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Day 8 - The Fountain and the Way

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Light a candle as a sign that in your home lives a pilgrim of Fatima by the heart. Our Lady watches over your way.

Prayer of the Angel of Peace:  My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love You. I ask pardon of You for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love You.

  • Fatima challenges you to go on a pilgrimage by the heart: an inner path that will take you far away, towards the shrine in your innermost self where God is present for you. On this eighth day of your pilgrimage, get close to the hands Our Lady of Fatima with Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto. Today and each day, the light which is God, offers itself to you through her.
  • Get close to Our Lady, full of grace, who reflects the light which is God and drink the light from Her hands. The light that reflects and communicates itself to you intimately and enlightens you from within, allowing you to see yourself in God and, therefore, recognize yourself as a child of God. It is in silence that the experience of this light is offered to you. Go deep into your heart and listen once more in that silence to Lucia telling the experience of the light the little shepherds lived in the last moments of the first apparition:

“As she pronounced these last words “...the grace of God will be your comfort”, Our Lady opened her hands for the first time, communicating to us a light so intense that, as it streamed from her hands, its rays penetrated our hearts and the innermost depths of our souls, making us see ourselves in God, Who was that light, more clearly than we see ourselves in the best of mirrors. Then, moved by an interior impulse that was also communicated to us, we fell on our knees, repeating in our hearts: “O most Holy Trinity, I adore You! My God, my God, I love You in the most Blessed Sacrament!”

  • When you surrender to silence, prayer turns into a work of God in your heart. The Holy Spirit in your heart where it lives, becomes an intimate, animating impulse. If you learn how to empty your heart into silence, you will hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, who will become for you a gushing fountain of light and grace, enabling you to pray in silence - i.e., in a language too deep for words. Yes, it is the Spirit who prays in you and intimately makes you enter in communication with the Father. Listen to what Paul writes to the people of Rome:

“If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. For in hope we were saved. In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings” (Romans 8: 11, 15-16, 24-26).

  • This is Fatima’s school of prayer - contemplative prayer, in which Mary projected the little shepherds in the end of the May apparition, after the itinerary with the Angel in 1916. He prepared them to enter into intimacy with God, which leads to the consummation in them of the baptismal grace which flows from the Holy Spirit. This is expressed not only in this adoring, loving way of prayer from the heart, but also in the partaking of redemption, by freely offering themselves in sacrifice to God, by the light in which they saw themselves, to repair love and save humankind, fulfilling in themselves Christ's Passover.
  • Pilgrim by the heart, pray with Jacinta: “O most Holy Trinity, I adore You! My God, my God, I love You in the most Blessed Sacrament! My God, I felt You were in me, I understood what You were telling me without seeing You or hearing You and it was so good to be with You! Hidden Jesus, when I was ill and Lucia went to church, I asked her to tell You, hidden Jesus, that I like You a lot, that I love You very much! Hidden Jesus, I never get tired of telling You that I love You! O most Holy Trinity, I adore You! My God, my God, I love You in the most Blessed Sacrament!”
  • Now accompany Francisco in his prayer: “O Lord, how I enjoyed to pray alone beside You. I enjoyed so much to be with no one else, in silence, thinking about You, that I even escaped from Lucia and Jacinta and hid myself praying on my knees, because what I liked was to pray alone, in silence, to think about You and comfort You, because I saw You so sad, offended by our sins. God, how great You are! How beautiful You are…, And when I got (sick), what I felt most sorry about was not being able to spend some time with You anymore, hidden Jesus. And when I sensed I was going to die, I asked Lucia and Jacinta to help me recall my sins in order to confess them and take the communion and die afterwards, and I was afraid that you were sad because of my sins. And the priest came to confess me and bring me the communion and I told Lucia: Today I am happier than You, because I have the hidden Jesus inside my heart! And I said: I am going to heaven! Goodbye, see you in heaven! O most Holy Trinity, I adore You! My God, my God, I love You in the most Blessed Sacrament!”

 My God, You inhabit the innermost of my heart and You call me to become a pilgrim by the heart and to meet You there. Most Holy Trinity, I deeply adore you. My God, my God, I love You in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Give me the prayer of contemplation, the prayer of a silent heart, the prayer of the simple and the little ones, the prayer of intimacy with You, the prayer that is obedience of the heart to the intimate impulse of the Holy Spirit, intimate source of grace, which calls me son or daughter.  

O Trinity, O Bread from Heaven, You are my source and my way. Lead me, a pilgrim by the heart, who wants to be each day by the practice of silence, faithful to you, a participant in redemption. My God, I gaze into Your mother’s heart, mother of mine, Our Lady of Fatima. In Her heart, You are offering Yourself to my heart. And today, away from the Little Chapel in Fatima, I follow my heart and in our Mother’s immaculate heart I listen to the merciful beating of Your heart. Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Mother of Heaven, be attentive to the supplications of a world facing tribulation. Answer the cry of the poor and the sick, give comfort and hope to all those who suffer, give strength and compassion to all those who work and care for those who are suffering.  Bring peace to the world. In your immaculate heart, be for all your children a refuge and a way to God. Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us. Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto, pray for us.