Marian Movements in the Twentieth century

From Heaven to Earth: Marian Movements in the Twentieth Century

(MSM 2012 Annual Michaelmas Open Day, Brompton Oratory, London, UK)

By Donal Foley

The development of Marian spirituality in the last century, in the light of apparitions of Our Blessed Lady, especially at Fatima.

I’m going to concentrate on “mass” movements in this talk, but obviously also I am going to relate things to the MSM. I will speak of two general movements – as opposed to specific movements/groups etc, for the moment.

Firstly in the human sense, we have the movement involving people who have founded organisations devoted to spreading devotion to Our Lady in one way or another, for example individuals such as St Maximilian Kolbe, the founder of the Militia Immaculatae, Frank Duff, the founder of the Legion of Mary, and Mgr Harold Colgan, the founder, with John Haffert, of the Blue Army, which has now become the World Apostolate of Fatima, of which I am secretary in this country. And of course, there is also the Knights of Our Lady, founded by Dom Lafond.

Quite an important figure as regards the background and spirituality of some of these movements was St Louis de Montfort, who advocated a total consecration to Our Lady as a means of sanctification, in his books, the Secret of Mary, and True Devotion to Mary.

Naturally, there are other Marian movements in the Church as well, and the Pontifical Council for the Laity recognises movements and associations such as the Focolare Movement, (its other title is the Work of Mary), which claims a Marian inspiration; the Schoenstatt Movement, the Immaculate Heart of Mary movement based in France, which is also known as the Mother of Mercy Association or Tuus Totus.

And also, more generally, we have quite large movements, such as the Foyers of Charity, which have a strong Marian input but are not strictly speaking Marian movements, in the sense that they are particularly focused on Our Lady.

So in this talk I am dealing with specifically Marian movements approved by the Church, and I would classify the above, broadly speaking, as the “movement” from earth to heaven, although this is with the obvious understanding that these individuals achieved what they did by means of God’s grace, which, as we know, comes through the exclusive intercession of Our Lady, who is the Mediatrix of all Graces.

So that is the movement from “earth to heaven.”

Then we have the other “movement,” using the word is a wide sense, which is the one coming down from heaven to earth, involving apparitions of Our Lady which have been approved by the Church. A number of these, such as Lourdes, took place in France in the nineteenth century, but the focus here is on the twentieth century, which means we will consider in particular the apparitions at Fatima in 1917. But there were others too, including Beauraing and Banneux, which took place in Belgium in the 1930s. The focus though, will be on Fatima. It’s worth noting that it isn’t just a case of a report of Our Lady appearing somewhere—it also has to be validated by the Church. And of course this is also true of the movements started by individuals—they too ultimately have to be approved in some way by the Church if they are to be worthy of support.

But let’s focus now on some of the individuals who began Marian movements, and look firstly at St Maximilian Kolbe. He founded the Militia of the Immaculata in 1917. The title comes from the Latin, Militia Immaculatae. What St Maximilian actually meant by the term “Militia” is what we would translate with the word “Knight.” So in English, the title is “Knights of the Immaculata”, and thus in essence, it is animated by the same principle behind the MSM, the Militia Sanctae Mariae, or Knights of Our Lady. St Maximilian’s use of the word Immaculatae, was influenced by his devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes, where she called herself the Immaculate Conception. He also focused on the idea of the Blessed Virgin as the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, and their intense union, so that the Holy Spirit is her counterpart as the Uncreated Immaculate Conception, while she is the created Immaculate Conception.

He was apparently also familiar with St Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion, and he particularly focused on the Miraculous Medal, and on the way that Alphonse Ratisbonne, who was Jewish, had been converted by it and a vision of Our Lady, in Rome in 1842.

The Militia Immaculatae is now a worldwide movement for evangelization which, in order to bring about a spiritual renewal both for individuals and society, advocates total consecration to the Our Lady. It is a movement which sees prayer as the main weapon in the battle with evil, but it also has an apostolic outlook. It sees Marian consecration as ultimately a Christ-directed act of self-giving, a consecration to Jesus through Mary. And it sees its mission as being to lead everyone to Mary and thus to the Sacred Heart.

Here straight away we can see that there are links to some of the other Marian aspects which I mentioned just now. Firstly, the fact that St Maximilian wanted the Militia membership to involve total consecration to Our Lady and thus to Jesus, just as St Louis de Montfort had taught, and secondly that the Militia Immaculatae was founded in 1917, the same year as the Fatima apparitions. In fact, it actually began on 16 October 1917, at the Conventual Franciscan seminary in Rome, where St Maximilian enrolled six other young friars in the movement. It’s surely significant that the organization began only three days after the famous miracle of the sun at Fatima, although obviously the saint would have known nothing about what had taken place at Fatima.

The Militia Immaculatae also sees it members as allowing themselves to become willing instruments of the “Woman of Genesis,” the Blessed Virgin, who will lead them to personal sanctification, the conversion of those who are opposed to the Church, and the universal reign of Christ.

I think that idea of converting those who are opposed to the Church—St Maximilian was particularly thinking of Freemasons here— is significant, and indicates the “military” approach of the organization.

St Maximilian founded Niepokalanow, the “City of the Immaculate,” a religious community, in Poland in 1927, and envisioned there being many more such “cities” around the world. Amongst other things, the community published a magazine called The Knights of the Immaculate, which had a monthly print run of over 700,000 copies. Niepokalanow grew to be the largest religious community in the world before World War II with over 700 friars and seminarians. Fr Maximilian went to Japan and founded a similar community at Nagasaki, in 1930. He was back in Poland before the start of the Second World War and was eventually imprisoned in Auschwitz, dying a martyr’s death in 1941.

The Militia Immaculatae is now a worldwide movement, present in 46 countries, and has a membership of nearly 4 million.

Next, we can look at the Legion of Mary, which has the Latin title Legio Mariae. It was founded in Dublin, Ireland, on 7 September 1921, about 4 years after Fatima and the Militia Immaculatae, by Frank Duff, a layman, who is now a Servant of God, and thus on the first step of the ladder towards canonization.

The Legion of Mary is a lay Catholic organization whose aim is the sanctification of its members through prayer, and through cooperating with Mary in working for the good of the Church. The local unit of the Legion of Mary is the Praesidium, which according to the Legion handbook, is a Latin word indicating a detachment of a Roman Legion. Frank Duff developed an extensive Latin terminology to describe all aspect of the work of the Legion, and indeed saw it as the spiritual counterpart of the ancient Roman Legions.

The Praesidium holds a weekly meeting, at which apostolic work is administered, and work which has been done by Legionaries is reported on, all in a spirit of prayer. Carrying out this work, in union with Our Lady, is the basic requirement for being a legionary. Frank Duff initiated a system where people weren’t just left to own devices regarding apostolic work, but one where they would be encouraged to report back after doing the work, so that advice could be given and standards raised.

The types of work traditionally associated with the Legion have included visiting families and visiting the sick, both at homes and in hospital. Legionaries have also been encouraged to work actively in their parishes to support apostolic and missionary undertakings. Thus there is quite a focus in the Legion on a “spiritual” apostolate, rather than material care, which has usually been provided by groups such as the St Vincent de Paul Society. Another aspect of the work has focused on the needs of the homeless, of prostitutes, and so on.

Although the Legion is in essence a lay association, each Praesidium has a spiritual director, a priest or religious, whose role is to provide spiritual and apostolic formation. The whole idea of legionary service is based on the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ. By working with Mary, Legionaries seek to serve their fellow members of the Body of Christ, and see Christ in them.

Frank Duff had a broad vision for the Legion and wanted to see a particular focus on evangelization and conversion. He was a visionary in the best sense of the word. Decades before Vatican II, he had laid out the essential point that the laity have a crucial role in building up the Church, the Body of Christ. He criticized a focus on an “individualistic” Christianity at the expense of a wider concern for one’s neighbours.

The Legion grew slowly at first, because its idea of fully involving lay people in apostolic activities was seen as radical at the time, and so it came under suspicion initially; this situation only changed when it obtained the support of Pope Pius XI in 1931.

As time went on the Legion began to expand rapidly overseas. Venerable Edel Quinn (1907-1944), was the Legion Envoy to East Africa and she did a great deal to promote the Legion in that continent; while the Servant of God, Alfie Lambe (1932-1959), performed a similar role as Legion Envoy to South America. The Legion certainly revitalized the Church in the Philippines, and there were many Legion martyrs in China when the communists came to power.

Frank Duff based his ideas on the True Devotion of St Louis de Montfort, and promoted his idea of total consecration, just as St Maximilian did, focusing too on the close union between our Lady and the Holy Spirit. It took him some time, and numerous re-readings of the True Devotion before he grasped its importance; but the same was true of John Paul II, who took his motto on election as Pope, Totus Tuus, from de Montfort.

Reflecting on the origins of the Legion in later life, Frank Duff saw its beginnings and growth as providential, and regarded the Blessed Virgin as its real founder in the sense that he was her instrument.

A link between the Legion and the approved Marian apparitions can be seen in the promotion of the Miraculous Medal in the Legion of Mary. This sacramental came out of the Rue du Bac apparitions to St Catherine Labouré in 1830, in Paris. And as we have seen, there is also a link with St Maximilian’s Militia Immaculatae in that members of that organization wear the Miraculous Medal as sign of their consecration to the Blessed Virgin.

The era after the Second Vatican Council was a difficult one for Frank Duff given all the turmoil in the Church which ensued, and also in the Legion in some western countries such as Holland and Germany. But he was optimistic that after a “deep winter,” the Church would emerge “in the spring of nature,” and be “bursting with expansion and efflorescence.”

Frank Duff died on 7 November 1980, and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. His Cause for canonization was later introduced by the then Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell.

At the moment, the Legion is present in about 170 countries, and has over 3 million members worldwide, divided between active and auxiliary (praying) members, which makes it the largest apostolic lay organization in the Catholic Church. Most of its members are found in the developing world, in such countries as South Korea, the Philippines, Brazil, Argentina and the Democratic Republic of Congo; in all of these the numbers are in the hundreds of thousands.

The third major Marian movement which we will look at, is the World Apostolate of Fatima, which was formerly called the Blue Army, and which was effectively founded jointly by John Haffert and Mgr Harold Colgan in the United States. As a movement this is on the border line between the earthly and the heavenly, since it grew out of Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, and yet was a movement which had a natural growth within the Church like the Militia Immaculatae and the Legion of Mary. Just to give some brief details about Fatima, which was a village in Portugal. The three seers were Lucia dos Santos, age 10, and her cousins, Francisco Marto, age 9 and Jacinta Marto, age 7. The three children came from the hamlet of Aljustrel situated about 2 km from and Fatima itself, and the Cova da Iria, where the apparitions of Our Lady took place.

In 1916, a year before Our Lady appeared to them, the seers saw three Angelic apparitions, which prepared them for their meeting with the Blessed Virgin.

Then, the next year, she appeared to the three seers, six times between May and October, with a message of salvation for the whole world. She asked them to say the Rosary to bring about peace, and during the July apparition, showed them hell, and gave them various secrets, the last of which was revealed in 2000.

The apparitions culminated in the amazing miracle of the sun on 13 October 1917, seen at least 70,000 people, when for about ten minutes the sun gyrated in the sky, sending out shafts of multi-coloured light, before seeming to plunge towards the earth. Many in the crowd thought it was the end of the world, but the sun then resumed its normal appearance and place in the heavens.

Other people witnessed the solar miracle from a distance thus ruling out the possibility of any type of collective hallucination. And when the sun resumed its normal place in the sky, everyone noticed that their clothes and the entire Cova da Iria were completely dry.

At Fatima, and more explicitly later on, when she appeared to Lucia who had become a religious sister, she asked for the Consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and the practise of the Five First Saturdays devotion in the Church.

This is what Our Lady said about that devotion: “I promise to assist at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to confession and receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”

The Consecration was finally carried out by Pope John Paul II, and in 1984, and it led to the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union. The consecration was accepted because the Pope was “in union with all the bishops of the world”, exactly as Our Lady had requested. Following this consecration, Sr Lucia was visited by the Apostolic Nuncio, and she confirmed that the consecration of Russia had indeed been accomplished, and that God had accepted it.

It now remains for the Church to fulfil the second part of Our Lady’s request the widespread implementation of the Five First Saturdays devotion. Then Our Lady will fulfil her promise, that: “Russia will be converted and a period of peace will be granted to the world”. No human agency could achieve this. Only God can grant peace to the world, and only the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with her unequalled power of intercession before God, can obtain it.

So the above indicates that Fatima should be regarded as the most important Marian apparition of the twentieth century, if not the most important event in its own right, particularly because of the tremendous “miracle of the sun.”

Fatima occurred just as the Russian Revolution was unfolding in 1917, during World War I. This revolution represented another stage in the “revolution” against the Church, truth and reason which began in earnest with the Reformation and was continued by the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

In answer to the threat represented by these successive revolutions, Mary has repeatedly appeared and asked for repentance, a turning away from sin, to avoid disaster. As the spiritual Mother of mankind she cannot stand idly by and watch humanity destroy itself through sin and selfishness.

Her apparitions have played a large part in the major Catholic renewals of recent centuries, and if the message of Fatima is heeded by enough people then the Church can again experience a great renaissance. As the details of the Fatima message make clear, this is not an option for mankind but an absolute necessity if we are to have true peace in the world.

Thus there is a remedy to all the evil currently afflicting mankind and that is acceptance of the teaching of the Church, particularly as it is expressed in the message of Fatima. The power of this message is evident in the huge changes that have taken place in Russia and its former satellites since the collegial consecration carried out in 1984 by Pope John Paul II.

Russia has not yet been converted but it is evident that the power of communism has been largely broken. This evil though has been replaced by another in the form of a global atheistic ideology, one based on materialistic evolution, which threatens to destroy any remnants of Christian morality. Thus after nearly a century, Fatima retains its importance and relevance.

So coming back to the Blue Army, Mgr Colgan suffered a heart attack in 1946, and promised Our Lady that if his life was extended he would do all he could to spread devotion to her. He quickly recovered and after reading an article about Fatima, which was not well known in the United States at the time, he decided to start devotions to her in his parish, in Plainfield, New Jersey. Having read that part of the Fatima message involved the conversion of Russia, he asked his parishioners to form a “Blue Army” of Our Lady of Fatima, to spiritually counteract the Red Army of Communism.

Mgr Colgan then began to collaborate with John Haffert, another New Jersey resident, who had met St Lucia, the only surviving Fatima seer, and who had developed a Pledge Card based on the Fatima message, having previously run a society devoted to promoting the Brown Scapular. The Pledge involved saying the Morning Offering, wearing the Scapular, and praying the Rosary daily, with the Five First Saturday devotions as an optional extra. Thus focusing on this Pledge, the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima, began to spread through the USA and then around the world. According to the WAF USA site, it is estimated that anywhere between 30 and 40 million people have signed this Pledge to Our Lady. So that was a big movement, and its growth is understandable given the dangers inherent in the Cold War period, and particularly during the 40s and 50s. Later on, once Communism collapsed in the former Soviet Union, the name of the organisation was changed to the World Apostolate of Fatima to reflect the fact that the threat now comes from materialism rather than Communism as such.

The World Apostolate of Fatima is essentially a spiritual movement, devoted to spreading the message of Fatima, with a particular focus on praying the Rosary and the Five First Saturdays devotion. Like the Militia Immaculatae and the Legion of Mary, it is a Public International Association of the Faithful, and as such comes under the responsibility of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. This status means that the World Apostolate can speak authoritatively and officially on behalf of the Church about the message of Fatima, which is focused on personal conversion, the Rosary, and the bringing of peace to the world. This will come about through people making reparation for sin, living the Gospel message, and practising devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Like many other Catholic organisations, the WAF is struggling somewhat in the Western world, but is experiencing great growth in the developing world.

Regarding the Knights/MSM, as you all know, Dom Lafond, in founding the MSM, sought to form a new type of chivalry, one adapted to the present day, through a revival of the spirit of Christian knighthood, including its consecration to Our Lady. And so the MSM has developed into an Order of Knights of Our Lady comprising lay Catholic men and women, so as to help them carry out their duties, whether family or professional, in a Christian way, with the goal of evangelising  society. To this end, members of the Order share a rule of life, and are faithful to the Church and the Pope, all in a spirit of the love of Our Lady.

So that is an overview of the various Marian movements of the present day, and apart from the obvious connection with Our Lady, amongst the other aspects all the above share is what might be called a “Military orientation.” At one time, it was common to use the term the “Church Militant,” to describe the Church on earth, of which we are members, as opposed to the “Church Suffering,” the souls in purgatory, and the “Church Triumphant,” those souls now safely in heaven.

We seem to have lost that ideal of the Church as being “militant” in recent decades, but life as a Christian is still a struggle and so perhaps that description has not lost its value.

Looking now at the organisations we have considered above in a more general way, in terms of how they might develop in the future, we can characterize them as follows: The Militia Immaculatae sees itself in as an evangelization movement, based on consecration to Our Lady and what might be called a “Knightly” ideal. The Legion of Mary shares some of those characteristics, but in practice it focuses much more on a parish based organization, the Praesidium. The World Apostolate of Fatima, is a much looser organization, one which focuses very much on promoting the Message of Fatima, while the MSM /Knights of Our Lady, is probably most like the Militia Immaculatae in terms of day to day Catholic living.

The question then is, is this type of “military” organization going to be valid and successful in the future—is it what the Church really needs and requires? We could ask, what sort of Marian movements should there be in the future? Are the present ones adequate or will new ones be needed? Can we plan for this, or is it something we will just have to leave to the Holy Spirit?

It’s probably fair to say that the Militia Immaculatae, the Legion of Mary, the World Apostolate, and the MSM, like many Church organizations, underwent a period of testing in the aftermath of Vatican II and the vast cultural changes of the 1960s and 70s. As we know there was a great decline in traditional devotions such as the Rosary, and Marian organizations suffered from this. But following the Pontificates of John Paul II, and now Benedict XVI, we are beginning to see a renewal of Catholic life. I’m not sure exactly about the MSM, but I’m sure there have been ups and downs!

Certainly, regarding the Legion of Mary, in the developed world, it has gone from being an organization present in many parishes in the Pre-Vatican II era, to having a much diminished presence. Likewise with the WAF, which worldwide suffered a loss of numbers after Vatican II, is struggling in the developed world, although it has maintained a strong presence in the US. There are a number of reasons for that, but the presence of alternative non-Church approved Fatima organizations, and non-approved alleged visions have been big factors. (Not going to mention the M-word!) But the WAF is growing in the developing world, particularly in places such as Africa, India and the Philippines. So undoubtedly WAF has a big future, especially as the centenary of the apparitions in 2017, draws closer.

Following the example of St Maximilian, I’m sure too that there will be a place in the future for a Marian spirituality based on his life and teaching, as exemplified in the Militia Immaculatae, and this may even include a renewal of his form of religious life, and the growth of new Cities of the Immaculate, that is religious communities such as those at Niepokalanow and Nagasaki. In fact, we already have the Franciscans of the Immaculate, who derive their teaching from him, and a very sound Order.

And likewise, I would think that on a smaller scale there is a place for organizations such as the MSM. The Church is not a monoculture – there is room for all sorts of Marian apostolates and organizations, providing they adhere to Church teaching and are genuinely promoting the Gospel. So I’m sure there will be a role for the MSM in the future.

With the Legion of Mary, perhaps it will need to adapt somewhat to modern conditions – maybe the Latin nomenclature is off putting for Western Catholics, but in the developing world, the Legion is apparently holding its own, so perhaps the Legion is due for a resurgence in the future. Certainly, something like the Legion is needed in the Church, that is a parish based Marian organization which promotes Marian devotion and carries out evangelization on the local level. Possibly, though, a renewal of the Legion will require a dynamic new leader, someone with the drive and energy and vision of Frank Duff.

So that’s where we are now, so what about the longer term future - the rest of the 21^st century and beyond?

Sr Lucia of Fatima, sometime before her death, was quoted as saying that we are “half way through the week of Fatima.” I think by this she meant that we are roughly half way through the unveiling of the Fatima message, which is now nearly a century old, in the sense of prophetic message of Fatima being revealed in world history. So that means the Fatima message will become ever more important during the twenty first century.

What seems to be missing at the moment are saintly individuals who can show us the way. I’m not saying that there aren’t many good people about, but it does seem that the people who have been prominent in recent times for holiness are, in a sense of a past generation. Where are the great figures like St Maximilian Kolbe, or Mother Teresa, or St Padre Pio? Our society has become so well off and so secular that holiness seems to have been squeezed out of it. If the present economic woes are part of trend towards less prosperity in the world as a whole, which may well be the case, since economic growth based on fossil fuels cannot go on forever, then a poorer future may be good news for the Church, since it will bring us all closer to God, as we realise that we really need him. In that sort of atmosphere, it is likely that there will be more chance for holiness to take root, and that we will see more saintly individuals.

St Louis de Montfort wrote, in the early eighteenth century, of the “great saints of the latter times,” who by their word and example, “shall draw the whole world to true devotion to Mary.” He also described how they would, “imbued with the spirit of Mary, … work great wonders in the world, so as to destroy sin and to establish the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, her Son, upon the ruins of the kingdom of this corrupt world.”

So he looked forward to the coming of a series of great Marian saints in the future, of the calibre of St Maximilian, who would transform the world in a Marian sense. The mention of the “the ruins of the kingdom of this corrupt world” indicates that the future will probably not be tranquil for the Church or the world, and we certainly do seem to be moving into troubled times. I don’t think there is any value in pretending this isn’t the case.

St Louis also spoke about how the Second Coming of Christ would parallel his first coming in that Mary would be intimately involved in both: “It was through Mary that the salvation of the world was begun, and it is through Mary that is must be consummated. …in the second coming of Jesus Christ, Mary has to be made known and revealed by the Holy Spirit, in order that, through her, Jesus Christ may be known, loved and served.”

We do know, though, that Our Lady, at Fatima, said, that in the end her Immaculate Heart would triumph and that a period of peace would be granted to the world. So we know there is going to a great Marian triumph, which will involve the spread of Marina devotion around the world, and this, I think, ties in with Pope John Paul II’s proclamation of a new Civilization of Love. And St Maximilian Kolbe, is on record as saying that mankind “will find true happiness only when Mary Immaculate reigns over the whole world.”

If we go back to the time of St John Bosco, we can also consider one of his most famous prophetic dreams, which seems to cast light on the triumph of Mary’s Immaculate Heart. This famous nineteenth-century educator, the founder of the Salesian Order, quite often told his pupils the details of his mysterious dreams, one of which apparently concerned the future of the papacy and the Church. He saw the Catholic Church as a great ship, with a future Pope as its captain in the midst of storms, being increasingly attacked by irreligious forces, as other boats, representing persecutions of all sorts, seemed about to destroy it. But at the last moment, the Pope managed to steer his ship towards two great columns, one representing the Eucharist and the other the Blessed Virgin, and a great period of peace then descended on the Church and the world. This prophecy ties in very well with the message of Fatima, that, following persecutions and the recognition of Mary’s importance and her association with the Eucharist, the world will be given a period of peace.

I will end with Our Lady’s words at Fatima: In the end, my Immaculate will Triumph, and a period of peace will be given to the world.