Let us place ourselves under Mary’s protection

In the past five years, the October/November/ December issue of MICHAEL has included a calendar for the coming year. We have again inserted a calendar for 2022 and hope you will be pleased with the images and find helpful the catalogue of the feast days of the Church. If you notice that this issue has only 32 rather than 48 pages, be reassured that this was due to technical issues at the printer's shop. We expect everything will be back in order for the January/February 2022 issue. 

The coming year brings unique concerns, given public health man- dates around the world, threats of war and continuing economic tur- moil. A particular threat for all of us is the burgeoning surveillance state and totalitarian controls that origin- ated in China with the ironic name "social credit". 

To prevent the collapse of society, people must learn the tricks of the International Financiers who create money out of thin air and then lend it at interest to governments and the public. In reality, purchasing power is the fruit of society's productive capacity and should be distributed by society and not by private corporations (see page 28). The solution is expounded in each issue of MICHAEL and it is the monetary reforms we call Economic Democracy. 

Many are calling these times apocalyptic but, paradoxically, these are also times of hope according to Pope Francis who recently said at the 25th International Marian Conference "the times we are living in are the times of Mary." 

The Virgin Mother does indeed have a special role in the present time. She will crush the serpent's head. St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Polish priest who was martyred in 1941, was a great devotee of Mary. He wrote: 

"Modern times are dominated by Satan and will be more so in the future. The conflict with hell cannot be engaged by men, even the most clever. The Immaculata alone has from God the promise of victory over Satan. However, assumed into Heaven, the Mother of God now requires our cooperation. She seeks souls who will consecrate themselves entirely to her, who will become in her hands effective instruments for the defeat of Satan and the spreading of God's kingdom upon earth." 

On September 4, 2021, in a message to one of the seers of Medjugorje, Ivan Dragicevic, the Blessed Mother said: "Dear children, I, through your prayers and through you, I can stop Satan's plans that every day take you further and further away from God, destroying all that is beautiful in the world." 

In the book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope published in 1994, Pope St. John Paul II said: "Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski told me that his predecessor, Cardinal August Hlond, had spoken these prophetic words as he was dying: 'The victory, if it comes, will come through Mary.' During my pastoral ministry in Poland, I saw for myself how those words were coming true. Christ will conquer through her because He wants the Church's victories now and in the future to be linked to her." 

At Fatima on July 17, 1917, Our Lady said to the three shepherd children: "You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart... In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph." 

To consecrate oneself to Mary is to choose, like the many saints of the Church, to belong to her in a special way and to follow Jesus with her and through her. "Do not be afraid to take Mary home" said the angel of the Lord to St. Joseph in a dream (Matthew 1:20). At the foot of the cross, Jesus entrusted his Mother to St. John, who from then on took her into his home (John 19:27). To consecrate oneself to Mary is to take her into your home and into your heart. 

In his Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort explained that God begins all his great works with Mary, and that it will be so at the end of time. The devotion to Mary is a preparation for the reign of Christ. Mary wants nothing more than to lead us to her Son Jesus. "Do whatever He tells you," she said at the wedding feast at Cana (John 2:5). 

Let us take refuge under the mantle of Mary and consecrate ourselves to her Immaculate Heart. She will infallibly lead us to victory, to her Son Jesus, Redeemer of the world. ❖