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JMJ
This seems apropos for today.
P^3
Source: credosanctum.wordpress.com
Archbshp Sheen’s Prophetic Warning of 50 years ago: Mary and the Moslems; The Significance of Fatima
Mary and the Moslems
11/1/01
11/1/01
Moslemism is the
only great post-Christian religion of the world. Because it had
its origin in the seventh century under Mohammed, it was
possible to unite, within it, some elements of Christianity and
of Judaism, along with particular customs of Arabia. Moslemism
takes the doctrine of the unity of God, His Majesty and His
creative power, and uses it, in part, as a basis for the
repudiation of Christ, the Son of God.
(The following
was written in 1952 and reprinted in the October 2001 Mindszenty
Report.)
The Power of
Islam
by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
Misunderstanding
the notion of the Trinity, Mohammed made Christ a prophet,
announcing Him just as to Christians Isaiah and John the Baptist
are prophets announcing Christ.
The Christian
European West barely escaped destruction at the hands of the
Moslems. At one point they were stopped near Tours and at
another point, later on in time, outside the gates of Vienna.
The Church throughout northern Africa ws practically destroyed
by Moslem power, and at the present hour, the Moslems are
beginning to rise again. If Moslemism is a heresy, as Hilaire
Belloc believes it to be, it is the only heresy that has never
declined. Others have had a moment of vigor, then gone into
doctrinal decay at the death of the leader, and finally
evaporated in a vague social movement. Moslemism, on the
contrary, has only had its first phase. There was never a time
in which it declined, either in numbers, or in the devotion of
its followers.
The missionary
effort of the Church toward this group has been at least on the
surface, a failure, for the Moslems are so far almost
unconvertible. The reason is that for a follower of Mohammed to
become a Christian is much like a Christian becoming a Jew. The
Moslems believe that they have the final and definitive
revelation of God to the world and that Christ was only a
prophet announcing Mohammed, the last of Gods real prophets.
At the present
time, the hatred of the Moslem countries against the West is
becoming a hatred against Christianity itself. Although the
statesmen have not yet taken it into account, there is still
grave danger that the temporal power of Islam may return and,
with it, the menace that it may shake off a West which has
ceased to be Christian, and affirm itself as a great
anti-Christian world power. Moslem writers say, When the locust
swarms darken countries, they bear on their wings these Arabic
words: We are Gods host, each of us has ninety-nine eggs, and if
we had a hundred, we should lay waste the world, with all that
is in it.
The problem is,
how shall we prevent the hatching of the hundredth egg? It is
our firm belief that the fears some entertain concerning the
Moslems are not to be realized, but that Moslemism, instead,
will eventually be converted to Christianity – and in a way that
even some of our missionaries never suspect. It is our belief
that this will happen not through the direct teachings of
Christianity, but through a summoning of the Moslems to a
veneration of the Mother of God. This is the line of argument:
Mary, Mother of
God
The Koran, which is the Bible of the Moslems, has many passages concerning the Blessed Virgin. First of all, the Koran believes in her Immaculate Conception, and also, in her Virgin Birth. The third chapter of the Koran places the history of Marys family in a genealogy which goes back through Abraham, Noah, and Adam. When one compares the Korans description of the birth of Mary with the apocryphal Gospel of the birth of Mary, one is tempted to believe tht Mohammed very much depended upon the latter. Both books describe the old age and the definite sterility of the mother of Mary. When, however, she conceives, the mother of Mary is made to say in the Koran: O Lord, I vow and I consecrate to you what is already within me. Accept it from me.
The Koran, which is the Bible of the Moslems, has many passages concerning the Blessed Virgin. First of all, the Koran believes in her Immaculate Conception, and also, in her Virgin Birth. The third chapter of the Koran places the history of Marys family in a genealogy which goes back through Abraham, Noah, and Adam. When one compares the Korans description of the birth of Mary with the apocryphal Gospel of the birth of Mary, one is tempted to believe tht Mohammed very much depended upon the latter. Both books describe the old age and the definite sterility of the mother of Mary. When, however, she conceives, the mother of Mary is made to say in the Koran: O Lord, I vow and I consecrate to you what is already within me. Accept it from me.
When Mary is
born, the mother says: And I consecrate her with all of her
posterity under thy protection, O Lord, against Satan! The Koran
passes over Joseph in the life of Mary, but the Moslem tradition
knows his name and has some familiarity with him. In this
tradition, Joseph is made to speak to Mary, who is a virgin. As
he inquired how she conceived Jesus without a father, Mary
answered: Do you not know that God, when He created the wheat
had no need of seed, and that God by His power made the trees
grow without the help of rain? All that God had to do was to
say, So be it, and it was done. The Koran has also verses on the
Annunciation, Visitation, and Nativity. Angels are pictured as
accompanying the Blessed Mother and saying: Oh Mary, God has
chosen you and purified you, and elected you above all the women
of the earth.
In the nineteenth
chapter of the Koran there are 41 verses on Jesus and Mary.
There is such a strong defense of the virginity of Mary here
that the Koran, in the fourth book, attributed the condemnation
of the Jews to their monstrous calumny against the Virgin Mary.
The Significance
of Fatima
Mary, then, is
for the Moslems the true Sayyida, or Lady. The only possible
serious rival to her in their creed would be Fatima, the
daughter of Mohammed himself. But after the death of Fatima,
Mohammed wrote: Thou shalt be the most blessed of all the women
in Paradise, after Mary. In a variant of the text, Fatima is
made to say, I surpass all the women, except Mary.
This brings us to
our second point: namely, why the Blessed Mother, in the 20th
century, should have revealed herself in the significant little
village of Fatima, so that to all future generations she would
be known as Our Lady of Fatima. Since nothing ever happens out
of Heaven except with a finesse of all details, I believe that
the Blessed Virgin chose to be known as Our Lady of Fatima as a
pledge and a sign of hope to the Moslem people, and as an
assurance that they, who show her so much respect, will one day
accept her divine Son too. Evidence to support these views is
found in the historical fact that the Moslems occupied Portugal
for centuries. At the time when they were finally driven out,
the last Moslem chief had a beautiful daughter by the name of
Fatima. A Catholic boy fell in love with her, and for him she
not only stayed behind when the Moslems left, but even embraced
the Faith. The young husband was so much in love with her that
he changed the name of the town where he live to Fatima. Thus,
the very place where our Lady appeared in 1917 bears a
historical connection to Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed.
The final
evidence of the relationship of Fatima to the Moslems is the
enthusiastic reception which the Moslems in Africa and India and
elsewhere gave to the Pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima, as
mentioned earlier. Moslems attended the church services in honor
of our Lady, they allowed religious processions and even prayers
before their mosques; and in Mozambique the Moslems who were
unconverted, began to be Christian as soon as the statue of Our
Lady of Fatima was erected.
A Missionary
Strategy
Missionaries in
the future will, more and more, see that their apostolate among
the Moslems will be successful in the measure that they preach
Our Lady of Fatima. Mary is the advent of Christ, bringing
Christ to the people before Christ Himself is born. In an
apologetic endeavor, it is always best to start with that which
people already accept. Because the Moslems have a devotion to
Mary, our missionaries should be satisfied merely to expand and
to develop that devotion, with the full realization that Our
Blessed Lady will carry the Moslems the rest of the way to her
divine Son. She is forever a traitor, in the sense that she will
not accept any devotion for herself, but will always bring
anyone who is devoted to her to her divine Son. As those who
lose devotion to her lose belief in the divinity of Christ, so
those who intensify devotion to her gradually acquire that
belief.
Many of our great
missionaries in Africa have already broken down the bitter
hatred and prejudices of the Moslems against the Christians
through their acts of charity, their schools and hospitals. It
now remains to use another approach, namely, that of taking the
41st chapter of the Koran and showing them that it was taken out
of the Gospel of Luke, that Mary could not be, even in their own
eyes, the most blessed of all the women of Heaven if she had not
also borne the Savior of the world. If Judith and Esther of the
Old Testament were pre-figures of Mary, then it may very well be
that Fatima herself was a post-figure of Mary! The Moslems
should be prepared to acknowledge that, if Fatima must give way
in honor to the Blessed Mother, it is because she is different
from all the other mothers of the world and that without Christ
she would be nothing.
(This article is
courtesy of The Mindzenty Report, published by the Cardinal
Mindzenty Foundation.)
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