By Archdiocese of Miami -

Florida Catholic staff and Vatican News reports

MIAMI | Archbishop Thomas Wenski will join Pope Francis and all of the world’s bishops on Friday, March 25, 2022, in consecrating Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The consecration will take place at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity, 3609 S. Miami Ave., Miami, beginning at 10 a.m. with prayers and concluding with a bilingual Mass at noon. All are invited to participate.

Livestream of the consecration will be available beginning at 10 a.m. on Friday at this link.

March 25 marks the solemnity of the Annunciation, when the Angel Gabriel told Mary that she would conceive and bear “the Son of the Most High” through the power of the Holy Spirit.

At around the same time that day — 5 p.m. in Rome — Pope Francis will be reciting the prayer of consecration in St. Peter’s Basilica. The same act, on the same day, will be undertaken by all the bishops of the world.

At the Angelus on March 13, Pope Francis had invited the whole Church to pray for an end to the war in Ukraine: “I ask all diocesan and religious communities to increase their moments of prayer for peace.”

In the apparition of July 13, 1917 in Fatima, Our Lady had asked for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and the communion of reparation on the First Saturdays, stating that if this request was not granted, Russia would “spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church,” and “the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated.”

After the apparitions of Fatima, there were various acts of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary: on Oct. 31, 1942, Pope Pius XII consecrated the whole world, and on July 7, 1952, he specifically consecrated Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary with the Apostolic Letter Sacro vergente anno, in view of the difficult situation of Christians forced to live in an atheistic communist regime.

Later, Pope St. Paul VI in 1964, and Pope St. John Paul II in 1981, 1982, and 1984, renewed this consecration of the whole human race. The consecration in 1984 took place March 25 in St. Peter’s Square; on that occasion, St. John Paul II, referring specifically to Our Lady's request at Fatima, and in spiritual union with all the bishops of the world, entrusted all peoples, and “in a special way... those men and nations who are in special need of this entrustment and consecration,” to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In June 2000, when the Holy See revealed the third part of the so-called secret of Fatima, the then-secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, pointed out that Sister Lucia had personally confirmed that the act of consecration performed by John Paul II in 1984 corresponded to what Our Lady had asked.