The Three Secrets of Fatima
Jack Van Impe does not study the Catholic mysteries, nor does he consider political philosophy in order to understand Twentieth Century tyranny. So, despite having a most solid study of Daniel and the Revelation out of the Baptist tradition following Scofield, etc, he does not raise questions nor ascend from hypotheses. Often he presents an interpretation, then says that such a thin, such as the moving of the embassy to Jerusalem, is in scripture, when that is not quite what is in there. The Baptists base their confidence in the rapture, by which it is those other people who suffer the tribulation, upon a reading that inserts the Rapture at 4:1 of the Revelation. But the rapture, discussed by Paul, is not directly addressed in John’s Revelation, and it is not at all clear how Paul and John fit together. In John, “Come up hither” is indeed repeated at 11:12, in a symbol, and indistinguishable from that following martyrdom.
In 1917, from April though October, three children saw a vision of the Virgin Mary, attended by a “miracle of the sun, filmed and witnessed by 70,000 people. What more can we say? They would not believe, or even inquire, if one should literally return from the grave and tell them. But these are wonders, not things we understand, which are marks or indications of a genuine vision. Go look up the history surrounding the event. I have seen the 1917 video. Here are the three secrets, the third released in part (there is a lacuna) only in 2000 by John Paul II, who, like the evangelicals, seemed primarily concerned, rightly or wrong, to read himself into the prophesy.
Two of the Children died young, and Sister Lucy was left in charge of the message. The first two were published, while the third remained the preserve of Lucy, her Bishop and the Pope.
I: After she showed the children a terrifying vision of Hell, she said to them:
You have seen Hell, where the 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.
II:
The war [World War I] is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. 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 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 was 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 a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, etc…
III: “After the two parts which I have already explained…,”
…at the left of our Lady and a little above, we saw an angel with a flaming sword in his left hand. Flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire, but they died out in contact with the splendor that our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand, pointing it to the earth with his right hand, the angel cried out in a loud voice, “Penance, Penance, Penance!
And we saw in an immense light that is God, something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it, a Bishop dressed in white. We had the impression that it was the Holy Father. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women religious going up a steep mountain at the top of which there was a big cross of rough hewn trunks, as of a cork tree with the bark; before reaching there, the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins, and half trembling and with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way, having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big cross he was killed by a group soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the cross there were two angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand in which they gathered up the blood of the martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls were making their way to God.
I and II are from Brother Michael of the Holy Trinity, The Third Secret of Fatima, pp. 48-49. The third is from the Vatican website, released in 2000. Sister Lucy died in 2007.
There is a lacuna evident because the second and third parts of the secret do not flow into one another, and the third secret begins with three dots, indicating the it indeed was said “after,” but something was left out. In a video, “Akita and the Fatima Secret,” the narrator, David Dionisi, at 1:10-1:36, or early in the first minute of the video, flashes what he says is a reconstructed third secret, in a “statement based on” things said “by people who read it.” It is also said that the whole text of the third secret would not be released by those entrusted to release it. The source document is a Book, Akita The Tears and Message of Mary, by the Reverend Teju Yusuta, approved in 1984 by Bishop John Tujeroito. The message was communicated to Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa. It is the message of Mary, Our Lady of Akita, and the accompanying miracle of 101 occasions of tears on a statue of Mary at Akita are communicated. This seems genuine for a number of reasons, one of which is that is sounds translated. Another is that it refers to the 21st century, which means that John Paul II misinterpreted 3b as referring to him, except that b may have indeed been averted, to occur later. It seems to be 3a, while what was released is 3b. The text is as follows:
In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, but if people do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. A great war in the 21 st Century Launched by Satan’s partisans in the East will come. Those surviving will envy the dead. Death will briefly reign, raised to triumph by the brothers of death, who seek to be masters of the earth. All the world will be thrown into great confusion. Fire and smoke will fall from heaven and waters from the ocean will turn to steam, throwing their foam into the sky. Millions of people will die by the minute. The only arms which will remain for you will be the rosary and the sign left by my son. Each day recite the prayer of the Rosary and pray for the Pope, Bishops and priests. A time of very severe trial is coming for the Church. Satan will reign over the highest places and succeed in infiltrating to the top of the Church. One third of the clergy will serve Satan. Entire nations will lose the faith and almost everyone on earth condemned to hell. Cardinals will oppose Cardinals and Bishops will oppose Bishops. Rotten changes in Rome must not be retained. The Church will be obscured. At last, those who survive these events will repent and become true followers of Jesus Christ, and serve him like before, when the world was not so corrupted…In the end, my immaculate heart will triumph
COMMENT
The vision contains deep thoughts unusual for children, and one indication that it is a genuine vision is that it came to children. Another is the compassion of our Lady for the poor sinners. A third involves the deep understanding of what has occurred in Russia in the context of the history of the West. Hell indeed gaped wide in 1917, and we do not usually think of what occurred in the Twentieth Century as requiring explanation, but one million people were killed by their own governments per year in Russia, China Cambodia and in the right wing version, allowed to ascend in part because of the opposition of fascism to Marxism or “Communism,” in Nazi Germany. A new kind of evil possessed many, or henchmen able to enact such horrors could not have been found. These indeed had better hope the soul is not immortal, and we do not become eternally what we become by the actions we do on earth. Each is judged by his works (Revelation 20:12) may mean just this, and nothing quite like the question (of whether we are “saved” by “faith” or rather by “works”) Luther and the Catholics later made of it. What we do to others is inflicted on ourselves, so that if we do not forgive others, we are not forgiven. And how do you expect the Lord will have mercy on you, if you will not even have mercy on your dog?
*”If people do not cease offending God:” Modernity is a reaction against medieval Christianity, which is compelled to assume knowledge for itself, while measuring all else by its own opinion. Splintering the Church and making more opinions does not root out this failure of humility common to humanity. So the Protestant idolatrize the Book, rather than the Pope, and condemn any who indicate that there is no support in scripture for such an opinion, literally no saying that the Bible is the word of God. If one wants such a medieval teaching, one may as well turn to a medieval text, as is the Quran. But Rome did not recognize the Greek, Armenian, Chaldean, Syrian or Coptic Eucharist. This means that Rome took its own and love of its own to be above God and the truth and the Holy Spirit. He who loves his neighbor is a Christian, and if the soul is immortal, becomes this eternally. Salvation is a spiritual mystery of which the sacraments are images, not the two cannot be synonymous. Justin Martyr, the first Christian to read Plato, saw that these were Christian” despite appearances in the world. If we repent our sin, we may be reborn, and this is by the Christ, even if it is called Krishna. But the conventionally baptized mob murderer or Inquisitor gets to live forever with his crimes in light of the truth if the soul is immortal, and until death and in infamy if the soul is not immortal, as we conceive of this in our spatial and temporal image. By the way, if the soul is immortal, it is so now, and we what, did not notice? The obviousness of this truth has made many Atheists.
So out of modern Atheism, following the French Revolution, the Christian imagination is literally inverted. Or did it not occur to us that Marxism, most similar to the Christian imagination in certain ways, surely does not arise from nihilism, nor from history, historicism, nor from modern science? Beginning in atheism, fueled by the hatred of medieval Christian law, and aiming at an Utopia, German philosophy inverted the modern imagination. We say this anti-Christianity is the result of making a nomos out of the Christ, and is why we teach the distinction between the Messiah and a lawgiver. In fascism, the same occurs on the right, fueled also by the hatred of Marxism-out of the frying pan and into the…
World war II is especially a punishment of the world for its crimes. As we now see even more clearly, the consecration of Russia may have brought peace though men do not understand or even believe how these things work by nature upon the human imagination through the course of history. The division between the Eastern Orthodox Church and Rome- which we identify even with the two witnesses, the Olive trees, the legs of the ten toed statue seen by Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar- is based upon our making the light into a law and holding it as our own, something we posses, so that we can the go about saving others, assured of our own salvation: taking rebirth to something akin to joining or being the fan of a certain football team.
But the Baptist reading allows for a crucial distinction between the seven heads and ten horns of the beast in the Revelation. The seven heads are indeed seven empires through history, perhaps world empires that thought to rule over Jerusalem. The last head is indeed a revived Roman empire and the ten horns are the ten toes and ten “kings,” upon whom the whore of Babylon enters riding (Revelation 17). So, you all wanna “make” a world religion and start persecuting heretics? All the sins of the Church, including the Jewish murder of Christians, unrepented, may be repeated in the end times. The Jews in Israel may be set up for a false messiah, killing all but 144,000 Christians who happen to be Jews by blood, under a Jewish fascism, and the Christians about to suffer a persecution similar to the 10 that began with Nero and ended with Diocletian, indeed a martyrdom of the two witnesses to scorn the hope of joining the right team in order to be raptured. Jews are not exempt from fascism because they suffered the holocaust, and indeed have a better argument for racial superiority than the “Whites.” But fascists do not even believe their own drivel, but rather use any and every opinion to gain power by force, fraud.One saved turns to the Christ for its own sake, not to gain salvation as a reward, or for what comes out of it, like a child obedient to avoid punishment and get candy, though the pleasures of the soul are true. But our suggestion is that the Bride of the Lord is not a thing made by man.
Sister Lucy herself identified the three secrets with Revelation 9-11. She was obedient to her Bishop and the Pope. John Paul II thought he was saved from assassination by Our Lady of Fatima.
The consecration was to be be done with all the Bishops, and there is some question as to whether this was done about 1984, leading to the conversion of Russia. We think it obvious that “all” includes the Greek Orthodox, that their sacraments are fine despite the division that grew through history, and that if we kept our divisions while repenting the thought that these regional differences are fundamental, Putin would not now be poised to take the world or cause the nuclear destruction of 1/3 of the globe, the prelude to the Seventh trumpet and the Antichrist. But as Luke says, “The end is not at once.” We do not even care, but the two-dimensional reading of the Revelation, looking for the “end of the world,” is a joke for people who do not care about reading or the truth, content by compulsion to take opinion for knowledge.
Finally, the mirror reminds of the self-critical ability imposed upon the third millennium church, by the molestation scandals, and recalls what we call the prophecy of the millstone. We are now in the bi-millennium of the life of Jesus, as Jack Van Impe indicates from Hosea (6:2), “After two days, he will revive us, and on the third day he will raise us up.”
The following is from http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_en.html
Pope Benedict XVI, then Cadinal Ratzinger, comments: …
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…the prediction of the immense damage that Russia would do to humanity by abandoning the Christian faith and embracing Communist totalitarianism. |
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It may be clearer after 1960 because of the Cuban Missile Crisis, eh? Just 15 years prior, Russia was an ally opposing Hitler, and no one except like Churchill knew they were killing and torturing millions to re-make them.
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Papa has it fine here: “…the prediction of the immense damage that Russia would do to humanity by abandoning the Christian faith and embracing Communist totalitarianism.” Communism is an intellectual perversion, an inversion of the Christian Kingdom.
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What if WE repent, the sins of the church, such as killing “witches,” heretics, and allowing the robes of the priesthood to be used to hide the molesters of young boys? Penance, Penance Penance! Loving OUR OWN doctrine and group more than God.
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The unity of the Christian Church already exists, and is not made by man. Nor is “unless one is born of water and the Spirit.” The divisions are lesser. Jesus and Jefferson: is that too hard for the church that killed heretics? Madison: What we owe to God we cannot give to men.
Having asked “God” on Twitter to cancel the apocalypse as a Christmas present for Jesus, the answer was “Repent like Ninevah.” This probably won’t happen. 7x worse if mankind continues this way. So I did a blog: Jonah and the Ninevehite Penance https://mmcdonald77.wordpress.com/2017/12/30/jonah-and-the-ninevehite-penance/ … via
@mmcdonald77Tweet: In the history of the West, the rejection of Christianity is due the assumption of the authority of the Spirit in combination with the murder of “heretics.” The atheistic history led to Marx, and Nietzsche, or Hitler, the principle of power. Imagination inverted: DIABOLIC utopia.
(translation) (6)
… This will entail my speaking about the secret, and thus answering the first question.
What is the secret? It seems to me that I can reveal it, since I already have permission from Heaven to do so. God’s representatives on earth have authorized me to do this several times and in various letters, one of which, I believe, is in your keeping. This letter is from Father José Bernardo Gonçalves, and in it he advises me to write to the Holy Father, suggesting, among other things, that I should reveal the secret. I did say something about it. But in order not to make my letter too long, since I was told to keep it short, I confined myself to the essentials, leaving it to God to provide another more favourable opportunity.
In my second account I have already described in detail the doubt which tormented me from 13 June until 13 July, and how it disappeared completely during the Apparition on that day.
Well, the secret is made up of three distinct parts, two of which I am now going to reveal.
The first part is the vision of hell.
Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.
We then looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindly and so sadly:
“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. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. 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. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world”.(7)
THIRD PART OF THE “SECRET”
(original text)
(translation) (8)
“J.M.J.
The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima, on 13 July 1917.
I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.
After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’. And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.
Tuy-3-1-1944”.
INTERPRETATION OF THE “SECRET”
LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II
TO SISTER LUCIA
(original text)
(translation)
To the Reverend Sister
Maria Lucia
of the Convent of CoimbraIn the great joy of Easter, I greet you with the words the Risen Jesus spoke to the disciples: “Peace be with you”!
I will be happy to be able to meet you on the long-awaited day of the Beatification of Francisco and Jacinta, which, please God, I will celebrate on 13 May of this year.
Since on that day there will be time only for a brief greeting and not a conversation, I am sending His Excellency Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to speak with you. This is the Congregation which works most closely with the Pope in defending the true Catholic faith, and which since 1957, as you know, has kept your hand-written letter containing the third part of the “secret” revealed on 13 July 1917 at Cova da Iria, Fatima.
Archbishop Bertone, accompanied by the Bishop of Leiria, His Excellency Bishop Serafim de Sousa Ferreira e Silva, will come in my name to ask certain questions about the interpretation of “the third part of the secret”.
Sister Maria Lucia, you may speak openly and candidly to Archbishop Bertone, who will report your answers directly to me.
I pray fervently to the Mother of the Risen Lord for you, Reverend Sister, for the Community of Coimbra and for the whole Church. May Mary, Mother of pilgrim humanity, keep us always united to Jesus, her beloved Son and our brother, the Lord of life and glory.
With my special Apostolic Blessing.
IOANNES PAULUS PP. II
From the Vatican, 19 April 2000.
CONVERSATION
WITH SISTER MARIA LUCIA OF JESUS
AND THE IMMACULATE HEARTThe meeting between Sister Lucia, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent by the Holy Father, and Bishop Serafim de Sousa Ferreira e Silva, Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, took place on Thursday, 27 April 2000, in the Carmel of Saint Teresa in Coimbra.
Sister Lucia was lucid and at ease; she was very happy that the Holy Father was going to Fatima for the Beatification of Francisco and Jacinta, something she had looked forward to for a long time.
The Bishop of Leiria-Fatima read the autograph letter of the Holy Father, which explained the reasons for the visit. Sister Lucia felt honoured by this and reread the letter herself, contemplating it in own her hands. She said that she was prepared to answer all questions frankly.
At this point, Archbishop Bertone presented two envelopes to her: the first containing the second, which held the third part of the “secret” of Fatima. Immediately, touching it with her fingers, she said: “This is my letter”, and then while reading it: “This is my writing”.
The original text, in Portuguese, was read and interpreted with the help of the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima. Sister Lucia agreed with the interpretation that the third part of the “secret” was a prophetic vision, similar to those in sacred history. She repeated her conviction that the vision of Fatima concerns above all the struggle of atheistic Communism against the Church and against Christians, and describes the terrible sufferings of the victims of the faith in the twentieth century.
When asked: “Is the principal figure in the vision the Pope?”, Sister Lucia replied at once that it was. She recalled that the three children were very sad about the suffering of the Pope, and that Jacinta kept saying: “Coitadinho do Santo Padre, tenho muita pena dos pecadores!”(“Poor Holy Father, I am very sad for sinners!”). Sister Lucia continued: “We did not know the name of the Pope; Our Lady did not tell us the name of the Pope; we did not know whether it was Benedict XV or Pius XII or Paul VI or John Paul II; but it was the Pope who was suffering and that made us suffer too”.
As regards the passage about the Bishop dressed in white, that is, the Holy Father—as the children immediately realized during the “vision”—who is struck dead and falls to the ground, Sister Lucia was in full agreement with the Pope’s claim that “it was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death” (Pope John Paul II, Meditation from the Policlinico Gemelli to the Italian Bishops, 13 May 1994).
Before giving the sealed envelope containing the third part of the “secret” to the then Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, Sister Lucia wrote on the outside envelope that it could be opened only after 1960, either by the Patriarch of Lisbon or the Bishop of Leiria. Archbishop Bertone therefore asked: “Why only after 1960? Was it Our Lady who fixed that date?” Sister Lucia replied: “It was not Our Lady. I fixed the date because I had the intuition that before 1960 it would not be understood, but that only later would it be understood. Now it can be better understood. I wrote down what I saw; however it was not for me to interpret it, but for the Pope.
Finally, mention was made of the unpublished manuscript which Sister Lucia has prepared as a reply to the many letters that come from Marian devotees and from pilgrims. The work is called Os apelos da Mensagem de Fatima, and it gathers together in the style of catechesis and exhortation thoughts and reflections which express Sister Lucia’s feelings and her clear and unaffected spirituality. She was asked if she would be happy to have it published, and she replied: “If the Holy Father agrees, then I am happy, otherwise I obey whatever the Holy Father decides”. Sister Lucia wants to present the text for ecclesiastical approval, and she hopes that what she has written will help to guide men and women of good will along the path that leads to God, the final goal of every human longing.The conversation ends with an exchange of rosaries. Sister Lucia is given a rosary sent by the Holy Father, and she in turn offers a number of rosaries made by herself.
The meeting concludes with the blessing imparted in the name of the Holy Father.
ANNOUNCEMENT MADE BY CARDINAL ANGELO SODANO
SECRETARY OF STATEAt the end of the Mass presided over by the Holy Father at Fatima, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Secretary of State, made this announcement in Portuguese, which is given here in English translation:
Brothers and Sisters in the Lord!
At the conclusion of this solemn celebration, I feel bound to offer our beloved Holy Father Pope John Paul II, on behalf of all present, heartfelt good wishes for his approaching 80th Birthday and to thank him for his vital pastoral ministry for the good of all God’s Holy Church; we present the heartfelt wishes of the whole Church.
On this solemn occasion of his visit to Fatima, His Holiness has directed me to make an announcement to you. As you know, the purpose of his visit to Fatima has been to beatify the two “little shepherds”. Nevertheless he also wishes his pilgrimage to be a renewed gesture of gratitude to Our Lady for her protection during these years of his papacy. This protection seems also to be linked to the so-called third part of the “secret” of Fatima.
That text contains a prophetic vision similar to those found in Sacred Scripture, which do not describe photographically the details of future events, but synthesize and compress against a single background facts which extend through time in an unspecified succession and duration. As a result, the text must be interpreted in a symbolic key.
The vision of Fatima concerns above all the war waged by atheistic systems against the Church and Christians, and it describes the immense suffering endured by the witnesses of the faith in the last century of the second millennium. It is an interminable Way of the Crossled by the Popes of the twentieth century.
According to the interpretation of the “little shepherds”, which was also confirmed recently by Sister Lucia, “the Bishop clothed in white” who prays for all the faithful is the Pope. As he makes his way with great difficulty towards the Cross amid the corpses of those who were martyred (Bishops, priests, men and women Religious and many lay people), he too falls to the ground, apparently dead, under a hail of gunfire.
After the assassination attempt of 13 May 1981, it appeared evident that it was “a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path”, enabling “the Pope in his throes” to halt “at the threshold of death” (Pope John Paul II, Meditation from the Policlinico Gemelli to the Italian Bishops, Insegnamenti, XVII, 1 [1994], 1061). On the occasion of a visit to Rome by the then Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, the Pope decided to give him the bullet which had remained in the jeep after the assassination attempt, so that it might be kept in the shrine. By the Bishop’s decision, the bullet was later set in the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.
The successive events of 1989 led, both in the Soviet Union and in a number of countries of Eastern Europe, to the fall of the Communist regimes which promoted atheism. For this too His Holiness offers heartfelt thanks to the Most Holy Virgin. In other parts of the world, however, attacks against the Church and against Christians, with the burden of suffering they bring, tragically continue. Even if the events to which the third part of the “secret” of Fatima refers now seem part of the past, Our Lady’s call to conversion and penance, issued at the start of the twentieth century, remains timely and urgent today. “The Lady of the message seems to read the signs of the times—the signs of our time—with special insight… The insistent invitation of Mary Most Holy to penance is nothing but the manifestation of her maternal concern for the fate of the human family, in need of conversion and forgiveness” (Pope John Paul II, Message for the 1997 World Day of the Sick, No. 1, Insegnamenti, XIX, 2 [1996], 561).
In order that the faithful may better receive the message of Our Lady of Fatima, the Pope has charged the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with making public the third part of the “secret”, after the preparation of an appropriate commentary.
Brothers and sisters, let us thank Our Lady of Fatima for her protection. To her maternal intercession let us entrust the Church of the Third Millennium.
Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genetrix! Intercede pro Ecclesia. Intercede pro Papa nostro Ioanne Paulo II. Amen.
Fatima, 13 May 2000
Here is the interpretation of Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, written in 2000:
An attempt to interpret the “secret” of Fatima
The first and second parts of the “secret” of Fatima have already been so amply discussed in the relative literature that there is no need to deal with them again here. I would just like to recall briefly the most significant point. For one terrible moment, the children were given a vision of hell. They saw the fall of “the souls of poor sinners”. And now they are told why they have been exposed to this moment: “in order to save souls”—to show the way to salvation. The words of the First Letter of Peter come to mind: “As the outcome of your faith you obtain the salvation of your souls” (1:9). To reach this goal, the way indicated —surprisingly for people from the Anglo-Saxon and German cultural world—is devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. A brief comment may suffice to explain this. In biblical language, the “heart” indicates the centre of human life, the point where reason, will, temperament and sensitivity converge, where the person finds his unity and his interior orientation. According to Matthew 5:8, the “immaculate heart” is a heart which, with God’s grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore “sees God”. To be “devoted” to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart, which makes the fiat—“your will be done”—the defining centre of one’s whole life. It might be objected that we should not place a human being between ourselves and Christ. But then we remember that Paul did not hesitate to say to his communities: “imitate me” (1 Cor 4:16; Phil3:17; 1 Th 1:6; 2 Th 3:7, 9). In the Apostle they could see concretely what it meant to follow Christ. But from whom might we better learn in every age than from the Mother of the Lord?
Thus we come finally to the third part of the “secret” of Fatima which for the first time is being published in its entirety. As is clear from the documentation presented here, the interpretation offered by Cardinal Sodano in his statement of 13 May was first put personally to Sister Lucia. Sister Lucia responded by pointing out that she had received the vision but not its interpretation. The interpretation, she said, belonged not to the visionary but to the Church. After reading the text, however, she said that this interpretation corresponded to what she had experienced and that on her part she thought the interpretation correct. In what follows, therefore, we can only attempt to provide a deeper foundation for this interpretation, on the basis of the criteria already considered.
“To save souls” has emerged as the key word of the first and second parts of the “secret”, and the key word of this third part is the threefold cry: “Penance, Penance, Penance!” The beginning of the Gospel comes to mind: “Repent and believe the Good News” (Mk 1:15). To understand the signs of the times means to accept the urgency of penance – of conversion – of faith. This is the correct response to this moment of history, characterized by the grave perils outlined in the images that follow. Allow me to add here a personal recollection: in a conversation with me Sister Lucia said that it appeared ever more clearly to her that the purpose of all the apparitions was to help people to grow more and more in faith, hope and love—everything else was intended to lead to this.
Let us now examine more closely the single images. The angel with the flaming sword on the left of the Mother of God recalls similar images in the Book of Revelation. This represents the threat of judgement which looms over the world. Today the prospect that the world might be reduced to ashes by a sea of fire no longer seems pure fantasy: man himself, with his inventions, has forged the flaming sword. The vision then shows the power which stands opposed to the force of destruction—the splendour of the Mother of God and, stemming from this in a certain way, the summons to penance. In this way, the importance of human freedom is underlined: the future is not in fact unchangeably set, and the image which the children saw is in no way a film preview of a future in which nothing can be changed. Indeed, the whole point of the vision is to bring freedom onto the scene and to steer freedom in a positive direction. The purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably fixed future. Its meaning is exactly the opposite: it is meant to mobilize the forces of change in the right direction. Therefore we must totally discount fatalistic explanations of the “secret”, such as, for example, the claim that the would-be assassin of 13 May 1981 was merely an instrument of the divine plan guided by Providence and could not therefore have acted freely, or other similar ideas in circulation. Rather, the vision speaks of dangers and how we might be saved from them.
The next phrases of the text show very clearly once again the symbolic character of the vision: God remains immeasurable, and is the light which surpasses every vision of ours. Human persons appear as in a mirror. We must always keep in mind the limits in the vision itself, which here are indicated visually. The future appears only “in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor13:12). Let us now consider the individual images which follow in the text of the “secret”. The place of the action is described in three symbols: a steep mountain, a great city reduced to ruins and finally a large rough-hewn cross. The mountain and city symbolize the arena of human history: history as an arduous ascent to the summit, history as the arena of human creativity and social harmony, but at the same time a place of destruction, where man actually destroys the fruits of his own work. The city can be the place of communion and progress, but also of danger and the most extreme menace. On the mountain stands the cross—the goal and guide of history. The cross transforms destruction into salvation; it stands as a sign of history’s misery but also as a promise for history.
At this point human persons appear: the Bishop dressed in white (“we had the impression that it was the Holy Father”), other Bishops, priests, men and women Religious, and men and women of different ranks and social positions. The Pope seems to precede the others, trembling and suffering because of all the horrors around him. Not only do the houses of the city lie half in ruins, but he makes his way among the corpses of the dead. The Church’s path is thus described as a Via Crucis, as a journey through a time of violence, destruction and persecution. The history of an entire century can be seen represented in this image. Just as the places of the earth are synthetically described in the two images of the mountain and the city, and are directed towards the cross, so too time is presented in a compressed way. In the vision we can recognize the last century as a century of martyrs, a century of suffering and persecution for the Church, a century of World Wars and the many local wars which filled the last fifty years and have inflicted unprecedented forms of cruelty. In the “mirror” of this vision we see passing before us the witnesses of the faith decade by decade. Here it would be appropriate to mention a phrase from the letter which Sister Lucia wrote to the Holy Father on 12 May 1982: “The third part of the ‘secret’ refers to Our Lady’s words: ‘If not, [Russia] 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 Via Crucis of an entire century, the figure of the Pope has a special role. In his arduous ascent of the mountain we can undoubtedly see a convergence of different Popes. Beginning from Pius X up to the present Pope, they all shared the sufferings of the century and strove to go forward through all the anguish along the path which leads to the Cross. In the vision, the Pope too is killed along with the martyrs. When, after the attempted assassination on 13 May 1981, the Holy Father had the text of the third part of the “secret” brought to him, was it not inevitable that he should see in it his own fate? He had been very close to death, and he himself explained his survival in the following words: “… it was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death” (13 May 1994). That here “a mother’s hand” had deflected the fateful bullet only shows once more that there is no immutable destiny, that faith and prayer are forces which can influence history and that in the end prayer is more powerful than bullets and faith more powerful than armies.
The concluding part of the “secret” uses images which Lucia may have seen in devotional books and which draw their inspiration from long-standing intuitions of faith. It is a consoling vision, which seeks to open a history of blood and tears to the healing power of God. Beneath the arms of the cross angels gather up the blood of the martyrs, and with it they give life to the souls making their way to God. Here, the blood of Christ and the blood of the martyrs are considered as one: the blood of the martyrs runs down from the arms of the cross. The martyrs die in communion with the Passion of Christ, and their death becomes one with his. For the sake of the body of Christ, they complete what is still lacking in his afflictions (cf. Col 1:24). Their life has itself become a Eucharist, part of the mystery of the grain of wheat which in dying yields abundant fruit. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians, said Tertullian. As from Christ’s death, from his wounded side, the Church was born, so the death of the witnesses is fruitful for the future life of the Church. Therefore, the vision of the third part of the “secret”, so distressing at first, concludes with an image of hope: no suffering is in vain, and it is a suffering Church, a Church of martyrs, which becomes a sign-post for man in his search for God. The loving arms of God welcome not only those who suffer like Lazarus, who found great solace there and mysteriously represents Christ, who wished to become for us the poor Lazarus. There is something more: from the suffering of the witnesses there comes a purifying and renewing power, because their suffering is the actualization of the suffering of Christ himself and a communication in the here and now of its saving effect.
And so we come to the final question: What is the meaning of the “secret” of Fatima as a whole (in its three parts)? What does it say to us? First of all we must affirm with Cardinal Sodano: “… the events to which the third part of the ‘secret’ of Fatima refers now seem part of the past”. Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed. Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way, just as Christian faith in general cannot be reduced to an object of mere curiosity. What remains was already evident when we began our reflections on the text of the “secret”: the exhortation to prayer as the path of “salvation for souls” and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.
I would like finally to mention another key expression of the “secret” which has become justly famous: “my Immaculate Heart will triumph”. What does this mean? 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 the 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.
JosephCard. Ratzinger
Prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith
(1) From the diary of John XXIII, 17 August 1959: “Audiences: Father Philippe, Commissary of the Holy Office, who brought me the letter containing the third part of the secrets of Fatima. I intend to read it with my Confessor”.
(2) The Holy Father’s comment at the General Audience of 14 October 1981 on “What happened in May: A Great Divine Trial” should be recalled: Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, IV, 2 (Vatican City, 1981), 409-412.
(3) Radio message during the Ceremony of Veneration, Thanksgiving and Entrustment to the Virgin Mary Theotokos in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major: Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, IV, 1 (Vatican City, 1981), 1246.
(4) On the Jubilee Day for Families, the Pope entrusted individuals and nations to Our Lady: Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, VII, 1 (Vatican City, 1984), 775-777.
(5)
(6) In the “Fourth Memoir” of 8 December 1941 Sister Lucia writes: “I shall begin then my new task, and thus fulfil the commands received from Your Excellency as well as the desires of Dr Galamba. With the exception of that part of the Secret which I am not permitted to reveal at present, I shall say everything. I shall not knowingly omit anything, though I suppose I may forget just a few small details of minor importance”.
(7) In the “Fourth Memoir” Sister Lucia adds: “In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, etc. …”.
(8) In the translation, the original text has been respected, even as regards the imprecise punctuation, which nevertheless does not impede an understanding of what the visionary wished to say.
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