Une Minute avec Marie
Faire connaître et aimer Marie
Sometimes it is easier to turn to Mary than to Jesus. Her motherly figure is less intimidating than the Crucified Christ. The saints were not mistaken: they knew that Mary is one of the surest paths to Jesus, and expressed their most affectionate, poetic and inspiring words for her.
Mary remained the Polish pope's ally throughout his life. Once elected to the throne of Peter, he visited all the great Marian shrines of the world. After the attack on his life in May 1981, John Paul II showed a special devotion to Our Lady of Fatima who, he told the French writer André Frossard, saved his life that day. When we reread his meditations, homilies and speeches, we see that John Paul II concluded almost all his speeches with a salutation to the Mother of Jesus. While he emphasized that there is only one mediator between God and men, who is Christ, he always reminds us that Mary is the best way to reach Him and that Christ’s victory will come through Mary:
"I also learned directly from Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski that his predecessor, Cardinal August Hlond, had spoken before he died this prophetic word: 'Victory, if it comes, will come through Mary.’ During my pastoral ministry in Poland, I witnessed the fulfillment of that prophecy. Once I was elected Pope, faced with the problems of the whole Church, this intuition, or conviction, has always been with me: in this universal dimension too, the victory, if it comes, will be won by Mary. Christ will win through Mary. He wants her to be associated with the victories of the Church, in the world of today and tomorrow.”
Excerpt from Pope John Paul II ‘s Crossing the Threshold of Hope