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Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published February 17, 2006

Riverview – Local Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima President Leonard St. Pierre, 45, is hoping the apostolate's new chapel will help it spread the message of Our Lady of Fatima.

He is also hoping it will regain the vitality it had when he first started volunteering at its former center in southwest Detroit as a teenager.

And his wife shares his vision. "We're hoping for a new springtime for the Blue Army," says Michelle St. Pierre, 46.

Volunteers help set the shrine statue of Our Lady of Fatima in place in the Blue Army's new chapel in Riverview.

She became involved with the Blue Army five years ago after attending a retreat at its former center. Following the requests of the Blessed Mother at Fatima – to pray at least five decades of the rosary daily, wear the brown scapular, and take part in First Friday/First Saturday devotions "has definitely taught me the meaning of sacrifice," Michelle St. Pierre says.

It has also changed her life in another way – because it was at that retreat that she met Leonard. They married a year later.

Leonard St. Pierre speaks of the spiritual effects of his participation. "(It) has definitely brought me closer to the Blessed Mother, and brought me closer to Christ through the Eucharist." The St. Pierres belong to St. Michael Parish in Livonia.

Dolores Lipchik, 76, vice president, says she had never heard of Our Lady of Fatima when she first encountered the Blue Army in 1967. "I couldn't wait to get a group going at my parish, St. Pius X in Southgate, and we started our chapter in 1968," she recalls.

Following Our Lady of Fatima's requests has a profound effect on a person's life, Lipchik says. "It changes you completely. You live how God wants you to live, and you offer everything you do in reparation for the sins man commits," she adds.

St. Pierre has been working the past two years to coordinate the renovation of the 20,000-square-foot building in Riverview that used to be a Jehovah's Witnesses' hall.

Regular First Friday and First Saturday devotions begin the weekend of March 3-4 at the new chapel, on Ray Street, just a block east of Fort Street and north of Sibley Road. On the first Friday of every month, priests will be available to hear confessions at 6 p.m., with the rosary recited at 6:30 p.m.

A 7 p.m. Mass will be followed by all-night adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, except during Mass at midnight, and then resuming until 8 a.m. The devotions will conclude on Saturday with Mass at 8 a.m., followed by Benediction.

The facility will also be used for retreats, and for the special devotions the Blue Army holds on the 13th of every month from May through October.

The devotions and other practices stem from the requests made by the Blessed Mother when she appeared to three children at Fatima, Portugal in 1917.

Blue Army The Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima is a lay apostolate, founded in 1947, and affiliated with the World Apostolate of Fatima. Purpose: To spread the message of Our Lady of Fatima What they do: Pray at least five decades of the rosary daily, wear brown scapular, attend First Friday/First Saturday devotions, pray for world peace. Cost to join: Free Local chapel: 18637 Ray St. (off Sibley Road, east of Fort Street), Riverview 48193 Phone: (734) 281-1445.

The new chapel, which seats 150, replaces the apostolate's former Marian Center on West Vernor Highway in southwest Detroit, which closed in November. Purchased in 1971 from the Conventual Franciscans, it had become run down, St. Pierre acknowledged.

Having grown up in All Saints Parish, and having helped out at the Marian Center for about 20 years, Leonard St. Pierre does not think of the southwest neighborhood as unsafe, "but I found I couldn't convince most suburbanites it was safe to go there," he says.

The Blue Army was founded nationally in 1947 to spread the Fatima message. Its local division was launched in 1954 at St. Andrew Parish in Detroit. Membership is free, and there were once at least 4,000 members in the archdiocese. But even as participation declined in the 1980s and '90s, the mailing list was not kept current.

When it was finally cleaned up in 1999, only about 400 people responded that they wanted to be kept on it. Now, that number has grown to about 900, but the St. Pierres say they hope many more Catholics will become interested in joining.