A year has
passed since the centenary of Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima. After all the
excitement and fervour of the Jubilee Year, have we responded to our heavenly
Mother’s requests?
Our Lady of Fatima had said that the triumph of
her Immaculate Heart is the answer to our woes. On July 13, 1917, after showing
the three shepherd children a vision of hell, Our Lady said:
“You have seen hell
where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, 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.”[1]
She said that
the First World War would end, but if people continued offending God, a worse
one would break out during Pope Pius XI’s pontificate. She continued:
“When you see a
night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you
by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war,
famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.”
“To prevent this, 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. …”
Those
were the first two parts of the Fatima secret. When disclosed in 1942, an
atheist Russia had already spread her errors worldwide. The use of atomic bombs
during the Second World War in 1945 showed the possibility of several entire
nations being annihilated. Our Lady appeared to Sister Lucia to ask for the
First Five Saturday Communion of reparation in 1925, and for the consecration
of Russia in 1929,[2]
both early enough to avert the Second World War.
Devotion to the Immaculate Heart means fulfilling Our Lady’s
requests to:
· Offer up to God whatever He sends us as we fulfil our daily duties
in reparation for sins we and others committed,
· Pray the Rosary daily,
· Wear the Scapular as a sign of our consecration to her Immaculate
Heart, and
· Practise the Five First Saturdays devotion – on the first Saturday
of five consecutive months, to go for Confession, receive Holy Communion, pray
the Rosary, and accompany Our Lady by meditating on the Rosary mysteries for 15
minutes, all in reparation for sins against Mary’s Immaculate Heart
The practices are meant to make us holy and our prayers effective,
to
convert many more souls and prevent nations’ annihilation. Our Lord insisted on
Russia’s collegial consecration to show the world that it was Mary’s Immaculate
Heart that won Russia’s conversion when it happened. It is to place devotion to
her Immaculate Heart alongside devotion to His own Sacred Heart thereafter.
On
the night of January 25–26, 1938, millions saw the “unknown light” that seemed
to blaze Europe. Two months later, Hitler invaded Austria, leading to the
Second World War. The prophecies materialised because
too few responded to Our Lady’s request.
In 1984, Pope
John Paul II consecrated the whole world, especially those most in need of
God’s love and care, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Sister Lucia confirmed that
it fulfilled Our Lady’s request. In 1991, Communism ended in Russia and Eastern
Europe.
Despite Russia’s conversion, war and sin still
pervades the world. In 1973, Our Lady updated the Fatima message at Akita,[3] this time
with her own blood and tears (her statue bled and wept). Why? Because most of
the world seems to have ignored or forgotten the terrible warning of Fatima. If
we have not responded to her miracles at Fatima, will we respond to her tears?
As the 101st anniversary of the Fatima apparitions approaches tomorrow,
let us use this prayer card, which bears Our Lady’s face as Sister Lucia
described. Her countenance on the image reflects heaven, as the visionaries
experienced a century ago.[4] May it
inspire us to greater devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart, and so save souls.
[1] All extracts of Our Lady’s
words during the Fatima apparitions are from Louis Kondor, ed., Fatima in Lucia’s Own Words: Sister Lucia’s
Memoirs, trans. Dominican Nuns of Perpetual Rosary (Portugal: Secretariado
dos Pastorinhos, 2007), 123–124, http://www.pastorinhos.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/MemoriasI_en.pdf.
[2]
John de Marchi, The True Story of Fatima,
“The Secret”, 1952, https://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/tsfatima.htm; John M. Haffert, Dear Bishop (Washington, N.J.: AMI International Press, 1982), 34,
225, http://johnhaffert.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Dear-Bishop.pdf.
[3]Haffert, The
Meaning of Akita, 60.
[4]
John M. Haffert, Dear Bishop
(Washington, N.J.: AMI International Press, 1982), 37, http://johnhaffert.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Dear-Bishop.pdf.
