In Lourdes, Our Lady revealed her name on the 25 March 1858: “I am the Immaculate Conception”. In Fatima equally, she did not reveal Her name until the last of her apparitions in the Cova da Iria on the 13 October 1917: “I am Our Lady of the Rosary”.

“I am … Nossa Senhora”

The English version “I am Our Lady” is not the exact translation of “Nossa Senhora” which is the female word for “Senhor” (lord, master), so strictly speaking, it means “Lordess”, “Mistress”. One could almost translate the whole sentence: “I am the Queen of the Holy Rosary.” The term “Senhora” means authority, reign, and government. In fact, Fatima is an extraordinary manifestation of the royal power of the Mother of God, of the omnipotentia supplex (pleading almightiness).

This sentence, however, is a problem. It would be grammatically correct to say: “I am your Queen, I am the Queen”, etc. But She says: I am … Our Lady! Maybe She accepts the common expression “Our Lady” of all people as a whole. She loves this invocation so much the She wants it applied to Herself. “I am really that which you name me: ‘Our Lady’. You name me ‘Our Lady’ and you are right, I am it!”

By this uncommon expression maybe She wants to explain that She is really “Senhora”, the Queen who received from Her divine Son the full royal dignity and executive authority. But this authority and power is “ours”, it belongs to us. Mary is “Our Lady”, part of ourselves: in other word, Her authority and power is just for our good, for our sake, and for our happiness.

“I am Our Lady of the Rosary”

Her royal authority is specified by the word “Rosary”. That means that the Rosary is the place and the atmosphere in which She exercises Her being Queen, Lady, and “Lordess”. What is the Holy Rosary? “Rosarium” is the bouquet of the most beautiful roses of virtue, love, and holiness offered to the Most High for our salvation. It is the chain which joins Heaven with earth, the anchor which links the ship of the soul with the eternal harbor. It is a crown of the most beautiful jewels, the most precious gift made to the eternal King.

“I am Our Lady of the Rosary” means: “I am myself the link between Heaven and earth, the ladder on which God descends to this world and on which we return to God. I am the Senhora, the authority to govern and to command all “roses”, all good works, and intentions of my children to be offered to God. I take all the jewels of my children and unite them with my virtues and my immense love and so make a worthy, immaculate crown to put on the head of my divine Son as a supreme act of homage, adoration, and submission.

The Holy Rosary is the life, death, and resurrection of Our Lord revived, meditated on in our Heart with and in Mary! “I am Our Lady of the Rosary,” means that She is the Senhora of the life, death, and resurrection of Our Lord recalled and revived in our hearts and present on the altar for our salvation.

But does it mean that the spiritual revival of the 33 years of life of Our Lord is in us? It means that Jesus Christ Himself enters our souls with His Precious Blood to cleanse us from our sins, to purify us from the spiritual leprosy, to free us from the chains of the devil, and to convert us from the way which leads to the eternal abyss. After having purified us, Our Lord fills our soul with the life of God, with His eternal light and goodness, and finally with His everlasting glory.

Now Our Lady is the Mother and Queen of this spiritual revival in Jesus Christ: She makes Him come again and again into the souls of Her children with all the graces of conversion, purification, sanctification, and glorification.

Illusration : Flickr/Jean-Louis Mazières (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)