages given at her approved apparitions, with extracts and references from the Internet. Four of the apparitions featured the Rosary, amidst calls to unceasing prayer, penance and repentance.

(1) At Massabielle, near Lourdes in Southern France, Our Lady first appeared to St Bernadette Soubirous on 11^th Feb 1858 

(2) In Fatima, Portugal, to Francisco, Jacinta and Lucia in 1917

(3) In Akita, Japan, to Sr. Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa in 1973 and

(4) At Kibeho, Rwanda, to three high-school girls from late 1981 to 1983.

At Lourdes, Our Lady urgently called for penance. The rosary was prominently featured in the apparitions where St. Bernadette saw Our Lady took the rosary that she held in her hands and made the sign of the cross.

Similarly, the message of Fatima was also a call to conversion and repentance, echoing what our Saviour addressed to the whole of humanity in Mark 1:15.  (Rosary Center website: http://www.rosary-center.org/maryfatm.htm, downloaded 18 August 2010)  At Fatima, Our Lady specifically identified herself as “the Lady of the Rosary.”  Her message invites to repentance, gives a warning and calls to prayer, sacrifice and penance. She recommends the Rosary. She asked the children who saw her to say at least five decades of the Rosary and meditate on the mysteries every day, and to pray especially for peace, for poor sinners and for the Holy Father. We are to use our talents generously and make greater sacrifices for God’s greater glory and honour, especially if we have been given much by God, for Luke 12:48 says –“ From every one who has been given much, much will be required.” Our Lady of Fatima calls for  the penance of each person ‘fulfilling his or her daily duty well, obeying God’s laws, avoiding the near occasions of sin and acting in accordance with His will in all things.’ (The Fatima Network website: http://fatima.org/essentials/message/msgtoindivis.asp, downloaded 5 Oct 2009). The love and care of the Saviour’s Mother reaches out and extends to every individual of our time and to all societies, nations and peoples; societies menaced by apostasy, threatened by moral degradation. Collapse of morality brings about the collapse of societies e.g. the rising rate of divorces, adultery, promiscuity, abortions, murders and other crimes and offences. (Rosary Center website: http://www.rosary-center.org/maryfatm.htm, downloaded 18 August 2010) 

“The present state of the world attests to the fact that most individuals have chosen to ignore the requests of Our Lady of Fatima: wars rage the world over, the Church is in a state of crisis, apostasy is almost everywhere, millions of the innocent unborn are murdered every year.” (The Fatima Network website: http://fatima.org/essentials/message/msgtoindivis.asp, downloaded 5 Oct 2009)

At Akita, Japan, Our Lady told Sr. Agnes to pray in reparation for the sins of men and to pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests. Our Lady wished, with her Son our Lord Jesus Christ, that souls who by their suffering and their poverty will repair the afflictions and outrages against the Lord by sinners and ingrates. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger.  Prayer is necessary even in a secular institute. Each day the prayers of the Rosary very much need to be recited, for oneself and for the Pope, the bishops and priests. Mother Mary has asked us to trust in her powerful intercession. (Eternal World Television Network website: http://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/akita.htm, downloaded 5 October 2009)

In Kibeho, Rwanda, Our Lady lamented, “The world has become deaf and cannot hear the truth of the Word." She stressed on the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows as a means to obtain the grace for true repentance (Anderson, 29 Jan 2009). One of the seers, Marie Claire kept saying:  “One must meditate on the Passion of Jesus, and on the deep sorrows of His Mother. One must recite the Rosary every day, and also the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, to obtain the favour of repentance.” (Tardif, 2001 as cited in the Michael website: http://www.michaeljournal.org/kibeho.htm, downloaded 9 Oct 2010)

On a final note, sin has thus set itself firmly in the world; denial of God has become widespread in the ideologies, ideas and plans of human beings. For this very reason, the evangelical call to repentance and conversion, uttered in the Mother’s messages remains ever relevant.  It is still as relevant as it was in 1858, 1917, 1973, or early 1980s. IT IS EVEN MORE URGENT. Our Blessed Mother, through her apparitions, has invited us to a conversion of heart through praying the Rosary. She has never failed those who turn to her maternal intercession. We all know the world is really in need of conversion and healing. Let us pray the Rosary, offering with it, all our sufferings, in union with Christ her Son, asking Him to accept our humble offering and make it part of His redemptive mission in our world".