Archbishop consecrates Diocese to Immaculate Heart in Fatima

Archbishop Leo Cushley consecrated St Andrews and Edinburgh while leading a pilgrimage

Oct 25, 2017

By David V Barrett
Archbishop Leo Cushley has consecrated the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Fatima, Portugal, on the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s appearance there to three local shepherd children.

The consecration came at the end of a Mass in the Chapel of Apparitions, the location of the Marian apparitions in 1917.

“In this centenary year it seemed appropriate to consecrate the whole diocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and where better place to do it but in the shade of where the tree used to stand where Our Lady appeared to the little shepherds – it was a beautiful and a very moving thing for me to be able to do,” said Archbishop Cushley, who is currently leading an Archdiocesan pilgrimage to Fatima.

During his homily, Archbishop Cushley held up the young seers as examples of saintliness amid suffering.

“Goodness is its own rewards,” he said, but cautioned that “goodness won’t spare us suffering thought. Suffering will come. On the contrary we will always have those suffering.

“Our reaction should be that of the little shepherds, that we are able to offer it up as a sacrifice, and while we are good and in God’s good grace, it will surely give us a great insight, a great self-knowledge, it will give us, as Our Lady wished, a chance to share in Christ’s redemptive sacrifice, making all things holy by joining him in his sufferings until the end of time.”--Catholic Herald