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When last May four bishops in Vienna, Virginia, in the United States, did what they could to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, they used a formula for the Consecration never used before, and which was somewhat different from the usual formulas. It included a brief history of Our Lady’s request for the Consecration, showing how the leaders of the Church failed, and are still failing, to respond adequately to Heaven’s simple solution to the unprecedented problems of today’s Church and world. The purpose of such a formula was to help everybody to realize that these otherwise insoluble problems are the fault not of Almighty God but of a lack of faith on the part of His churchmen. They must do what Our Lady asked them to do, despite whatever Vatican II makes them want to do. What disasters will it take to make them finally do what She wants, to save all of us? Here is the first half of the Virginia Consecration:—

Most Holy Mother of God, Immaculate Heart of Mary, Seat of Mercy, Seat of Goodness, Seat of Pardon, sure door by which souls are to enter Heaven, see on their knees before you four sons of Archbishop Lefebvre, four bishops striving to do what they can to help you to obtain from the Pope and bishops of your Divine Son’s one true Church that Consecration of Russia to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart which can alone obtain peace for mankind, now in the shadow of a frightful third World War. In Fatima, Portugal, one hundred years ago, you first warned mankind of the Second World War to come, of famine and persecutions, if people would not cease offending God. To prevent these disasters, you promised to return to ask for the Consecration of Russia to your Immaculate Heart, and for the Communion of Reparation on First Saturdays. If your requests were heeded, Russia would be converted, and there would be peace. If not, disasters would follow and Russia would spread its errors throughout the world. Within the next 12 years you returned as you had promised, and you made the double request.

However, trusting in human means to solve the Church’s grave problems, the Catholic churchmen did not immediately do what you had requested. Two years later your Divine Son Himself warned mankind through Sister Lucy of Fatima, that since His ministers were delaying to carry out His command, they would suffer grave consequences: Russia would spread its errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church, and the Pope would suffer greatly. Still the Pope preferred his human means of dealing with Russia.

In 1936 Our Lord explained to Sister Lucy that Russia’s conversion depended upon its consecration to your Immaculate Heart because He wanted the whole Church to recognize that that conversion was a triumph of your Heart, so that devotion to your Heart would rank alongside devotion to His own Sacred Heart.

Still the churchmen hesitated, so that in 1939 the terrible Second World War broke out, and all over the world Communism extended its power. Immediately after the war your pilgrim statues of Fatima had great success, but still the churchmen would not do exactly as you had requested, and so in 1957 before Sister Lucy was silenced by the churchmen, she expressed your own sadness that neither good people nor bad people had paid attention to the message of Fatima. You said that the good people gave it no importance, while the bad cared nothing about it. But you warned us once more that a terrible punishment was imminent.

For that punishment, see next week’s “Eleison Comments.”

Kyrie eleison.