By Grzegorz Kucharczyk,
Love One Another! 9/2008 → Catholic Church
Rue du Bac and the gift of the Miraculous Medal, Lourdes and the
gift of the healing spring, La Salette, Fatima — all Marian
revelations forming a chain of miraculous divine interventions in
our time. Now that a full ninety years separates us from the last
of these, the apparitions at Fatima, it might be worthwhile to take
stock of the events and their results. Have Our Blessed Mother’s
appeals been heeded? Have her instructions been carried out? Have
her requests been fulfilled?
In the divine plan, each Marian revelation represents a stage in
salvation history, a sign pointing not only to the time of the apparitions,
but also to our whole future. It is a reminder of the Gospel, a
fingerpost, a call to change what is evil, an occasion of grace,
and — a warning. We should therefore read it not as something
that was, and has passed, but as something that endures, that is
still current and alive. To understand the messages properly, we
must know their historical context and discern how they still apply
to the whole world and, even more so, to ourselves — here and
now. In calling us to penance, prayer, and a devotion to her Immaculate
Heart, the Mother of God addresses me personally.
The Church recognizes in the revelations of Fatima an especially
rich message addressed to all people. “If the Church,”
observed Pope John Paul II in his 1982 homily at Fatima,”
has accepted the message of Fatima, it is primarily because this
message embraces the truth and the call of the Gospel. ‘Repent
and believe in the Gospel’ (Mark
1:15). These are the very first words that the Messiah speaks to
mankind. Like the Gospel, the message of Fatima is essentially a
call to conversion and repentance. This appeal went out at the beginning
of the twentieth century and its burden applies especially to the
present century.”
The twenty-first century has barely begun, but the appeal from
Fatima has lost none of its relevance. The world still stands in
need of conversion and repentance. The Holy Father continues: “The
call to repentance is a maternal call, and yet it is strong and
unequivocal. Love, which rejoices in the right (1
Corinthians 13:6), can be demanding and resolute.” Let
us not forget this “maternal call.”
The Fatima events
On May 13, 1917, three shepherd children, Lucia (aged 10), Francisco
(aged nine), and Jasinta (aged 7), were grazing their flock in the
grassy valley of Cova da Iria, at the foot of a rocky hill. Two
lightning bolts preceded the appearance of “the most beautiful
Lady we had ever seen.” “I have come from heaven,”
the stranger told them. A conversation followed, after which the
“beautiful Lady” asked the children if they wished to
offer themselves and their sufferings to God in reparation for sins
and the conversion of sinners. On receiving an affirmative reply,
the Lady instructed them to pray the rosary. She also told them
that she would return to the same place on the thirteenth day of
every month until October. The children anxiously awaited the Lady’s
next visit, all the while performing numerous acts of mortification
“for the conversion of sinners.”
During their next meeting in June, Our Lady asked the children
to pray the rosary with the addition, at the end of each decade,
of a short prayer beginning with the words: “Oh my Jesus,
forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell….”
To Lucia, Mary said: “Through you, God wishes to make me better
known and loved and to establish a devotion to my Immaculate Heart
throughout the whole world. To all those who accept it, I promise
my help. God will love their souls, and I shall set them down like
flowers before His throne.”
During the third visitation, in July, Mary told them: “Continue
to pray the rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary,
that the war may end [World War One was then in progress — ed.]
and that peace may reign in the world.” Next, she showed the
children a vision of hell: “We saw what looked like an ocean
of fire, and plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human
form….They seethed round and round in the flames and uttered
shrieks of terror.” The children were stricken by the vision.
Mary told them: “You have seen hell, where the souls of sinners
go. To save them, God wishes to establish a devotion to my Immaculate
Heart throughout the world. If what I say to you is done, many souls
will be saved, and there will be peace in the world. But if people
do not cease offending God…” And here Our Lady spoke
of another, much worse, war to come [World War Two] along with famines
and persecutions of the Church. “To prevent this, I shall
come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart
and a Holy Communion of Reparation on the first Saturday of every
month. 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 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 will be converted,
and a period of peace will be granted to the world.” Here
ended this part of the message that Mary wished to be made known
to the world. The rest of her message remained a secret until January
2, 1944, when she instructed Lucia, then a nun in a convent in Tuy,
to record the words and vision she had received and convey them
to her bishop.
News of the events occurring in Cova da Iria began to spread like
wildfire. More and more people began to converge on the site on
the thirteenth day of the month. Local authorities and groups ill-disposed
toward the Church began to mount a campaign against the apparitions
and harass the little visionaries. Even the parish priest was skeptical
and suspected the children of lying. On August 13, the mayor held
the children in detention, thus preventing their meeting with Our
Lady. But on August 19, when the children were grazing their sheep
at the usual time, Our Blessed Mother appeared again.
On the thirteenth of September, 30,000 people awaited the apparition
at Cova da Iria. They saw a white cloud envelop the children and
the holm oak, on which the Lady made her appearances. That day Mary
again reminded her little charges to pray the rosary for an end
to the war. She also told them that in October, during her last
apparition, she would work a miracle, that all might believe that
it was indeed she who had appeared.
On October 13, an enormous crowd, over 70,000 strong, gathered
at the apparition site. The sky was dark and overcast, and a heavy
rain was falling. All were soaked to the skin, up to their ankles
in mud. Suddenly the rain stopped and sun broke through the clouds.
In the words of eyewitness Dominic Reiss: “The sun began to
dance from one place to another, all the while changing color, blue,
yellow — every color you could izine! Then the sun hurtled down
toward the children, toward the tree. Everyone cried out in terror….My
mother drew me to herself and began to cry, saying, ‘It’s
the end of the world!’ But then the children got up and began
to walk among the people, saying, “Pray, pray hard. Everything
is all right now.’”
The Bishop of Fatima, in relating this miraculous event, wrote:
“Thousands of people witnessed the dancing of the sun. The
phenomenon went unrecorded by the astronomical observatory, which
indicates that this was not a natural occurrence. [Yet] people of
diverse groups and every social class saw it: believers, non believers,
journalists of Portugal’s leading dailies, and even people
who had been part of the crowd.”
Prior to the miracle of the sun, Our Blessed Mother had told the
little shepherds: “I am Our Lady of the Rosary. Pray the rosary
daily. It is important for people to repent and beg forgiveness
for their sins. May they never again offend the Lord God, who is
already deeply offended.” After their conversation, Saint
Joseph appeared with the Child Jesus in his arms, and later the
Lord Jesus appeared Himself.
With the miracle of the sun the revelations given at Cova da Iria
came to an end.
The fate of the visionaries
But these were not the last revelations that Jasinta, Francisco,
and Lucia received. Lucia set them down later, after the deaths
of Francisco and Jasinta, for, as Our Lady had told them, they would
both die soon: Francisco in 1919, Jasinta in 1920. Jasinta saw Our
Blessed Mother again, when she was already ill. Mary told her “she
would soon come to take Francisco to heaven as well. And she asked
me [Lucia] if I would still like to convert more sinners. When I
said yes, she told me that I would spend time in hospital, where
I would suffer considerably; and she asked me to suffer for the
intention of converting sinners, as reparation for sins.”
Jasinta also had several apocalyptic visions of wars resulting
from man’s rejection of God as well as persecutions of the
Church and the Holy Father. The only way of saving the situation
was through prayer, saying the rosary, especially together with
the family, and by consecrating ourselves to the Heart of Jesus
and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Only
this total consecration of ourselves to Jesus through Mary will
conquer the power of evil and avert punishment for sins.
In 1925, Lucia
joined the convent of the Sisters of St. Dorothy in Tuy, Spain.
That same year, Our Blessed Mother appeared to her again and showed
her her heart. “My daughter, look at my heart and this crown
of thorns encircling it. Every minute sinners press the crown into
my heart through their blasphemies and acts of ingratitude. At least
you console me; and make known my promise that to all those who
for five successive first Saturdays of the month make their confession,
receive Holy Communion, say a decade of rosary, and meditate with
me for fifteen minutes on one of mysteries of the rosary in reparation
for sins, I shall, at the hour of their death, come bearing help,
along with all the graces necessary for their eternal happiness.”
In 1929, Lucia received a symbolic vision of the Holy Trinity:
God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ nailed to the
cross. Under Christ’s breast was a host and chalice, and dripping
over the host were droplets of blood from His face and the wound
in His side. At His right stood His Blessed Mother with her heart
in her hand, and at His left an inscription (“as if of crystal-clear
water flowing onto the altar”), bearing the words, “Grace”
and “Mercy.” “I understood that the mystery of
the Holy Trinity had been confided to me” — stated Lucia.
Since so many people came to the convent to visit and inquire about
the apparitions, Lucia asked the church authorities for permission
to join the Carmel, where she could enjoy strict enclosure. On receiving
permission, she entered the Carmelite convent in Coimbre, where
she took the name Maria Lucia of the Immaculate Heart. There Sister
Maria Lucia lived until the age of ninety-eight. She died in 2005 — the
same year as John Paul II.
The Fatima message for today and tomorrow
Our Lady’s appeals from Fatima are still relevant today.
She has told us this during her subsequent apparitions at Montichiari-Fontanelle
and Medjugorie. World events have borne out her prophetic words:
the fall of Communism without bloodshed, John Paul II miraculously
surviving an attempt on his life on May 13, 1981, the return of
freedom to many countries, including an end to religious persecution
there, and the restoration of the Catholic Church in those countries
where it had been banished. But we are still far from enjoying universal
peace and, in many countries God’s law is being increasingly
squeezed out of public life. The consecration of specific countries
to Mary is of little avail if is unaccompanied by a corresponding
conversion within the heart of every single human being.
What
specifically, then, does Our Lady of Fatima’s expect of us
ninety years after her apparitions?
1. That we
spread and deepen our devotion to Our Blessed Mother and her Immaculate
Heart so intimately bound to the Heart of Jesus: “Jesus
wishes that I be better known and loved.”
2. That we
pray the rosary as often as possible, preferably every day and
with the family. Mary expressed this wish almost every time she
spoke with the visionaries. “I am Our Lady of the Rosary.”
She also urges us to avail ourselves frequently of the Sacrament
of Penance and so remain in a state of sanctifying grace, to receive
the Holy Eucharist as often as possible, and to read and meditate
on Holy Scripture.
3. That we
pray, offer sacrifices, and do penance for the conversion of sinners.
The world is ignoring God, trampling His laws, and sinking into
the darkness of evil. Both God and Our Blessed Mother require
our repentance and acts of reparation. “Offer yourselves
up for sinners and repeat many times over, especially when you
are making a sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, I do this out of love
for you, for the conversion of sinners and in reparation for the
sins committed against the Immaculate Heart’” (July
13, 1917).
4. That we
offer up the first Saturdays of the month to the Immaculate Heart
of Mary. All those who for five successive first Saturdays of
the month make their confession, receive Holy Communion, say a
decade of they rosary, and meditate for fifteen minutes on one
of mysteries of the rosary in union with the Blessed Mother, have
the following assurance: “these souls shall receive special
graces, and I shall set them down them like flowers before the
throne of God”; “To those who accept this devotion,
I promise salvation”; “and at the hour of their death
I shall come bearing help, along with all the graces necessary
for their eternal happiness”(December 10 1925).
5. That we
consecrate ourselves personally to Our Blessed Mother. Her Immaculate
Heart wishes to be a refuge for all, especially repentant souls.
“If people do not repent, God will send a punishment such
as the world has not yet seen”; but, “in the end,
my Immaculate Heart shall triumph.” Both Our Lady’s
message at Fatima and Our Lord’s as conveyed to Saint Faustina
assure us that the Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of
Mary will overcome evil, but our cooperation with them is indispensable.
Our fate and the fate of the whole world lies in the Two Hearts,
but it also lies in our own hands.
Teresa Tyszkiewicz
The article was published with the permission from "Love One Another!"
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