Bishop Mark Davies will on Sunday consecrate the Diocese of Shrewsbury to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The act of consecration by the Bishop of Shrewsbury will be performed
on the same morning as Pope Francis consecrates the world to Our Lady’s
Immaculate Heart.
The prayer of consecration will be read out by the Bishop in Shrewsbury Cathedral at end of 10.45am Mass on Sunday October 13.
Bishop Davies is deliberately associating his act with the prayer of
consecration that will be offered by Pope Francis in Rome on the same
day.
He has asked the clergy of the Shrewsbury diocese to join him in the
prayer of consecration in their own parishes on Sunday morning.
In a statement, Bishop Davies said: “I see this act of entrustment to
Mary’s Immaculate Heart as an antidote to the rapid process of
secularisation and de-Christianisation in societies like our own.
“It points to the often over-looked priority in the leadership of
Pope Francis which constantly calls for our interior conversion, a
change at heart (Mk 1:15).
“Mary is the model of a life totally consecrated to God, her pure heart (Mt.5:8) completely open to the call and grace of God.
“By this prayer of entrustment we each seek to associate ourselves
with her heart, to embrace her words ‘let it be to me according to your
word’ (Lk.1: 38) and so to live fully our Baptismal consecration.”
The Bishop continued said: “At Fatima, amid an era marked by wars,
destruction and persecutions on a scale unprecedented in human history,
Our Lady pointed us to the indispensable means of prayer and penance so
that our hearts may be purified, so that peace may be received by
humanity. In this way we will surely witness the triumph of her
Immaculate Heart.”
October is the month of the Holy Rosary and October 13 corresponds
with is the date of the sixth and final apparition of the Blessed Virgin
Mary to three children in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917.
In August, the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal announced
that Pope Francis had requested that the original statue of Our Lady of
Fatima be transported to the Vatican for the consecration.
It will be the 11th time since the statue was made in 1920 that permission has been granted for its removal from the shrine.
The statue has not been taken to the Vatican since 1984 when Blessed
Pope John Paul II consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary a
year after he was gunned down in St Peter’s Square.
During the celebrations, Pope John Paul gave one of the bullets that
struck him to the Bishop of Leira-Fatima and it was later placed in the
statue’s golden crown.
The statue will be welcomed by Pope Francis on Saturday evening for a prayer service in St Peter’s Square.
Then it will be taken to the Shrine of Divine Love, Rome, where
pilgrims will be able to pray before the statue during an all-night
vigil.
On Sunday morning it will be transported back to the Vatican and Pope
Francis will offer the prayers of consecration during a morning of
worship that will include the recitation of the rosary and Mass.
