Ave Maria!
As Fr. Angelo Geiger has blogged about on MaryVictrix, Pope Francis has a major devotion to Our Lady of Lujan, the Untier of Knots. Here is an article by Rocco Palmo on the Pope’s profound devotion to Our Lady as the Fatima statue enters into St. Peter’s Square yesterday for the Consecration of the World to the Blessed Virgin Mary where the Pope again focuses on Our Lady the great Untier. He then gives an update on the actual consecration held this morning with a complete transcript of the Pope’s homily to a hundred thousand people at the closing Mass. Folks, I think we have a marian Pope.
As previously noted, whenever the Theotokos comes around, the 266th Bishop of Rome simply loses himself and spiritually veers off to another place.
Yet again, that was clearly visible last night in the Square, as the Pope spontaneously rushed down to receive the original statue of Our Lady of Fatima, refusing to even approach his seat until she did….
To be sure, a very simple explanation underpins all this. For those who grasp it, no words are necessary… for those who can’t, nothing will ever suffice.
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In his catechesis to the gathered throng, Francis wove his principal thread around the Marian devotion that, later in life, would become one of his favorites: Maria Knötenloserin – Mary, Untier (or Undoer) of Knots – the 17th century cult the now-Pope encountered during his brief exile in Germany in the late 1980s, introducing it to great effect at home on his return to Buenos Aires.
Over recent months, the Pope’s affinity for the German Madonna provided the title for Paul Vallely’s exquisite biography of Francis – the most authoritative tome on the pontiff to be published in English. Then again, given the author’s depth of research and contacts among Bergoglio’s own, perhaps the confluence is no accident.
With that as the backdrop, here’s Il Papa on La Mujer (emphases original):
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This event of the Year of Faith is devoted to Mary, the Mother of Christ and the Mother of the Church, our Mother. The statue of Our Lady which has come from Fatima helps us to feel her presence in our midst. It is a fact: Mary always brings us to Jesus. She is a woman of faith, a true believer. But we can ask: What was Mary’s faith like?
1. The first aspect of her faith is this: Mary’s faith unties the knot of sin (cf. Lumen Gentium, 56). What does that mean? The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council took up a phrase of Saint Irenaeus, who states that “the knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by the obedience of Mary; what the virgin Eve bound by her unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosened by her faith” (Adversus Haereses, III, 22, 4).
The “knot” of disobedience, the “knot” of unbelief. When children disobey their parents, we can say that
More at Whispers in the Loggia: The Great “Untier” – For Francis, There’s Something About Mary.
