The world could recover Christ through Mary

Bishop Sheen (1), former Auxiliary Bishop of New York (United States), wrote in 1951:

“There is Hope and a great Hope, too,” Bishop Sheen emphasized. “The Hope is ultimately in God, but… the start back to God must begin with nature.” The one “unspoiled” thing in all nature is what “Wordsworth called our ‘tainted nature's solitary boast.’ That hope is in The Woman.” Our Lady.

In her July 1917 apparition, Our Lady of Fatima told the children, “In October I will tell you who I am and what I want. I will then perform a miracle so that all may believe.” …

Bishop Sheen gave two reasons why God wanted to have his Blessed Mother appear to bring us back to where we needed to be with prayer and penance.

“One reason immediately comes to mind,” he explained. “Since the world has lost Christ, it may be that through Mary it will recover him.” When at 12 Jesus was lost, Our Lady found him. “Now that he has been lost again, it may be through Mary that the world will recover Christ their Savior.”

“Another reason is that Divine Providence has committed to a woman the power of overcoming evil,” he affirmed. “In that first dread day when evil was introduced into the world, God spoke to the serpent in the Garden of Eden and said, I shall put enmity between thee and the woman; between thy seed and her seed, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel (Gen. 3:15)… It will be through the power of the woman that evil will be overcome.” …

“If then we live in an evil hour, how shall we overcome the spirit of Satan except by the power of that Woman to whom Almighty God has given the mandate to crush the head of the serpent?”

(1) Venerable Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979) was an American Catholic bishop known for his preaching and especially his work on television and radio. He was Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of New York in 1951, later the Bishop of Rochester, and finally the Archbishop of the titular see of Newport, Wales.

NCR