Lettre du desservant des missions dans les pays scandinaves
Letter From Father King - October 2003
My dear Faithful,
he month of October is the month of the most Holy Rosary because the Mother of God has on many occasions during history clearly shown us the power of this prayer and devotion over the enemies of the Church. Let us consider two outstanding examples of the Rosary gaining miraculous victories for the cause of God. The victory at Lepanto on October 7th, 1571, of the Christian fleet over a much stronger Turkish force, was the occasion for Pope St Pius V to introduce a solemn feast to be celebrated on that date and thereafter in honour of the Mother of God and her Rosary. The victory, against all the odds, was brought about because the Pope requested Catholics across Europe to pray the Rosary over several days to obtain Our Lady's protection and intercession. In more recent times, during the 1950's, the Soviets were occupying Austrian territory. The Catholic hierarchy of that country were inspired to initiate a Rosary Crusade of prayer to obtain from Mary the withdrawal of these foreign and antichristian forces. In due course the Holy Rosary gained the victory and the Russians withdrew giving no explanation and without a shot being fired. How can anyone doubt the power of prayer and particularly the extraordinary interventions that heaven condescends to make through a Rosary Crusade? Let us not forget either during this month of October the message of Fatima. Our Lady appeared in 1917 on six consecutive months, from May to October, to three humble peasant children in this small village to the north of Lisbon. She taught them to pray the Rosary more devoutly and asked them to do penance for the conversion of sinners. They responded to Our Lady's invitation with heroic generosity and the two younger children, Francesco and Jacinta, have been beatified. Lucy, still alive, became a Carmelite nun , had further visions and, undoubtedly still has a role to play in the fulfilment of Our Lady's message. At Fatima Our Lady spoke of the need to pray much, particularly five decades of the Rosary each day, to do penance and to live an authentic Catholic life based on the unchangeable truths of the Gospel. She spoke of wars to come and severe chastisements if men did not return to God and stop sinning. The Pope was requested to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart, which request has not yet been fulfilled, to obtain the conversion of that country to Catholicism. This would be the cause of a great triumph for Christ and His holy Mother. Our Lady's message and peace plan were given the approval of heaven by an unprecedented public miracle, authenticated by the Church in 1930, during the final October apparition, when the sun "danced" before 70,000 people. Let this simple reminder of the power of the Rosary and the message of Fatima encourage us to greater apostolic efforts for the conversion of Scandinavia. Let us all be generous and heroic like the little Portuguese children in being faithful to our daily Rosary and also in offering many little sacrifices for the conversion of souls. We have already a small army of twenty devotees in our Rosary Crusade, but let us multiply that number a hundred and a thousandfold, so that Our Lady, hearing the pleas of her Scandinavian children, may gain a wonderful victory and that our northern nations may become Catholic once more.
NEWS
In August Father Schmidberger preached the Ignatian Exercises during a six day retreat held near Gothenburg. There were three Swedes and a Dane privileged to follow the spiritual exercises and strengthen their spiritual life for the days of combat ahead. The retreat for ladies had, unfortunately, to be cancelled due to lack of support. It is to be hoped that the women will come forward in greater numbers for the next round of retreats which will be preached during next summer. These dates will be announced as soon as is possible [...]. In next month's newsletter we will include some testimonies about the retreat just given by those who participated. Our Swedish seminarian, Håkon Lindstrom, spent several weeks in Sweden during the summer. He helped with the retreat and various other apostolic works and also enjoyed some well deserved rest from his labours. He has now returned to Zaitzkofen in Germany for his first year of philosophy. Please pray for him and his perseverance in his vocation and pray also that he may be joined by many other Scandinavians at the seminary. Finally, let us not forget to invoke St Bridgett on her feast day (universal calendar) on October 8th, as well as all our other holy patrons and saints of Scandinavia. Sincerely in Jesus and Mary,
District
