PRAYER PLEDGE: Rally around the daily Rosary to stop the coronavirus Sign the petition here.
March 24, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – With Catholics around the world now facing the prospect of being unable to attend Mass due to the coronavirus pandemic, it seems to me that the words of Fatima-seer Sister Lucia emphasizing the “new efficacy” given by God to the Rosary become more pertinent than ever.
In a 1957 meeting with Fr Augustin Fuentes, Sister Lucia, who died in 2005, said that there was no problem, temporal or spiritual, that cannot be resolved by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.
The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary.
She has given this efficacy to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary.
There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.
With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves.
We will sanctify ourselves.
We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.
I have been telling my friends for years that I expect to see significant societal change in my lifetime. Our work at LifeSite exposes us constantly to the brutal realities of the world today. For that reason, we’ve started a daily, live rosary that I would encourage everyone to join. Led by a faithful priest in Italy, the rosary begins every day at 12 pm EDT. At a time when we are all so isolated, let’s make a special effort to come together in prayer.
We know that things can’t and that they won’t continue this way forever. In whatever way the current pandemic plays out, mankind cannot keep killing its children by the millions, cannot keep destroying the innocence of little ones, cannot keep denying God and cannot keep wading further and further into confusion and sin.
But recent events have made many of us wonder whether this is the moment of significant societal change we’ve been talking about for years. And they’ve made me realize that, in reality, a big part of me has expected things to remain pretty much as they are. Much as I’ve talked about the inevitability of societal upheaval and at times been frustrated with the inability of even fellow Catholics to acknowledge the seriousness of the current state of affairs in the world and in the Church, I wasn’t expecting it now and I have the same fears and anxieties about the developing coronavirus pandemic as millions of others will share.
My expectation that a serious disruption of some sort was coming is no particular consolation at this moment of uncertainty.
And right now all of us are looking for consolation, for something to give us confidence, hope, and assurance. Facing the prospect of potential isolation and being unable to attend Mass, I find it a source of great comfort to think that so powerful a prayer has been still further blessed by God and so clearly recommended to us by Our Blessed Mother.
Again, I would highly encourage you to join LifeSite staff and readers from around the world in a live daily rosary, learn more here.
As a good friend of mine once reflected: “if we consider how many saints have urged us to pray the Rosary, and how much they extolled its great power, how much more encouraged should we be by Sister Lucia’s words that ‘the Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary’.”
