Letter #18, 2017: Fatima at 100

Acasă > Ştiri > Arhiva Ştiri

Timp stanga: 0.03s...

Ştiri şi Evenimente

Letter #18, 2017: Fatima at 100

[2017-05-11]

[Engleză]

May 9, 2017, Tuesday

"I will go to Fatima on a pilgrimage, to entrust to the Virgin the temporal and eternal destinies of humanity.”—Pope Francis today at his May 10 Wednesday General Audience, referring to his upcoming trip on Friday to Fatima, Portugal, to canonize two of the shepherd children who were witnesses to the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in 1917 (link)

"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.” —The words of the "woman clothed in light" whom we now call "Our Lady of Fatima," who appeared to the three shepherd children of Fatima, Portugal, on six occasions in 1917. The words are a central part of what came to be known as "the secret of Fatima," also referred to as the "three secrets of Fatima." Pope Francis will travel to Fatima at the end of this week to canonize two of the three children as saints, giving a certain Church "seal of approval" to the Fatima message. For an interesting video on the "three secrets" of Fatima by Rome Reports, with some historic photos of the three shepherd children and the May 13, 1981, assassination attempt against St. John Paul II, see this link. For the text above, and the official Vatican interpretation of it (quite a long text), go to the Vatican website here

"When you are to say this, don't go and hide. Tell everybody that God grants us graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; that people are to ask her for them; and that the Heart of Jesus wants the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be venerated at his side. Tell them also to pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace, since God entrusted it to her." —Jacinta Marto, discussing the Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary with then-12-year-old Lúcia Santos in 1920, shortly before Jacinta's death at the age of nine, Jacinta will be canonized by Pope Francis on Saturday, May 13, in Fatima, Portugal

"None of us can say what was the cruelest passion: that of an innocent man who dies on the cross, or the agony of a mother who accompanies her son in the final moments of his life." —Pope Francis, also today during his Wednesday General Audience in St. Peter's Square, speaking about the suffering of the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross as her son, Jesus, suffered and died in her presence

The Most Important Journey of the Pontificate

On Friday, May 12, in just two days, Pope Francis will fly to Fatima, Portugal.

Why?

Because Francis wishes to be present personally to canonize two of the three shepherd-children, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, who 100 years ago, precisely on May 13, 1917, beheld the first of six visions of a "woman dressed in light" who has come to be known as "Our Lady of Fatima."

(Here is a photograph of the two children Pope Francis will canonize on Saturday, May 13: left, Francisco de Jesus Marto (June 12, 1908-April 4, 1919, dies at the age of 10 just 18 months after the apparitions), and, right, his sister Jacinta de Jesus Marto (March 11, 1910-February 20, 1920, died at the age of nine, just a little more than two years after the apparitions), also known as Blessed Francisco Marto and Blessed Jacinta Marto (link for mote on their lives). Together with their cousin Lúcia Santos (1907-2005, who died 12 years ago, at the age of 97, 87 years after the apparitions occurred), the three children were from Aljustrel, a small hamlet near Fátima, Portugal. They said they witnessed three apparitions of an "Angel of Peace" in 1916 and then six apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Cova da Iria in 1917)

The five other apparitions following the first one on May 13, 1917, were on June 13, July 13, August 19 -- because the children were imprisoned by town officials on August 13 and for several days thereafter to prevent them from being present at any apparition -- September 13 and October 13.

On that last day, October 13, 1917, the famous "Miracle of the Sun" occurred in the sight of 70,000 people who had gathered around the three children. The event was documented at the time by photographs which can still be consulted today. Here below are two images from that day. For more photographs, go to this link).

So, Pope Francis is going to Fatima in two days, and he will canonize two of the three children -- Francisco, the boy, who died at the age of 10, and Jacinta, the little girl, his sister, who died at the age of 9 (both were beatified by St. John Paul II on May 13, 2000) -- and they will become "St. Francisco of Fatima" and "St. Jacinta of Fatima."

The third child, Lucia Santos, their cousin, could not be beatified or canonized on this occasion, along with the other two, because her death came so recently, in 2005, at the age of 97.

There has not been enough time since 2005 to study and complete her cause of beatification and canonization.

But, given the fact that the other two children have been beatified and now will be canonized, it seems likely that Lucia, as well, will also be beatified and canonized, and so she will become, at some future date, "St. Lucia of Fatima."

(Here is a photo of Lucia, standing, and Jacinta, sitting, from 1917, when Lucy was 10 and Jacinta was just 7 years old)

Why is all of this so important that we may consider this trip the most important of Pope Francis' pontificate?

Because the messages, the "secrets," given to the children -- and now being stamped once again with a certain "validity" through the process of canonization -- refer very specifically to one nation, and one nation only: Russia.

JOIN DR. ROBERT MOYNIHAN FOR A
ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME PILGRIMAGE

JUNE 16-25, 2017

LONDON AND OXFORD, ENGLAND

Join me for Mass in the prison cell of St. Thomas More in the Tower of London on
St. Thomas More's Feast Day, June 22! This is an extraordinary pilgrimage following in the footsteps of St. Thomas More and Blessed John Henry Newman.
â€‹Pilgrimages@InsideTheVatican.com
+1.202.536.4555

And, because that vast, powerful, mysterious nation has been fought over for a century now, suffering greatly, and causing much suffering, and because it still remains a pivot for many world events, as is clear from the daily news for many months now in the United States.

Russia was a century ago sometimes referred to as "The House of Mary" because there were more churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Russia than there were in any other country in the world.

But for nearly three quarters of a century (from 1917 to 1991), Russia was ruled by a cruel, declaredly "atheistic" ("without God") ideology.

That ideology, communism, presented itself as an idealistic political movement for social equality and justice but it was in fact, as the great Russian Orthodox writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn has described in such detail, a pitiless regime, wiping out every form of opposition, and especially brutal in suppressing and punishing the traditionally Orthodox Christian believers of that nation.

Thousands of churches, including hundred and hundreds dedicated to the Virgin Mary, were bombed or demolished or turned into latrines. (I have visited the sites of this destruction and desecration myself during the past 18 years.)

Thousands of priests and bishops and millions of believers were interred in "gulags," work-prison camps.

And so the Christian faith was trampled upon in Russia as in few other places in the 2,000-year history of the faith.

Now, at a time when Russia is very much in the news daily throughout the Western world, it is interesting to note that these Fatima apparitions, and the messages of the Lady given in 1917, and later to the one shepherd-child of the three who lived past 1920, Sister Lucy (who died just 12 years ago, in 2005, a few weeks before St. John Paul II died) mention Russia specifically by name.

And no other country.

Only Russia is mentioned by name.

Indeed, the "woman dressed in light" told the children, as Sister Lucy wrote many years later upon the request of her bishop: "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."

Those last words are the most dramatic and well-known of the Fatima message, or the Fatima "secret."

This part of the "secret" is that Russia, a country that became officially atheist precisely in 1917, when the Soviet Union was established in the October Revolution, "shall be converted" and that, as a consequence, "a period of peace will be granted to the world."

These words now have an increased "credibility" because all of the circumstances surrounding the six apparitions, especially the astonishing events that took place on October 13, 1917, have persuaded many of the leaders of the Catholic Church, from Pope Pius XII to St. John Paul II to Pope Benedict XVI -- and now also Pope Francis, whose trip to Portugal bears witness to his own conviction that these messages are important -- that the messages are worthy of pious belief.

Of course, no Catholic is bound in faith ("de fide") to believe in the content any private revelation, or of any mystical experience, in the way Catholics are bound to believe in dogmatic truths like the divinity of Christ or the resurrection.

Still, the visit of Pope Francis to Fatima, and his canonization of two of the three children who saw the apparitions, underlines the "pious belief" of the official Church leadership in the reliability, the credibility, of these prophecies.

And this is why, at a time when direct conflict between Russia and the United States seems more possible that at any time since the Cuban missile crisis in the early 1960s (when Russia was called, and was the center of, the Soviet Union), the Pope's visit to Fatima takes on world-historical importance.

It is also important to note that just today Pope Francis greeted a group of Russian Orthodox priests who are visiting Rome this week as part of a continuing exchange program that sends Catholic scholars and priests for several days to Moscow and Russian Orthodox scholars and priests to Rome each year.

(Photo below: Young Russian Orthodox seminarians meeting with Pope Francis last year, 2016, the first year of the exchange. These exchanges are sponsored by the Urbi et Orbi Foundation.)

And, the Pope asked publicly for God's blessing on the Russian Orthodox Church.

Here is the Italian text released today, May 10, by the Vatican (link):

*** Il saluto del Papa ad una delegazione dei giovani sacerdoti del Patriarcato di Mosca

Nel corso dei diversi saluti in lingue, oggi, al termine dell'Udienza generale Papa Francesco ha cosĂ¬ saluto un gruppo di sacerdoti della Chiesa ortodossa russa:

Saluto di cuore la delegazione dei giovani sacerdoti del Patriarcato di Mosca ospiti del Pontificio Consiglio per la promozione dell’unitĂ dei cristiani.
Dio Onnipotente, per intercessione della Madre di Dio, benedica il vostro Paese e l’impegno della Chiesa ortodossa russa per il dialogo tra le religioni e per il bene comune!

And here is the same text in English:

The Pope's greeting to a delegation of the young priests of the Patriarchate of Moscow

Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com

Contor Accesări: 949, Ultimul acces: 2026-09-30 04:26:40

Timp total: 0.04s...

[]:1