Fatima's Message for Our Times

Joseph A. Cirrincione

• Publisher: TAN Books
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781505108293
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

Summarizes the Fatima messages as a return to a life of prayer, to the traditional prayer life of the Catholic Church, especially to prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Great on the value of Holy Hours a forgotten secret spiritual weapon.

Chapter I

LIFE

On May 12, 1982, Pope John Paul II arrived at Fatima to give thanks to Our Lady of Fatima for sparing his life when an assassin attempted to kill him on May 13, 1981. In his evening homily, he said to the many thousands gathered there: "Would you like me to tell you a secret? It is simple, and after all, is no secret. Pray, pray much. Say the Rosary every day."

When he spoke of telling a secret, the Holy Father well knew, of course, the world-wide curiosity to know the third part of the secret Our Lady told Sister Lucy, which has not been revealed. What he was telling his audience was that it would be much more profitable for them to put into practice what they already knew of Our Lady's Message than to pine for the knowledge of a part of her message that Church authorities have deemed it better not to reveal.

Sister Lucy gave evidence that she was of the same mind when in 1971, she wrote a little tract entitled Message of Fatima—Daily Rosary,¹which her community printed in leaflet form for worldwide distribution. This spontaneous act on her part indicated how strongly she felt that people should be more concerned with what Our Lady wanted them to DO(!) than with what they wanted to know. Thus, Pope John Paul II was echoing her sentiments and putting his own prestige behind her call to recite the Rosary daily. And, in doing so, his words had a double effect, viz., approval both of the message of Fatima and its messenger.

I was tempted to title this booklet The Fourth Secret of Fatima because it has somewhat the same purpose as the rather transparent attempt by the Holy Father to gain attention to his words by speaking of a "secret."

As in that case, so in this one, there is no question of a secret. But also, as in that case, here there is a message which Sister Lucy feels is vitally important and that all too generally is ignored. This message is found in a letter she wrote some years ago to her nephew, Father Valinho, a Salesian priest. This is what she wrote.

Dear Father Valinho,

I see from your letter that you are worried about the turmoil and the disorientation of our times. It is indeed sad that so many are allowing themselves to be dominated by the diabolical wave that is sweeping the world, and they are so blind that they cannot see their error. But their principal error is that they have abandoned prayer. Thus, they turn away from God, and without God everything is lacking to them. For, "without Me you can do nothing."

What I recommend to you above all is that you draw close to the Tabernacle and pray. In fervent prayer you will receive the light, strength and grace that you need to sustain you, and to share with others.

Guide those under your care with humility, with gentleness and at the same time with firmness, because superiors above all have the duty to maintain the truth in its proper place, always with serenity, with justice and charity. For this reason they need to pray more and more, to keep close to God and to tell Him about all their affairs and all their problems before they discuss them with human beings. Follow this road and you will see that in prayer you will find more knowledge, more light, more strength, more grace and virtue than you could ever achieve by reading many books, or by great studies. Never consider as wasted the time you spend in prayer. You will discover that in prayer God communicates to you the light, strength and grace you need to do all He expects of you.

The only important thing for us is to do the will of God: to be where He wants us to be, and to do all He wants of us, but always with humility, knowing that of ourselves we are nothing and that it is God who works in us and through us, to accomplish His work.

Therefore, we all need to intensify our life of intimate union with God, and this we can attain only through prayer. It is in prayer that the soul encounters direct contact with God, who is our strength and the source of all good. Let time be lacking for everything else, but never for prayer, and you will experience the fact that, after prayer, you can accomplish a lot in a short period of time.

All of us, but especially the superior without prayer, or [the one] who habitually sacrifices prayer for material things, is like a hollow, split reed that serves only to beat the whites of eggs into castles of foam, which, without sugar to sustain them, soon dissolve and become as polluted water.

For this reason, Jesus Christ said, "You are the salt of the earth, but if salt loses its strength, it is good for nothing but to be thrown out." We can receive our strength from God alone. We must draw close to Him for Him to communicate it to us. We can only realize this closeness through prayer because it is in prayer that the soul encounters direct contact with God.

I would like you to pass on these recommendations to your religious brothers. Let them experiment with them; then you can tell me if I was wrong. I am convinced that the principal cause of evil in the world, and the falling away of so many consecrated souls, is lack of union with God in prayer. The devil is very smart and watches for our weak points so that he can attack us. If we are not careful and attentive in obtaining the strength from God, we will fall, because our times are very bad and we are weak. Only God's strength can sustain us.

See that you take everything with calmness and with great confidence in God. He will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He will supply for our insufficiencies.

Sister Lucia dos Santos, I.C.D.

In the light of what I said earlier about the Holy Father's approval of both the message and the messenger of Fatima, clearly the above letter cannot be dismissed as simply a resume of pious exhortations given by a Religious to a relative. True, Sister Lucy is not writing about things revealed during the apparitions at Fatima. But the fact remains that Our Lady did appear to her, did entrust her with a mission, and did promise that the grace of God would be given her to accomplish her mission.

Moreover, in the first and second apparitions, those of May 13 and June 13, 1917, all three children—Francisco, Jacinta and Lucia—underwent mystical experiences that affected them to the depths of their being and whose effects they were to feel the rest of their lives.

In her Memoirs, Sister Lucy describes the first apparition, that ended when Our Lady said: "You are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort." "As she pronounced these last words," Sister Lucy continues. . "Our Lady opened her hands for the first time, communicating to us a light so intense that, as it streamed from her hands, its rays penetrated our hearts and the innermost depths of our souls, making us see ourselves in God, who was that light, more clearly than we see ourselves in the best of mirrors."

Toward the end of the June apparition, Our Lady said to Lucy: "Don't lose heart. I will never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God."

"As Our Lady spoke these words," Sister Lucy continues, "she opened her hands, and for the second time, she communicated to us the rays of that same immense light. We saw ourselves in this light, as it were, immersed in God; Jacinta and Francisco seemed to be in that part of the light which rose toward Heaven, and I, in that which was poured out on the earth."

Jacinta and Francisco were in the part of the light which rose toward Heaven, of course, because as Our Lady had predicted earlier in this apparition, they were to be taken to Heaven soon. Francisco died just two years later, in 1919, and Jacinta one year after that, in 1920. But as Our Lady had assured Lucy, she was to remain on earth "some time longer" because, as Our Lady says, "Jesus wants to make use of you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart." As of this writing (1989) Sister Lucy is still living, and is a member of the Carmelite Community in Coimbra, Portugal.

It is she who is the author of the letter we are considering. Could anyone boast of better credentials on the subject of prayer? Could anyone speak with greater authority or stronger conviction than Sister Lucy, who has had converse with Jesus and Mary and who has been bathed in a heavenly light, in her own words, "making us see ourselves in God, who was that light?" It would be no exaggeration to assert that, in view of the special graces and the special mission she has received, she sees the world as few others see it, indeed, in some respects as God sees it.

One of the bishops of Fatima has said that the Fatima revelations are a summary of the Gospels; that they sum up for us the chief Gospel truths, to enable us to understand those truths better and to be able to apply them to present times.

I think the reverse is also true, particularly in the matter of Sister Lucy's letter. I think we will understand much better what she writes if we consider her words in the light of the Gospels. In any case, that is what I hope to prove in the rest of this chapter.

We will begin with her reference to prayer before the Tabernacle.

A day or so after Our Lord's baptism by St. John the Baptist, as Jesus walked by, John said to two of his disciples: "Behold the lamb of God." The two disciples were Andrew and John the Evangelist, the latter of whom tells the story in the Fourth Gospel. They decided to follow Jesus. When the Master sensed they were following Him, He turned and said to them, "What is it you seek?" They said to Him, "Rabbi, where dwellest Thou?" He said to them, "Come and see." "They came and saw where He was staying, and they stayed with Him that day." John adds, "It was about the tenth hour." (i.e., 4.00 p.m.). And that was how Jesus gained His first two disciples. At His invitation they spent some hours with Him where He was dwelling, and when they left Him, they were changed men. They could not wait to tell others about Him. Among those Andrew sought out was his brother Simon. "We have found the Messiah," he told him, "and led him to Jesus."

Were we to ask Jesus today, "Where dwellest Thou?" what would H...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• Chapter I: LIFE
• Chapter II: THE CULTURE OF DEATH
• Chapter III: THE CULTURE OF DEATH
• Notes