PART 10: Antichrists revealed by Jesus Christ – John Paul 11 and the Virgin Mary

Even his private chapel in the Vatican, where visitors attended his daily Masses, gave simple evidence of his living in the presence of Mary. Next to the large crucifix was the face of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa. This arrangement resembled his well-known coat of arms. At private audiences, all were given a rosary as a souvenir of their visit with this venerable Pope. 

His first encyclical was Redemptor Hominis (The Redeemer of Mankind). Eventually, an accompanying document on Mary Mater Redemptoris (The Mother of the Redeemer) would follow, giving his Mariological perspective in the life of faith. In that document, he proclaimed a Marian Year, from Pentecost 1987 to the Assumption 1988, in honor of the Birth of Mary in preparation for the third-millennium celebration of the Incarnation. This also was to be an occasion for further studies of the Vatican II portrayal of Mary

All of his documents and conferences concluded with an invocation of Mary. Nor can we forget that a pilgrimage to a shrine of Our Lady was included whenever possible during his visits to countries around the world. There he would entrust the Church and, in particular, that country to her maternal love and care. 

The attempt on his life took place on May 13, 1981, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima. This concurrence awoke in him a desire to investigate the message of Fatima. This study resulted in the act of collegial consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary — the world explicitly and Russia implicitly — as Our Lady had requested in 1929 for the conversion of Russia and the prevention of the Second World War. Within a few years, without anyone’s expectation or prediction, the Communist empire in Europe mysteriously imploded. 

Upon publishing the apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae (The Most Holy Rosary), in which he introduced the Luminous Mysteries to meditate on the years between the infancy of Christ and his passion, and spoke of the Rosary as a “school of Mary,” he declared a Year of the Rosary from October 2002 to October 2003.