Tag: The Virgin Mary

CCLXXXII – Any Enemy of Our Lady Is My Enemy

I just received an email from my parish that a grotto dedicated to Our Lady, with a statue of her and three smaller statues representing the children of Fatima, was vandalized beyond repair last night. I am deeply saddened by this–and surprisingly find myself angry. That isn’t just OUR Blessed Mother, that is MY Blessed Mother. And yours too.

This particular grotto is of profound personal importance to me as well. My fiance and I met on our first date and prayed at this very grotto. I proposed to her there. Just last night I attended a meeting of the Legion of Mary, and after the meeting went to offer flowers to Our Lady at this grotto. I might have been the last person to see the statue fully intact, excluding the perpetrators.

I am angry at this news–angry as if my own mother had been assaulted in the street. I don’t care so much about the personal loss of a place of fond memory–I know the grotto will be replaced and I have already emailed my parish Priest to offer my time, treasure, and talent, such as it is, to any efforts to replace the grotto. I don’t care so much either about the physical loss–though it is great. I am upset that a sacred place has been desecrated, that Our Lady has been treated with disrespect, that some soul in a place of torment and trial felt that this was a good idea.

To the perpetrator or perpetrators, I have only pity. Mary is literally Christ’s mother, so I can only pray that God have mercy on their souls. May their guardian angels bring them to repentance and convert them. May this loss–which, after all, is a merely physical loss–be turned to good for the conversion of souls with and through the intercession of Mary.

But know also this: Any enemy of Our Lady of Peace is my enemy. God’s justice and retribution is greater than anything I could offer, my revenge will be in helping to restore the grotto to a place of greater glory and to direct more souls to the care and intercession of Our Blessed Mother. I will wage war through prayer.

Please join me in battle, and pray the Litany of Loreto (Link Here) for the souls of the perpetrators, and for my Parish to consecrate itself more fully to Our Lady.

To Jesus, Through Mary

AMDG