“Peace is only possible through conversion”

“Peace is only possible through conversion”

On 13 October, the pilgrims gathered in Fátima were urged to become builders of peace by undergoing personal conversion.

Bishop Claudio Dalla Zuanna, who presided over the International Anniversary Mass on 13 October in the Prayer Area of the Shrine, urged the approximately 110,000 pilgrims gathered there to participate in building peace through personal evolution.

“Our Lady has shown us that the path to building peace and saving the world is through personal conversion. The peace that we so badly need in our days, as in the time of the apparitions, can only be achieved if each person's heart embarks on the path of conversion and opens itself to goodness, forgiveness, solidarity and care for life,” said the Archbishop of Beira, who put this attitude into practice by challenging each person to act as a missionary of hope in their own lives.

“The Lord wants us to be ‘living’ stones in the construction of his dwelling among men, in the building of his Church, which counts Jesus Christ as its chosen and precious ‘living stone’, witnesses of hope and not mere beneficiaries of the actions of God and the Church,” pointed out the president of the celebration.

In addition to conversion, Bishop Claudio Dalla Zuanna also established prayer, Eucharistic adoration and the offering of sacrifices, based on the renunciation of personal interests, forgiveness and the pursuit of the common good, as ideal means of achieving a fruitful earthly pilgrimage.

The president of the pilgrimage defined charity as the criterion of authenticity in the Christian life, with a view to a future based on the hope of the Gospel, as echoed in the message of Fátima.

In conclusion, the Archbishop of Beira recited a prayer based on the act of consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which Pope John Paul II performed on 24 March 1984, before the image of Our Lady of Fátima.

The celebration on 13 October took place in the presence of the centenary statue of Our Lady of Fátima, which had returned the day before from Rome, where it had been at the request of the Holy Father.

The Golden Rose that Pope Leo XIV offered to Our Lady of Fátima and to the Shrine was also placed next to the image, on the altar of the Prayer Area, after the incense burning, by the rector of the Shrine of Fátima, Father Carlos Cabecinhas.