Our Lady indeed would bring us back to Christ, Her Beloved Son.
***
For years now plane loads of Muslim women from Iran have been landing at Fatima, Portugal. They come to pray before Our Lady who appeared to three shepherd children. The reason is that the Madonna was named after the daughter of Muhammad and wife of Ali Ibn Abi Talib. [Fatima.]
In Harissa, Lebanon, Iranian women constantly come to pray to Our Lady, to the point that the rector of the shrine has a chapel prepared especially for them, with icons, signs and prayers to the Virgin in Persian, to facilitate their devotion.
Last year, during the month of May, as I waited for evening Mass to begin in Harissa, I saw hundreds of Muslim families - probably Shiite - who stopped to listen to the hymns before Mass and who only left at the end. [Was it Gregorian Hymn? :)]
When I was in Morocco, I found that many women, during pregnancy and after childbirth, continued the so-called "fast of Our Lady," inspired by the Koran, which speaks of this fast.
The Muslims make their way to these shrines, knowing that Mary is the woman most praised in the Koran, the only woman mentioned by name, called "Siddīqah" (true, believer, holy), a title reserved for men (siddīq). She is the only one whom the Koran states that God has "chosen" (inna Allāh istafāqī), and twice, and that God has preferred her to all the women of the earth (wa-faddalaki 'ala nisā' al-'ālamīn); moreover that she was consecrated (innī nadhartu mā fī batnī muharraran) in her mother's womb before birth. Indeed, a scared saying (attributed to Muhammad and thus regarded as a certainty) says that every child, when born, is "touched" by Satan, with the exception of Mary and her son; a saying that draws very close indeed to the concept of the Immaculate Conception...
What drives Muslims to undertake these pilgrimages? First of all people are looking to rediscover their faith in the essential; they are looking for a renewal of faith. This is also followed by a desire for physical healing. But the question of a spiritual healing is much stronger. This is very similar to the sense of Christian pilgrimages.
***
Read more here. You may also want to read this beautiful catechism from EWTN about our Mother, Mary and Islam.
That is why I still believe in this.
Reflect upon this image.
This is our hope for the times.
Devotion to the Eucharist and Our Lady.
Only hope, only refuge...
And Mary is the only way towards ecumenism and bringing the lost sheep to the fold of Christ!
No comments:
Post a Comment