Ordo Franciscanus Saecularis www.immaculatasfo.org Fraternity Reflections Minister: Deborah Pettie, OFS - 817-370-9768 Vice Minister: Debbie Ludwick-Bales, OFS - 817-281-0140 Master of Formation: Sharon Toups, OFS - 972-865-6826 Secretary: Mary Dang, OFS - 817-917-8950 Treasurer: Joanna Valentine, OFS - 574-274-7077 Spiritual Assistant: Father John Mark Klaus, T.O.R. Fraternity meets first Sunday of the Month, 2:00pm to 4:00pm, Saint Andrew, Ft Worth, TX 76109 Inquirer / Candidate Formation Second Saturday from 11:00pm to 12:30pm, Saint Andrew, Ft Worth76109 Immaculata Fraternity is a local fraternity of the Three Companions Region – www.lostrescompaneros.org IMMACULATA FRATERNITY, OFS May, 2017 VOL XIII ISSUE V 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. Amen. 3312 Dryden Road Fort Worth, TX 76109-3798 PRAYING THE CROWN Secular Franciscan ROSARY The way of Life Taken from "A Handbook of Catholic Sacramentals" by Ann Ball, published by Our Sunday Visitor. Copyright (c) 1997 EWTN Online Services. The Franciscan Crown, or the Rosary of the Seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an ancient sacramental treasured by the Franciscan order. Father Luke Wadding, a well-known Franciscan historian, dates the inception of this chaplet to 1422, the entrance date into the novitiate of the order of an unnamed pious young man. This young devotee of Mary had been accustomed, before his entrance, to decorate a statue of the Virgin with crowns of fresh flowers. This practice was forbidden to him in the novitiate, and fearing a lack of devotion to his Queen, he determined to leave the order. In a vision, Our Lady appeared to him and told him, "Do not be sad and cast down, my son, because you are no longer permitted to place wreaths of flowers on my statue. I will teach you to change this pious practice into one that will be Immaculata Fraternity will now be far more pleasing to me and far more meritorious to your soul. In place of the flowers that soon wither and cannot meeting the First Sunday of every always be found, you can weave for me a crown from the month at 2:00pm upstairs in the flowers of your prayers that will always remain fresh." Thereupon, Our Lady requested the young friar to say Parish Hall. We welcome you to one Our Father and ten Hail Mary's in honor of seven joyous occasions in her life: (1) the Annunciation, (2) the Visitation, come and join in prayer, formation (3) the birth of Christ, (4) the adoration of the Magi, (5) the and fellowship! finding of Jesus in the Temple, (6) the resurrection of Our __________________ Lord, and (7) the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into Heaven. As the vision faded, the overjoyed novice began to recite Immaculata Fraternity the prayers as she had instructed him to do. While he was devoutly praying, the novice master passed by and saw an angel weaving a wreath of roses. After every tenth rose, he Come and see! inserted a golden lily. When the wreath was finished, the angel placed it on the head of the praying novice. Every first Sunday, 2:00PM The novice master demanded under holy obedience that the novice explain to him the meaning of the vision. The May 7 novice complied, and the novice master was so impressed with what he had heard that he immediately told his brother June 4 friars. The practice of reciting the Crown of the Seven Joys soon spread to the entire Order. St. Andrew Catholic Parish, In later years, two Hail Mary's were added to make the 3314 Dryden Rd total of the Hail Marys equal to seventy-two, the number of Fort Worth, TX years that Our Lady is said by Franciscans to have lived on [email protected] earth. A final Hail Mary and Our Father were added for the intention of the Pope. In the twentieth century, it has become customary to add a profession of faith such as the Apostles' Creed to the recitation of this crown. Additionally, since 1968 it has become customary to combine the former third and fourth mysteries and to add two other combined St. Andrews mysteries as the meditation for the fourth decade-the presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the purification of the Blessed Virgin. Come join Immaculata Fraternity as we pray the Crown Rosary to honor Mary at our meeting Sunday, May 7. Catechism of the Catholic Church th The 100 Anniversary of BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Our Lady of Fatima 487 What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on ~ what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary May 13 is the anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady to illumines in turn its faith in Christ. three shepherd children in the small village of Fatima in Portugal in 1917. She appeared six times to Lucia, 9, and her cousins Francisco, 8, and his sister Jacinta, 6, between May 13, 1917 and October 13, 1917. The story of Fatima begins in 1916, when, against the backdrop of the First World War which had introduced Europe to the most horrific and powerful forms of warfare yet seen, and a year before the Communist revolution would plunge Russia and later Eastern Europe into six decades of oppression under militant atheistic governments, a resplendent figure appeared to the three children who were in the field tending the family sheep. “I am the Angel of Peace,” said the figure, who appeared to them two more times that year exhorting them to undergo in the last century: “The good will be martyred; the accept the sufferings that the Lord allowed them to undergo as Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be an act of reparation for the sins which offend Him, and to pray annihilated'”. The suffering of the popes of the 20th century constantly for the conversion of sinners. has been interpreted to include the assassination attempt on Then, on the 13th day of the month of Our Lady, May 1917, Pope John Paul II in 1981, which took place on May 13, the an apparition of ‘a woman all in white, more brilliant than the 64th anniversary of the apparitions. The Holy Father attributed sun’ presented itself to the three children saying “Please don’t his escape from certain death to the intervention of Our Lady: be afraid of me, I’m not going to harm you.” Lucia asked her “... it was a mother's hand that guided the bullet's path and in where she came from and she responded, “I come from his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death.” Heaven.” The woman wore a white mantle edged with gold and held a rosary in her hand. The woman asked them to pray Our Lady of Fatima revealed three prophetic “secrets,” the and devote themselves to the Holy Trinity and to “say the first two of which were revealed earlier and refer to the vision Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and an end to the of hell and the souls languishing there, the request for an ardent war.” devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the prediction of She also revealed that the children would suffer, especially the Second World War, and finally the prediction of the from the unbelief of their friends and families, and that the two immense damage that Russia would do to humanity by younger children, Francisco and Jacinta would be taken to abandoning the Christian faith and embracing Communist Heaven very soon but Lucia would live longer in order to totalitarianism. The third “secret” was not revealed until the spread her message and devotion to the Immaculate Heart. year 2000, and referred to the persecutions that humanity would In the last apparition the woman revealed her name in What is the central meaning of the message of Fatima? response to Lucia’s question: “I am the Lady of the Rosary.” Nothing different from what the Church has always taught: it is, That same day, 70,000 people had turned out to witness the as Pope Benedict the XVI, has put it, “the exhortation to prayer apparition, following a promise by the woman that she would as the path of “salvation for souls” and, likewise, the summons show the people that the apparitions were true. They saw the to penance and conversion.” sun make three circles and move around the sky in an incredible Perhaps the most well known utterance of the apparition of zigzag movement in a manner which left no doubt in their Our Lady at Fatima was her confident declaration that “My minds about the veracity of the apparitions. By 1930 the Immaculate Heart will triumph”. Cardinal Ratzinger has Bishop had approved of the apparitions and they have been interpreted this utterance as follows: “The Heart open to God, approved by the Church as authentic. purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and The messages Our Lady imparted during the apparitions to weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, the children concerned the violent trials that would afflict the has changed the history of the world, because it brought the world by means of war, starvation, and the persecution of the Saviour into the world—because, thanks to her Yes, God could Church and the Holy Father in the twentieth century if the become man in our world and remains so for all time.