“What do you want of me?” It was the perfect question. And not only did little Lucia dos Santos begin her first conversation with the Queen of the Universe with this question, but with it she began every single one of their five subsequent exchanges.
As grown-ups, we probably would have proceeded differently, perhaps with something along the lines of, “Oh, Blessed Mother, I’m glad you’re here because I just wanted to point out that things are really bad in the world right now — could you please…you know…fix them?” But, of course, Lucia was not a grown-up. At ten years old, she knew intuitively that this heavenly Lady already had Her own agenda, or She would not have come. The little shepherdess had no idea what it was; she had no clue why she was the one chosen and not any of the other smarter, prettier, more privileged, or more pious children on the planet; nor did she consider her own incapacity to carry out whatever it was the Lady did want from her. She was a child. She asked simply, honestly, openly and with total docility: “What do you want of me?”
We Catholics are not so unlike the eldest Fatima seer. Through no merit of our own, Heaven has revealed to us the One True Faith in all its richness. To us it is given to understand that the message of Fatima holds the key to our age. Of the perhaps millions of people who do not know about the Fatima apparitions, and of the maybe even hundreds of thousands who do know but do not care — we both know and care, thanks be to God. It is a thought that could fairly overwhelm us if we reflected on it sufficiently: like Lucia, we have been chosen.
The question is — chosen for what?
In order to find out, like little Lucia, we, too, need to ask Our Lady this all-important question: “Mary, what do want of me?” We, too, need to be 100% open to whatever answer She gives us and ready to comply with whatever action-items She has in store for us. Obviously, She has something in mind, or we would not be who we are, where we are, reading an article such as this one.
It is true that Lucia dos Santos had a lot going against her. She was the youngest in her family. She could not read or write. Her own mother did not believe her about the apparitions; even her parish priest did not believe her. Then there was the fanatically anti-Catholic press of Portugal which did its utmost to make her the laughingstock of the country.
Yet, for all that, she had everything she needed to accomplish her mission. She knew what Heaven wanted of her. She was to come to the Cova da Iria on the thirteenth of every month until October. She was to learn to read and write. She was to pray the Rosary every day and make sacrifices for poor sinners. Even a ten-year-old could handle that. Mary would see to the rest.
Like Lucia, we have a lot going against us, too. Yes, things are pretty messy. But what is there to stop us from inquiring of our Blessed Mother, who is as all-powerful by grace as God Himself is by nature — “What do you want of me?” What is preventing us from listening with all our heart to Her reply and throwing our whole soul into Her plan for how to fix, maybe not the world’s problems, but surely our own? Because She does have a plan. And who knows? It might even be as simple as — “SMILE.”
We will never know until we ask.
