Fatima
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Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima
From May 13 to October 13, 1917, Mary appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima Portugal culminating with the miracle of the Sun witnessed by more than 70,000 people.
She gave the visionaries a secret with three parts to be revealed on specific dates in the future, at just the right time to get us in the game and do our part to help save souls and alter the events revealed in the secrets.
In her memoires Sr. Lucia relates the First Part of the Secret of Fatima: “Our Lady opened her hands once more…The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the fire…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 repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals...”
Lucia relates: “Terrified and as if to plead for help, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly: ‘You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go.”
The first part of the Secret of Fatima confirmed the tragic reality that souls go to Hell as a consequence of their own free choice to reject God and his mercy God through unrepentant sin.
One month later, on August 19, 1917 Mary said to the children: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them.”
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The Second Part of the Secret of Fatima – the means to save soul
In response to the vision of souls in hell Our Lady then said:
To save them, (that is, to save people from going to hell) 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.” And She said “In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph.”
Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary three things:
One: To consecrate or entrust oneself entirely to Mary as Jesus did when we became a little child in her care. Then to live this consecration by living a profound personal relationship with Mary your Mother.
Two: pray the Rosary every day. The Rosary is the School of Mary where she teaches you to be like Jesus.
Three – First Saturdays of Reparation
On December 10, 1925 Mary appeared to Lucia and said: “Look my daughter, at My Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce Me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console Me and announce in My name that I promise to assist at the moment of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep Me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making Reparation to Me.”
Jesus told Lucia: Make it over and over for the conversion of sinners, to save them from hell and to bring about world peace.
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Third Part of the Secret of Fatima – Not revealed until the year 2000 because it is for our time.
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 splendor 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…a Bishop dressed in White (the Pope) along with Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross…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…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.”
The angel with the flaming sword represents the threat of self-destruction that looms over the world.
The double force opposed to self-destruction is
· The power of the Mother of God
· Her children who pray and do penance
o Are you answering the call?
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On June 26, 2000, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger revealed publicly the third part of the secret of Fatima and explained its meaning. The most important phrase from the 1st and 2nd part of the secret is “to save souls;” the three-fold cry for “penance, penance, penance” is the key to the 3rd part of the secret. He then explained:
“The angel with the flaming sword on the left of the Mother of God recalls similar images in the Book of Revelation. This represents the threat of judgment that looms over the world. Today the prospect that the world might be reduced to ashes by a sea of fire no longer seems pure fantasy: man himself, with his inventions, has forged the flaming sword.”
“The vision then shows the power that stands opposed to the force of destruction – the splendor of the Mother of God and, stemming from this in a certain way, the summons to penance. In this way, the importance of human freedom is underlined: the future is not in fact unchangeably set, and the image that the children saw is in no way a film preview of a future in which nothing can be changed.”
“Indeed, the whole point of the vision is to bring freedom onto the scene and to steer freedom in a positive direction. 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…Rather, the vision speaks of dangers and how we might be saved from them.”
The vision the Mother of God gave the children of Fatima and revealed in the year 2000 is meant to mobilize the forces of change!
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Mary continues to appear begging the world to turn back to God by prayer and conversion before it is too late
1968 Zeitoun, Egypt – where Our Lady was seen by over 1 million people
1973 Akita, Japan
1976 Betania, Venezuela
1980 Cuapa, Nicaragua
1981 Kibeho, Rwanda
1983 San Nicolas, Argentina
1981 to the Present - Mary is reported to appear in Medjugorje. The Church has not made a final decision on these apparitions because they continue, and therefore must wait until they end before making a final conclusion.
St. John Paul II commented to the Archbishop of Slovakia, Pavel Hnilca, Medjugorje is the continuation of Fatima, it is the completion of Fatima. (Why He is a Saint p. 169)
Mary has come with a greater frequency and urgency to ask us to help her save souls and bring about world peace:
I. Consecrate yourself to her Immaculate Heart and live a personal relationship with her as a little child depending on its mother.
II. Commit yourself to prayer and conversion. Be with Jesus in prayer so that He can influence you by reading or listening to the Word of God, thinking about it, then making the resolution to actually live it. Do this in the Rosary every day.
III. Commit to be with others – share life with them regularly so that you can delight in them and influence them for good.
IV. On the 1st Saturday of every month go to Mass and Confession with the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary