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May 13
Our Lady
of Fatima
Between May 13 and October 13, 1917, three Portuguese children received
apparitions of Our Lady at Cova da Iria, near Fatima, a city 110 miles north of
Lisbon. (See February 20 entry for Blessed Jacinta and Francisco Marto). Mary
asked the children to pray the rosary for world peace, for the end of World War
I, for sinners and for the conversion of Russia. The third visionary, Lucia dos
Santos, became a Carmelite nun and died in 2005 at the
age of 97.
Mary gave
the children three secrets. Since Francisco died in
1919 and Jacinta the following
year, Lucia, who later
became a Carmelite nun, revealed the first secret in 1927,
concerning devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The second secret was a vision of hell.
Pope John
Paul II directed the Holy See's Secretary of State to reveal the third secret in 2000; it spoke of a 'bishop in white' who
was shot by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows into him. Many
people linked this to the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in
St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981.
The feast
of Our Lady of Fatima was approved by the local bishop in 1930; it was added to
the Church's worldwide calendar in 2002. Sister Lucia died in 2005 at the age
of 97.
Comment:
The message of Fatima is simple: Pray.
Unfortunately, some people—not Sister Lucia—have distorted these revelations,
making them into an apocalyptic event for which they are now the only reliable
interpreters. They have, for example, claimed that Mary's request that the
world be consecrated to her has been ignored. Sister Lucia has agreed that Pope
John Paul II's public consecration in St. Peter's Square on March 25,
1984, fulfilled Mary's request. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith prepared a June 26, 2000, document explaining the “third secret” (available at www.vatican.va).
Mary is
perfectly honored when people generously imitate her response “Let it be done to me as you say” (Luke
1:38). Mary can never be seen as a rival to Jesus or to the Church's teaching authority,
as exercised by the college of bishops united with the bishop of Rome.
Quote:
“Throughout history there have been supernatural apparitions and signs
which go to the heart of human events and which, to the surprise of believers
and non-believers alike, play their part in the unfolding of history. These
manifestations can never contradict the content of faith, and must therefore
have their focus in the core of Christ's proclamation: the Father's love which
leads men and women to conversion and bestows the grace required to abandon
oneself to him with filial devotion. This too is the message of Fatima which,
with its urgent call to conversion and penance, draws us to the heart of the
Gospel” (The Message of Fatima, Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, June 26, 2000).
Pope
John Paul II talks with the surviving visionary Lucia.
======================================================
First Secret
The first secret was a vision
of Hell:
Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire
which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form,
like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating
about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued
from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on
every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid
shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble
with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive
likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This
vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind
heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first
Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear
and terror.[5]
======================================================
Second Secret
The second secret is a
statement that World War I would end and supposedly predicts the
coming of World War II should God continue to be offended and if
Russia does not convert. The second half requests that Russia be consecrated to
the Immaculate Heart:
You have seen hell where the souls of poor
sinners go. To save them, God
wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say
to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is
going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break
out during the Pontificate of Pius XI.
When you see a night illumined by an unknown light*, know that this is the
great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its
crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy
Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my
Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation
on the First Saturdays. If my requests are
heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will
spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the
Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer;
various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will
triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be
converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.[6]
This secret's controversy is second
only to the supposed final secret of Fátima, as it seemingly predicts both the
all-encompassing World War II, the radical, bloody, and extreme
anti-religion ideology of the Soviet
Union; the proxy wars and limited direct confrontations that would be
initiated between the Western Democracies and the Soviet Bloc.
Some critics have noted that
the "Prophecy" was not disclosed until August 1941, after World War
II had already begun.[7]
To put this in context, Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, began on 22 June 1941.
This means that by the time the secret was revealed, all the events it
'predicts' had already occurred. The secret also singles out Russia while
ignoring Hitler and the Nazis.
Pope
Pius XII allegedly consecrated Russia on 7 July 1952.[8]
======================================================
Third Secret
The third part of the secret
was written down "by order of His Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and the
Most Holy Mother ..." on 3 January 1944.[9]
Bishop Silva, visiting Lúcia on 15 September 1943 while she was
bed-ridden, first suggested that she write the third secret down to ensure that
it would be recorded in the event of her death. Lucia was hesitant to do so,
however. Finally, in mid-October, Bishop Silva sent her a letter containing a
direct order to record the secret, and Lúcia obeyed. In June 1944, the sealed
envelope containing the third secret was delivered to Silva, where it stayed
until 1957, when it was finally delivered to Rome.[10]
It was announced by Cardinal
Sodano on 13 May 2000, 83 years after the first apparition of the Lady to
the children in the Cova da Iria, that the Third Secret would finally be
released. In his announcement, Cardinal Sodano implied that the secret was
about the persecution of Christians in the 20th century that culminated in the
failed assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II on 13 May 1981.[11]
The text of the Third Secret
was published on 26 June 2000:
J.M.J.
The third part of the secret revealed at
the Cova da Iria-Fátima, on 13 July 1917.
I write in obedience to you, my God, who
command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through
your Most Holy Mother and mine.
After the two parts which I have already
explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a
flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as
though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the
splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to
the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: 'Penance, Penance, Penance!'. And we saw in an immense light that is
God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in
front of it' a Bishop dressed in White 'we had the impression that it was the
Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep
mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of
a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through
a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with
pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way;
having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big
Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him,
and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests,
men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and
positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a
crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the
Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.
Tuy-3-1-1944.[12]
======================================================
Along with the text of the
secret, then-Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger published a theological commentary,[13]
in which he states that:
"A careful reading of the text of the so-called third 'secret' of
Fatima ... will probably prove disappointing or surprising after all the
speculation it has stirred. No great mystery is revealed; nor is the future
unveiled."
After explaining the
differences between public and private revelations, he cautions people not to
see in the message a determined future event:
"The purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably
fixed future. Its meaning is exactly the opposite: it is meant to mobilize the
forces of change in the right direction. Therefore we must totally discount
fatalistic explanations of the “secret”, such as, for example, the claim that
the would-be assassin of 13 May 1981 was merely an instrument of the divine
plan guided by Providence and could not therefore have acted freely, or other
similar ideas in circulation. Rather, the vision speaks of dangers and how we
might be saved from them."
He then moves on to talk about
the symbolic nature of the images, noting that:
"The concluding part of the 'secret' uses images which Lucia may
have seen in devotional books and which draw their inspiration from
long-standing intuitions of faith."
As for the meaning of the
message:
"What remains was already evident when we began our reflections on
the text of the 'secret': the exhortation to prayer as the path of 'salvation
for souls' and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion."
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