Fatima
One
Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima
From May 13th to October 13th, 1917, Mary appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima Portugal. Their names were Francesco, Jacinta, and Lucia. These events culminated with the miracle of the sun witnessed by more than 70,000 people.
On July 13th, 1917, Mary 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 so that we would do our part to help save souls and alter the events revealed in the secrets.
In her memoirs 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...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 19th, 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.”
Two
The Second Part of the Secret of Fatima – the means to save souls
In response to the vision of souls in hell, Our Lady revealed God’s plan to save people from going to hell, “To save them,” She said, “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 then She promised, “In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph.”
At Fatima Mary revealed that God’s plan to save souls from hell and to save the world from self-destruction and bring world peace is through devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. What does this mean?
Devotion to the Heart of Mary means:
One: To consecrate oneself entirely to Mary as Jesus did when we became a little child in her care. Then 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. What’s that? On December 10th, 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.”
Three
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 and Her children who pray and do penance.
Are you answering the call?
Four
On June 26th, 2000, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger revealed publicly the third part of the secret of Fatima and explained its meaning. The most important phrase from the first and second 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!
Consecrate yourself to Mary and live a personal relationship with her as a little child depending on its mother.
Commit yourself to prayer, especially the Rosary because prayer, time in friendship with God and reflection upon one’s own life leads to conversion.
Commit to being with others. Share life with them regularly so that you can delight in them and be an influence for good.
On the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to Mass and Confession with the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Five
The Prayer of Consecration
“O Immaculata, Queen of Heaven and earth, refuge of sinners and our most loving Mother, God has willed to entrust the entire order of mercy to you. I, a repentant sinner, cast myself at your feet, humbly imploring you to take me with all that I am and have, wholly to yourself as your possession and property. Please make of me, of all my powers of soul and body, of my whole life, death and eternity, whatever most pleases you.
“If it pleases you, use all that I am and have without reserve, wholly to accomplish what was said of you: ‘She will crush your head’ [Gn 3:15], and ‘You alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world’ [Office of the B.V. Mary].
Let me be a fit instrument in your immaculate and merciful hands for introducing and increasing your glory to the maximum in all the many strayed and indifferent souls, and thus help extend as far as possible the blessed kingdom of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For wherever you enter you obtain the grace of conversion and growth in holiness, since it is through your hands that all graces come to us from the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.”
Allow me to praise you, O Sacred Virgin.
Give me strength against your enemies.”