Fatima For Today: The Urgent Marian Message of Hope

By Andrew Apostoli

Though the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima took place almost a hundred years ago, Our Lady's call to prayer and penance for the salvation of souls and peace in the world is as relevant now as when first delivered to three Portuguese peasant children in 1917.

At the peak of the First World War, our Lady warned of another worldwide conflict, the rise and spread of Communism, and a terrible persecution of the Church unless people repented of their sins and returned to God. She also requested devotion to her Immaculate Heart and a special consecration of Russia.

Much of what Our Lady of Fatima said was revealed soon after her appearances, but the third and final ""secret"", which was not a message but a prophetic vision seen by the children, was not unveiled by the Vatican until 2000. Pope John Paul II, who read the third secret while recovering from the attempt upon his life in 1981, believed the vision signified the sufferings the Church had endured in the twentieth century.

Because of the prophetic nature of her messages, Our Lady of Fatima has been the subject of much controversy and speculation. In this book, Father Andrew Apostoli carefully analyzes the events that took place in Fatima and clears up lingering questions and doubts about their meaning. He also challenges the reader to hear anew the call of Our Lady to prayer and sacrifice, for the world is ever in need of generous hearts willing to make reparation for those in danger of losing their way to God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Nov 9, 2010
• ISBN: 9781681491745

Book preview

FOREWORD

During his historic visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima on May 13, 2010, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the maternal instruction of the Blessed Virgin Mary to all mankind, which she communicated through her chosen messengers, Blessed Francisco Marto, Blessed Jacinta Marto, and the Servant of God Lucia dos Santos. Summarizing the content of the teaching conveyed through her six apparitions between May and October of 1917, which were prepared by the three apparitions of the Angel of Peace, His Holiness described Our Lady of Fatima as the Teacher who introduced the little seers to a deep knowledge of the Blessed Trinity and led them to savor God Himself as the most beautiful reality of human existence.¹ His Holiness continued by quoting expressions of the most tender and profound love of God, which were inspired in the seers by the apparitions and message of Our Lady of Fatima and of the Angel of Peace.

Through her apparitions and message, the Mother of God, as she always does, led Francisco, Jacinta, and Lucia more surely and fully to our Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son Incarnate, and through him to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, with whom he is one in being. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, Our Lady helped them to open their hearts to universal love, that is, to the love of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who loves all men and desires only their eternal salvation.²

The Blessed Virgin Mary came to visit mankind at Fatima at a time when many had grown forgetful of God and his all-loving plan for our salvation, and many had grown rebellious before the Law of God by which he orders all things for our good. Having alienated themselves from the universal love that comes to us from God alone, they fell prey to a destructive selfishness of heart, which was most dramatically and tragically manifested in the horror of the First World War. The great temptation in a world beset with the gravest of evils was to lose hope in divine love and thus to cease responding to divine love with pure and selfless love. Knowing the severity of the temptation that his children were suffering, God the Father sent to earth the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of his only-begotten Son, in fidelity to her mission as Mother of God, which she first accepted at the Annunciation and which she expressed so clearly at the Wedding Feast of Cana. When the wine stewards of the newly married couple at Cana found themselves in a most distressful situation, it was the Blessed Virgin who was immediately aware of their distress; who interceded with her Divine Son to save the newlyweds from embarrassment; and who, with total confidence, instructed the wine stewards: Do whatever he tells you.³

In all our times of crisis, both personally and as a society, the Virgin Mother of God is always immediately aware of our distress and is always interceding on our behalf before the throne of God. She also faithfully counsels us, with deepest motherly love, to do what our Lord Jesus Christ tells us, to turn over our lives to him through prayer and penance. In the most critical moments of our earthly pilgrimage, God the Father has favored us with an extraordinary sign of the Virgin Mary’s maternal love, that is, with her visits to us by way of apparitions and messages. Regarding her appearances at Fatima, the Holy Father observed: At a time when the human family was ready to sacrifice all that was most sacred on the altar of the petty and selfish interests of nations, races, ideologies, groups and individuals, our Blessed Mother came from heaven, offering to implant in the hearts of all those who trust in her the Love of God burning in her own heart.⁴

Through the third apparition of the Angel of Peace and the July apparition of our Lady, the little seers saw before their eyes both the indescribable beauty of the Mystery of Faith—the Body and Blood of Christ sacramentally offered and poured out for us, for our eternal salvation—and the unspeakably ugly emptiness of hell, of a life lived without God and in rebellion against his pure and selfless love for us. The Angel of Peace, like the angels in the Holy Scriptures, was God’s messenger to prepare the children to receive the miraculous visits of the Mother of God, and to become her messengers to the world, most of all by the example of their lives, even to our day.

Prepared by the Angel of Peace, the little seers were enabled to place, to an heroic degree, their hearts, one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, into the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and thus to be purified of sin and inflamed with the pure and selfless love that flows without cease and without measure from the glorious pierced Heart of Jesus. In his Consecration of Humanity to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in October of 1942, the Venerable Pope Pius XII expressed in a striking manner the mystery of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, drawing us to the glorious pierced Heart of Jesus in which mankind finds the victory over sin and death, and the triumph of divine love and eternal life:

Finally, as the Church and the whole human race were consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so that placing in Him all its hopes it might have a pledge of victory and salvation, thus from to-day may they be perpetually consecrated to your Immaculate Heart, Oh Mother and Queen of the world, that your love and protection may hasten the triumph of the Kingdom of God and that all generations of mankind, at peace with themselves and with God, may proclaim you Blessed and with you may intone, from pole to pole, the eternal Magnificat of glory, love and thanksgiving to the Heart of Jesus where alone may be found Truth, Life and Peace.⁵

Through the Consecration of Humanity to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Shepherd of the Universal Church, the Venerable Pope Pius XII, prayed that the maternal care of the Blessed Virgin Mary, most perfectly represented in her sinless Heart, might lead all men to the Heart of Jesus, the font of their eternal salvation.

Reflecting upon the human context, individual and societal, of the apparitions of the Mother of God at Fatima, it is not difficult to perceive the critical importance of our Lady’s message for our own time, an importance strongly underlined for us by the Venerable Pope John Paul II and by his successor Pope Benedict XVI. We too live in a time when many are ready to sacrifice all, including the lives of innocent and defenseless unborn brothers and sisters; the lives of those who have the first title to our care—the aged, the critically ill and those suffering with special needs; and the great good of marriage and the family, the first cell of the life of society, on the altar of selfish individualism and tyrannical relativism. Many in our day have turned away from God and have rebelled against the most fundamental teachings of his life-giving Law—the teaching regarding the inviolable dignity of innocent human life and the teaching on the integrity of the faithful, indissoluble and procreative union of one man and one woman in marriage—and have thus found themselves profoundly unhappy and without hope, gazing into the terrifying emptiness of hell.

We can be certain that the Mother of God is keenly aware of our situation and that she seeks to draw us to herself and thereby place our hearts, one with her Immaculate Heart, into the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In her maternal love, she draws us to the Heart of Jesus, in which alone we will find both the purification of our sins and the inspiration and strength of the immeasurable and ceaseless love of God for us. Ultimately, she desires to lead us to the Mystery of Faith, to the Holy Eucharist, the medicine and nourishment that heal us of sin and strengthen us against the temptation to sin, thus rescuing us from the fruit of sin: everlasting death, the horror of which the Mother of God permitted the three little seers to contemplate during her July apparition.

Father Andrew Apostoli of the Capuchin Friars of the Renewal has understood the desire of Our Lady of Fatima to speak to us today. With great care and thoroughness, he provides for us the full context of the events at Fatima and then describes the three apparitions of the Angel of Peace and the six apparitions of the Mother of God to Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta. He also describes the apparitions to Sister Lucia at Pontevedra and Tuy in Spain, through which Our Lady of Fatima made ever clearer what she asks of us for the conversion of our lives and the transformation of our world in anticipation of the Final Coming of our Lord Jesus in glory to inaugurate new heavens and a new earth.⁶ In a manner which is most accessible and, at the same time, complete and accurate, Father Apostoli helps us to know the maternal instruction of Our Lady of Fatima and, following it, to know and savor, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, the mystery of divine love in our lives.⁷

Two principal controversies surround the apparitions and message of Our Lady of Fatima, namely, the controversy over the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the controversy over the Third Secret. These controversies sadly have distracted some from our Lady’s maternal instruction and have hindered others from attending to it. Father Apostoli addresses both with the greatest respect and care. Placing them within the context of the complete account of the apparitions and message of Fatima, he resolves them through the careful consideration of all that was taught to the three little seers by the Mother of God.

Regarding the Third Secret, also known as the third part of the Secret of Fatima, Father Apostoli’s treatment of the controversy called to mind the sage discussion of the matter by Fr. C. C. Martindale, S.J., in his classic presentation of the apparitions and message of Our Lady of Fatima. Father Martindale, referring to the great curiosity regarding the third part of the Secret, which, at the time of his writing had not yet been published, commented upon it in the light of the first and second parts of the Secret, observing:

Now the first two parts of the secret contain, as we saw, nothing new. ‘Hell’ is no new doctrine; nor that our Lady is Immaculate. It is not novel or startling information that our Lady proposed to impart to us, but rather, a challenge to look more deeply into what we already know. It need not surprise us that the children were told to say nothing about what had been granted to them; Lucia quite frankly said that she would not have had words in which to express herself properly, and, to the end, that she could give only the ‘sense’ of our Lady’s message. This encourages one to think that the ‘secrecy’ of that message may have concerned the intensity with which the children were made to understand certain truths, rather than anything which could be crystallised into clear ideas or put into forms of words.⁸

In a similar way, referring to his Theological Commentary on the Secret, Pope Benedict XVI observed that Our Lady of Fatima invites us to cultivate what he calls the interior watchfulness of heart which, for most of the time, we do not possess on account of the powerful pressure eXerted by outside realities and the images and concerns which fill our soul.⁹

Father Martindale has rightly noted that Our Lady of Fatima invites us to a deeper reflection upon the Mystery of Faith, a reflection inspired by divine love. Pope Benedict concludes that the Secret is, in the end, the exhortation to prayer as the path of ‘salvation for souls’ and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.¹⁰ In other words, the Mother of God at Fatima leads us to her Divine Son and instructs us to respond with all our being to his preaching: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.¹¹

As Pope Benedict XVI declared in his homily at Fatima on May 13, 2010, and as Father Apostoli illustrates so fully and well in this book, Our Lady of Fatima leads us to enter more deeply into the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the mystery of the love of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—poured out for all mankind without cease and without boundary. Father Apostoli helps us, in a most sound and thorough manner, to hear more clearly the instruction of Our Lady of Fatima and to follow it faithfully. His book, which you will now be blessed to read, is truly a most worthy instrument by which Our Lady of Fatima continues to speak to our hearts from her Immaculate Heart.

In the second part of the Secret of Fatima, the Mother of God promised: My Immaculate Heart will triumph.¹² The then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has helped us to understand the profound meaning of the promise made by Our Lady of Fatima to the three little seers. Asking what may be the meaning of our Lady’s promise, he declared:

The Heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the history of the world, because it brought the Saviour into the world—because, thanks to her Yes, God could become man in our world and remains so for all time. The Evil One has power in this world, as we see and experience continually; he has power because our freedom continually lets itself be led away from God. But since God himself took a human heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word. From that time forth, the word that prevails is this: In this world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world (Jn 16:33). The message of Fatima invites us to trust in this promise.¹³

It is my hope and prayer that, through your study of Father Apostoli’s handbook on Our Lady of Fatima, our Lady will draw you ever closer to her Immaculate Heart and that, one with her Heart, your heart, resting in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, will know the triumph of divine love and eternal life.

+ Raymond Leo Burke

Archbishop Emeritus of Saint Louis

Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura

Solemnity of All Saints, 2010

PREFACE

I am very grateful to Ignatius Press for the invitation to write this book on Our Lady of Fatima and her important message for our time. All throughout my life I have been devoted to Our Lady of Fatima. I heard about her message when I was a young boy, and it made a deep impression on me. Like Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta, I have prayed for the salvation of souls as our Lady asked. I also have practiced the devotion of the Five First Saturdays for many years and have tried to encourage others to do the same. So it was a delightful challenge to write this book. The publishers asked me to put everything about Fatima in it. I tried to do that within the limits of my time, ability and resources.

My intention was to write a book that would combine three essential elements about Our Lady of Fatima. First, there are the historical facts of the apparitions by our Lady and by the Angel of Peace. I tried to present these facts as fully as possible, especially stressing the words our Lady and the Angel of Peace spoke during each of their apparitions. Second, there is the message of prayer, sacrifice, suffering and holiness of life. I am sure more people will be drawn to this message when they understand its meaning and importance. The message of Fatima has often been described as a brief summary of the essentials of Christian living. Our Lady of Fatima has given us a great reminder of these essentials for our difficult times. Third, there are certain questions and objections that have been raised concerning the message of Fatima, such as: Was the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary made properly by Pope John Paul II? Was the third secret of Fatima fully revealed by the Vatican? For years people have been asking me these questions. In this book I have tried to present clear evidence that both of these tasks have been fulfilled. The Pope has done his part; now we must do our part by good Christian living, by prayers for the conversion of sinners, by the fulfillment of our duties in life and by using the graces the Holy Spirit has been pouring forth into our hearts. Our Lady had told the children at Fatima that God wanted devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be spread throughout the world. If this book can contribute in any small way to the spreading of this devotion, the author will be richly rewarded for the efforts involved in writing this book. I have tried to write in the same spirit as Sister Lucia when she wrote about the message of Fatima, namely, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

I want to give thanks to Almighty God for the graces needed to accomplish this undertaking. May this book give honor and glory to the Most Holy Trinity. I also want to thank the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom I felt was asking me to write this book to assist in bringing about the triumph of her Immaculate Heart.

I also want to thank the many people who have contributed in various ways to the writing of this book. First, I would like to express my gratitude to His Excellency Raymond Cardinal Burke for taking time out of his busy schedule to write the foreword. Next, I want to thank all the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, especially those in my local community, who assisted me in so many ways in preparing this manuscript. I also wish to thank all the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal and the many other people who supported me with their prayers and encouragement. Finally, I wish to thank Elaine Curzio, who helped with typing some of the manuscript; Tiffiny Gulla, who edited the text; Penny Wolfe, who helped with important research for the book; and, Gerri Kearns, who reviewed the text. May Jesus and his Blessed Mother reward all who have helped to make this work, as Mother Teresa of Calcutta would say, something beautiful for God.

Father Andrew Joseph Apostoli, C.F.R.

Saint Leopold Friary

Yonkers, New York

March 2, 2010

I

MARY

The Only Woman Whose Coming Was Foretold

ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN OFTEN SAID that Jesus was the only man whose coming into the world was pre-announced. No other great world leader or religious figure ever had his coming foretold. Even Jesus’ mission was known before he entered the world. His mission was to overcome evil by his saving death on the Cross. In a very similar way, we can say that the Blessed Virgin Mary was the only woman whose coming into the world was foretold: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son. . . (Is 7:14). Her mission was also known before she came into this world; she was to share in the saving sacrifice of her Divine Son. Hers was to be a mission of spiritual warfare in order to help obtain the final victory over evil prophesied in God’s curse of the serpent:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Gen 3:15)

The Blessed Virgin Mary plays a pivotal role in the great struggle between good and evil—between her Divine Son and his disciples, and Satan and his followers. In the Book of Revelation, we see powerful images depicting the hatred of the devil for the woman who bears the Savior, for the Lord himself, and for the Lord’s followers:

And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another sign appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth. . . . Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus. (Rev 12:1-4, 17)

The Blessed Virgin Mary is a central figure in God’s plan of salvation. She plays a major role, second only to her son, in the work of redeeming the world. This role involves her in continuous conflict with Satan. At Fatima, however, our Lady assured us that the final victory would be hers: In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph!

Mary’s Important Role as the New Eve

Our Lady’s role is so significant because God wants to defeat the devil by the same means with which the devil had conquered our first parents. This divine plan was a favorite theme among the Fathers of the Church. Here is how Saint John Chrysostom, a great bishop in the early church, expressed the role of Mary:

Christ conquered the Devil using the same means and the same weapons that the Devil used to win. The symbols of our fall were a virgin, a tree and death. The virgin was Eve (for she had not yet known man); then there was the tree; and death was Adam’s penalty. And again these three tokens of our destruction, the virgin, the tree and death, became the tokens of our victory. Instead of Eve, there was Mary; instead of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the cross of the Lord; instead of Adam’s death, the death of Christ.¹

Eve played a very important part in the Fall. The serpent never spoke to Adam; he only spoke to Eve. He first planted a doubt in her mind by questioning her about God’s command: Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’? (Gen 3:1). When Eve said they could eat of all the trees except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the devil then deceived her with the promise that, if she ate the forbidden fruit, she and Adam would be like God, knowing good and evil (Gen 3:5). This lie tempted Eve with a promise of greatness, which led to pride, followed by disobedience to God’s command.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened. . . (Gen 3:6-7)

Adam, as head of the human family, was our representative before God. So only his disobedience became the original sin for mankind. Eve, however, was an accomplice in the wrongdoing. She did not deserve the name Eve, which means mother of all the living (Gen 3:20), because she helped bring about the spiritual death of her children.

Our Lady, on the other hand, deserves to be called the New Eve. She does not represent us in the work of redemption; that role belongs to Jesus Christ, the New Adam who alone is our eternal high priest and victim for our sins. However, Mary was as much an accomplice in the work of redemption as Eve had been in the Fall.

At the Annunciation

At the Annunciation, Mary fully accepted God’s will for her life in humility and obedience, as can be seen in her response to the archangel Gabriel. She had been told by the archangel that she would conceive and bear a son, who would be called Son of the Most High. When her question about how she would conceive because she did not have relations with Saint Joseph was clarified by the archangel, our Lady did not hesitate to respond humbly and trustingly: Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word (Lk 1:38). As the sin of Eve contributed to bringing spiritual death into the world, the total obedience of our Lady brought Jesus, the source of our spiritual life, into the world. Mary’s humility and obedience erased Eve’s pride and disobedience, meriting her the title of the New Eve. Saint Irenaeus of Lyon explained this title in the second century:

As Eve was seduced by the word of an angel and so fled from God after disobeying his word, Mary in her turn was given the good news by the