Why now? Why 105 years after the Fatima apparitions, and 93 years after Sister Lucia had the message from Our Lady confirmed in 1929, is the Holy Father explicitly consecrating Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in union with the bishops of the world? The war is the reason, and not just the fighting in Ukraine. Kyiv is still standing but Kirill of Moscow has already fallen.
C.S. Lewis articulated this brilliantly in his 1948 essay On Living in An Atomic Age. As the world first faced the possibility of nuclear destruction, Lewis offered an eternal context: “Those who care for something else more than civilization are the only people by whom civilization is at all likely to be preserved. Those who want Heaven most have served Earth best. Those who love man less than God do most for man.” So, Lewis argued, should the atomic bomb ever drop, it ought to find us doing “sensible and human” things: praying, working, listening to music, laughing, and talking with friends. This is no naive or lighthearted invitation to shirk responsibility. It’s an invitation to celebrate good things, even when by every worldly standard, the only realistic response is despair.
Rather than be discouraged by the discomforts of Lent, we can turn each one into a prayer. First, like the blind man sitting on the road near Jericho, feeling our helplessness, we cry out for divine help: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Lk 17:38) Second, we redirect them, while conscious that they will not mysteriously disappear, by begging God not to allow our natural desires to consume us. We cannot empty ourselves without His aid. “I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.” (Ps 34:4)
So. . .what’s the point of all this remembering? Just this: Here in America, such things could never occur. Physician-assisted suicide? Sixty million abortions? Selling unborn baby parts? Fetal tissue experiments? Catholic public officials who ignore or allow such things? It can’t happen here.
Needless to say, the Church on earth is not looking very much like the spotless Bride of Christ. This may be one of those cases in which a sheep finds himself looking over the fence into the Protestant, Orthodox, or sedevacantist field and sees what appears to be greener grass. To some, the barren wilderness of “nonery” may even look attractive. We are certainly living in the midst of a crisis, and we have been for some time.