Pope Benedict in Fatima, a Pilgrim Full of Love for Christ and His Church

(13 May 10 – RV) In seven years time it will be a century since three little children by the names of Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta had a series of Apparitions of Our Lady in a little hollow by the name of Cova de Iria, starting on the 13^th May.
On Thursday, Pope Benedict  XVI said to the over 300 000 Fatima faithful gathered around him , “you will return here on this date, celebrating that visit from a Lady come down from heaven”.
The Pope was speaking, during the homily of the Holy Mass he was presiding over to mark this special Feast day which this year coincides with the Ascension.
Behind him the creamy white Basilica with its long neoclassical colonnade where those three little shepherd children are now buried , stood out against the cloudy skies dominating the huge sloping esplanade .
Where the Fatima faithful conjured up one of their many moving and suggestive spiritual tricks.
Already, Wednesday night they had turned the square into an ocean of flickering lights . On Thursday it was a sea , bobbing up and down with tiny white waves, in reality white handkerchiefs .
The Portuguese wave handkerchiefs in a devotional practice, to greet Our Lady, as the statue representing her was carried around the square. A tradition inherited by this nation of seafarers who were wont to wave to their loved ones as they set out to sea
In his homily the Holy Father said “I too come here as a pilgrim , to this home from which Mary chose to speak to us in modern times”.
Pope Benedict said he to rejoiced in Mary’s presence and maternal protection, that he prayed to her for our human family afflicted as it is by various ills and sufferings .
He continued “I have come with the same sentiments as those of Blessed Francisco and Jacinta , and the Servant of God Sister Lucia  in order to  entrust to Our Lady the intimate confession that I love Jesus, that the Church and priests love him” . The Pope said he prayed in a special way for the afflicted or outcast; “With the desire of bringing them that great hope which ..burns in my own heart and which here in Fatima can be palpably felt” .
Finally  referring to the so called secrets of Fatima , the third of which was revealed ten years ago in this very same place in the presence of  John Paul II and the last seer to survive Sr. Lucia  both of whom died five years ago, the Pope highlighted how it is mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete.
In fact he is no stranger to Fatima , it was he who in his capacity as President of the Congregation  for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote the Theological commentary to the third secret.
And in his last words to the Congregation here,  he expressed the wish that the seven years which separate us from  the centenary of the Apparitions hasten the fulfillment of the prophecy of the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary..
And when Mass was over , the Successor of Peter disappeared into the Basilica to pray before the tombs of those three little shepherd children who received those many visits from Our Lady ,the first on the 13^th may 1917.