In the month of Mary, the Servants Brothers usually do a brief reading in the night prayer related to Our Mother. The apparitions and messages of Fatima have always held for me an extraordinary richness. So I looked for the little book “El Mensaje de Fátima: habla Lucía” (“The Message of Fatima: Lucia Speaks.”) The only copy I could locate was one that Fr. Henry kept (jealously) with some other of his belongings.
In the second apparition (June 13, 1917) Lucia asks Our Lady to take them to Heaven. The Virgin responds:
– Yes, I will take Jacinta and Francisco soon, but you will remain here a little longer. Jesus wants to use you to make Me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. To whoever embraces it, I promise salvation, and their souls will be dear to God as flowers placed by Me to adorn His Throne.
The words in italics above are underlined in yellow in the little book that Fr. Henry used. On one side is written in his handwriting:
(Yesterday) --> Flower and altar
May 20, 2017 Adoration
On the other side:
May 21st
I understood
What does it mean? Well, I don’t know, because he never told me. In fact, Fr. Henry himself “jealously” kept the books in which he made his notes, like his Bible (which he never let me touch). However, I believe I can use these words to illustrate what Fr. Henry’s soul was like.
That year, 2017, May 20 was a Saturday. He must have seen that someone placed a flower, or a bouquet of flowers, in front of the altar (I don’t know if it was in the Servants’ chapel where we do Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament every morning or in the Parish of Saint Dionysius, where we expose the Eucharist daily so that the faithful can adore the Lord). Father Henry always had the practice of asking the Lord what He wanted to say when things happened outside the ordinary.
Without compromising Fr. Henry, but following his style of reading events, I would say that when reading these words of the Virgin, the Lord must have spoken to his heart.
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Lord, what am I doing here? What do You want to tell me? (When will You take me to Heaven!?)
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Henry, you are here because I need you to make My Mother’s Heart known. You must make it known and loved. And because you do this, you are like those flowers that adorn My throne on the altar. So: take heart!
Perhaps I am mistaken, but not by much. Father Henry had the habit of noting the texts in which the Lord granted him a special grace. Perhaps the conversation was different, but without a doubt that moment and this text were for him a comfort and an encouragement to continue giving himself to the Lord and the Virgin for the good of souls. It is a grace and a gift that he had and that I would also like to have, but I am very happy to be able to benefit from these caresses that Heaven sent to encourage his priestly soul. Thank you, Jesus, thank you, Mary… and thank you, Fr. Henry!
