He will return with his immense heart, with his heart of fire, his poor man's soul
and his smile. He will return! And the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph!

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION,
QUEEN OF MARTYRS

	Chapel of the orphanage of the Nuns of Saint Dorothy, at Vilar, where Lucy, the seer of Fatima, was a boarder from 1921 to 1925.

In 1830, at Rue du Bac (Paris), the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Catherine Labouré in all the splendour of Her Immaculate Conception, but without saying Her Name: « Against a blue sky, studded with stars higher up and like the dawn nearer the bottom, in a sun », the seer wrote.

In 1858, at Lourdes, She said Her Name, not « in a sun » but in a dark grotto: « I am the Immaculate Conception. » Bernadette did not understand what it meant. She was simply enraptured with admiration, so much so that she no longer had but one aim: to go and see Her in Heaven.

Let us note that even theologians do not understand what these words mean: « I am the Immaculate Conception. » It is a mystery, a “secret”. At Fatima, the Virgin did not give any further explanation of it, yet She kindled a fire in the hearts of Francisco, Lucy and Jacinta – the devotion to Her Immaculate Heart –, and She confided a “secret” to them. On 13 May 2000 Pope John Paul II published it. Thus we learned that it ended with a vision that Lucy described in this way: « Beneath the two arms of the Cross, there were two Angels, each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God. » Nevertheless, this vision of 13 July 1917 still remains no less a “secret” today.

To have striking proof of this, it suffices to go to the chapel of the Society of Foreign Missions, at 128, Rue du Bac. About 4,500 missionaries set off from there for the lands of Asia, where several hundred died martyrs.

This year, 2008, marks the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Society. In the crypt of the chapel a permanent exhibition, presented as though in a museum rather than under the sign of the Cross, offers to the veneration of the visitor all sorts of relics of those, whose blood has made fertile the lands of Asia. This illustrates once more the immemorial adage: « Sanguis martyrum, semen christianorum, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians. »

The exhibition, however, ends in an apotheosis: a display case where two statues are displayed. They do not represent « two Angels » but two figures from Burma, called arhats. The case bears this note: « The arhat is someone who has perfectly progressed through the Buddhist way. Having got rid of all his bonds and passions, he enters into Nirvana. The state of arhat represents the religious ideal: whoever attains it, can no longer fall from this state, but few are those who reach it. »

We are far from the Third Secret of Fatima! Yet it is indeed in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council and its decree Nostra ætate devoted to non-Christian religions, where we can read that Buddhism: « teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through help from above, supreme illumination. » (infra, p. 15).

Is this to say that the martyrs shed their blood for nothing? Then they were victims of a tragic misunderstanding!

Do you understand why the vision of 13 July 1917 is still a “secret” today? Because it was revealed to the children of Fatima in anticipation of our own time when missionaries would be deprived of their vocation to martyrdom, and not only the missionaries.

In his speech of last 16 May addressed to the bishops from Thailand who had come to make their ad limina visit, our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI stressed the « great respect » and « esteem » that the Church especially nurtures towards the Buddhist monasteries for « the contribution they offer to the social and cultural life of the Thai people. »

The coexistence of different religious communities, he pointed out in his speech delivered in English, « unfolds against the backdrop of globalisation. »

« Recently, he added, I observed that the forces of globalisation see humanity poised between two poles. On the one hand there is the growing multitude of economic and cultural bonds which usually enhance a sense of global solidarity and shared responsibility for the well-being of humanity. On the other there are disturbing signs of a fragmentation and a certain individualism in which secularism takes a hold. »

Whether in English or in French, this language is difficult. It is clear, however, that concern for the salvation of souls is absent.

In order to understand it, we have to remember the attractive thesis of « anonymous Christians » who are, for Joseph Ratzinger, a theologian and disciple of Karl Rahner, sincere believers and people of good will from all world religions:

1. God created men as one family that He loves as a Father, making no distinction among them; all are loved by Him, all are brothers, all are equally called to salvation.

2. As the Son of God become man, He communicated His Divinity to all of them in some fashion; He has already saved them in hope and earned for them the capacity to work out their salvation wherever they are with the means at their disposal, which are their various religions.

3. Thus the revealed religions, Judaism and its successor, Christianity, are not the enemies of the “other” (false) religions but their elders, their revealers, and their guides. Only Christians are capable of realising and making known to others that they are all sons of the same God, that they are all brothers, all on the way to salvation, each according to his traditional religion. That is why Benedict XVI appealed to the Thai bishops for « a concerted effort » not to convert the infidels, the pagans, that the Buddhists actually are, but « to uphold the spiritual and moral soul » of this people such as they are – 99 % Buddhist.

« In concordance with Buddhists, he explained to them, you can promote mutual understanding concerning the transmission of traditions to succeeding generations, the articulation of ethical values discernable to reason, reverence for the transcendent, prayer and contemplation. Such practices and dispositions serve the common well-being of society and nurture the essence of every human being. »

On condition that each religion preserves without fanaticism, intolerance or proselytism, its own beliefs and rites, which are expressions of the various age-old cultures of mankind.

Thus, a universal religion will become an established fact. It will recognise one God, friend of men, one Saviour of all, Christ, for those who believe in Him, and one Spirit who engenders seeds of supernatural life in all souls and initiatives of salvation through all religions, since the beginning of the world.

Such is the new, open and universal theology that inspired the interfaith meeting of Assisi, in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. Since then, every pontifical speech tends to become the revealer of the universal divine presence experienced by all, but as it were blindly, and adored under all its forms—even the most surprising.

In the eyes of Pope John Paul II yesterday, and of Benedict XVI today, Buddhism is not at all outdated and devalued by the coming of Christ and the universal advent of Christian philosophy, science and culture. The Pope not only refuses to demonstrate the absurdity of false religions but also to recognise their imperfect, uncertain, and powerless character in face of the true revealed religion. It is all the more surprising in the case of Buddhism because its essential message is... atheism!

« It is etymologically inexact to regard Buddhism as a religion, Fr. Henry Van Straelen writes. Someone who is Buddhist is non-religious, emancipated. To regard Buddhism as a religion is to fall into a contradiction in terms. Buddhism does not recognise the existence of God and also denies the existence of the soul » (Ouverture à l’Autre. Laquelle ? p. 205, quoted in CCR n° 202, p. 17)

The conclusion is that the Pope would have been better inspired to recommend to the Thai bishops to recite the prayer of the Angel of Fatima: « My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee. I beg pardon for those who do not believe, who do not adore, who do not hope, who do not love Thee! »

Let us not tire of saying this prayer over and over again for the intention of the Pope himself, joining penance to prayer, as we learned from Bernadette at Lourdes, in order to obtain the salvation of all, which is the only aim of all our works, according to this other prayer: « O my Jesus, forgive us our sins! Save us from the fires of Hell! Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy. »

Brother Bruno of Jesus.