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Newsletter of the District of Asia January - February 2000 Editorial
T
MIGHT appear strange to begin this I new year with comments on the
apparition of Our Blessed Lady of Guadalupe, an apparition which
took place in 1531 in Mexico. However, when one considers it attentively,
this apparition is one which fills us with deep hope. After talking
about it in December - the feast is on December 12 I came to realize
many things. Firstly, few people really know about it. Secondly,
the miracles of the cloth and of the eyes are truly astonishing,
and still ongoing today. Thus the Image has many similarities with
the Holy Shroud. Thirdly, there are great links with Fatima, too.
Fourthly, it is a beautiful heavenly answer to the ecumania
raging now in Urbe et Orbe (Rome and the world). Fifthly,
it is also a direct refutation of Vatican II's decree on Religious
Liberty urging the separation of Church and State. GUADALUPE AND FATIMA
"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen" (Is. 9, 2). Our Lady came, the Mediatrix of graces, the of Heavenly light. "Behold, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant leaped in my womb leaped with joy" (Lk 1, 44). This is also true of Mexico. As you will read in the next pages, as soon as the news of the apparition spread out throughout the land, the people flocked to Mexico to see the marvels and to embrace the religion of "the Mother of the True God". Hatred for one another was replaced by charity, errors by truth, darkness by light. 909'0 of the 10 million inhabitants were converted in less than 10 years - 9,000,000 conversions! We can surely call that a triumph of the Mother of God. The point I come to is this: if our Blessed Lady accomplished such a triumph of grace in Mexico, then She can do it again in Russia and in the world! Moreover at Fatima, She did promise that She would do it under the well-known conditions. These are past historical facts that should fill us with tremendous hope for future events. GUADALUPE AND ECUMENISM "I am the ever Virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the True God", she said to Juan Diego at the very first apparition, in December, thus alluding to the false gods dominating the land. This is a distinction which our modern ecumenists, bishops at their head, are refusing. For example, a New Age book has been published recently called "The 9 faces of Christ" in which the author attempts to prove that Christ was actually initiated into all the great religions. Sheer blasphemy. But, as you can read, further in this issue, in the summary of what the Federation of the Asian Bishops Conferences is saying, they believe that "it is an unavoidable truth that the Spirit of God is at work in all the traditional religions", that all the religions contain already or lead to Christianity. No matter what god you ,worship, they are saying, Ganesh, Shiva, Buddha, or Allah, all these are different names for Our Lord Jesus Christ! They are I all the same God!
GUADALUPE AND THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
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HE
core of the Mexican apparition is the revelation of Our Lady's Motherly
Heart for a very recently discovered country and a perplexed Bishop,
Bishop Zumárraga. The Bishop did not know what to do with the
Aztec tribes engaged in continuous bloody wars with each other.
The Spaniards had arrived a mere ten years earlier, and it was already
very difficult to draw the natives to the truth of "the white men",
more so when the white man was not always following exactly the
religion of the white man... Bishop Zumárraga prayed to the
heavenly Mother who perpetually helps, to Her who never abandoned
anyone. And the Mother heard the cries of a prince of the Church.
The prayers of Bishops are always weighty before God. 
T
Fatima, Our Blessed Lady revealed Her Immaculate Heart. At Guadalupe,
her Motherhood. These are obviously the same. Is not the mother,
the 'heart' of the home? The concerns of the Immaculate Heart of
such a Mother are always the same: saving souls, bringing them to
the grace of Her Son, and to the heavenly glory hereafter. "The
Lord Will give grace (here) and glory (in heaven)" Ps
83, 12. Has She not promised the conversion of Russia at the simple
prayer of the Pope? In Guadalupe, there was no promise; there was
no need to ask for the right prayer: it was already there. As a
result there was an immediate answer "far exceeding what one
could have thought or understood - superabundanter quam petimus
aut intelligimus" (Eph. 3, 20). Here, we have a tremendous boost
for our hope and trust in the Immaculate Heart's promise to convert
Russia and bring peace to the world. "He (the Pope) will
do it, but it will be late"(Our Lady of Fatima, July 13, 1917).
INALLY,
as in his book "They have uncrowned Him" Archbishop
Levebvre sadly observed that the fruits of Vatican II's decree on
religious liberty was the secularization of all the Catholic States,
on the contrary, the fruit of the apparition of Our Lady in 1531
was, as we have detailed here above, a full Catholic civilization,
a society openly subject to the sweet yoke of Christ the King, Son
of the Virgin Mary. 
ET
us conclude with a beautiful prayer composed by Pope John XXIII
in 1960: "Hail, Mother of the Americas, Heavenly Missionary of
the New World! From the sanctuary of Tepeyac, for more than four
centuries you have been the Mother and Teacher of the Faith to the
peoples of the Americas. Be also our protection and save us, O Immaculate
Mary. Aid our rulers, stir up a new zeal in our prelates, increase
the virtues of our clergy, and preserve forever our Faith. In every
home may the holiness of the family flourish, and in the shelter
of the home may Catholic education, favored by dour own benign glance,
achieve a wholesome growth."