Fatima: The theology of the message

Have a blessed Christmas and a wonderful year!

At the heart of the message of Fatima is the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Being the object of two Fatima prayers, one taught by the Angel and the other by Our Lady, we can very well say that the apparitions at Fatima open and close with this mystery.

Lucia, however, has said to the then Cardinal Ratzinger that the “practical” goal of all the apparitions was to increase in the people of God the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity which was evident in the message starting from the first prayer taught by the Angel: My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love You! I ask pardon of You for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love You.

Contrary to the view of some theologians, in my understanding, Guadalupe, Lourdes and Fatima are theophanies and not “marianphanies”. When the little shepherds inquired where the Lady was from, she responded that she was from Heaven. Therefore it was Heaven that manifested itself through her and the message that she came to deliver was not hers, but from Heaven, that is, God’s.

Divine revelations have occurred at all times, in all sorts of places and through all sorts of people. The theophany of Fatima is a little more complex than other theophanies because it occurred at different places, through different people, and at different times. In fact, we can distinguish three different cycles in the apparitions at Fatima:

The Angelic Cycle:  the apparitions of the Angel in 1916
We leave out the angelic experience of Lucia and her friends in 1915 because it was inconsequential and lacked clarity. Despite of this, it did put Lucia in a state of watchfulness for the apparitions of the Angel that came the following year, when she was not with these friends but with her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto. In line with the roles of angels in the Bible, this angel is a messenger, and just like Archangel Gabriel who announced to Mary that she had been chosen by God to be the mother of the Incarnate Word, he too announced to the children that they have been chosen:

“The Hearts of Jesus and of Mary are attentive to the voice of your supplications (…) have designs of mercy on you…”  In the case of Fatima, the Angel went beyond the role of messenger-only and prepared the children for the true apparitions to come, in other words, those of Our Lady. Something similar to the role of John the Baptist as the precursor of the Messiah, the Angel prepared the children for the impending encounter with the supernatural.

Perhaps this is why the encounters with the Angel were of different nature. The children described the three encounters with the Angel as strenuous; they felt drained of their energies as if they were outside of their bodies. In contrast, the encounters with the Lady left them radiant, comforted and full of energy.

There is one other detail that may raise doubts in some people regarding these apparitions. In the representations of angels that we see in sculptures, paintings, theaters and films, and of course, in the imagery of the little shepherds, angels always appear with wings. The Angel of Fatima, however, as the little shepherds described him, did not have wings. For whatever reason that was how the children described him. This fact may even add to the veracity of these apparitions or manifestations of the divine since messenger angels in the Bible do not have wings; those that have wings are the Seraphim and the Cherubim guarding the Ark of the Covenant.

The Marian Cycle:  the apparitions of Our Lady in 1917
The core message of Fatima is revealed in the Marian apparitions that took place from May to October 1917. Those of the Angel, like we have said earlier, served as a preparation for these apparitions, and those that followed helped to interpret them.

The doctrinal core reveals itself in the apparitions of the Virgin which is vast and complete and the reason why Fatima is considered the most doctrinal, most prophetic and also the most sociopolitical of all Marian apparitions, having inspired and influenced concrete social and political measures in the twentieth century.

The Heart of Mary Cycle:  the apparitions in Pontevedra (1925-1926) and Tuy (1929)
In these apparitions that took place years later and when Lucia was perhaps not yet accustomed to the loneliness she felt after the death of her cousins, the Lady blessed her with these apparitions, as she had appeared to Jacinta at her deathbed, to fulfill what she had promised Lucia, of never abandoning her, giving her strength, and helping her in the interpretation of the message.

These visions had the same effect on Lucia as the transfiguration of the Lord on the apostles, of assuring that she had taken the right course of action both in relation to the interpretation of the message as well as her life on earth and the reason why she had been left behind. These apparitions also served to remove doubts in Lucia and to clarify some aspects of the message, especially in regard to the devotion of the five first Saturdays.

The dimensions of the Fatima message
As the apparition with the greatest doctrinal amplitude in the opinion of many theologians, Fatima is like a “Summa Theologica” because it touches upon all the themes that are essential to our faith and gives clues to how to live them, both in the area of individual as well as liturgical spirituality, in a way that is very practical and pedagogical.

The Sacrificial Dimension – Understood as the Eucharistic sacrifice and offering of oneself in the context of the Eucharist and of life, that is, to make life eucharistic: “Do you want to offer yourself…” From the very first Marian apparition, and paraphrasing James and John who asked to sit one on the right and the other on the left of the Lord but first they needed to drink the cup that he drank (Mark10:36-45), thus the little shepherds asked to go to Heaven, but first the Lady asked them if they were willing to offer themselves for others.

Christ gave up his life for us, and as a Christian or a follower of Christ we also need to love others not only as we love ourselves as the commandment says, but more than that, as Jesus loves us, to the extent of giving up his life for us (John 13:34-35).

The Eschatological Dimension – This is the translation of the Gospel warning: “unless you repent, you will all perish as they did” (Luke 13:3).  It is about the misfortunes that hang over the world because of sin – and also about the conversion of sinners, and how we can participate in it; the prophetic and pedagogical vision of hell, as well as how to avoid eternal damnation.

The Missionary Dimension – Mission is transversal through the entire message of Fatima; all the practices that Our Lady asks in relation to prayers, sacrifices, the Rosary, the consecration, the first Saturdays, are aimed for the good of others, that is, the conversion and salvation of sinners and not for personal sanctification. The follower and devotee of the message of Fatima is converted by praying for the conversion of others. Everything is oriented towards others; it is, therefore, a truly “altruistic” and not an “egocentric” spirituality.

Unlike most Catholics in those days and also in ours who live obsessed with gaining Heaven and do good for the sole purpose of their own individual salvation, the little shepherds did nothing to save their own souls because the Lady had already said that she would take them up to Heaven.

It is as if they practiced the theology of Protestant reform, and now also Catholic’s, that Heaven is free for all because Christ has already paid in full the entrance ticket. With Heaven guaranteed to them, the little shepherds dedicated their lives in securing it also for others.

In this way, everything that the little shepherds did was missionary:  by ways of an “Apostolate of Prayer”, in which Francisco distinguished himself, as he was always seeking occasions and places to be alone with God, consoling Him, and by ways of an “Apostolate of Sacrifice”, in which Jacinta distinguished herself by being tireless in finding instances to do more and more self-sacrifices, because she wished that everyone could go to Heaven.

The Marian Dimension – The devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Rosary as the contemplation with Mary on the mysteries of Christ. The manifestation of the Lady identifying herself as Our Lady of the Rosary.

The Ecclesial Dimension – Communion in solidarity with the whole Church, in prayer for peace in the world and for the conversion of sinners.

The Petrine Dimension – Fatima started with an appeal from the Holy Father and always involved the popes; and precisely the one who did not want to get himself involved with the Fatima message was the one who turned out to be its greatest proponent -- Pope John Paul II.

The Prophetic Dimension – Fatima represented for thousands of Christians the blue army of Mary - the evangelical activism, against the red army of Russia - the militant atheism. The militant atheism continues to exist even without the tutelage of Russia, in the Freemasons and certain groups of agnostics who always try to influence politics to go against the Church.

In this time as in all times, Fatima is a perennial exhortation for all Christians to become evangelists, always ready to stand up to anyone who demands an account of the hope that is in us (1Peter 3:15). Or as someone has said after the Second Vatican Council, an appeal to become Christians as members of a political party, and militants as members of the Church.

The Pedagogical-Religious Dimension – The learning of prayers and pious practices of devotion as ways to reparate, console and atone the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

To incarnate the Fatima message
This is accomplished by putting into practice what Mary had asked the little shepherds which they generously fulfilled as they embodied all the aspects of this message. It is up to us to do the same if we are lovers of Mary our mother and if like the little shepherds, we want to participate in the redemption of the world.

Stop offending Jesus – This is the first thing the little shepherds did:  to leave behind their own sinful ways of life by developing a more austere awareness that enabled them to judge each one of their own deeds and expose sins in their lives regardless how small they might be.

Pray the Rosary every day – Through the Rosary we are taken by the hands of Mary our mother, to contemplate on the mysteries of our Redemption, that is, the life of her Son. Since she knows him better than anyone else, she more than anyone can introduce us to her son, to his life and doctrine.

Offer sacrifices – By offering sacrifices we are putting into practice the reason why we participate in the Eucharist. At the end of a Latin Mass the priest dismisses the people by saying, “Ite missa est” which means at the same time two different things: first, that the Mass is over and second, that you are on a Mission, that is, once the Mass ends the Mission starts.

Part of this mission is to bring to life the Eucharistic dimension. We eat the body offered and drink the blood outpoured, so that we ourselves in our lives become the body offered and the blood outpoured. We participate in the Eucharist so that we become eucharistic as we make our lives a gift for the redemption of others. We do this when, like the little shepherds, we offer ourselves through self-sacrifices, and embrace the cross of Christ every day by denying ourselves and affirming others in our lives.

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary – Assiduous prayer places us before God who acts as a mirror that makes us see who we really are, hence a false image of ourselves leads us to have a false image of God. Prayer purifies these two images, of God and of ourselves; prayer to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on the other hand, purifies our heart and makes it like hers. It is in our own interest this devotion since as the beatitude has it, only the pure of heart will see God.

Observance of the five first Saturdays – This is a beautiful observance to reinvigorate our faith and our Christian practices. It is like the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius or like the Cursillos. It gives a new start and awakens a dormant faith that has lost its saltiness which used to give meaning and taste to a life that now is no longer the light of the world.

Use of the scapular – This practice was once very popular, and has not yet lost its value. It is not that the scapular is a talisman that protects us by its own merit without our collaboration; this would be idolatry. The use of the scapular serves to remind us, hour by hour and minute by minute, that we are called to put on Christ as Saint Paul says in Ephesians (4:22-24).

Conclusion
We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. (2Corinthians 4:7)

At the end of this long digression and study of the events at Fatima, both its meaning and message, I realized the richness, the doctrinal depth, and the prophetic sociopolitical aspects of the message. Even I can hardly believe that such important message was placed in the hands of three children of such tender ages, completely uncultured, and in spite of their limitations, they did a very good job of living and delivering, and being the custodians of the message of Fatima, despite the unbelief of their own families and the Church, and the obstacles and threats from the administrative and political power.

I want to end this reflection the very same way I began it: The mystery hidden from the wise who are proud of their wisdom is revealed to the simple and accepted by the truly wise, that is, those who keep an open mind without prejudice and who recognize that they know only that they know nothing. (Matthew 11:25)

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: "Pray the Rosary everyday"

Before Pope John Paul II introduced the Luminous Mysteries, the full Rosary consisted of 150 Hail Marys so that the laity could mimic the 150 psalms in the Bible that the clerics’ Liturgy of the Hours is based on. Furthermore, in Portugal it was not called the Rosary but “Third” since we prayed only one third (50 Hail Marys) of the full Rosary at a time.

The full Rosary was therefore made up of three thirds. It was prayed by meditating on the first third, the Joyful Mysteries, corresponding to the Birth and Infancy of Jesus, then the second third, the Sorrowful Mysteries, corresponding to his Passion and Death, and the last third, the Glorious Mysteries, corresponding to his Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven.

The Church was slow to realize that the Rosary was incomplete with only the mysteries of the incarnation birth, passion and death, and resurrection of the Lord. It was missing the mysteries of his public ministry in which Jesus of Nazareth by his preaching, attitudes, ways of living and acting models for us the new man, the one who is the way of truth and life for all human beings.

With the creation and integration of the Luminous Mysteries by Pope John Paul II in his 2002 apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, the logic of the three thirds making up a complete Rosary didn’t make sense anymore. The full Rosary is now four “thirds” comprising of 50 Hail Marys each thus totaling 200 Hail Marys instead of the original 150. By including Jesus’ public life in the Luminous Mysteries, there are now four sets of mysteries to contemplate.

The structure of the Rosary
It is called the Rosary because the now 200 Hail Marys intertwined into groups of ten, forms a “Crown of Roses” which is offered to Mary, Mother of the Lord and our Mother.  The twenty mysteries which recall the events in the Lord’s life are divided into four series of 5 mysteries each. In each recitation of the Rosary, we pray only five mysteries of one of the following series:

In the Joyful Mysteries, we meditate the beginning of the redemption of humanity, from the annunciation to Mary and the incarnation of the Son of God in her womb until Jesus’ adolescence.

In the Luminous Mysteries, we meditate the most important moment of Jesus’ public ministry, from his inauguration at Baptism until the institution of the Eucharist as the memorial of his Passion. It is during these years that Jesus truly revealed himself to be the Light of the World (John 8:12), by his attitude before the most diverse situations he encountered in life, by the doctrines that he taught, and by his actions.

In the Sorrowful Mysteries, we meditate on the events of the passion and death of Jesus, from his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane to his last breath on the cross. When we say that Jesus died for our sins, we imply not only that he paid off our debt in full which we are incapable of paying, but also that the sins of those who intervened in his death are still being committed today, and always will till the end of time. For this we can conclude that Jesus was killed by the sins of all humanity.

In the Glorious Mysteries, we meditate on Jesus’ triumph over death by his Resurrection. Death has been conquered once for all just like the sin that caused it. After Jesus’ Resurrection, death is no longer the final destiny of mankind, but rather a passage to eternal life for those who choose him as the way, the truth and the life. Jesus’ life that began with a ‘Yes’ from Mary to God’s plan ends now with the glorification of the one who is for all a model of Christian life.

The Our Father – The Lord’s Prayer, which precedes each mystery, is much more than a simple prayer that the Lord taught us to recite occasionally. It summarizes the most important aspects of the Gospel; it is in this sense an entire pocket Gospel because it contains all we should know and do, the words to live by.

Since it is made up of several unrelated statements, it can be viewed as a “shopping list” that we make in order not to forget the important things that need to be done. As a list, it concerns with the protocol of our relationship with God, that is, how our prayer should be structured: how is God to be addressed, to be praised, and in what ways can we ask for our needs, in what order, and when. Therefore, more than a prayer, it is basically a practical guide on how to pray and live.

The Hail Mary – This prayer is divided into two parts. The first part is biblical and is made up of two greetings, one by the Angel Gabriel and the other by Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth. The second half has its origin in the faith of the Church, it is not known how or when or where it was first used. For this reason, the Hail Mary prayer represents the perfect union between the Bible as the Word of God and the Church as the community of believers.

In an upward movement, the first part which is descended from the Bible, is made up of 5 ladders that ascend to Jesus. In a downward movement, the second part is also made up of 5 ladders that descend to a human reality, our death.

This cannot be understood by our Protestant brothers and sisters, the advocates of the “sola fide sola scriptura solus Christus” because the Scripture, the Word of God described in the first part, is united in a harmonious way with the Tradition, that is, the history of the Christian faith throughout the ages embodied in the second. Jesus who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, and the center of human history is the hinge that unites these two parts.

The Glory Be – It is an invocation of God as One and Triune. One single God in three different persons united in a triangle of love. It is the solution to the dialectic of Greek philosophy between the one and the multiple. This prayer also helps to remind us that made in the image and likeness of God we human beings are also one and triune: we do not exist nor subsist outside the family.

The origin and history of the rosary
As an instrument of prayer, the beads of the rosary have their origin in India, in the third century BC. In Christianity, it was the desert fathers in the third and fourth century who started using this counting instrument for prayers, especially for praying the Our Father.

Furthermore, in the antiquity, the Greeks and the Romans used to crown the statues of their gods with crowns of roses as a way to show their love and gratitude. Perhaps following this tradition the Christian women who were led to martyrdom were dressed to the hilt, wearing on their head a crown of roses, a symbol of their joy and surrender as they made their way to meet Christ the Bridegroom. After their martyrdom, other Christians collected these crowns and prayed, one prayer for each rose, for the souls of the martyrs.

At Fatima, Lucia and Jacinta liked to put flowers in their hair. On the days of the apparitions, the three shepherd children wore their Sunday best as if they were going to Mass; the two girls placed flowers in their hair, especially Jacinta who was photographed wearing a crown of roses on her head for the occasion of the apparitions.

The praying of the Rosary came out from the shadows of the monasteries as the psalter of the laity in the year 800. It was only in 1214, however, that the Church accepted the Rosary in its present form. Tradition says that it was given to the Church by Saint Dominic de Guzman who had in turn received it from the Virgin Mary as a powerful weapon against the enemies of the faith.

The Rosary gained great momentum after the naval battle of Lepanto where Christians defeated the Turks thus eliminating once and for all the danger of Islam subjugating Christianity in Europe. Just before the battle, Pope Pius V bid Christians to pray the Rosary to support the Christian fleet. After the unexpected victory, he instituted the feast day of Our Lady of Victory on the 7th of October, the day of the 1517 battle of Lepanto. This day was later changed to the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Mary’s insistent call to pray the Rosary every day at most of her apparitions, especially those at Fatima, made this practice distinctively Catholic in contrast to the rest of Christendom, the Orthodox and the Protestants.

The way to pray the Rosary
Each day of the week we meditate on a different group of mysteries: on Mondays and Saturdays we meditate on the Joyful Mysteries, on Tuesdays and Fridays the Sorrowful Mysteries, on Wednesdays and Sundays the Glorious Mysteries, and finally Thursdays are reserved for the Luminous Mysteries.

There are several ways of praying the Rosary but for the most part people start praying by making the sign of the cross, followed by the Creed, then one Our Father, three Hail Marys and a Glory Be. After saying these introductory prayers, the first mystery is announced which may or may not be accompanied by a short meditation and then one Our Father and ten Hail Marys follow.

After the tenth Hail Mary in each decade is recited, the Glory Be is prayed followed by several pious small prayers depending on where the Rosary is recited and by whom, and ends with the prayer that Our Lady recommended at Fatima to be prayed after each mystery: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy. Amen”.

For a more complete ending, we add three Hail Marys for the intentions of the Holy Father so that we may be united to all Christendom, represented by him, and ends with the Hail Holy Queen preceded or not, according to the time available, by the Litany of Our Lady.

The importance of the Rosary
The Rosary is at the same time a Marian and a Christ-centered prayer because we repeatedly invoke Mary as Mother of God and our Mother, and ask her to join us in our prayers to the Father as we recite the Our Father and to the Holy Trinity as we pray the Glory Be, and to help us to contemplate the mysteries of the life of her Son, our elder brother and saviour, of whom she is also an integrant part.

At Fatima, as at many Marian apparitions, Mary never draws attention to herself, but rather she exclusively points to her Son. Her joy comes not when we praise her, but when we praise her Son. As the proverb says, “Whoever my son kisses, my lips sweeten”.

One does not love the son without loving the mother, therefore all the love directed to the son is indirectly directed to the mother. Every praise given to the mother is given to the son, as was the case of the woman who in the midst of the crowd, raised her voice and said to Jesus, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ (Luke 11:27)

The Rosary is not a prayer of thanksgiving, nor a prayer of petition, and not even a prayer of lamentation like some of the psalms found in the Bible. The Rosary is fundamentally a prayer of meditation and contemplation. In fact, we announce and enunciate each mystery by saying that in this mystery we contemplate…

It has been told that one day when someone confessed to Pope John XXIII his difficulty in praying the Rosary because he is often distracted by the mechanical and repetitive nature of the Hail Marys, to which the pope replied, ‘What is the purpose of the Rosary but to distract us?’

Being a contemplative prayer, the repetitive recitation of the Hail Marys in the Rosary acts like the mantras in the Buddhist spirituality; they engage the mind by preventing it from jumping from thought to thought, thus enabling the person to contemplate strictly on the mysteries of the Lord’s life. The goal, however, is not to put our attention on each Hail Mary and Our Father that we recite, but to occupy the mind with these prayers as with the mantras and thus surge us into the contemplation of the divine.

The Rosary and Fatima
At the apparitions in Fatima, Our Lady asked the little shepherds to pray the Rosary every day, not just at one or two apparitions, but at all the ones that took place in 1917, as well as those that happened in Tuy and Pontevedra to Sister Lucia alone. Why the Rosary, Lucia had asked Our Lady, because it is a prayer accessible to all, young and old, wise and ignorant alike.

Soon after the apparitions, praying the Rosary became an integral part of the evening prayer routine in a Catholic home. Before or after supper by the warmth of the fireplace the father or mother would lead the prayer, and no child would ask for a bedtime blessing from his parents before saying the Rosary, no matter how tired he was.

The family that prays together stays together. The television, however, like a Trojan horse came to disturb this candor and harmony in the homes and soon the Rosary was replaced by the soap operas. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the divorce rate has increased so drastically.

The little shepherds who already prayed the Rosary before the apparitions, albeit hurriedly, began to pray it as Our Lady wanted. Especially Francisco, to whom the Lady said that he had to pray many Rosaries before he could make it to Heaven.

In effect, the Rosary identified Francisco in his earthly life because there were days when he prayed ten Rosaries a day, and it also identified his bones when his body was exhumed. Among the many corpses that were buried in the same common grave, Mr. Marto, Francisco’s father, identified the bones of his son because clinging to them was the rosary still intact that Francisco used to pray.

Penance and prayer is what Mary asked of us and others at Fatima. The Rosary catapults us into the contemplation of the Mystery of God, above all the Incarnate Word. Therefore, meditating or not, distracted or not, those who profoundly love the Rosary and cannot go one day without praying it are “ipso facto” truly people of prayer.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: Prayer as a way of being a Missionary

Prayer and penance are the spirituality and the heart of the message of Fatima. The main objective of prayer and penance that the Blessed Virgin Mary asked of the little shepherds at Fatima was not to achieve their personal perfection. Our Lady did not exhort the three children to pray and to make sacrifices for their own sanctification.

The spirituality of Fatima is, therefore, not an egocentric spirituality, that is, a set of spiritual practices where the objective is to benefit and perfect the one who practices them; for this reason, it is not comparable to the asceticism of the monks which has sanctification, mysticism and beatific vision as the final goal.  

Quite the opposite, both the prayer and penance that Mary asked of the shepherd children had a concrete and specific goal: the conversion of “the poor sinners” and the reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It is, therefore, an altruistic spirituality.

It is true that through these practices the little shepherds became sanctified, but the practices were not done by the children with the intention to sanctify themselves but to contribute to the spiritual welfare of others. In other words, it was not to save themselves that they did what they did, but rather to save others. In this sense, both their personal prayer and penance are their contribution to the universal mission of salvation.

Even when the children decided not to sin anymore the fundamental reason that led them to do so was not to become saints, a thought that never entered into their minds. It was their great love for God that propelled them to do all that they could not to offend Our Lord further. In other words, even in their avoidance of sin, their objective is altruistic.

Prayer of intercession
Then Abraham came near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it?” (…) “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake”. (Genesis 18:23-26)

Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. (Exodus 17:11)

The two great patriarchs of our faith, Abraham and Moses, experienced the value and the efficacy of intercessory prayer to God for the sake of their people. Later the task of asking God for the well-being of the people was assigned to the priests who were descendants of Aaron. The medieval Christian society was divided into classes, and each class was given a specific task: the nobles defended the clergy and the people, the clergy interceded for the nobles and the people, and the people provided material support for the clergy and the nobles.

Nowadays prayer is not an exclusive task of a particular class of people. Instead, we are all called to pray. Prayer is a means for us to express not only our love for God but also for our neighbours when we pray for them. Prayer can be our answer to God when He asks us where is our brother (Genesis 4:9). Unlike Cain, we ought to see ourselves as guardians of our brother by caring for him, wanting what is good for him, and acting in his favour.  All these are realized not only through deeds but also through prayers as we intercede for him to the One who can do him the most good, more than we can ever do especially in areas beyond our reach.

The Our Father and the Hail Mary prayers, as well as most Christian prayers, never exclude others. Even when we pray them in the privacy of our rooms and in our hearts, others are always there with us because we address ourselves to God in the plural form as a community; and whatever we ask in these and other prayers, we do not ask for ourselves exclusively, but also for the entire community of believers.

Chapter 17 of Saint John's Gospel presents the so-called priestly prayer which happens to be the longest prayer in the entire Bible.  In the second and third part of this prayer, Jesus prays to the Father for his disciples and then for all the believers. The important point of this prayer is the unity among all faithful and it is in this oneness where we are all members of the Mystical Body of Christ that all intercessory prayers rest upon.

The communion of saints is very dear to Catholicism. It consists of solidarity that is established among all the baptized, whether they live in space and time, or beyond in purgatory or in the bosom of God. It is on the basis of this communion that the Portuguese people has a special devotion in praying and offering the Eucharistic sacrifice for the most abandoned souls in purgatory, those who have no one to intercede for them.

When I had already decided not to go and cut my hair today, I began to hear a voice inside of me urgently imploring me to go; the more I ignored it the more insistent the voice became until it turned into an obsession. I gave up then and went. As I entered the shop, the barber surprised me by saying that he was at that very moment praying to the Lord that I would come in today.

“… Prayer is the most effective supplement after traditional medicine, surpassing acupuncture, herbs, vitamins and other alternative remedies.” (Washington Post, March 24, 2006)

It is difficult to quantify the efficacy of prayers. At the apparitions in Fatima, Lucia presented many intentions to Our Lady and she responded that some would be answered while others not. Faced with this reality, we can only say with certainty that it is easier for our requests to be answered if we formulate them than if we don't. However, whether our petitions are answered or not, it is God’s will that is fulfilled not ours; a will which we are called to accept unconditionally, because God is our Father and no one knows better than Him what we really need and what is more beneficial for our salvation.

Matthew 5:44 – Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you – Even enemies cease to be one when we have the courage to pray for them as the Gospels ask us to do. It is in fact something mysterious that we can all experience; the moment we succeed in praying for those who want us harm, our hatred for them ceases.

Francisco and Jacinta the reparators of humanity
In the summer of 1916 while they were playing in Lucia’s backyard, near the well of Arneiro, an Angel appeared and said to them:

--What are you doing? Pray, pray much! The most holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy on you. Offer prayers and sacrifices constantly to the Most High.

With the passage of time, Sister Lucia interpreted this interjection of the Angel not as a reprimand because they were at play, but as a call to something of supreme importance, that is, to prayer. This call to attention must still echo in our hearts because as Christians we get distracted with too many things; very much like Marta in the Gospel, we tend to waste time on less important things… instead of sitting, despite the frenzy of our days, at Our Lord's feet like Mary, the sister of Marta, and fixing our gaze on Him who is all in all.

The little shepherds answered faithfully to the wake-up call of the Angel and again one year later, to the exhortations of Our Lady to pray and offer sacrifices in their daily lives according to their capabilities as the Angel had suggested, for the conversion of sinners. They took upon themselves this task like a mission, and embodied it in accordance to their personality and character.

Jacinta being the emotional one, and without neglecting prayer especially to the Blessed Sacrament or the “Hidden Jesus”, was more drawn to offer sacrifices because she had great pity for sinners and the more she could save the better. Francisco being the most intuitive of the three, without neglecting sacrifice like his sister, was more inclined to prayer; he was especially sensitive to the sadness of Jesus and used to spend hours and hours alone in consoling Him.

Prayer and sacrifice is an inseparable binomial like theory and praxis. To pray without making sacrifices is comparable to that character in the Gospel who says “Lord, Lord”, but does nothing to embody the Word, that is, to put it into practice (Matthew 7:21).

On the other hand, sacrifices without prayer would not be Christian either; therefore, the Blessed Virgin Mary also taught the little shepherds a prayer to go with all the sacrifices that they make: “O my Jesus, it is for love of You, in reparation for the offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for the conversion of poor sinners.”

Using a letter from the post office as an analogy to explain the relationship between sacrifice and prayer: sacrifice is what is written in the letter, prayer is the envelope where the address is written, in this case to God in Heaven.

Francisco the consoler of the Lord
One day Lucia asked Francisco:
--“Francisco, why don’t you tell me to pray with you, and Jacinta too?”
--“I prefer praying by myself,” he answered, “so that I can think and console Our Lord, Who is so sad!”
I asked him one day:
--“Francisco, which do you like better – to console Our Lord, or to convert sinners, so that no more souls will go to hell?”
--“I would rather console Our Lord. Didn’t you notice how sad Our Lady was that last month, when she said that people must not offend Our Lord any more, for He is already much offended? I would like to console Our Lord, and after that convert sinners so that they won’t offend Him anymore.”

Francisco recognized simultaneously the transcendence of God and the jubilation derived from His presence. He confessed: “What I loved the most was to see Our Lord in that light which Our Lady which put in our hearts. I love God so much!” Francisco felt himself “on fire in that light which is God (…)” and affirmed, “What is God? … We could never put it into words!”

It was in this union with God that made him perceive the pain that human offenses cause Jesus. Francisco empathized greatly with Him for “He is so sad” and, for this reason drew from him the touching response, “If I could console Him!” (Cf. Portuguese Episcopal Conference 2017)

Perhaps this will be the most contemplative part of the Fatima message. Francisco was in fact a contemplative, used to separate himself from his companions, and probably would have become a monk had he lived to adulthood. However, the contemplation that made him spend the entire morning day after day in the Church of Fatima praying in front of the Hidden Jesus while Lucia and Jacinta went to school was not to make himself feel good by being in God’s company, but solely to console Jesus who is sad from all the offenses of sinners.

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
… I will take Jacinta and Francisco soon. But you are to stay here some time longer. Jesus wishes to make use of you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” (I promise salvation to those who embrace it, and those souls will be loved by God like flowers placed by me to adorn His Throne).

The cold modern world of technology pays little attention to symbolism. In order to better understand what the Hearts of Jesus and Mary mean, it is helpful for us to enter into the world of poetry. We all know that the expression to wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve means being emotional about certain topic or situation. This is how the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary are presented – as a display of distress and concern for the situation of humanity, so the faithful can see and do something about it.

In the biblical sense and also in the message of Fatima, the heart is not only a pear-shaped muscle that pumps blood throughout the body, but it is also the symbol of the very innermost part of man where thoughts, affections and will all come together.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus – The image of Jesus with his heart in his chest, and sometimes in his hand, is a graphic representation to make it very clear how much Jesus loved the people of his time to the point of suffering and giving his life for them, his friends and all humanity. Devotion to this image has inspired Christianity since the apparitions to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque between 1673 and 1675. These visions are not out of the historical and biblical context if we think that it was really the soldier who pierced Jesus and opened his chest to show us his heart.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary – The image of Mary represented like that of Jesus with the heart in her chest means love, dedication and suffering for her son from conception till death on the cross. Crucified and before giving up his spirit, Jesus gave us his mother to be our mother, thus starting her passion for the brothers and sisters of her son, the whole humanity.

The Virgin Mary communicates to the shepherd children that her son wants to establish this devotion on earth, hence the reason why Lucia were to remain living while Jacinta and Francisco were soon to be taken up to Heaven. This image is also not out of historical and biblical context if we think of old Simeon’s prophecy that a sword will pierce Mary’s soul.

“You can only pay love with love” – The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus like that to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and all other devotions and acts of love to God are not needed by God. It is us who need them, for the fact that it is only when we are open to the love of God that His love produces fruits in our lives.

But as long as we turn our backs on God, His love which never stops will not have any effect in our lives. On the other hand, it is not possible to be at the same time open to the love of God without loving Him, hence why this proverb makes perfect sense that God needs our love to love us. Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. (John 14:23)

The Immaculate Heart of Mary is the mediator of all graces; it was this heart, immaculate for being conceived without sin, that agreed to God’s plan of conceiving His son for the salvation of humanity. By being the mediatrix of the primordial Grace that is Christ, and also in the smaller graces, Mary is always the mediatrix between Heaven and Earth.

For this reason Jacinta was fervently devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, exhorting her cousin Lucia to propagate this devotion, for which reason she was to stay many years on earth:

“It will not be long now before I go to Heaven. You will remain here to make known that God wishes to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. When you are to say this, don’t go and hide. Tell everybody that God grants us graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; that people are to ask her for them; and that the Heart of Jesus wants the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be venerated at His side. Tell them also to pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace since God has entrusted it to her. If I could only put into the hearts of all, the fire that is burning within my own heart, and that makes me love the Hearts of Jesus and Mary so very much!”

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: Personal Sacrifice as a way of being a Missionary

– Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?
– Yes, we are willing!
– Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.

Central theme of the Fatima message
In the first apparition, soon after the presentation and the petition to the little shepherds to be there on the 13th of the following five months, Our Lady asks the children if they want to offer themselves for the salvation of sinners.

Fatima echoes the way the Christian community interprets the death of Jesus who offered himself as the Lamb without blemish to atone for the sins of mankind. Jesus not only gave his life for us by the act of his death, but also his entire earthly life was a life lived for others; he came not to be served but to serve (Mark 10:45). During his life, Jesus fought sin and every kind of evil, and in the end, it was this very sin that killed him. He died not only for our sins, but also for the cause of our sins.

Jesus fought sin analogically the way our body fights sickness. When a virus or harmful bacterium invades and infects our body, a type of white blood cell called neutrophil attaches itself to the germ because proteins called antibodies have marked the germ for destruction. When the neutrophil catches the germ, it engulfs it in a process called phagocytosis, and dies in the process for the sake of saving the entire body. Jesus took on himself the sin of humanity, dying in the process but saving us from eternal damnation.

What Mary asks of the little shepherds is the solidarity and participation in the passion of Christ, in his unique and most perfect act of reparation for the sins of humanity. The participation in the mystery of redemption of Christ with our voluntary sacrifice overcomes passivity and makes us proactive not only in our own salvation but also in the salvation of others.

This central theme of the Fatima message is also the most difficult to comprehend in our days, but just as Mary did in Lourdes when she came to reaffirm the dogma of her Immaculate Conception, in Fatima she comes to reaffirm the theology of expiation and reparation, which for many seems obsolete and retrograde.

Jesus' death is the expiation for the sins of humanity
The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) – It is the order of things that there are no innocuous or neutral acts; whatever does not promote life, leads to death. It is an undeniable truth that what is good promotes life and what is evil leads to death. We see proofs of this in every evil act we commit. As the saying goes, “evil stays with the one who commits it” and chastisement adheres to wicked actions like an attachment of an email.

There are no evil work that we practice that is not followed by a punishment, which does not come from God, but from the very order of things as the logical consequence of the wicked act committed. God forgives always, man sometimes, but nature neither forgives nor forgets. The evil that we do against human nature or Mother Nature will be paid in one way or another, sooner or later, and sometimes quite heavily.

If Jesus of Nazareth was only a prophet and nothing more then his death would have been seen as the death of a just individual. However, if Jesus besides being true man is also true God, then his death can no longer be interpreted or seen as merely a personal event, but rather an event that has repercussion on humanity represented and created by him.  Since Jesus has resurrected, his death served to kill death – that death to which mankind was afflicted.

Jesus died for our sins, in the sense that it was our sins that killed him, but since Jesus did not stay dead but was resurrected, our sins killed themselves instead; his death is, therefore, the end of death resulting from sins.

God cannot deny the order of things that He created; as we have seen above, belonging to this order of things is the fact that with sin comes a penalty and this penalty is death. Without the divine intervention, we would be like a train running without brakes that is headed towards an irreversible mortal destiny.

John 15:5 – Apart from me you can do nothing – If by our own strength we were able to save ourselves, then there was no need for Christ to come into the world. Sin, however, put us in the bottom of a pit with no possibility of getting out; like being stuck in a quicksand, the more desperate we try to get out the deeper we sink, or in the frigid water of a frozen lake, the more we use the ice for support to get out the more it breaks. On our own, we can never get out from sin and evil.

John 1:29 – Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! – John the Baptist who despite being the son of a priest worked outside the temple sacrificial system. He offered forgiveness of sins through a baptismal purification, and pointed to Jesus as the true Lamb of God who came to substitute himself for the sacrificial lambs of the Jerusalem Temple. Only He who has no sin can pay for the sins of others.

The sacrifice of Christ is the perfect sacrifice because he is the priest, the victim, the altar and the Temple where the sacrifice is offered. Even if something else can be found to be perfect, it can never measure up to Christ's sacrifice because only his sacrifice is sufficient to pay for the sins of all humanity, past, present and future.

In the sacrifice of Christ, the justice of God, the natural order of things is satisfied. Someone without the debt of sin pays the price for sin which is death; furthermore, the goodness, grace and love of God is also satisfied because it is not us who pay but His Son.

To join oneself with the sacrifice of Christ
The mystery of solidarity – We tend to work in solidarity or be united in doing evil as well as good. The idea that we all belong to the Mystical Body of Christ is not only pious but also scientific. Human beings come from a common descent; there are ties that unite the entire humanity from its first appearance on Earth. “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, said Neil Armstrong upon stepping for the first time on the moon. It was not the work of a single man, a free entrepreneur, neither in its execution nor in its meaning; in reality, through Armstrong, for him and with him, did mankind arrive on the moon.

Collective spiritual unconsciousness – Freud discovered an instance within our personality called unconsciousness that is made up of what was lived, experienced, repressed, hidden, and forgotten during the first few years of our life when we were not yet aware of ourselves. This material influences our thoughts, feelings and actions in an automatic way that is out of our control; sometimes it comes to consciousness in the form of body language, lapsus linguae or slip of the tongue, and especially in dreams.

Beyond this individual unconsciousness, at a deeper level, Jung, a disciple of Freud, argues that there is a collective unconsciousness. The material that it is made of, no longer has anything to do with one’s individual experiences, but rather with what humanity as a whole experiences.

Each one of our deeds becomes part of a collective “database” in such a way that any individual of the human species is, from birth, capable of doing the most heroic as well as the most heinous and horrific act ever done without being taught. In this way, the individual influences the collective and the collective influences the individual.

The butterfly effect – Small and even miniscule causes can have great effects or consequences. The effects of a major hurricane that is felt here could have been caused by the fluttering of a butterfly thousands of kilometers away, which by disturbing the balance caused the first piece of domino to fall. This also explains the big snow avalanches that bury houses and villages. In human life, there are no innocuous, neutral and inconsequential acts that sooner or later will not have repercussions, positive or negative, on the rest of humanity.

Matthew 16:24 – If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me – Every sacrifice is an immolation of our Ego and everything we do for others is a total altruism which is a sacrifice of the ego. It is only by denying my ego that I can affirm the other, the alter ego. After the sacrifice of Christ, the sacrifices that are pleasing to God are not the gift of something that belongs to me, like the sacrifices of the Old Law, the immolation of lambs and goats, but rather the immolation of my own self.

Tertullian (197 AD) – The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Christians – Through martyrdom, a Christian configures his life to Christ's in an almost absolute way and as a direct path to the Kingdom of God. Furthermore, it is not him alone who gains individually, the Church also gains by his testimony in repeating, renewing and realizing in his life the passion of Christ in the here and now of history. It is above all edifying and encouraging for new Christians, for those who are still in the process of conversion to Christ.

I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church. (Colossians 1:24)

This is the text that has been quoted to give biblical foundation to the practice requested by Our Lady soon at the first apparition, to offer sacrifices for the conversion of sinners. It must be made clear that our sacrifices do not have the redemptive value of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, nor do they increase its effectiveness. Therefore, and in this sense, nothing is lacking in the sacrifice of Christ which is perfect and perfection is not perfectible or cannot be perfected further.

Our individual affliction, our cross, the suffering that life hands us can be lived either with meaning or without meaning. The Christian who in all aspects of life sees in Christ as the way, the truth and the life builds his life in Him, joins his sufferings to His. The apostles became joyous when they began to suffer for Christ. (Acts 5:41)

By joining our sufferings to that of Christ, we give them meaning, so that they become easier to bear, and are put to good use because we give them a redemptive value. The main point is that our sufferings are not wasted if we can join them to the sacrifice of Christ; they are in fact transformed to great value.

Hell is avoided with purgatory
The Angel pointing to the earth with his right hand, cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’ (Third part of the Secret)


These are the words of the Angel with the flaming sword. Our Lady shows the vision of hell to the little shepherds as a possibility in the afterlife and the hell the world had plunged into in the 20th century . The alternative, in order to avoid one or the other, is penance. Hell is avoided with purgatory both in this life as in the next; in fact, in the Catholic tradition, purgatory is between heaven and hell.

Christ atoned for our sins, so we no longer need to atone for them. But if God forgives and forgets, why then do we need purgatory? It is us who do not forgive nor forget, not what others or what we ourselves have done; purgatory is a requirement of our human nature. We see this in the Gospel in the episode of the conversion of Zacchaeus:

Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ (Luke 19:8) Jesus who had already forgiven Zacchaeus did not demand anything from him as a payment for this pardon; what Zacchaeus offered as an atonement came out of his own free will, and as a consequence of his conversion and of having obtained the pardon, and not as a requirement of it.

Mark 1:15 -- “Pænitemini et credite evangelio” Repent and believe in the Gospel – Penance and sacrifice are part of the conversion process, like the desert that mediates between the Egypt of Sin and the Promised Land of Grace. The more pure we walk through this life, the less purgatory we need in the next. Purgatory can be spent here and now. Whether it is done here or in the next life, the blessedness remains valid: Only the pure of heart will see God.

Regarding the nature of the purifying fire, Sister Lucia said years later that it is not any physical fire sustained by any fuel, but rather from the fire of divine love communicated by God to the souls. Hence that perfect act of love, like the example of a martyrdom, takes the person directly to heaven because he is immediately purified of all sins committed up to that point.

Jacinta the good shepherdess
One day on her way back, she walked along in the middle of the flock.
-    “Jacinta, what are you doing there,” I asked her, “in the middle of the sheep?”
-    “I want to do the same as Our Lord in that holy picture they gave me. He’s just like this, right in the middle of them all, and He’s holding one of them in His arms.”

Jacinta embodies the sacrificial aspect of the message of Fatima. She in her own fashion imitates Jesus the Good Shepherd who cares and seeks for the lost sheep and afterward carries it on his shoulders back to the sheepfold. Jacinta offered many sacrifices for sinners during the three years following the apparitions. And when, already bedridden and living her passion, Our Lady asked her if she still wanted to suffer more for the conversion of more sinners, she readily answered ‘yes’. Like Christ the Good Shepherd, she, the little shepherdess, also gave her life for the sheep of the Lord.

The vision of hell affected Jacinta so much that even when she was at play she would not stop questioning Lucia, And if people pray very much for sinners, won’t Our Lord get them out of there? And if they make sacrifices as well? Poor sinners! We have to pray and make many sacrifices for them!”

The expression, poor sinners, was coined in Fatima; whenever one speaks of sinners in the message of Fatima, the sinners are referred to as poor which has the same affectionate meaning as “poor things” that Jacinta often used to say.

Jacinta, the most sentimental of the three, is the one who best mirrors God’s mercy and loving solicitude for sinners that run throughout the two Testaments of the Bible: Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather that they should turn from their ways and live? (Ezekiel 18:23).

In Jesus of Nazareth, the mercy of God becomes flesh in concrete actions. Unlike the Pharisees who criticized and fled from sinners fearing their contamination, Jesus sought their company, touched them, healed them, ate with them, and finally gave his life for them as an immolated victim being eaten in the Eucharist and on the cross with his body handed over and blood spilled.

The little shepherds, especially Jacinta in her short life and Lucia in her long life, understood and joined their sacrifices to the passion of Christ by echoing it, by giving them a meaning and a usefulness, to update or underline in the here and now the passion of Christ, the redemption of humanity.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: The Prayers of Our Lady

The three little shepherds of Fatima learned three prayers from the Blessed Virgin Mary that are simple, easy to remember and in a way, contain in themselves the entire message of Fatima. By praying them in our hearts or liturgically in community, they act as a sacrament of the Fatima message. In other words, by reciting them, we are reminded and exhorted to live by the message of Fatima that is internally contained in these prayers.

The first prayer given by Our Lady, after the apparitions of the angel, refers once again to the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. In fact, the apparitions at Fatima start with the Trinity and end with the Trinity. Mary reveals to the little shepherds God's identity, one divine nature in three distinct persons. Unlike the two other prayers, this one is not taught directly by Our Lady but is inspired by the Holy Spirit and recited automatically by the children before her.

The second prayer is a sacrificial prayer, that is, a practical application of the second part of the message of Fatima about penance, and in the context of this message, it means the offering of ourselves for others, for the conversion of sinners.

The third prayer is the most universally known because it is recited by Catholics when they pray the Rosary as it is said after each mystery. It asks for the universal salvation, especially for those who are in most need of it.

1st Prayer: Communicated to the seers by an interior impulse
…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. Then, moved by an interior impulse that was communicated to us, we fell on our knees, repeating in our hearts:

“O Most Holy Trinity, I adore You! My God, my God, I love You in the most Blessed Sacrament!”

And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ (Galatians 4:6) – The children saw themselves in God, and in Him they saw at the same time His identity as being One and Three and their own identity as little shepherds, God’s beloved children. Flooded by the light of God, they were guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit who, as Paul says to the Galatians, the hearts of the three children cried, “Abba, Father – O Most Holy Trinity…” And again like Apostle Paul says, “It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” (Romans 8:16)

At that moment, at the beginning of the first apparition, the little shepherds had a beatific vision of God as One and Three and they themselves were inside this light as adoptive children of God the Father. At the top of the mountain in the Serra de Aire, at that moment of transfiguration, we cannot forget that the three were mere children and that on analyzing the character and personality of each, we realize that they each belong to a different center; Lucia is cerebral, Jacinta is emotional and Francisco is visceral or instinctive. By this, we can deduce that in this encounter the human trinity encounters the Divine Trinity; that is, the human nature in the three basic personalities in which it exists connects with the One divine nature existing in the Three Persons.

This prayer is at the same time trinitarian and eucharistic, and it is as impressive as the beatific vision that the little shepherds felt immersed in the light that is God. It moves them immediately into adoration, to the love of the most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, that is, from the celestial revelation they arrive at the historic incarnation of God two thousand years ago in Jesus of Nazareth, and in his sacramental presence in the consecrated host in the here and now of our lives.

Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? (John 14:8-9)

This first prayer implies that in the adoration of the most Blessed Sacrament we also adore the most Holy Trinity. Whoever sees Jesus sees the Father, and whoever loves the Son loves the Father. The Christian prayer is therefore always a trinitarian prayer. The most Blessed Sacrament is not only the representation of the sacrifice of the Son, but also of the Father who sent the Son and offered him up, as is popularly depicted in the image of God the Father and the Holy Spirit represented by the dove, behind the cross on which Christ is crucified.

2nd Prayer: O Jesus, it is for love of You
--Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times to Jesus, especially whenever you make some sacrifice:
“O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”  As she spoke these words, she opened her hands once more, as she had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire.

Penance and prayer are the summary of the Fatima message. We have already touched on the theme of prayer concentrated in the trinitarian and eucharistic prayer above, we now speak of penance, the second part of the Fatima message, which with prayer is mentioned in all the apparitions. Like Jesus gave his life for his friends, and like Jesus offered himself for the salvation of the world, Our Lady asks the little shepherds if they want to join themselves to the sacrifice of her Son, and make themselves in this year of 1917 echo the sacrifice that took place almost two thousand years ago. The children readily answer yes.

This second prayer is an unusual prayer because it is subtly insightful. It is not a contemplative prayer like the one we have already mentioned, but is a prayer that comes from practical application, it implies by way of practice a prayer to be recited exclusively after this praxis. In this sense, it is not a prayer prescribed for everyone and in every situation, but only for some and only after a concrete practice.

The Lady said that this prayer is to be recited before, during and after each sacrifice offered. This being so, the prayer  is in itself a sort of magic wand that transforms an everyday misfortune of life into a sacrifice offered to God. This prayer gives an added value, an increased worth, a benefit in the vicissitudes of everyday life by giving them a meaning, a motivation. It transforms every single one of our sufferings into an act of embracing the cross of Christ for the good of humanity.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

For this reason, this prayer is not a worship or a liturgy; it is not to be recited in Church or in the context of an intimate union with the Lord. It is, however, a prayer recited during life and for life. It is an exhortation to embrace each setback in life, transforming it with and through this prayer into a “sacrifice pleasing to God”; it is also a practical application of the Scripture verse quoted above.

To suffer for a reason and a cause cost a lot less than to suffer for no purpose. Therefore by offering ourselves to God the sacrifices that life hands to us, we end up suffering less. We find comfort in the same sacrifice when we know that it will bring good to someone else.

After committing themselves to Mary, to offer themselves to God in bearing all the sufferings and misfortunes inherent in life, and especially those resulting from bearing witness to the echo of the Gospel at Fatima, the little shepherds lost no opportunity to sacrifice themselves for the conversion of sinners.

In fact, if one would forget to do so, the other would remember, as it happened in the prison of Ourém when soon after reciting the Rosary, Jacinta went over to the window, and started crying again.
“Jacinta,” I (Lucia) asked, “don’t you want to offer this sacrifice to Our Lord?”
“Yes, I do, but I keep thinking about my mother, and I can’t help crying.”

…We are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ – if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:16-17)

Like Saint Paul says, if we are sons then we are brothers of the Lord and co-heirs of the eternal inheritance. If we share in the glory of the Lord, we also must share the path that led Christ to his glory, the suffering. Like in all friendships, it is necessary to be there through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, in sadness and in joy. “He who obliges himself to love, obliges himself to suffer”, says the proverb.

3rd Prayer: O my Jesus, forgive us…
When we pray the Rosary, we say after each mystery: O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy.

Lastly, the prayer that Virgin Mary told us to include after each mystery while praying the Rosary. This third prayer was preceded by the vision of hell that the little shepherds saw at the July 13th apparition which must remain in our consciousness as a possibility of condemnation.

… forgive us our sins – The Bible tells us that a just man sins seven times a day, which is another way of saying that no one is just before God. We are all sinners, and the one who claims to have no sin is a liar, as the good book says. So whenever we come before God without a sin that needs to be forgiven, it does not mean we have not sinned, it simply means that our moral consciousness is not doing its duty of accusing us and pinpointing our shortcomings.

… save us from the fires of hell – Only God has the power to save us from eternal damnation and He has done it freely through the death of His son. In the picture of hell as a sea of fire, the Blessed Virgin Mary considers the view and image the children have of it, following the Thomist principle: Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur - Whatever is received, is received according to the capacity of the receiver.

The way we understand hell, however, is not as an eternal torture like the sea of fire seems to suggest but as an eternal death and a return to nothingness for those whose lives amounted to nothing, and who believe that there is nothing after death.

… lead all souls to Heaven – As always in the message of Fatima, we cannot be concerned only with our own salvation, but also of others. The spirituality of Fatima is not about personal perfection but about caring for those who live a life that is wrong and is leading to nowhere. This being so, the spirituality of Fatima is a missionary spirituality and that's why we pray that all are saved.

The same Thomist principle also applies here as we believe in the resurrection of the body, not just of the soul. Despite the biblical anthropology not being dualistic, most, if not all, prayers of the Church’s liturgies portray human nature as body and soul thus following the Greek anthropology.

… especially those most in need of Thy mercy - especially those who are the furthest away from salvation; what has been always a major concern of Jesus, 'I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.' (Luke 5:32)

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: The Prayers Taught by the Angel

During the course of the apparitions, in addition to the insistent exhortation of Our Lady to pray the Rosary and to observe the devotion of the Five First Saturdays,  the children also learned prayers that summarize and illustrate all the aspects of the message of Fatima. Through these prayers the message of Fatima passes from doctrine to spiritual practice when prayed in private, and to liturgy when prayed in community.

Taught by the Angel and the Lady to the three children, these prayers are now part of a prayer tradition, at least in the Portuguese churches, that stresses the worship of God, in particular His Eucharistic Presence, and the commitment of the believers to be available to the redemptive mission of Christ.

Despite being taught by both the Angel and Our Lady, the content of the prayers is not Marian in nature, but rather refers to the mystery of God and the redemption of humanity. Our Lady in Fatima reveals in this way what is her true role and place in the history of salvation: pointing to men the ways of God while referring to God the needs of men. There are five prayers of Fatima, two taught by the Angel and three by Our Lady, and as we have said before, none of them are directed to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Fatima is doctrinally the most complete of all Marian apparitions because it touches upon the main points of Catholic theology: the mystery of the Holy Trinity which already appeared in the apparitions of the Angel, the Eucharist, prayers, penance, reparation, the eschatology, the pontifical ministry, the communion of saints etc...

"O my God, I believe"
O my God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love You! I ask pardon of You for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love You.

It is a simple and humble and yet complete prayer.  It is an invitation to all Christians to live the three dimensions of human time – Past, Present and Future – by drawing inspiration from the three theological virtues – Faith, Hope and Charity. Human life runs exclusively in the present; a present that needs to be full of Charity that has to be inspired by the Faith of our fathers in the past, in order to become the Hope that propels us to a future without fear or anxiety.

The virtue of Faith: “I Believe” – Faith is a philosophical rock that makes us see life and reality through different lenses. Faith is a step that we take beyond what is rational and reasonable; it is a risk, a decision, a fundamental option. It is the key that opens the door to salvation. The salvation that means being in Heaven in the eternal future, but in the present time, in the here and now, means peace, happiness and well-being -- physical, spiritual, psychological and moral.

The virtue of Hope: “I Hope” – The theological virtue of Hope is the faith projected into the future that gives a sense of security in the present moment. Christians do not need sedatives because they do not have anxiety; perfectly anchored in the faith of our fathers that in the here and now becomes charity towards God and neighbour. “No debt, no fear” says the proverb; Christians are not fearful because they are not indebted to anyone, not to God nor to men...

Faith also assures Christians that regardless of how good or bad things are at the present moment, everything is transient and that their story is one with a happy ending. This happy ending is already secured by the death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. If we have the faith that allows us to believe that the very hairs of our heads are all numbered, as the Gospel says, then we live with the certainty that even if in the present moment there may be suffering and anguish, the best is yet to come, and our story will in the end have a happy ending. As such, fear and anxiety disappear, and the ups and downs of our lives are lived in hope and faith in the divine providence and not in fear.

“In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph” – The little shepherds lived in this faith and in this hope, especially true of Lucia who knew that very soon after the apparitions she would lose the company of her cousins. When she realized that she was going to be alone in the world Lucia must have felt a great sadness, which prompted the Lady to ask: “Do you suffer a lot because of that?”  Then by way of consolation and comfort she added, “My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God” or to Heaven, which is where the Lady had told her right at the first apparition that she and her cousins, Jacinta and Francisco, would go.

The virtue of Charity: I Adore… and I Love You – We live only in the present, however, inspired by the past and confident in the future. The present time of our lives must be full of charity. Charity or love can only be lived in the present moment. “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today” since good intentions never saved anyone, not even ourselves. Charity cannot be a future project but must be a present moment act. Charity cannot be put off.

I adore – The present moment should be full of love for God. This is achieved by finding the time and seeking a place to be with Him, like Jesus often did and like Francisco of Fatima used to do by isolating himself from his companions, behind some rock or bush, or spending school time in church consoling the Hidden Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

I love You – When we love God with our whole heart like the Father loves us, we look at others with different eyes; they are no longer our enemies or rivals whom we fear or envy, but rather our brothers and sisters for whom we wish all the good in the world. In this sense, the love of God does not exist without the love of neighbour and vice versa, that is why for Jesus the two are part of a single commandment of love.

Missionary Fatima – “I ask pardon of You” – In addition to exhorting Christians to live by the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity, this prayer also makes it very clear that a Christian does not live for himself, not even to attain personal perfection. A Christian lives for others who are always an integral part of his personal life. Hence, he is concerned about them like Jesus was, who came for the sick not the healthy, and did not rebuke the unrighteous and the sinners, but welcomed them with mercy; as Jacinta was often heard to say, “Poor poor sinners…”

I ask pardon of You – because I did not evangelize, because I did not go outside of my comfort zone, because I live with doors closed from the inside making my faith a secret to take to my grave. Like Karl Rahner used to say, God in His infinite mercy will save those who without fault of their own, have not heard of Him, did not know Him and, for this reason, did not have the chance to personally encounter Christ; but will He save those who had the duty to go and speak to others about Him and to make Him known but did not?

In this sense Fatima is truly missionary, not only for being a call to evangelization, but also to compel Christians to consider themselves as sinners for not being missionaries, and therefore to ask forgiveness for their inaction, for leading others not to believe, to hope and to love. This guilty feeling should lead Christians to echo in their consciences the words of Saint Paul, the greatest evangelizer of all times: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16)

I ask pardon of You – not only because I did not evangelize, but I have even scandalized; not only was I not a step to help others to be edified and to rise up to You, but I was a scandal, a stumbling block, a hindrance that prevented others from knowing You.

In the story of my vocation like all other stories of vocations, it was the personal encounter with a person who incarnated this specific vocation that led me to want to be like him. This was true then as it is true now and will be true always concerning evangelization. In the first instance, the encounter with Christ is never an encounter with his doctrine, or even his word, but rather an encounter with one of his followers, or with those who embody his word and his doctrine.

The encounters with those who claim to be Christians are never neutral; if their attitudes, words and deeds correspond to who they say they are, then even without knowing it one is already evangelized. If, on the other hand, there is no correlation between who they say they are and how they live, not only do they not evangelize, but they also scandalize and traumatize others from becoming Christians.

In every sense and in all circumstances, the first impression is extremely important. The way we live and our behaviour will either attract and uplift or repel and scandalize.

Most Holy Trinity
 Oh Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore you profoundly. I offer you the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of you the conversion of poor sinners.

The Gospel according to St. John has a prologue which summarizes, focuses and interprets beforehand all the teachings of Jesus of whom he speaks subsequently. Similarly, this prayer is in some way an “overture”, an introduction to the message that the Virgin will speak to the children. Everything that she will communicate piece by piece, is already condensed here in this prayer that the Angel taught the children and implored them to pray with him.

Oh Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – With the construction of the Basilica of Most Holy Trinity, Fatima became complete architecturally. It now has an architecture that is a topographic expression of the message of Fatima concentrated in this prayer of invocation of the Most Holy Trinity.

The Basilica of Most Holy Trinity is a circular structure symbolizing the eternity of God. The main entrance of the Enclosure corresponds to the site of the first proclamation of the Angel which occurred a year before Our Lady appeared. To the right we have the sacrifice of Christ, who opened the door of salvation to humanity, commonly called the High Cross.

At the center of the Enclosure, like the center of human history, is the golden Jesus, our life and our hope, alive and resurrected to bless the world just like how the children saw him at the last apparition. To the left is the place of the apparition of Our Lady, always by the side of Jesus her son as she was at his feet in the manger and at the cross.

The little Chapel and the golden Christ are at the lowest level of the Enclosure, we then climb a steep incline towards the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary. The basilica has a tower pointing to the sky in the form of Our Lady of Fatima as she is crowned with a golden crown of glory, the very same Mary who always waits for each and every one of her children if we take her advice given at the wedding feast of Cana: “Do whatever He tells you”.

In conclusion, a year before the Lady appeared, the Angel who introduced himself as the Angel of Peace and the Angel of Portugal, taught the little shepherds a prayer evocative of the identity of the One who will reveal Himself later through His mother, the Queen of Heaven and Earth and of Portugal.

I adore you profoundly – To adore means to submit to Him all my being and to have nothing in me that opposes His will and design. It is a deep form of worship, because it sprouts from the roots of my being where I recognize that my origin is in God, and as the Psalm 87 says, "...all my fountains are in you". In other words, “From the very depths of my being, all my springs come from you”, says the psalmist. To adore is to surrender oneself; by adoring God there is nothing in us that is opposed to His will and His designs that He has for us.

I offer you the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world – This is not intended to remind God of the salvific act of Christ, that is, of laying down his life for his friends. But rather, it is meant to stir up our memory, because like the Jewish people in the desert, our tendency is to quickly forget all the miracles and the wonders that the Lord has done for us. The tabernacle is the sacrament, the remembrance of graces received as well as the reservoir of graces to receive if we abide in Him. This prayer is, therefore, a call to communion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord like the Eucharistic Adoration.

… in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. – This Eucharistic Adoration echoes in us and in the entire world that supreme act of love of God for humanity two thousand years ago.  That our love and firm adherence to the salvific mystery of Christ counterbalance the outrages and the sacrileges that are the manifestations of hatred and enemies of Christ.

But worse than all this is the indifference, the lack of love, the apathy. It is said that indifference is much worse than hatred. This indifference is translated in post-modern times as the new form of atheism called agnosticism: the I-don’t-want-to-know, I-don’t-care attitudes, or living as if God did not exist. It is to be, to act, to live apathetically to His love for us, to turn our backs on Him. Whoever hates now, has probably loved before and may be able to love again, but whoever is indifferent never loved and most probably will never come to love.

And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of you the conversion of poor sinners – By bringing to mind the merits of Christ and of Mary his mother, we recall our lack of merits by which as in the first prayer taught by the Angel, we ask for the conversion of sinners and forgiveness for our lack of commitment to this conversion.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: The Third Part of the Secret in light of the prophecy of Jonas

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.  (Apparition on July 13, 1917)

The content of the third part of the secret, which kept the world in “suspense” for decades, was somehow already known to the public as it was implied in the words of the Lady at the July 13th apparition regarding Russia. It was like one of those well-hidden treasures because it was in a place where no one would think to look or where people least expect to find.

The third secret as it was called is the third part of the one single secret, and is nothing but a symbolic illustration of the words of Our Lady in the event that Russia is not consecrated to her Immaculate Heart. All that the secret says has already happened, up to the day when Russia was indeed consecrated.

The prophecy of Jonas
Since the secret of Fatima is fundamentally a prophecy, any prophet in the Old Testament can provide us with a key to its hermeneutical interpretation. Among all the prophets, we choose Jonas because it is him, more than all the others, who gives a clear example of what in essence is a prophecy, and what function it fulfills within the revealed word.

As we know, after some reluctance and even a show of defiance, Jonas sent by God went to Nineveh with the prophecy that the city will be destroyed if the people did not repent and convert. Since the destruction of the city was precisely what Jonas was hoping for, we can imagine the total lack of conviction with which he must have preached during the three days that took him to travel through the city. And yet against all odds the people converted and the city was not destroyed.

The prophecy of Fatima
After the two parts which I have already explained, we saw at the left of Our Lady and a little above, 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 Or 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!’ First scene of the third part of the secret.

Let us now examine each of the images that makes up the third part of the prophecy:

The Angel with a flaming sword ready to strike – This represents the final judgment, the possibility of being condemned in the case if one does not convert. Like the suspended sword of Damocles, it is a fatality that can happen. Do recall Joshua’s discourse in the book of Deuteronomy (30:15), “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity”. The possibility of reducing the world into a mound of ashes is no longer a fiction but a sober reality. Since the modern man is the lord of his own destiny, it is him therefore who has forged the most destructive sword, the atomic bomb.

Penance, Penance, Penance! – The purpose of the vision is not to show what will inevitably happen in the future but rather what can happen, and the ways to prevent it from happening. It is therefore a staunch warning. If the intention of this prophecy was to reveal the irreversible fate of the world, it makes no sense that the Angel would cry ‘penance’ three times, as if this would somehow prevent this disaster. Nor would it make sense for this or any other prophecy if there were no ways to avoid the fate. No one is really interested in knowing the day or the hour or the way he will die; and God would be a sadist if he were to reveal it.

At the left side of Our Lady – The vision shows us the power opposed to destruction, represented by the resplendent image of Virgin Mary to the right of the Angel. Therefore, on one side representing Death is the Angel with the sword ready to strike, and on the other is Our Lady representing Life. The vision calls to our freedom to choose. That is, what we will see in the next scene is not a future that is irreversible, that cannot be changed and will happen as described, but rather the contrary, the image of a future that can be prevented and, therefore, will not happen if we do what the Angel advises.

The intent of the vision is not to show on film a future irrevocably fixed, but rather to orient, enlighten and guide our freedom, and our energies and resources in the opposite direction so to avoid this disaster. Just like the preaching on the destruction of the city of Nineveh led its people to do penance, so is the purpose of this vision.

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, religious men and women 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, religious men and women, 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. Second scene of the third part of the secret. 

The city represents human history, and the mountain is the path going up to the cross, the redemption for all humanity. The Holy Father, bishops, priests, religious men and women, and lay people going up the mountain represents the Church in the history of mankind, on its ascent towards Heaven. It is the history of salvation inserted in the history of humanity.

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 – This is a clear reference to the book of Revelation (7:14), ‘these are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’. All who are washed by the blood of the martyrs are saved, inasmuch that this blood, as has always been said, is the seed of Christians.

… he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way – The walk-through history towards Christ, represented by the cross, is slow, and on the way some fall victims to evil. In particular, the vision represents the sacred path of a century of persecution and death that Nazism, Fascism, and especially militant atheism brought to the believers. In this vision, the Pope is shot and killed like many martyrs.

After the assassination attempt on his life on May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II while still convalescing in his hospital bed at the Gemelli Polyclinic, asked for the sealed letter containing the secret to be brought to him. It was inevitable that in it he would see his own destiny, and a future that did not happen by a whisker. And it did not happen because Mary did not want it to happen; in the words of the Pope, she deflected the bullet that passed only a few millimeters from his vital organs. It is again clear that the future is not unchangeable, and that faith, penance and prayer can influence history, and that ultimately prayer is more powerful than bullets, and faith that can move mountains is more powerful than the destructive power of armies.

We can now understand the affliction of poor Jacinta who saw all this in her visions without knowing what would be the final outcome. It is true that she did what the Angel in the same vision advised everyone to do, that is, penance and prayer. Somehow she also knew that this dark future, even the death of the pope which was certain in the vision, could be prevented with her own personal penance and prayer. This was the reason why she never ceased to pray for the Holy Father. If Jacinta was certain that the future seen in the vision could not be avoided, she would not have prayed so fervently for the pope like she did the rest of her life.

During a meeting that Sister Lucia had with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, on April 27, 2000, she stated that she fully agrees with this official interpretation of the Church, according to which the third part of the secret is a prophetic vision similar to those found in the Bible, which consists of the persecution of the Church and the believers by the militant atheism inspired and promulgated by Russia throughout the 20th century.

This is also in line with the personal interpretation of Pope John Paul II: It was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path and the Holy Father in his throes to halt at the threshold of death. Lucia continues: We did not know the name of the Pope. Our Lady did not say the name of the Pope. We didn’t know if it was Benedict XV, Pius XII, Paul VI or John Paul II, but it was the Pope who was suffering and that made us suffer too… especially Jacinta who has said many times: Poor Holy Father! We must pray very much for him.

Already, but not yet…
The events to which the third part of the “secret” of Fatima refers now seem part of the past.  Cardinal Sodano

The Kingdom of Heaven is already in the midst of us, but not yet in all its fullness and glory, says theology with respect to the Kingdom of God and its presence in the history of mankind. Inspired by Cardinal Sodano, as well as the then prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the faith, Cardinal Ratzinger, we can say, on one hand, that this third part of the secret, like the first two parts, is already history, contrary to the prophets that were the doomsday lovers of apocalypse and conspiracy theories, .

On the other hand, however, unlike the first two parts of the secret which targeted concrete things that cannot happen again, the third part of the secret is less precise and is fully achievable in time and space, and seems to appeal to an archetype that has been repeated, continuously repeats itself and can be repeated. The Angel with the flaming sword is still there; the human freedom exhorted to choose between the way of life and goodness, and of death and evil will always be there; an active and progressive Church in a hostile world and the martyrdom of some of her members is a reality that repeats itself in all times and places.

In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph…
I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world! (John 16:33)

A heart that is open to God, purified by penance and prayer, is stronger than any kind of weapons and armies. It was the heart of Mary, purified from original sin at the moment of her conception, and committed at the annunciation of the Angel to God’s plan of salvation of man, that brought the redeemer to mankind. The seed of this Kingdom is already present in the midst of us since the coming of Christ over two thousand years ago. When our hearts are purified like that of Mary's, we also give birth to Christ by the way we are, and our way of living and acting, and in so doing, we make him present in our time and place, with all his power of health, peace, and love among men.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC