Fatima: How did it "impose" itself on the Church?

On the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the 

apparitions, May 13, 1967, after the mass, the crowd 

cried out to Pope Paul VI. “We want to see Lucia!”.

«It is not the Church that imposed Fatima on the faithful, it is Fatima that imposed itself on the Church», by Cardinal Cerejeira in 1943

The Church does not and would never declare Fatima with the infallibility of a dogma. What took place there occurred in an intermediate domain between the natural and the supernatural. Therefore, as everything related to matters of faith, it cannot be proven in a fully convincing manner to rational thinking just as it cannot be refuted. The Church confines herself to declaring that whatever happened in Fatima can be accepted with a reasonable certainty. It is plausible because faith can never be rational or rationalised; it must, however, always be reasonable.

Fatima took a long and arduous road to be accepted by the ecclesiastical authorities and tolerated by the ruling power. A road where, certainly more than once, God intervened in order not to be ignored. Yes God, because the three little shepherds were not at all passionate in defending their testimony. On the contrary, in some way or so it seems from the numerous cross-examinations that it mattered very little to them whether or not they were believed.

Voice of the people, voice of God
People continue to flock to Fatima on the 13th of each month by the hundreds of thousands even after the death of Francisco in 1919 and of Jacinta in 1920. This despite being ridiculed by the secular newspapers and hampered by the civil authorities and even after the original chapel was bombed in 1921 by the Freemasons.

Because Jacinta was not able to keep the May 13th apparition a secret as she had promised Lucia, the children were no longer alone during the remaining five apparitions occurring on the 13th of each month, ending in October. On June 13th, fifty people were with them and on July 13th, around three thousand were there surrounding the little shepherds. On the 13th of August despite the seers been thrown into prison, some 18,000 people gathered at the place of the apparitions; in that month, the seers saw the Lady on the 19th at another place after they were released from jail. On the 13th of September, a sizeable crowd of 30,000 people were present and finally, on the 13th of October, the day of the last apparition, up to 70,000 witnessed the miracle that was announced well in advance, just as the Lady had promised Lucia three months before on July 13th.

It was not just faith that led the masses of people to Cova da Iria from the second appearance onwards, but also the participation and preparation just prior to each apparition that always began with the praying of the Rosary led by Lucia. It is true that only the seers saw Our Lady. Among them, only Lucia could converse with her, but the rest of the people could sense or hear something...

All of them were unanimous in declaring that at the solar midday of every 13th of the month, including August when the children were absent because they were detained by authorities, the sunlight intensity was lowered, a breeze of fresh air could be felt and a small cloud would descend on the holm oak where the little shepherds said that Our Lady stood.

During the course of the apparitions, everyone could see Lucy in ecstasy and heard her speak; in answer to her questions, they could hear a noise similar to a "buzz of bees". Lucia always gave a warning when the vision ended and the moment when the Lady was withdrawing to the East from where she would always come.

One day Jacinta cut a sprig of the holm oak on which Our Lady had stood and everyone who smelled it experienced a delightful unknown scent. Finally, the Miracle of the Sun sealed in the people’s minds the authenticity of Fatima which since then is visited by the hundreds of thousands and even millions of faithful.

"Voice of the people, voice of God". - Who promoted and defended Fatima, imposing it on a perplexed Church and prevailing against the insidious attacks of the atheistic, anticlerical and freemasonry republicanism, were the common people.  They started flocking to Fatima by the thousands from the very beginning. Without the people, Fatima would have been ignored and long forgotten. The paradigm of the Bible that the ignorant confuse the sages is once again verified. (Matthew 11: 25)

Those who argue, without any proof, that it was the Church who invented Fatima, ignore the historical documentation that proves precisely the contrary. Fatima was not approved until 1930, after 13 long years of careful and thorough investigation. The initial reluctance of the Church in relation to Fatima is notorious as shown by the testimony of Fr. Lacerda, the director of a newspaper of that time called "the Messenger", about the parish priest of Fatima:

As a last bit of enlightenment, I have to say that the parish priest of Fatima, my friend Fr. Manuel Marques Ferreira, was kept oblivious of everything, making sure to never go to the Cova da Iria on the days of the apparitions. Finally, he gave in to peer pressure and went there only on the last day.

Speaking still about the parish priest of Fatima, Mr. Marto, the father of Francisco and Jacinta who unlike Lucia’s mother was the first to believe in the testimony of his children, stated that the parish priest doesn’t believe nor does he allow anyone to believe. The incredulity of the parish priest influenced and partly explains the refusal of Mrs. Maria Rosa, Lucia’s mother, to admit until almost at the end of her life the grace that the Blessed Virgin had granted her daughter. She had in fact given Lucia a very hard time regarding her testimony of the apparitions.

It was the people who ran to the Cova da Iria by the thousands who kept the flame of Fatima alive to compel the civil authorities to respect it and the ecclesiastical authority to take a positive stand. That took place on May 13, 1922, the day when Dom José Alves Correia da Silva, bishop of Leiria, published the “Provision on the events of Fatima”.

It summarizes the events that took place in Fatima in recent years, pointing out precisely the massive public support despite the persecution of the civil authorities and the aloofness of the religious authorities and appointing a commission to study the extraordinary occurrences according to the canon laws.

It also calls on the faithful of his and other dioceses to “give account of everything you know either in favor or against the apparitions or extraordinary facts, to say with respect to them, and to testify especially whether in them there was or is any exploitation, superstition, doctrines or damaging things against our Holy Religion.” 

How were the apparitions seen by the authorities
Again, those who say that Fatima was invented by the Church do not have the documents to prove their slanders and surely have not read the Critical Documentation of Fatima which describes:

It is not plausible that three children of such tender ages, (…) rude and ignorant, lying and persisting in lies for so many months, despite been harassed with questions and interrogations (…) and threatened by representatives of ecclesiastical and civil authority (…) No fear is capable of deterring them from affirming that they see Our Lady (…) The naturalness and frankness with which they express themselves, the simplicity and candor with which they present themselves, the indifference and disinterest that they show as to whether or not they are credible. – Critical documentation of Fatima

This is the conclusion reached by the Canon Fr. Manuel Nunes Formigão after countless interrogations carried out by himself, his friend Fr. Manuel Marques Ferreira the parish priest of Aljustrel and Fatima at the time, and a countless number of other clerics. They were critical and sometimes even sarcastic but never abusive in their cross-examinations of the children seers, although at times would drive them to exhaustion, especially right after the miracle of the sun.

Much more condescending were the civil authorities, as they went to the extreme of submitting the children to psychological torture. They kidnapped them and threatened to throw them into a huge pot of boiling oil that was waiting for them in the next room unless they recanted their testimony. The first to be questioned was Jacinta, followed by Francisco and then Lucia. One by one all three entered the dreadful room certain that they would be fried. Francisco thinking that his beloved sister was already dead, and Lucia thinking that her dear friends and cousins were already in heaven as the Lady had promised that she would take them soon.

Adding to this torture was the constant pressure from the people; some tried to cajole and bribe the children out of their secret while others made fun of them. It was almost impossible that anyone let alone three young children could withstand so much badgering and harassment if what they declared was just a lie and the apparitions were only make-believe. Because of the threats and fearing the worse, Jacinta's parents thought of taking the children away from Fatima, but the children refused saying, “If they kill us, it's okay! We will go to heaven more quickly!"

On the 13th of October a large crowd was expected because Lucia had said since the July 13th apparition that the Lady was going to perform a miracle for everyone to believe. As the day approached, the fear and pressure on the seers’ families mounted; so unbearable it became that Lucy's mother early in the morning of October 13th suggested that she and her daughter should go to confession in case the miracle does not happen and the mob kill them all.

Calmly and self-assuredly Lucia consoled her mother by saying that if she wanted they could indeed go to confession, but she was sure that the Lady would perform the miracle because not only had she promised that she would, but she had also restated the promise at the August and September apparitions.

Alone and against all odds, only the divine providence mattered to them, because even their closest families especially those of Lucia contributed to their suffering for considering them liars. They were certainly willing to pay with their lives for the testimony that they gave because they not only proclaimed the message of Our Lady as their own but also incarnated it in their lives. (…) they will arrest you and persecute you; (…) putting you into prisons. (…) This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. (Luke 21:12-15)

On one hand, the strategies followed by the civil authority to discredit and silence the children and prevent them and the people from going back to Cova da Iria, the place of the apparitions.

On the other hand, the rigorous process that was followed by the ecclesiastical authority that in addition to the interrogations and cross-examinations carried out by the parish and canon priests had set up a commission that instituted an official canonical inquiry to ascertain the veracity of the apparitions. Finally on October 13, 1930, thirteen years after, with the knowledge and approval of Pope Pius XI, Bishop Dom José Correia da Silva announced the results of the investigations in a pastoral letter:

(…) humbly invoking the Divine Spirit and placing ourselves under the protection of the most Holy Virgin, and after hearing the opinions of our Rev. Advisors, we declare worthy of belief the visions of the shepherd children in the Cova da Iria, parish of Fatima, in this diocese, from 13th of May to the 13th of October, 1917… We permit officially the cult of Our Lady of Fatima.

Fatima and the popes
On May 5th, 1917 when World War I was still at its height, Pope Benedict XV in a letter addressed to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Gasparri, the Holy Father prayed vehemently for Heaven’s help through the intercession of the Mother of God,

In consequence, we call upon you, Eminence, to make known to the entire episcopate our ardent desire that all have recourse to the Heart of Jesus, throne of graces, and that they have recourse by the mediation of Mary (…) the pious and devout invocation and let it bear to Her the anguished cry of mothers and wives, the wailing of innocent little ones, the sighs of every generous heart; that her most tender and benign solicitude may be moved and the peace we ask for be obtained for our world that has gone mad, the aspired peace, and may it be remembered in the future centuries the efficacy of Her intercession and the greatness of the benefit that She has obtained for Her children”.

Eight days later Our Lady appeared in Fatima announcing to the Pope and to the world her plan for peace. A year later that same Pope in his letter to the Portuguese bishops to re-establish the diocese of Leiria, referred to the occurrences at Fatima as “an extraordinary aid from the Mother of God”.

Pius XI, the successor of Benedict XV, personally distributed holy cards of Our Lady of Fatima to the seminarians.  Pius XII publically spoke of Fatima for the first time in 1940 in his encyclical the Saeculo exeunte; in 1950 he addressed the Superior General of the Dominicans: “Tell your friars that the Pope’s thought is contained in the Message of Fatima”.

In 1964 at the end of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI gave his Golden Rose to Fatima, commissioned the whole Church to the care of Our Lady of Fatima, and even visited the Cova da Iria on the 50th anniversary of the first apparition. Pope John Paul II visited Fatima three times – in 1982, 1991 and again in 2000. During his final visit in 2000, he beatified the two deceased seers, Jacinta and Francisco. He also made it universal the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, ordering it to be included in the Roman Missal. Finally, Pope Francis asked the Patriarch of Lisbon to consecrate his pontificate to the Virgin of Fatima, and that happened on May 13, 2013.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: Something must have happened, Not nothing

Fatima has come a long way since right from the very beginning, it has had its share of enemies both at national and international level. In reading the writings of the detractors concerning the events and the message, it is clear to me after a thorough investigation of the facts that their claims are too frivolous, biased and ignorant of the reality and the well-documented facts. Those assertions are so cheap, and easy to refute that I am not going to waste my time discussing them. I prefer to spend my time and energy on the facts and the message which will give the readers plenty of elements to refute the critics of Fatima should they come across them.

Among the adversaries of Fatima, there are some who think that everything was made up by the Church of that time while there are others who latch onto the contradictions of the children subjected to the wearisome interrogations like a dog with its bone.  There are also those from within the Church who use their leverage on the incongruities of the theological message of Fatima in order to refute it entirely. 

There is gold in the river sand, but not all sand is gold
This is the metaphor that I use whenever I want to explain how the Bible contains the Word of God, but that not everything which is written in the Bible is the word of God. Just as we need to sieve the sand in the river to find the gold hidden in it, so we need to sieve the Bible to find in it the Word of God.

When we pass the Bible through literary and historical criticism, exegesis, and many fields of science such as archeology, psychology, philosophy etc., we can then distinguish and put aside what are beliefs, usages and customs, history of that time, the personality and character of the author, and his prejudices. When all this is evidenced and separated, it is then that we find what is purely the inspiration of God, that is, the ipsissima Dei verbum or the exact word of God.

The criteria that we use for the Bible, as the public Revelation of God, can also be used for the private revelation at Fatima, especially for the theological incongruities that the message of Fatima seems to contain, for example:

...lead all souls to heaven especially those who are in most need – It is true that the ending of this prayer in Portuguese makes no sense since we all need God’s salvation. The prayer is complete in English as it ends with “…especially those in most need of thy (divine) mercy”. Those who are the furthest from God, who are in the most misery, are in need of God’s mercy more than those who are closer to Him.

Penance and prayer for the conversion of sinners – This seems to imply that whoever prays and does penance for the forgiveness of sinners, need not to include himself in that category, meaning that he is no longer a sinner. This would contradict the word of God which states, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)

But in actual fact, the young seers did indeed recognize themselves as sinners, and also had their own conversion. For example, after the apparitions they found themselves unable to recite the rosary the way they did before which was to reduce the entire prayer to a string of just four words “Hail Mary, Hail Mary”. Instead, they started to recite the rosary slowly and in its entirety.

But of course more than that, after the apparitions they did everything in their power not to sin because they loved God so much that they feared offending Him as they knew He was already sufficiently offended on account of other sinners.

“Something must have happened, not nothing”
Going back to the time when I was a student of positivist theology, after having read all the theories of the resurrection of Jesus from the boldest to the most unreasonable and literal as told by the Gospels, I grasped on this formula of the then “best seller” theologian, Hans Kung. For Kung, the resurrection took the apostles by surprise, just as the apparitions at Fatima did to the three young shepherds.

It is difficult for anyone, not just for Kung, to describe the type of experience the apostles had, but for sure “something must have happened, not nothing”. Out of nothing only God can create; humans can only create from things that have already been created by God.

 Something must have happened to transform those fearful and cowardly disciples, who had already gone back to their ways of life before they met Jesus, into fearless and courageous evangelizers, as shown by Peter’s discourse in the Acts of Apostles (Acts 2:14-36). It is true that the apostles’ experience of the risen Lord may not have all the realism that is described in the Gospels; nevertheless, it had to be somehow real for if this was not the case then it would not have been described so realistically, instead it would have been presented in a more mystical way.

I bring forth this very same rationale concerning the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the three young shepherds at Fatima. Something must have happened there because these three young shepherds could not possibly have made up on their own both the event and the content of the message.

The same radical change that the apostles experienced was also experienced by these three children. Something really big must have happened that transformed their lives so drastically, not only outwardly as they started to live under the gaze and scrutiny of everyone there, but also inwardly as they configured their lives to the message of the Lady thus experiencing a real conversion.

There are details of the Fatima phenomenon that can have a merely human or natural explanation, such as the vision of hell, and the visions in the form of flashes of Our Lady of Sorrows, St. Joseph and the Child Jesus, Christ blessing the people and Our Lady of Mount Carmel; however, the main events of Fatima, as well as the message itself, are not humanly or naturally explainable. Something supernatural out of the everyday experience must have happened.

The seers knew nothing of what was going on in the world at the national and international level; even if they did know something, they would not have been able to conceptualize or understand it; they did not even know that there was a country named Russia; in fact, Lucia thought it was a bad woman that needed to be converted.

So, something somewhat objective and real must have happened, for mystical experiences are never collective but tend to be intimate and individual. It also tends to happen at the end of a long process that always involves ascetics, contemplation and prayer.

Very much like the appearance of the risen Lord to the apostles, the vision of the Angel in 1916 and of the Blessed Virgin Mary on May 13, 1917 took the three children by surprise. At the time of the first Mariam apparition, the children were not even praying but simply tending their flock. 

When they heard thunder and saw lightning they ran for cover and as they did, they witnessed something unusual and unexpected -- a Lady more brilliant than the sun stood up above a tree, and as in all theophany, both in the Old and New Testament, the Lady told them not to be afraid as she meant them no harm.

As it was the case with the apostles, in Fatima we are faced with not one or two but three witnesses to the first apparition. Many more were present at the subsequent apparitions, until over 70,000 were gathered at the last one on October 13, 1917 to witness “the Miracle of the Sun” as the Lady had promised the young shepherds.

In all these apparitions, there were people who testified having felt and seen something. The three seers as well as the rest of the people all witnessed the same supernatural phenomenon each in his or her own fashion but yet the same event. Not even the young seers experienced it in the same way: Francisco could see but not hear the Lady, Jacinta could both see and hear her, but only Lucia had full communication with the Lady as she was able to see, hear and talk to her, and the Lady would respond.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima - Lourdes - Guadalupe

The Church accepts as true and worthy of consideration these three Marian apparitions. It is probable that there are many others, but it is not for me to judge their authenticity and therefore I am referring to only these three. As someone has said, it is better to be wrong as a community than to be right alone.

To fully understand Fatima, we cannot just frame it within its national, international and theological domain but we also need to look at it in the context of Our Lady’s previous apparitions at Guadalupe and Lourdes, also approved by the Church.

In these three apparitions which took place at different places and times, there are similarities and differences, but first we will seek to assure ourselves that there are reasons to affirm that they were indeed theophanies.  In other words, whatever happened in each of these places cannot be explained merely in human terms, and we are left but to conclude that they were supernatural events. We will examine the reasons for Our Lady’s visit to these places, and the message that she came to bring.

Maria – Ambassadress, Special Envoy, Spokeswoman
Before we examine each of these apparitions individually, let us look into the reasons behind all of them. Why does Mary come to see her people from time to time in different places? Following Luther’s saying of “solus Christus, sola fide, sola Scriptura”, we know that the Protestants only give value to what is in the Bible and discard all that is not. How then can we reason Mary’s visits with someone formed in this mentality?

Mary’s visitation to her cousin Elizabeth, Luke 1:39-45 – Our faith was never grounded in religion – the effort of man to relate to a superior being, God, seeking His approval – but rather, it is based on a Revelation, that is, it is God who comes to us. “You did not choose me but I chose you.”(John 15:16) Already in the prehistory of our faith in Judaism, God visits His people, and like Mary at the wedding feast at Cana who felt compassion for they had no wine, God felt compassion for His people’s oppression in Egypt and sought to free them from slavery.

Mary came to know by an Angel that her cousin needed help and she hastily went to visit her. Since that time, she has never ceased to visit us; it is her whom God sends, because when Jesus left for his Father’s house he gave his mother to us. Being the image of femininity and motherhood of God, she exercises these qualities of God in a sacramental way; therefore, she acts in the person of God.

Why is Mary sent? Because she is the flesh of our flesh; she is totally human and born like us from an act of human love with the difference of her immaculate conception, because she was destined to be the mother of the Son of God made man and the beginning of a New Humanity.

The wedding feast at Cana, John 2:1-11 – Mary is the best ambassadress between heaven and earth. She represents humanity in heaven because she is like us, fully human; she also represents God on earth because she was conceived without the original sin, that is, she is the human being whom God originally intended to create, the Eve before the fall, the human nature not yet adulterated by sin.

As the ambassadress, the special envoy or the spokeswoman for God and humanity, her task is to refer to God the matters of men and to men the matters of God. Thus to God, she refers the needs of humanity, like in Cana she said, “They have no wine”; in Guadalupe, she probably said the evangelization is not progressing; in Lourdes, she might have said they have no health, and in Fatima, she likely said they have no peace. To men, in Cana she said, “Do whatever he tells you”; in Guadalupe, build a church; in Lourdes, pray the rosary; in Fatima, offer yourselves to God in penance and prayer.

Guadalupe – Missionary Intervention
On the 9th of December, 1531, ten years after the conquest of the city of Mexico, when peace had already been established between the Indians and the Spaniards, Mary appeared to an Indian named Juan Diego.

Proofs of God’s intervention through Mary
As always and with prudence whenever faced with this type of claim, the ecclesiastical authorities manifest first perplexity, and in the case of Guadalupe, the Bishop Frei Juan de Zumarraga even demanded a proof. Our Lady accepted the challenge and sent Juan Diego with his cloak or tilma full of fresh and lush roses that were out of season because it was winter. As the cloak was unrolled to expose the flowers before the bishop, the very same image of Our Lady of Guadalupe which we venerate today was revealed on the tilma as the flowers tumbled out.

The Tilma on which the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is imprinted has already been analyzed by numerous highly qualified scientists, and many findings continue to baffle them as well as the skeptics. For example, the source of the pigments remains unknown -- not natural, animal, vegetable or mineral, and the way the painting was painted on the Tilma has never been seen before as there are no brush strokes, sketches or corrections. Also, it is not understood how the painting and the natural fabric of the Tilma, which usually lasts only 20 to 30 years, have stayed in mint condition after almost 500 years without any treatment or preservatives.

To this day the image has not ceased to amaze us. Lately, it has been discovered that Our Lady’s eyes on the Tilma reflect the image of what happened historically; that is, in the pupils of the eyes a photographer discovered the photographic image of the Indian unrolling the cloak in front of the bishop. So, Our Lady not only left us a printed image of her apparition but also captured as in a photo the astonishment of the bishop upon seeing the proof he had requested. This message has remained hidden for centuries so that it could be discovered when new technologies surfaced, just when faith in the veracity of Mary’s visit may have faltered.

The Reason for the Visit
The Evangelization of the Americas was very difficult. The Mayans, the Aztecs and the Incas were peoples proud of their cultures and their gods; their temples and pyramids showed a civilization advanced for its time. For this reason they would not willingly accept a foreign religion, especially a religion that presented the idea of a God who would sacrifice himself for his people, contrary to their gods who demanded human sacrifices.

Furthermore, the conquest of the Americas had been violent and had been followed by massacres; if this had happened today, it would have been considered crimes against humanity. How then could these indigenous peoples accept the religion of those who dominated and enslaved them? God’s intervention through Mary was providential for the great success of the Mission in the Americas.

“The Guadalupe Event”, as the Mexican Episcopate has pointed out, “meant the beginning of evangelization with a vitality that surpassed expectations. Christ’s message, through his Mother, took up the central elements of the indigenous culture, purified them and gave them the definitive sense of salvation”. And the Pope added, “Consequently Guadalupe and Juan Diego have a deep ecclesial and missionary meaning and are model of perfectly inculturated evangelization”. (Canonization Mass of Juan Diego on July 7, 2002)

The Message
The word Guadalupe means ‘that which crushes the serpent’, and coincidentally, the serpent is a reference to the god Quetzalcoatl, or feathered serpent, to whom the Aztecs offered human sacrifices. In 1487, due to the dedication of a new temple in Tenochtilan, about 80,000 captives were sacrificed in one ceremony that lasted four days. Mary crushed the serpent god Quetzalcoatl and guided the Indians to the one true God, to the God of Life not death and to the God who sacrifices himself, who gives his own life for his people.

If we understand abortion as the new human sacrifices to the gods of selfishness, of pleasure, of my own conveniences, then the message of the Virgin of Guadalupe did not stay in the 16th century but is still valid today.

Lourdes – Theological Intervention
In Lourdes, France, Mary appeared to a young girl of fourteen named Bernadette Soubirous who came from a very poor family. The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to her eighteen times with the first appearance occurring on the 11th of February, 1858, and the last one on the 16th of July, 1858.

Proofs of God’s intervention through Mary
On February 25, 1858, the day of the ninth apparition, the Beautiful Lady ordered Bernadette to drink the water from the stream and bathe in it. A difficult task for Bernadette since in the grotto there has never been any spring. Nevertheless, she started to scratch the ground with her fingers and soon a small pool of water began to collect and bubbles rose from it, and on the following day, it had become a small stream.

At the sixteenth apparition, the Beautiful Lady identified herself as the Immaculate Conception; Bernadette conveyed this information to her parish priest, who concluded that the apparitions must be authentic because he was certain that this illiterate girl knew nothing about the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by Pope Pius IX four years before.

At the seventeenth apparition on April 7th, Bernadette unconsciously placed one of her hands over the flame of a lighted candle while continuing to pray and the crowd screamed in horror as they witnessed the flame burning through her fingers but she remained unharmed.

Bernadette died on the 16th of April, 1879; her body was exhumed on September 22, 1909, in the presence of two doctors and it was found to be without any stench and to be incorruptible, that is, the body did not decompose. The cures that took place during the time of the apparitions and all these years after bear witness that in Lourdes, Heaven came down to earth, as in the times of Jesus, to bring healing and salvation.

The Reason for the Visit
The important part of the message of Lourdes is the confirmation from Heaven, in the year 1858, of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. One other reason, and in common with Fatima and other Marian apparitions, is the dual request of Penance and Prayer, the two important realities that we easily forget in our Christian life. Therefore Mary, the one who says “do whatever he tells you”, reminds us again and again, especially in Lourdes and in Fatima, that Jesus her son tells us to embrace our cross daily and to pray not to give in and fall into temptations or tests that we face in life.

Lourdes from the very beginning was associated with the concept of purity by means of the water from the miraculous spring. Many indeed have found healing there. When comparing Lourdes with Fatima, one could easily conclude that while Lourdes is the shrine of the miracles of the body for the many healings that have been taking place there ever since the time of the apparitions, Fatima is the shrine of the miracles of the soul for the many conversions that have been happening there to this day.

The Message
Four things can summarize the message of Our Lady of Lourdes:
Poverty - God chose Bernadette for her extreme poverty in every sense of the word. God never abandons the poor; far from being impartial, God always takes the side of the poor against those who cause their poverty.

Prayer - It points out the importance of prayer especially the rosary; in fact, at some of the apparitions the only thing that the Lady and Bernadette did was to pray.

Penance – The offering of sacrifices for the salvation of sinners; something that is contrary to our tendency of running away from suffering, pursuing pleasure, and rejecting the cross which the Master told us to embrace.

Immaculate Conception - Finally, the most intriguing phenomenon and that which gave credibility to the apparitions at Lourdes was the fact that Our Lady presented herself to a girl with no religious or school education as being the Immaculate Conception, thus confirming the dogma proclaimed four years earlier.

Fatima – Political intervention and that’s not all…
Preceded by the apparitions of the Angel one year earlier, Mary appeared at Fatima on the 13th of each month from May to October in 1917, between the two World Wars with a message and a plan for peace, during the bloodiest time in human history, the 20th century.

Fatima is the most complete of all the Marian apparitions; it not only influenced Portugal, but also the rest of the world, not only for some time but for the entire twentieth century, and not only spiritually, but also socio-politically. Some would go as far as to say that one cannot speak about the history of the twentieth century without mentioning Fatima.

Proofs of God’s intervention through Mary
There are many proofs of authenticity of the apparitions at Fatima. Mary chose three children who had the habit of not lying under any circumstance without exception. They did not know as we do today the idea of pious lying that cause no harm to anyone and somehow protects our privacy. This was the reason Mr. Marto, the father of Francisco and Jacinta, believed in the apparitions from the very first moment he became aware of them from Jacinta, because he knew that his children were incapable of lying.

The lives of the little shepherds changed drastically after the apparitions. They were converted, and they incarnated the message in their lives in such a way that they neither needed to tell nor prove anything to anyone. Jacinta knew the details of what was going to happen to her when she became ill. In fact, she and her brother knew that soon they would go to Heaven and of this they spoke without the slightest tear or sadness, but instead they longed for it to come soon.

From the second apparition onward all the remaining ones were a public event, although experienced differently by those present. Only Lucia had a full communication with the Lady, and while Jacinta could see and hear her, Francisco only saw her. As for the other witnesses to the apparitions, there were those who said that at the time of the Lady’s appearance the sun always shone with strange colors, the air temperature always dropped and there was a mist hovering the tree where the Lady stood -- instead of a mist, some say it was a cloud while others say it was a fog and still others say it was a smoke.

Above all this, there is the so-called “miracle of the Sun” witnessed by 70,000 people among whom were priests, doctors, University professors, journalists and even atheists. This atmospheric phenomenon is perfectly explainable, but what cannot be explained is that Lucia had predicted the day and the hour that this would happen, six months earlier.

From the social and political point of view, the little shepherds prophesied much of what happened in the twentieth century. The aurora borealis on January 25, 1938, as the sign of the beginning of a worse war, the Second World War; the militant atheism of Russia and the consecration of this country to the Immaculate Heart of Mary to stop this militant atheism which would cause so much suffering to the faithful in many countries. The beginning of the Soviet Union in the same year of the apparitions and its end on the 8th of December, 1991, on the feast day of the Immaculate Conception, and a victory for Mary because she had said that at the end her Immaculate Heart would triumph.

The Reason for the Visit
The visit of Mary to Fatima may not have been from a solely divine initiative. It is a fact that Pope Benedict XV exhorted all Christians to ask for the intercession of Mary for the “aspirated peace for this world gone mad”.

Mary then appeared to the three children only eight days later with a plan for peace, but that’s not all. The militant atheism was a much more difficult problem than the two World Wars and lasted much longer. Today it is not militant but continues to exist more in an agnostic way.

Fatima, for this reason, aside from its political connection, is a call for a New Evangelization avant la lettre. The conversion of sinners, those living without the light of faith is a central theme of the message of Fatima and perhaps the principal purpose of Mary’s visit.

The Message
Between the two World Wars Mary proposed at Fatima, among other things, “Penance and Prayer” as means to cope with the materialistic and atheistic communism, as well as the materialistic and consumerist capitalism we see today and, therefore, no less atheistic.

The third secret, or the third part of the one single secret, was revealed along with its interpretation. It has been said that Fatima is a thing of the past and that it was intimately and exclusively linked to the twentieth century, but the message of penance and prayer is perennial and timeless. In this sense, Fatima is and will always be an echo of the Gospel.

Furthermore, the name “Fatima” could contain a fourth secret. Because it is a well-loved name in the Muslim world, and because the Muslims venerate Mary, could Our Lady of Fatima still have a word to say in our present century dominated by Islamic fundamentalism and the reaction to it?

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: Private Revelation, but not for private use

Revelation – public, private, or what else?
The Church calls public revelation the coming of Christ, the Son of God who came into the world and was incarnated in the womb of Virgin Mary. It is his Life, Word and Work amongst us, his death, resurrection and ascension to Heaven, and the coming of the Holy Spirit. In contrast to this are the private revelations, the apparitions of Our Lady in Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima as well as the mystical visions of the saints in the 2000 years of Christianity.

If we stop and think, we will realize that public revelation is not really public nor is private revelation truly private; rather, both are at the same time public and private. Every revelation is public because the recipient of that revelation is never alone, and exclusively the person or persons to whom the revelation is given. On the other hand, all revelations are private because they are never made “urbi et orbe” to the general public, but rather in private to a person or group of people. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. (Matthew 10:27)

Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “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 14:22-23)

God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. (Acts 10:40-41)

The public revelation of Jesus of Nazareth was given in private to the intimate inner circle of those who lived and came with him from Galilee and those who saw him in his glory after the Resurrection. Like Judas Thaddeus, when I was young I thought that the risen Jesus should have shown himself to all the people, especially to Annas, Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate, and to all those who had shouted “crucify him”! It was only later that I understood the response that Jesus gave to Judas. Only love and faith can lead to knowledge, to the revelation of Jesus Christ. Jesus only reveals himself to those who love him and believe in him.

Therefore the aforementioned public revelation was, in fact, private as Jesus revealed his identity only to his disciples. The recipient of this revelation, however, is all of the humanity, men and women of all races, tongues, nations and places of all times.

The private revelation of Fatima, in the same way as that of Christ, despite it having public aspects from the beginning since the children after the first apparition were never there alone, was a private revelation because only the three little shepherds were visited by Our Lady. Yet, the recipient of the revelation was the whole world of the twentieth century and if we think of the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that Lucia had been charged to propagate, then it is for all peoples of all times and places.

Private revelations as echoes of the Gospel
If it was not for prophecy, people would degenerate. For this reason, in all ages, men have been divinely instructed in matters expedient for the salvation of the Elect. – St. Thomas Aquinas

“Since the beginning of the world, Our Lady has appeared many times, in different ways… And that is what counts… the world is bad, but if there were not many cases like this, the worse it would have been… The power of God is mighty! We do not know what it is, but it is something… It is whatever God wants it to be.” Mr. Marto (Father of Francisco and Jacinta, and the first to believe in the apparitions)

From his academic ignorance, Mr. Marto has practically said the same thing as the greatest theologians of all times, Saint Thomas Aquinas. People have forgotten that even during biblical times God had raised prophets to correct and redirect the people back to Him from concrete historical situations.

During my days as a theology student, we used to say that Heaven has already spoken once for all times through Jesus Christ the eternal Word made flesh, so it will not speak again. In those days, we understood that Heaven has closed not for three and a half years like in the days of Prophet Elijah (Luke 4:25) but for all eternity.

The Marian apparitions as well as all sorts of private revelations have never been the object of theological reflection, not even in the subject called Mariology. Main stream theology looks at these revelations with disdain and relegates them to popular piety. I'm glad that the Holy Spirit does not always blow through the hierarchy, but rather He blows wherever He chooses (John 3:8) and in the case of Fatima, the voice of the people was the voice of God that stood up to the doctors of the Church.

It is true that after Christ nothing new will be revealed to replace what has been revealed in Christ, but something needs to be done to make sure that this revelation of Christ is not lost in time. This is, moreover, the role of the Holy Spirit, to repeat, to inculturate, and to apply the Gospel amid the idiosyncrasies of each place and time.

In this sense, the apparitions and the visions are like an echo of the Gospel; they remind or pinpoint to us any aspects that we may have forgotten or have not yet put into practice. Like cell phone antennas that carry our messages and voices from one to the next, private revelations, apparitions or visions, provide a service to the Gospel so that its transmission is not lost in time or space; and so that, one day in the future, we may be able to respond positively to that puzzling question the Lord has left us in the Gospel of Saint Luke: But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? (Luke 18:8)

The apparitions in the context of a more comprehensive Revelation
While many theologians discredit the visions and apparitions, calling them “private” and giving them a secondary and optional stand in the sense that we do not need them for our salvation, Karl Rahner who is without a doubt the greatest theologian of the twentieth century, considers them an amplification of the Revelation in the manner of an accurate and/or a clarification of the divine will, related to a specific action of the Church or to a particular historical situation.

In this way, Rahner overcomes the diatribe on public/private revelation and their mutual exclusion by merging the two into one single Revelation that occurs by and large throughout the history of mankind. After all, the Church is herself the Revelation or the subject of the revelation insofar as she is the realization of the Gospel of Christ here and now.

“The divine Words grow together with the one who reads them,” said Saint Gregory the Great. God’s revelation is not something immutable that was frozen in the past; it is a continuous process and is in some way interactive. This interaction is not only between the Scriptures and whoever reads them but also between Scriptures, the process and the historical context in which they are read and incarnated.

The function of the Church at the core of the history of mankind is to make this history a story of salvation. In this sense, the Church is the leaven of the Kingdom of God, a yeast intended to raise the entire mass – a world that is to be gradually transformed into the Kingdom of God on earth.

Just as there are evolution and revolution in the world so there are evolution and revolution in the interior of the Church; evolution is the ordinary activity while revolution is the extraordinary one. The ordinary has to do with the gradual evolution of the world with the view of becoming the kingdom of God. The extraordinary or revolutionary has to do with the prophecy through the action of the Holy Spirit who blows wherever and whenever he desires.

Prophets are not only characters of the Old Testament. We are all baptized into a common priestly, prophetic and kingly vocation and in real life, each Christian develops within one or the other of this common vocation. In the Old Testament, the prophets were the catalysts for the will of God in times of needs. Both in that time as in the present time, a prophet is always the bearer of a concrete message of God. The prophet does not only proclaims this message but also embodies it, making it his life. It is in this sense that we must regard the seers of Fatima, Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco; the three, depending on their personalities, embody different aspects of the message of Fatima.

General revelation and particular revelation
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. (Hebrews 1:1-2)

Public revelation is, therefore, the Word of God stated by and incarnated in the person of Jesus the Nazarene. This Word beckons to our unchanging human nature. What was love two thousand years ago will still be love ten thousand years from now and beyond. The values like love, truth, and justice upon which human life is anchored, are timeless and so they do not change with the passage of time.

If human nature was susceptible to change over time then Christ would have to be incarnated many times throughout human history in order to be the way, the truth, and the life for human beings at each generation. But since human nature does not change, then at the right moment according to His divine providence, God incarnated into the History of mankind once and for all. In this sense, Heaven has spoken and will not speak again.

Whether you are an agnostic, an atheist, or a member of another religion, all those who want happiness and self-fulfillment here and now, and thereafter, must measure themselves to Jesus of Nazareth as he is the sole role model, the only human paradigm for all who strive to be fully human.

Fatima, Lourdes, Guadalupe and many other private revelations are not strictly necessary for the salvation of the human race, but they may be complementary. For this to be the case, the elements that they contain cannot be contrary to the Gospels. This is, in fact, the main criterion used to discern the veracity and validity of these revelations.

Perhaps there is not a single word or concept outside of public/private that does justice and defines exactly the two types of revelation:

Public, general or essential - because it is for the peoples of all times and places, and the one we cannot do without if we are to attain salvation.

Private, particular or non-essential - because it is, to a certain extent, restricted to a particular place and time and to a particular group of people, so is not indispensable for the salvation of the human race.

Pe. Jorge Amaro, IMC

FATIMA: The Extraordinary extraordinarily

Positivist theology
The theology that I studied in the eighties, in a Jesuit university, was noticeably positivist, and it has greatly influenced my way of understanding the faith and God’s actions in human history. Even up to today, I can still remember some of the maxims that are engraved in my mind and that at any moment, act as a benchmark to measure and evaluate the things of God in a way that is perhaps too rationalistic, where Fatima would certainly not belong.

Faith is a reasonable gift – This is the definition of faith given by the First Vatican Council. It is true that faith cannot be rational, but it has to be humanly credible and plausible. If this is not the case, then it is not faith, but superstition. Because God created us as rational beings, He cannot ask us to sacrifice reason entirely in order to believe in Him.

The extraordinary within the ordinary – The extraordinary does not occur extraordinarily, that is, in a dazzling and objectively obvious way in everyone’s eyes so that faith is not needed to believe. On the contrary, the extraordinary happens within the ordinary, in a hidden way that is only perceivable or visible through the eyes of faith.

God does not infringe on the laws of nature – If God created the laws of nature then it will not be Him who will break them first. During my days as a theology student, with this maxim, we sanctioned many of the miracles that Jesus did in the Gospels and sought more plausible explanations for them. For example, the multiplication of the loaves was a miracle of sharing, because many had most probably brought their own provisions.

God does not interfere – God neither punishes nor rewards; he does not interfere in the lives of men; he lets them roam and fare freely. He is not a fireman who comes to put out the fire; should an intervention be needed, He would do it indirectly in a discreet and mysterious way, through mediators inspired by Him, but never directly.

Resurrected was the doctrine not the person – The highest exponent in positivist theology can maybe be found in the Protestant theologian Rudolf Bultmann’s theory on the resurrection of Christ. For him what was raised from the dead was not the person of Jesus of Nazareth, but the "kerygma", Jesus’ doctrine, for being truly revolutionary. Saint Paul would certainly oppose this theologian by saying:  if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. (1 Corinthians 15:17)

I also recall in those days the existence of a certain theological schizophrenia; the historical Jesus of Nazareth and the Christ of faith, he in whom we believe, were not the same person. In fact, they were studied as two different subject matters and taught by two different teachers, Jesus of Nazareth was studied in Christology and the Christ of faith was studied in Dogmatic Christology.

“A todos los tontos se les aparece la virgem” – A Spanish expression that I heard many times during my years at a university in Madrid. It means: all fools claim to have seen the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is a fact that many of the supernatural experiences, that some people claim to have had, are nothing but manifestations of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. That is why there is this expression to dispel all types of paranormal phenomena.

“It was not the Church that imposed Fatima on the faithful but it was Fatima that imposed itself on the Church!”
Many years have already passed since I studied theology, and life and experience have led me to review some of these positions. For one thing, there are miracles that, for all we know, seem to contradict the laws of nature; it is true that God created these laws, but it is also true that His actions ought not to be limited by them. There is no sense in God creating His own limitations or being limited by anything that He Himself has created.

Even science itself does not look at the laws of nature within the framework of the mechanist physics of Newton. According to Newton, nature by its laws functioned like a precise clock. Afterward, Einstein with his quantum mechanics blew away the determinism of the laws of nature, and they are now understood as not being fixed, certain and absolute. Furthermore, in the laws of nature, the uncertainty principle of Heisenberg substituted the inflexible certainty for fluctuant probability.

What all this means is that things may indeed happen the way we have always seen them happening, but there is still a chance that they may not happen the way we have envisioned thus far. The determinism of Newton’s physics is substituted by chance in quantum physics.

Within the frame of mind of Newton’s physics, it was very difficult to understand miracles since these seem always to go against the laws of nature. However, everything changes when we try to conceptualize miracles within the frame of mind of quantum physics. Trying to understand miracles within the framework of this advanced physics, it then becomes clearer that not only can they happen, but they even do so without contradicting the laws of nature. Therefore the only thing we need to change is our understanding of these laws.

In so doing, it makes it easier for us to understand that the extraordinary can indeed occur extraordinarily. This is the frame of mind by which we can understand and accept the miraculous events that took place in Fatima, Lourdes, and Guadalupe and in hundreds of other private revelations throughout history.

The phrase quoted above was first said by Cardinal Cerejeira of Portugal in 1943 and has since been repeated by many people, including popes. It is probably because it encompasses the experience, or the change of position, of many people with respect to the revelation at Fatima. This is the very same process I myself followed: Fatima imposed itself on me by the depth and meaning of its message and by the candor, simplicity, and goodness of the three young seers, Jacinta who was only 7, her cousin and intimate friend Lucia was 10, and her beloved brother Francisco was 9.

In the midst of the generalized war in Europe with the tragic participation of Portugal and in the social national context of an illuminist and atheistic republican revolution whose purpose was to secularize the society, a beam of light breaks out from the sky.

The supernatural erupts into the natural; the extraordinary takes place extraordinarily to bring life and to strengthen the small battered flock of Christians who fell victims to the wolves of rationalism and atheism and to confuse these very same atheists, leaving them stunned in amazement before a reality they could not understand as it did not conform to their prejudiced ideologies.

The “ignorant” confuse the sage
“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” (Matthew 11:25)

As much in the message as in the message bearers, Fatima follows the paradigm of the Gospel to reveal to the poor and the ignorant those things that still today confound the wise theologians, whose rationalism aims to limit the action of God.

And again, the very same paradigm of the Gospel is also followed with regards to the identity of the message bearers of Fatima –shepherds were the first ones who saw God becoming man in Bethlehem, and shepherds were Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco, the seers and message bearers of Fatima.

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3) – Since the message bearers were children, only those who are children in the evangelical sense can understand. Fatima only makes sense to the simple of hearts and to those disarmed of intellectual prejudices.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

The Magic of Christmas

During the days of the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, when the Jews were under the threat of many persecutions, the rabbi went to a particular place in the forest to meditate.  Once there he lit a bonfire, recited a particular prayer and the miracle that his people was saved from the imminent tragedy happened.

Later when he passed down to his disciple the task of interceding for the people, the latter went to the same secret place in the forest and once there he addressed God in this terms: “I no longer know how to light the fire, but I can still recite the prayer,” and again, the miracle happened.

The years passed until one day when a tragedy was about to again strike the people and it was up to Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov to perform the deliverance ritual, he said to himself: “I do not know how to light the fire nor do I remember the words of the prayer, but I can still find the secret place, I guess this will have to be enough for the miracle to take place," and so it was, on heading to the secret place in the forest, the miracle of deliverance of the people took place.

After many more years had passed, it was Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn’s turn to perform the deliverance ritual from the tragedies. Seated in his armchair, holding his head in his hands, he spoke to God in this way: “I know that I’m unable to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, and I cannot even find the secret place where my predecessors used to go. The only thing I can do is to tell the story,” this he did and the miracle also happened.

Christmas traditions
The traditions which have been associated with Christmas make this holiday the richest of all the holidays symbolically and also the most popular of the western culture. Each of these traditions by itself does not encompass the full meaning of Christmas but does help to explain a part of it.

Christmas is Santa Claus, a respectable old man who does not hide his age nor tries to appear younger, and who breaks into kindness by giving presents to children, patting them on the heads and placing them on his laps. The red of his suit has nothing to do with that brown soda pop, as they say spitefully, but rather with the red vestment of a bishop. Historically, Santa Claus is associated with the bishop Saint Nicholas hence the word Santa Claus; mythically, he represents God the Father who gives us his Son as a gift. Christmas is the time when the Pope gives his Urbi et Orbe address and blessing to the entire world.

Christmas is the countless blinking lights that decorate and illuminate our cities and towns. Christmas is the streets and windows of all the shops decorated for the occasion that invites the customers to come in and buy gifts. Christmas is the nativity scene, the life-sized ones in our plazas and the smaller ones in our homes which evoke the true story of Christmas. Christmas is the Christmas tree, conical evergreen trees that point to Heaven, illuminated, embellished and found in strategic locations in our cities and towns, and also in our homes.

Christmas is the cold that leads to the lighting of a fireplace which exudes physical and human warmth. Christmas is the dark night that gathers all men by the light of a candle. Christmas is the house with windows glowing of warm amber light and smoke in the chimney, which contrasts with the dark landscape of white and freezing snow.

Christmas is the well-wishing cards received by the dozens, that are displayed, and which are now becoming scarce. Christmas is the family reunion, united in love and harmony for the Christmas night. Christmas is the Christmas dinner: potatoes cooked with codfish and cabbages, drizzled with raw olive oil, the stewed Christmas octopus served with potatoes and kale, the roasted turkey with savory stuffing at the center of the table, the English pudding, and all the traditional desserts according to countries and regions.

Christmas is the stockings hung by the fireplace, the joy of the parents who give gifts and the wide-eyed children frantically opening them. Christmas is the large bonfire in the churchyard keeping the parishioners warm prior to the Midnight Mass. Christmas is the song of the angels of “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of goodwill” accompanied with bells.

Christmas is the Christmas songs, the “Silent Night”, the English “Christmas carols”, the Spanish “villancicos” and the Portuguese “Janeiras”. Christmas is to kiss the Baby Jesus; Christmas is the longing of the Christmases of the past that will never return; Christmas is the sadness, for not being able to be cheerful, when we are alone or far from those we love… Christmas is all of this and so much more…

 “Jesus is the reason for the season”
There are many in our society who spend this season without any reference to the real meaning of Christmas, and this has led some Christians to stand up and shout, in defense against what Christmas has become, that “JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON!”.

It is true that nowadays only some people know the story of the visitation of Angel Gabriel to Mary, the incarnation of the Creator to a creature and the Divine Word who became a man, God is one of us, God-with-us, who came to teach us within our human nature how we ought to live this God-given life. Few know that the Child God, called Jesus, was born in a stable in Bethlehem and was born of Mary and placed in a manger which served as his cradle; and that the angels sang “Glory to God” and the poorest of that region, the shepherds, could not contain their joy at his arrival.

Paraphrasing the tale told above, the magic of Christmas happens every year at the appointed time despite the lack of knowledge of the true story. As if it was embedded in our genes, Christmas with its magic and spirit is triggered every year when winter comes.

Its arrival has the same effect as the fairy dust in the fairy tales; it modifies the thoughts, the feelings and the actions of everyone. At Christmas time, to do good seems the most natural, and everyone has more will power and motivation to avoid doing evil. In the big cities, crimes go down. There are truces in wars, and men stop for a moment being wolves with their peers.

“Queen for a day”
Christmas is the dream and the paradise of a future world that is fairer, more peaceful and more fraternal. The reality of the present day is far from this dream, but it seems that on Christmas Day this dream does seem to come true.

It may be just like the notion of “the queen for the day”, but it is enough for us not to forget that our goal is in fact that every day should be like Christmas Day, as it is portrayed by a certain Christmas store in Quebec City, Canada, that is purposely open every day of the year.

Christmas is not and will never be what it used to be, but whatever it may become, its magic and spirit will never be lost and so we will always have Christmas, even if it is only once a year, because we cannot do without it.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Prophet Isaiah – a Christian “avant la lettre”

Moses and Elijah appearing beside Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration represent the Law and the Prophets, a makeshift way of referring to the books of the Old Testament. For the Jewish people, Moses, the legislator from Mount Sinai, symbolizes the Law, to whom 5 books of the Pentateuch are attributed. Similarly, Elijah, who decimated the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel, symbolizes the prophets since the Hebrews regarded him as the greatest of all prophets. So great was Elijah that he did not experience death like the rest of the mortals but while alive was taken up into heaven and is expected to return as the precursor of the Messiah to announce his coming.

Different from the Jewish perspective, the Christian point of view, which understands the Old Testament as a preparation of the New, regards Isaiah as the greatest of all prophets. Unlike Elijah who was tendentiously nationalistic and somewhat xenophobic, Isaiah is universal and is accepting of all peoples and races. Every year during Advent, he delights us with his idyllic vision of an open and inclusive society where peace and harmony reign among all peoples despite their differences:

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah 11:6) In this renewed world where the swords are changed into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks (Isaiah 2:4) Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel but of the world because it is there that the Lord of the Universe will prepare for the peoples a feast of rich food and of well-matured wines. (Isaiah 25:6)

In fact, Christ in his speech to inaugurate his public life quotes this very same prophet to say that the Word of God prophesied through his mouth as a promise is fulfilled today in Jesus himself, the Incarnate Word. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed … (Isaiah 61:1-2, Luke 4:16-22).

It is Isaiah who 300 years before Christ came speaks to us of the circumstances of the birth of Jesus, showing us in his vision the mystery of the incarnation of God; a virgin shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14), which means God-with-us.

It is also Isaiah who anticipates for us the Passion of the Lord in his song of the Servant of Yahweh and gives us the meaning of the atonement of the passion and death of the Lord: Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases… He was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities… He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter… (Isaiah 53:4-7)

Isaiah does in the Old Testament what the author of the Letter to the Hebrews does in the New. As such, the author of the Letter shows that the New Testament, the New Covenant, is not radically different nor opposed to the Old, but rather it is its natural extension and above all, it is the realization of the promises written there. In this way, Isaiah with his universalism personifies and advocates, already in the Old Testament, a novel idea -- that the Kingdom of God which Christ came to bring is for everyone, that is, salvation is for all and not just for Israel. Above all, he foretold already in his time, in an ultra-nationalistic milieu which has always characterized Israel as the chosen people, that salvation is for all without the distinction of nation, people or language.

These two characters are like a pivot that joins the two testaments. Isaiah, on one hand, extends from the Old Testament to the New connecting the testaments from back to the front and on the other hand, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, connects them from the front to the back, viewing the Old as the pre-history of the New.

Like a tree that in order to grow upwards by stretching out its branches, needs to simultaneously grow downwards by deepening its roots into the ground, so the author of the Letter from the New Testament goes into the Old Testament to find there the promises that he saw accomplished in the New, that is, the “unfinished business” that are now consummated, the seed that was sown which now has given fruit, and how the whole history of salvation is directed to the coming of Christ.

Like an old man who plants a tree from which he will not live long enough to taste of its fruit, so is the Prophet Isaiah’s utopian dream of a world to come in which there is no “chosen people” because God the Creator of all is also the Father of all. The utopian vision of a world where we see a common roof, a town that all call home, a table as round as the world where wolves and lambs partake of the same meal, a world that has no use for weapons, where tools of destruction are transformed into tools of construction.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews is the ambassador or the envoy of the New Testament in the Old since he tries to conceptualize and explain the New using the very same theological concepts of the Old. In going back and finding the roots of the New in the Old he represents the New in the Old.

Similarly, Prophet Isaiah is also the ambassador or the envoy of the New in the Old as he, despite living in the time of the Old Testament, surprisingly upholds views that are more in tune with the New Testament. In projecting himself into the future, out of a xenophobic setting, Isaiah is a true representative of the New Testament’s universality of salvation in the Old Testament. Therefore, we can call Isaiah a Christian “avant la letter”, and the author of the Letter a Jew converted to Christianity.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC