Beseeching our Lady for the Church

In a 1987 Letter, Bishop Alvaro del Portillo asks us to feel "the urgency to take upon our own shoulders the needs of the Church, dedicating our entire life."

“During this Marian time I want to take advantage of the protection our Lady offers us, in order to encourage you and me to put more affection into the Marian customs. I’ve reasoned in this way: all the feasts of our Lady give us a new perspective and impulse to grasp better God’s magnanimity and mercy. All the titles of Mary Most Holy, while inviting us to give her more honor, spur us to discover, with the Holy Spirit’s help, the unfathomable riches that the Blessed Trinity wants to dispense to the human family.

“I know that all of you, like myself, are moved by the Marian piety we saw in our Father [Saint Josemaria], and we want to direct our steps along those paths. Thus we will sense, each day more acutely, the urgency to take upon our own shoulders the needs of the Church, dedicating our entire life . . . Let us ask Mary, Mother of the Church, to help us to fill our lives with the hunger to see all mankind (don’t view this as an impossible dream!) united in the one sheepfold of Christ.

“As the Church’s magisterium teaches, our Lady never ceases to provide her maternal care to the brothers and sisters of her Son still journeying on earth. Let us beseech Mary that many, many souls may come into the Holy Church, or return if they have separated themselves” (Letter, July 1987)