VIEWS

“Do whatever He tells you” (Jn 2:5). These words of the Mother of God at the Wedding Feast of Cana are like a bright beacon pointing the way to our happiness and the way to the Heart of Christ.

A few weeks ago, on a blazing-hot afternoon, I ventured to a local arts and crafts store. It was a Saturday and the store was crowded with shoppers.

The famous Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn spent nearly 50 years studying the history of the bloody revolution that took the lives of some 60 million of his countrymen. In the process, he read hundreds of books, collected personal testimonies and wrote volumes on the Communist Revolution in Russia. He concluded, “men have forgotten God.”

Watching the videos of the hordes of people protesting in Venezuela, braving water cannons and rubber bullets, risking death or imprisonment for speaking out against a repressive government, the rallying cry comes back to me again and again: Freedom isn’t free.

When Our Lady of Fatima appeared to Lúcia, Francisco and Jacinta for the third time, July 13, 1917, she did two things of great importance: first, she showed them a terrifying vision of hell to reveal the horrific suffering that sin causes; and second, she gave them what has come to be known as the Fatima Prayer, which she told them to say at the end of each decade of the Rosary.

In early July, I represented the Diocese of Phoenix and Catholic Charities Community Services at the “Convocation of Catholic Leaders: The Joy of the Gospel in America” in Orlando, Florida. A gathering of leaders like this is rare: the last time such a convocation occurred was 100 years ago during World War I!

Throughout the history of salvation, God chooses to use what seems too small and insignificant to accomplish his purposes. Small realities, ordinary people: like the poor young children of Fatima, like the family.

God sent the Blessed Virgin Mary to little children in central Portugal with a plan that could convert hearts and thereby stop the bloodshed.

There were maybe a dozen or so of us in the Bible study group, seated on comfortable chairs, a candle flickering on the table in the center of the room as we discussed a chapter of Acts.

Can prayer change the direction of history? Are prayer and acts of penance capable of preventing nuclear annihilation? Can prayers and penance increase our freedom? “Yes, yes and yes.”