While many Fatima devotees know the salient aspects of Our Lady’s
message and the various events surrounding the apparitions, certain
details or nuances could yet be overlooked. We dare offer here several
points for study and reflection in the hope they will help one better
appreciate the meaning of the Fatima message:
1. A Seventh Apparition
Our Lady appeared six times at Fatima from May, 1917 to October, 1917.
However, during the first apparition Our Lady mentioned that she will
return to Cova the Iria, the site of the apparition, a seventh time. In
her own words Our Lady said,
“I have come here to ask you to
come here for six months in succession on the thirteenth day of each
month at this same hour. Later I will tell you who I am and what I want.
Afterward, I will return here a seventh time.”
Although Fatima
specialists differ in their opinions with regard to its interpretation,
nothing against Faith prevents a Catholic to hope and confide that this
promise would be fulfilled in the near future. Certainly it is a
glorious and most singular event a faithful Catholic could eagerly look
forward to especially in our confusing and chaotic times. Perhaps, the
seventh apparition would usher in the time of peace that St. Louis
Grignion de Montfort described as the Reign of Mary and which Our Lady
prophesied as the triumph of Her Immaculate Heart.
2. The Rosary and Purgatory
Also on the above occasion, Our Lady revealed to the three children
that Francisco must say many Rosaries before he will go to Heaven and
that a certain Amelia will be in Purgatory until the end of the world.
Here, Our Lady reiterates the salutary practice of praying the most
Holy Rosary as a means to save one’s soul and offers it as a guarantee
to Francisco’s safe passage to Heaven -certainly an invaluable counsel
from the Queen of Heaven and Earth.
She likewise points out the
very reality of the existence of Purgatory and even cites a striking
example of a poor yet already saved soul who will endure its purifying
fires till the end of the world. According to the research done by
Father Sebastião Martins dos Reis, Amelia died under circumstances
involving dishonor in matters of chastity. Shocking as this fact may had
been to Father Thomas McGlynn, O.P. during his own interview, Sister
Lucia recalled that more tragic were those souls who suffered the fires
of hell forever because of a single mortal sin!
3. The difference between the Angel’s and Our Lady’s apparitions
The children’s physical, emotional and psychological experience with
the Angel of Portugal and Our Lady were different. In her memoirs,
Sister Lucia writes,
“I do not know why, but the fact is that
the apparitions of Our Lady had a very different effect on us. There was
the same intimate gladness, the same peace and happiness. But instead
of physical weariness, we felt a certain expansive liveliness, a sense
of glee instead of that annihilation in the Divine Presence, a certain
communicative enthusiasm instead of that difficulty in speaking…”
One stark contrast between the angel and Our Lady is their different
natures. The former is pure spirit while the latter is flesh and spirit;
body and soul. The angel’s superior nature drained much energy from the
children which left them in a state of annihilation.
Since the
children are of the same nature as Our Lady, one could surmise that
this may explain why the children were more at ease with Our Lady. The
human nature they shared with Our Lady found a pleasing and lively
consonance with her. One could feel assurance and confidence in Lucia’s
observation and experience that, indeed, Our Lady was assumed into
Heaven in both body and soul – a dogma of the Faith.
4. The importance of prayer, penance, sacrifices and mortification for the conversion of sinners.
While it is true that the above is the constant and recurring theme of
Our Lady’s Fatima message, it behooves Catholics to understand how and
why it is so; especially in modern minds where the notion of
mortification and penance is watered down or simply brushed aside as
archaic or medieval.
The gravity of the moral crisis pervasive
in the world requires continued prayers, penances and sacrifices which
prompted the three children especially little Francisco and Jacinta to
practice them to an extreme and heroic degree. At the height of their
innocence, the two younger children understood their necessity and
offered themselves admirably as expiatory victims. But Our Lady’s appeal
for prayer and penance made to the children also applies to the rest of
mankind.
According to Father Fredrick William Faber, D.D. in
his book, Growth in Holiness, much is to be gained by us lesser mortals
in the practice of mortification for it tames the body and brings the
unruly passions under the control of grace and our superior will. It
increases the range of our spiritual vision and makes our conscience
more sensitive to the discernment of the subtleties that separate not
only those between venial and mortal sins but also those between what is
faulty and imperfect.
Suffering easily becomes power in the
things of God. For isn’t it true that Our Lord redeemed mankind through
His bloody sacrifice and immense suffering on Calvary?
Leading
mortified lives encourages us to persevere in prayer, gives us strength
in resisting temptations, makes us unworldly and frees our heart from
earthly vanities and attachments.
5. The persecutions suffered by the children from family and friends, people and media because of the apparitions.
Lucia, in particular, was most aggrieved by the incredulity of her
mother and kin as well as by the withdrawal of their affectionate
treatment of her. Her sufferings were much more intensified given her
tender age.
Francisco and Jacinta fared better within their
family for their parents never held a hostile attitude towards the
apparitions. Yet, they weren’t spared from the jokes and wisecracks of
neighbors and from the laughter and sneers of by-standers along the
road.
The skeptical and secular media of their day were no less
forgiving in subjecting them to ridicule and sarcasm. Nationwide,
newspapers staged a bitter campaign of hatred and denigration to
discredit the apparitions.
Nevertheless, despite all these
ill-treatment and vitriolic affronts, the children bore them with
admirable patience and charity always mindful of Our Lady’s request to
offer their sacrifices for the sake of poor sinners. An edifying example
one should emulate in the daily inconveniences one encounters everyday.
Here one is reminded of St. Therése of the Child Jesus’ little way.
6. Modifications to the Five First Saturday Devotion to facilitate its practice.
The original request of Our Lady asks one to confess and receive
Communion on five consecutive first Saturdays; to say five decades of
the Rosary; to meditate during 15 minutes on the mysteries of the Rosary
for the purpose of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in
reparation for the sins of men.
In subsequent private visions
and apparitions however, Sister Lucia presented to Our Lord the
difficulties that devotees encountered in fulfilling some conditions.
With loving condescension and solicitude, Our Lord deigned to relax the
rules to make this devotion easy to observe:
1.Confession may
be done on other days other than the First Saturday so long as one
receives Our Lord worthily and has the intention of making reparation to
the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
2.Even if one forgets to make the
intention, it may be done on the next confession, taking advantage of
the first occasion to go to confession.
3.Sister Lucia also
clarified that it is not necessary to meditate on ALL mysteries of the
Rosary on each First Saturday. One or several suffice.
With much
latitude granted by Our Lord Himself, there is no reason for the
faithful to hesitate or delay this pious practice in the spirit of
reparation which the Immaculate Heart of Mary urgently asks.
7. Reasons for the Five First Saturdays Devotion
This may seem academic to some but it would be good to recapitulate
here the reasons for they can be forgotten. Devotions have intentions
attached to them and knowing them adds merit and weight to the practice.
The five first Saturdays correspond to the five kinds of offenses and
blasphemies committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. They are:
a. Blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception
b. Blasphemies against her Perpetual Virginity
c. Blasphemies against her Divine Maternity, at the same time the refusal to accept her as the Mother of all men
d. Instilling indifference, scorn and even hatred towards this Immaculate Mother in the hearts of children
e. Direct insults against Her sacred images
8. A greater miracle denied
Sister Lucia revealed later in her life that the miracle of the sun
could have been greater had the children not been abducted by Arthur
Oliveira Santos, the cruel and conniving administrator of the
Administrative Council of Vila Nova de Ourém. She originally expressed
this remarkable detail in the interrogation done by Father Manuel
Marques Ferreira on August 21, 1917, two days after the apparition but
which she left out in her 1941 report.
Here is a fitting
example of a transgression committed against the wishes of Our Lady
which she left unpunished. Though no fault of the children, it is
lamentably sad to note that the multitudes at Fatima on the afternoon of
October 13, 1917 were deprived of a far greater miracle if not for the
deception, trickery and malice of civil authorities.
9. Unknown light or Aurora Borealis?
Sister Lucia considered the extraordinary light that illuminated the
skies of Europe on the night of January 25-26, 1938 during the hours of
8:45 p.m. to 1:15 a.m., as “the great sign” – the unknown light that Our
Lady predicted that would signal that war was near.
Astronomers and skeptic brush it off as a mere aurora borealis though its character was remarkably unprecedented.
Interestingly enough, the book, The Secrets of Fatima explains:
“This aurora appeared as far south as Galicia, Spain, where Sister Lucy
was then cloistered, and she, the only survivor of the three Fatima
shepherds, recognized it immediately as the sign. Visible even to Pius
XI in Rome, the unprecedented aurora was accompanied by a ‘crackling’
sound, possibly attributable to discharges of atmospheric energy.
Indeed, in many areas of Europe, panic broke out; as the populace
concluded that the world was on fire and that the End had come.”
The New York Times for January 26, 1938, carried the following:
“London, January 25th, 1938. The Aurora Borealis rarely seen in
Southern or Western Europe spread fear in parts of Portugal and lower
Austria tonight while thousands of Britons were brought running into the
streets in wonderment. The ruddy glow led many to think half the city
was ablaze. The Windsor Fire Department was called out thinking that
Windsor Castle was afire. The lights were clearly seen in Italy, Spain,
and even Gibraltar. The glow bathing snow-clad mountain tops in Austria
and Switzerland was a beautiful sight but firemen turned out to chase
non-existent fires. Portuguese villagers rushed in fright from their
homes fearing the end of the world.”
10. Jacinta’s last words:
Tempered and molded by extraordinary penance and sacrifice, 10-year-old
Jacinta proved to be precocious and prophetic in her vision of things.
She had many private apparitions and countless revelations. Such was her
supernatural illumination and holy wisdom that Mother Godinho, the
directress of the Lisbon orphanage where Jacinta stayed prior to her
death in the hospital, could only asked in awe and wonder, “Who taught
you all these things?” The following statements uttered by Jacinta
showed her depth of soul in face of the moral decay ravishing the world:
•The sins which cause most souls to go to Hell are the sins of the flesh.
•To be pure of body is to keep chastity. To be pure in soul is not to
commit sins, not look at what one should not see, not to steal, never to
lie, always to tell the truth however hard it may be.
•Fashions that will greatly offend Our Lord will appear. People who
serve God should not follow fashions. The Church has no fashions. Our
Lord is always the same.
•Doctors do not have the light to cure the sick because they do not have love of God
•Priests should only occupy themselves with the affairs of the Church.
Priests should be pure, very pure. The disobedience of priests and
religious to their superiors and to the Holy Father greatly offends Our
Lord.
•To be a woman religious, it is necessary to be very pure in soul and body.
•Many marriages are not good; they do not please Our Lord, and they are not
of God.
•Confession is a sacrament of mercy. Therefore, one must approach the confessional with confidence and joy.
•My godmother, pray much for those who govern! Woe to those who
persecute the religion of Our Lord. If the government left the Church in
peace and gave freedom to the holy Faith, it would be blessed by God.
•Wars are nothing but punishments for the sins of the world.
•Our Lady can no longer hold back the arm of her beloved Son from the
world. It is necessary to do penance. If people change their ways, Our
Lord will still spare the world; but if they do not, the chastisement
will come.
www.ApostolateOfStJoseph.blogs
www.PrinceOfTheChurch.yolasite
www.Fatima.org
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www.Zenit.org
