* Sing the Mass (Not Simply Sing at Mass)
* Body of Evidence
* The Child Jesus in the Fatima Message
* Testimony of a Delayed Then "Loving Mother"
* The Little King of Love
* Am I Doing God's Will as a Parent?
* Fatima, Shrine of the Most Holy Trinity
* The Little Shepherds, Singular Gift
* Lost Fatherhood
* Humanae Vitae 40 Years Ago
* St. Francis of Assisi
* How to Consecrate an Infant to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
* How Catechism in Poetry Came to be Written
* A Priest is a Priest Forever
* Editorial - Why the Call for Devotion to the Divine Child Jesus?
* Fatima Family Forum
* Questions & Answers
* News Briefs & Comments

Editorial - Why the Call for Devotion to the Divine Child Jesus?

As you read this spring edition of the Immaculate Heart Messenger I'll be completing my fifth year here, Hanceville, Alabama, near the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Here Perpetual Adoration of our Eucharistic Lord and devotion to the Divine Child Jesus are fostered,. From this Shrine renewed devotion to the Child Jesus is spreading, not only throughout the United States, but to other countries.

The image of the Divine Child King you see on the cover is a replica of the Divine Child Jesus which Mother Angelica placed in the piazza here before the Temple of the Divino ñNino. This image in the piazza is what thousands of pilgrims see who come to this Shrine, even before they enter the temple. There they experience perpetual adoration of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

In the colorful large, multi-picture Shrine book, COME AND SEE, Mother Angelica, in the introduction to pilgrims, writes, as she has related on EWTN, how it all began: "I traveled to South America to ask bishops and nuncios to help EWTN make programs in the different Spanish dialects...One of the countries we visited was Colombia. In Bogota, a wonderful Salesian Priest brought us to see the Sanctuary of the Divine Infant Jesus; then to see the miraculous statue of the Child Jesus. We (Mother Angelica and Deacon Steltimeier) went into a small Shrine that was full of people. There was no room for us in front of the statue, so I stood at the side I was looking up at His profile and praying, when suddenly the miraculous statue became alive and turned around toward me."

She continues: "He had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen! Then the Child Jesus said to me with the voice of a young boy, 'Build Me a temple and I will help those who help you.'"

"I was awestruck! I began to cry at His beauty and simplicity. When we arrived back home from South America, I told the sisters what happened in Bogota. To me, this temple is a miracle. The miracle is not so much that the temple was built, but how it was built."..."We had no money to build, but we never tried to raise funds, and EWTN had no participation in paying for any part of the temple. This was totally a project of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery".

The Child Jesus kept His Promise: "I will help those who help you." She tells how five families, who wanted their donations to remain anonymous, paid for the entire edifice - church, piazza, monastery, enclosure wall and roads.

All of this presents the question to us: why in our times is the devotion to the Child Jesus being emphasized anew and advancing out from this marvelous Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament - where there is constant adoration of the REAL PRESENCE? In answer, reparation for the abortion of millions comes immediately to mind. In addition to the obvious call to reverence and adoration of Our Eucharistic Lord in the Divine Liturgy and Real Presence, yet, I think Our Divine Lord has willed special honor of, and devotion to, the Divine Child for multiple more reasons, all in reparation: because of the neglect of children today, physically, educationally, spiritually; because of the atrocities reported often on the news regarding children; because many husbands and wives, when they could support and educate more children, are no longer generous in bringing large families into the world, children with immortal souls.

There is yet another major reason. The answer is found in the failures of many men living true fatherhood. It is found also in the selfishness of too many women, not being open to motherhood, while wrapped up in the feminist movement, concerned about careers other than mothering and homemaking. At the same time, if many men were living their roles as true fathers and the real heads of their homes, their wives would not be dominating the families and homes while caving into the lifestyles fostered by radical feminism. Society has surrendered to the "dictatorship of relativism", especially in our families.

In this issue we have articles by fathers of families which we encourage you to read meditatively as they are written from their personal experiences. When you honor and pray to the Divine Child Jesus who else do you think of? You think of God the Father. You think of the Child's Mother Mary. You think of her as the Spouse of the Holy Spirit. Pope Benedict, in Jesus of Nazareth, writes of fatherhood as follows:

"We are allowed to say 'Father'. This one word contains the whole history of redemption. ...We must therefore let Jesus teach us what father really means. In Jesus' discourses, the Father appears as the source of all good, as the measure of the rectitude (perfection) of man. The love that endures "to the end" (John 13:1), which the Lord fulfilled on the Cross in praying for His enemies, shows us the essence of the Father. He is this love. Because Jesus brings it to completion, He is entirely "Son", and He invites us to become sons" according to this criterion. ...The image of the father was and is apt ofr expressing the otherness of Creator and creature and the sovereignty of his creative act. ...While we have different earthly fathers, we all come from one single Father, who is the measure and source of all fatherhood. As St. Paul says: 'I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named" (Eph 3:14-15).

"God's fatherhood is more real than human fatherhood, because He is the ultimate source of our being, because He has thought and willed us from all eternity; because He gives us our true paternal home, which is eternal".

The image of the Divine Child King which you see on the cover and which the Poor Clare Nuns of Perpetual Adoration honor here at their Shrine, to which people come from throughout the world and make available to many who desire one for their homes, reminds us of Fatherhood, Childhood, submissive and loving Motherhood and authentic Family life. And this message of the Divine Child goes out from a center of Eucharistic Adoration. RJF