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