Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, dear friends,

The Fatima appearances of Our Lady just over one hundred years ago in 1916 and 1917 was in the midst of the brutality of the First World War. Europe was engulfed in the terrible and brutal war that tore nations apart and led to the deaths of millions of young men on the battlefields of the Western Front and the Eastern Front. My grandfather from Lancashire who was born in 1896 was there in Flanders and returned home, thank God. However, for the rest of his life he carried the scars of the war having been gassed and invalided home, and also the wounds of the scenes he witnessed deep in his mind which haunted him at night. He told me before he died that he had carried a rosary around his neck and prayed to Our Lady every day to protect him. This is the rosary which I show you today.

In this terrible war, God spoke through the voice of Our Lady to the three children in Fatima. God often chooses the smallest and most innocent of people to make his message heard, He chose Our Lady in Nazareth, an obscure little town, to be the Mother of his Son, Jesus Christ. In 1917 he chose Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta Marto to be his messengers. They children spoke of ‘a Lady more brilliant than the sun’ dressed in a white mantle edged with gold and holding a rosary in her hand. We see the image before us in the pilgrim statue. She told the children to devote themselves to the Blessed Trinity. They would have done this every day they made the sign of the cross or said the prayer, Glory be to the Father… As children, we learnt to make the sign of the cross. Sometimes, we can be very hasty, but it is an important prayer in itself: ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.’ Every time we make the sign of the cross we place ourselves under the protection of God. It is a good thing to do at the beginning and the end of the day. Our Lady told the children to pray the rosary every day to bring peace to the world and bring an end to the terrible war. She called for the dedication of the world and each one of us to the protection of her Immaculate Heart.

The first reading presents a vision of the victory of God over sin, suffering and death. The red dragon symbolises the devil and the forces of evil which show themselves in power, arrogance, greed, lust, and violence. They all destroy human relationships. These vices cause war and conflict, they pitch nations against one another and cause unbearable suffering. We think back to the horror of the first and second world wars, and today of the present wars in Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, and especially the suffering in Gaza and the West Bank. Christians suffer on a daily basis in many other parts of the world. Fatima prophesised this horror. The dragon seeks to destroy the child who is to be born but God rescues the child and draws the child to God and his throne. The mother findssafety. We can trust that God will always triumph over evil. Through the power of the birth and cross of Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection has conquered evil, suffering and death. We can trust in the power of Jesus Christ and live as pilgrims of hope, knowing that evil can never defeat us. The bondsof love in a community help it to rebuild itself. They are a strength. This wehave seen again and again in Liverpool when the shadow of evil and the crossfalls over the city.

The message of Fatima is a call to conversion and repentance. We promised this change in our hearts when we crowned Our Blessed Lady at the beginning of Mass. The gospel helps us to understand this calling. The woman in the crowd calls out and praises the mother of Jesus. Yes, but Jesus tells her that more importantly we must hear the word of God and keep it.

We must ‘hear’ the word of God. When we open the bible and read the holy Word, or ponder on the mysteries of the rosary as Our Lady of Fatima commanded us, or adore Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament we allow the love of Jesus to touch our hearts. We become bridge builders who build relationships of peace between others through kindness, generosity, gentleness, patience, bearing suffering, and faithfulness. We are converted away from envy, jealously, hate, and all those ways in which we do not see the other person as Christ.

During the special visitation at Pontevedra to the Venerable Lucia, Our Lady encouraged the Five First Saturdays devotion as a prayer for peace. We need to pray for peace today.

We entrust ourselves to the protection of Our Blessed Lady and her Immaculate Heart. She holds us close to her as her children. She is the Mother of the Church and our Mother. Her heart, like that of a mother, hears the prayers of her children and offers them to Jesus. At the end of Mass, we consecrate ourselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We take refuge in her and ask her intercession,

Our Lady of Fatima. Pray for us,

St. Francisco and St Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Venerable Lucia, pray for us.

+John Sherrington

Archbishop of Liverpool