MARY'S CALL to PRAYER AND PENANCE
by Pope John Paul II
The following is taken from the Homily by Pope John Paul II at Fatima, May 13, 1982, one year to the day after the attempt on his life in St. Peter's square in Rome.
... In the light of the mystery of Mary's spiritual motherhood, let us seek to understand the extraordinary message, which began May 13, 1917, to resound throughout the world from Fatima, continuing for five months until October 13 of the same year.
Convert and repent
The Church has always taught and continues to proclaim that God's revelation was brought to completion in Jesus Christ, who is the fullness of that revelation, and that "no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord." (Dei Verbum, 4) The Church evaluates and judges private revelations by the criterion of conformity with that single public revelation.
If the Church has accepted the message of Fatima, it is, above all, because that message contains a truth and a call whose basic content is the truth and the call of the Gospel itself.
"Repent, and believe in the Gospel!" (Mk 1:15) These are the first words that the messiah addressed to humanity. The message of Fatima is, in its basic nucleus, a call to conversion and repentance, as in the Gospel. This call was uttered at the beginning of the 20th century and it was thus addressed particularly to this present century. The Lady of the message seems to have read with special insight the "signs of the times," the signs of our time.
Recommends the Rosary
The call to repentance is a motherly one. At the same time it is strong and decisive. The love that "rejoices in the truth" (1 Cor. 13) is capable of being clear-cut and firm. The call to repentance is linked, as always, with a call to prayer. In harmony with the tradition of many centuries, the Lady of the message indicates the Rosary, which can rightly be defined as "Mary's prayer," the prayer in which she feels particularly united with us.
She herself prays with us. The Rosary prayer embraces the problems of the Church, of the See of Saint Peter, the problems of the whole world. In it we also remember sinners, that they may be converted and saved, and the souls in purgatory.
The words of the message were addressed to children, ages seven to ten. Children, like Bernadette of Lourdes, are particularly privileged in these apparitions of the Mother of God. Hence, the fact that also her language is simple, within the limits of their understanding. The children of Fatima became partners in dialogue with the Lady of the message and collaborators with her. One of them is still living.
When Jesus on the Cross said: "Woman, behold, your son," (Jn 19:26) in a new way He opened His mother's Heart, the Immaculate Heart, and revealed to it the new dimensions and extent of the love to which she was called in the Holy Spirit by the power of the sacrifice of the Cross....
In the light of a mother's love, we understand the whole message of the Lady of Fatima. The greatest obstacle to man's journey toward God is sin, perseverance in sin and, finally, denial of God. The deliberate blotting out of God from the world of human thought. The detachment from Him of the whole of man's earthly activity. The rejection of God by man.
In reality, the eternal salvation of man is only in God. Man's rejection of God, if it becomes definitive, leads logically to God's rejection of man, to damnation. (Mt. 7:23;10:33)
Can the Mother, who . . . desires everyone's salvation, keep silence on what undermines the very basis of their salvation? No, she cannot.
So, while the message of Our Lady of Fatima is a motherly one, it is also strong and decisive. It sounds severe. It sounds like John the Baptist speaking on the banks of the Jordan. It invites to repentance. It gives a warning. It calls to prayer. It recommends the Rosary.
The message is addressed to every human being. The love of the Savior's Mother reaches every place touched by the work of salvation. Her care extends to every individual of our time and to all the societies, nations and peoples. Societies menaced by apostasy, threatened by moral degradation. The collapse of morality involves the collapse of societies.
Meaning of consecration
. . . . The heart of the Blessed Mother . . . calls us. She not only calls us to be converted; she calls us to accept her motherly help to return to the source of redemption.
Consecrating ourselves to Mary means accepting her help to offer ourselves and the whole of mankind to Him who is holy, infinitely holy. . . .
God's holiness showed itself in the redemption of man, of the world, of the whole of mankind, and of the nations: a redemption brought about through the Sacrifice of the Cross. "For their sake I consecrate myself," Jesus had said. (Jn 17:19)
By the power of the redemption the world and man have been consecrated. They have been consecrated to Him who is infinitely Holy. They have been offered and entrusted to Love itself, merciful Love.
The Mother of Christ calls us, invites us to join with the Church of the living God in the consecration of the world. In this act . . . mankind as a whole, the nations and each individual person are presented to the Eternal Father with the power of the redemption won by Christ. They are offered in the Heart of the Redeemer which was pierced on the Cross.
Rooted in the Gospel
The appeal of the Lady of the message of Fatima is so deeply rooted in the Gospel and the whole of Tradition that the Church feels that the message imposes a commitment on it.
It has responded through the Servant of God, Pius XII (whose episcopal ordination took place precisely on May 13, 1917), who consecrated the human race and especially the peoples of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Was not that consecration his response to. . . the call of Fatima?
In its dogmatic Constitution on the Church and its pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, the Second Vatican Council amply illustrated the reasons for the link between the Church and the world of today.
Furthermore, its teaching on Mary's special place in the mystery of Christ and the Church bore mature fruit in Paul VI's action in calling Mary "Mother of the Church," thus indicating more profoundly the nature of her union with the Church and of her care for the world, for mankind, for each human being and for all the nations. . . .
This brought a further deepening of understanding of the meaning of the act of consecrating that the Church is called upon to perform with the help of the heart of Christ's mother and ours.
Many going astray
Today John Paul II, successor of Peter, continuer of the work of Pius, John, and Paul, and in particular heir of the Second Vatican Council, presents himself before the Mother of the Son of God in her shrine at Fatima. In what way does he come?
He presents himself, reading again with trepidation the motherly call to penance, to conversion, the ardent appeal of the Heart of Mary that resounded at Fatima in 1917. Yes, he reads it again with trepidation in his heart, because he sees how many people and societies - how many Christians - have gone in the opposite direction to the one indicated in the message of Fatima.
Sin has thus made itself firmly at home in the world and denial of God has become widespread in the ideologies, ideas and plans of human beings.
For this very reason the evangelical call to repentance and conversion, uttered in the Mother's message, remains ever relevant. It is still more relevant than it was in 1917. It is still more urgent.
The successor of Peter presents himself here also as a witness to the immensity of human suffering, a witness to the almost apocalyptic menaces looking over the nations and mankind as a whole. He is trying to embrace these sufferings with his own weak human heart, as he places himself before the mystery of the Heart of the Mother, the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
In the name of these sufferings and with awareness of the evil that is spreading throughout the world and menacing the individual human being, the nations, mankind as a whole, Peter's successor presents himself here with greater faith in the redemption of the world, in the saving Love that is always stronger, always more powerful than any evil.
My heart is oppressed when I see the sin of the world and the whole range of menaces gathering like a dark cloud over mankind, but it also rejoices with hope as I once more do what has been done by my predecessors, when they consecrated the world to the Heart of the Mother, when they consecrated to that Heart those peoples which particularly need to be consecrated. Doing this means consecrating the world to Him who is infinite Holiness.
This Holiness means redemption. It means a love more powerful than evil. No "sin of the world" can ever overcome this Love.
Once more this act is being done, Mary's appeal is not for just once. Her appeal must be taken up by generation after generation, in accordance with the ever new "signs of the times." It must be unceasingly returned to. It must ever be taken up anew. . . .
Yes, truly we can repeat: "O daughter, you are blessed by the Most High God above all women on earth . . . walking in the straight path before our God . . . you have avenged our ruin." (Judith 13:18-20)
Truly, indeed, you are blessed.
Yes, here and throughout the Church, in the heart of every individual and in the world as a whole may you be blessed, O Mary, our sweet Mother.
The Three Fatima Prophecies
irst secret
The first secret was a 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.
Second secret
The second secret is a statement that World War I would end and supposedly predicts the coming of World War II should God continue to be offended and if Russia does not convert. The second half requests that Russia be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart:
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.
This secret's controversy is second only to the supposed final secret of Fatima, as it seemingly predicts both the all-encompassing World War II, the radical, bloody, and extreme anti-religion ideology of the Soviet Union; the proxy wars and limited direct confrontations that would be initiated between the Western Democracies and the Soviet Bloc. Some critics have noted that the "Prophecy" was not disclosed until August 1941, after World War II had already begun. Pope Pius XII allegedly consecrated Russia on July 7, 1952.
Third secret
The third part of the secret was written down "by order of His Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and the Most Holy Mother ..." on 3 January 1944. Bishop Silva, visiting Lúcia on 15 September 1943 while she was bed-ridden, first suggested that she write the third secret down to ensure that it would be recorded in the event of her death. Lucia was hesitant to do so, however. Finally, in mid-October, Bishop Silva sent her a letter containing a direct order to record the secret, and Lúcia obeyed. In June 1944, the sealed envelope containing the third secret was delivered to Silva, where it stayed until 1957, when it was finally delivered to Rome.
It was announced on 13 May 2000, 83 years after the first apparition of the Lady to the children in the Cova da Iria, that the third secret would finally be released. The text was published on 26 June 2000:
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.
Her Immaculate Heart
