Russia has started a war against Ukraine. China appears to be posturing to attack Taiwan. North Korea is threatening South Korea and the United States with nuclear weapons. Iran is striving to attain nuclear weapons. And there is a war raging in Israel and Palestine. The world seems to be on the brink of a global war. Never in recent history has there been a greater need for a plan to bring about world peace.
We have been given a plan, by the Mother of God herself. It was at Fatima, Portugal, on July 17, 1917 when Our Lady said to the three young seers:
I want you to come here on the thirteenth day of the coming month and to continue to say five decades of the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary to obtain peace in the world and an end to the war, for only she can obtain it.
When you see the sky lit up by an unknown light, know that it is the great sign that God gives you that He will punish the world for its crimes. [This will come about] by means of war, hunger, and persecution of the Church and the Holy Father.
To prevent this, I have come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays. If they respond to my requests, Russia will be converted and there will be peace. If not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be destroyed.
In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, it will be converted and a certain time of peace will be granted to the world.1
What was the situation in Russia when Mary said this in 1917? Russia was in ruins; her imperial czar had been forced to renounce his office in disgrace; the provisional government was torn apart by factions and civil war; Russian cities were aflame with riotous anarchist mobs; the Russian army was crumbling, deserting before the Kaiser’s invasion; and the Russian people were starving to death by the millions. Yet Mary knew Russia would be a world power, and a dangerous one at that.
So Mary made three requests: that five decades of the Rosary be prayed each day for world peace, that the Holy Father would consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart AND the Communion of reparation would be made on the first Saturdays so that Russia would be converted. If ever there was a message that we ought to respond to today, it is that message: pray five mysteries of the Rosary daily for world peace, consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart, and make the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays.
Sister Lucia reported on August 29, 1989 that the consecration of Russia to Mary’s Immaculate Heart had been done by Pope John Paul II in 1984 (even though he did not mention Russia by name). Just to make sure, Pope Francis consecrated Russia (and Ukraine) to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25, 2022. So we are left with two things to do for world peace: pray five mysteries of the Rosary each day and make the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays. If there is any Catholic who thinks these two things are not extremely important for today, he needs to wake up to the signs all around us!
What did Mary mean by the “communion of reparation?” On December 10, 1925, Mary and the Child Jesus appeared to Sister Lucia in her convent room to explain this. Jesus spoke first and then Mary explained further the First Saturday devotions: “I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary of salvation, all those who, on the first Saturdays of five consecutive months, confess, receive Holy Communion, recite part of my Rosary, and keep me company for a quarter hour meditating on its mysteries with the intention of offering me reparation.”2
At Lucia’s request, Jesus eased the time requirements to allow confession within eight days of the First Saturday, and even more time, “provided that, when they receive Me, they are in the state of grace and have the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
It was pointed out by the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception in 2022:
The First Saturdays are not simply to be done once in a set of five — the Five First Saturdays merely secure for an individual Our Lady’s assistance at the time of death. Rather, the First Saturdays are to be an ongoing act made by the faithful, the remnant holding back the wrath of God in the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah, the Body of Christ making reparation on behalf of the world and thus securing the world’s conversion, sanctification, and peace. (see https://marian.org/fatima-100/consecration-of-russia)
In our parish, St. Raphael’s in Rockville, MD, we have been holding First Saturday devotions for several years. We use a leaflet entitled “Why First Saturdays?” that explains the need for this devotion, how to fulfill it, and even provides meditations to use for the fifteen extra minutes requested by Mary.3
Austrian and Brazilian Rosaries
There is one country that made it out from under Communism following World War II: Austria. After the war Austria was divided between four countries: the U.S., France, the United Kingdom, and Communist Russia. The communists controlled the richest part, including the city of Vienna. Because the Viennese faced the oppressive atrocities of the communists, they were anxious to be liberated from communist rule.
Fr. Petrus Pavlicek, a Franciscan priest, felt moved to mount a Rosary Crusade to pray for Austria’s deliverance. The Rosary processions he sponsored began with just a handful of participants praying the Rosary in procession on the 13th of each month in 1947. However, in time the numbers grew, to the point where in 1955 there were half a million Austrians taking part in the Rosary processions. In October, the month of the Rosary, 1955 the Soviet army withdrew from Austria, an unprecedented move which surprised many.4
There is a similar, more dramatic story about how a women’s rosary rally drove communism out of Brazil in 1964. The oppressive president of Brazil, Joao Goulart, began to choose Communists in key leadership positions. The direction he was taking became clear to Brazilian women and they decided to take action. They established rosary groups and began to show up at political rallies praying the rosary loudly.
The archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, Cardinal de Barros Camara, urged Brazilians on national radio to fulfill the Fatima message so as to defeat the peril of communism. This riled the president such that he ridiculed the Brazilians of faith and announced that it was communism that would solve Brazilians’ problems, not the rosaries prayed by simple women.
These “simple women” took up the challenge and increased their activities. At a rally in Belo Horizonte held by the president’s brother-in-law, 20,000 women showed up and marched right into the rally praying the rosary — loudly. They broke up the rally with their holy noise. Six days later, March 19, 1964, more than 600,000 people marched through Sao Paulo praying the rosary.
On April 1, President Goulart was ousted by a military coup. Shortly after, he fled the country.
The next day over a million Brazilians marched through Rio de Janeiro in gratitude to God and the rosary for liberating their country.5
The point is that the rosary has a hidden power to change world events and bring the defeat of evil.
World Peace
Are we too sophisticated today to answer Mary’s request at Fatima and pray the rosary for world peace? Are we too busy today to make the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays regularly, until the conversion of Russia is accomplished? Mary has shown in Austria and Brazil that she is willing to help. The state of our world today should motivate us highly to do these two things. Mary’s requests fit like a glove to solve our troubling world situation of today. It’s time we priests step up and invite our parishioners to respond to Mary’s requests, big time.
- William Thomas Walsh, Our Lady of Fatima (New York: Image Books, 1954), p. 80–82. ↩
- Walsh, Our Lady of Fatima, p. 219. ↩
- We will be happy to provide 100 of these leaflets free to the first thirty parishes who request them at tgmorrow1@gmail.com. ↩
- “Holy Rosary Crusade of Reparation,” America Needs Fatima, September 29, 2021; americaneedsfatima.org/stories/holy-rosary-crusade-of-reparation; see also Dr. Mike Scherschligt, “Petrus Pavlicek and the Rosary Crusade,” www.schooloffaith.com/rosary-archive/petrus-pavlicek-and-the-rosary-crusade. ↩
- Patti Maguire Armstrong, “How the Rosary Drove Communism from Brazil,” CatholicMom.com, May 11, 2022. www.catholicmom.com/articles/how-the-rosary-drove-communism-from-brazil. ↩
About Rev. Thomas G. Morrow
There seems to be a widespread “culture of violence” in Russia, that starts already in the families: Neither child corporal punishment nor domestic violence against women is prohibited in a manner that is comparable to European states. Peace researcher Franz Jedlicka has written articles about this factor of wars. And Patriarch Kyrill has not supported stricter laws in Russia …
I wonder why the prayers we have already said have not worked. I remember in the 1950s when I was a pupil at Marist Brothers Lidcombe that we prayed for Russia’s conversion. And throughout my life ever since – i.e. 70 odd years – we are still praying. I just wonder why when the Soviet Union broke up around 1990 that our prayers were not then finally answered.