Quest 15

Quest 15 - Latest Edition

Have we listened to the Message of Fatima?
by Australia Needs Fatima - 26 June 2007

Ninety years after the Fatima apparitions it is time to ask if the world has taken them to heart. Our future depends on the answer

In May 1982, when Pope John Paul II was in Fatima on pilgrimage, he said something surprising. He lamented that instead of taking to heart what Our Lady said at Fatima, most people "have gone in the opposite direction."

What could he have meant by that? Don’t millions of pilgrims visit Fatima every year? Are there not hundreds of parish churches and Catholic schools named after Fatima around the world? Is Fatima not the most written-about Marian apparition of all?

While all that is true, the painful reality remains that mankind as a whole has paid little heed to the Massage of Fatima. "If they listen to my requests there will be peace," Our Lady said. What were her requests? How do we know whether they were listened to?

Before we consider her requests, it would aid our understanding if we think for a moment about the chastisements she said would fall on the world because of sin, chastisements that could so easily be avoided if we would only heed her requests.

After explaining how sin had brought on the First World War (that terrible war was raging across Europe even as she spoke) she went on to say: “The war will end. But if they do not stop offending God, another, even worse war will begin in the reign of Pius XI.”

Sure enough, twenty years later, in 1938, another "even worse” war began as Nazi Germany invaded Austria. This tragic fulfilment of her prophecy took place, just as she said it would, in the reign of Pope Pius XI.

Our Lady warned how God "is going to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, hunger and persecution of the Church and the Holy Father…[Russia] will spread its errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer and several nations will be annihilated."

In this scenario Russia would be a major player. This point is often overlooked. Russia would "spread its errors throughout the world". Note, she did not say spread its armies, but "its errors". True, Russia did spread its armies into several unfortunate countries of Eastern Europe. But armies were not the main concern of Our Lady; errors were.

Why emphasise this so much? Because lovers of the Message of Fatima tend to pass over this point without much reflection. Since it is not too obvious what Our Lady meant, we find it tempting to pass thoughtlessly and lazily on to a more obvious point.

Clearly, Our Lady was not talking about the schismatic Russian Orthodox Church, which never attempted to spread its errors, nor evangelise the world. She had something else in mind.

Only a few months after she appeared at Fatima, Lenin and his fellow communists took over Russia in a bloody coup. The "errors" are, of course, communism. In other words, communist errors would spread throughout the world. That dreadful prophecy has also been fulfilled.

For example, nearly every country in the world today has laws that put into practise things the communists always wanted. We need only to think of the terrible reality of abortion, practiced on a massive scale worldwide, in all kinds of ways. The first country to legalise abortion was communist Russia, exactly three years after Fatima, and at a time when such a practice still shocked civilised human beings.

All this could so easily have been avoided – if we had just listened to her requests. But we did not.

Back in 1917, when she appeared at Fatima asking for conversion, the standards of public morality were already debased enough to offend God. Since then, have they got better or worse? Unfortunately, today’s fashions are ever more immoral, tending even to nudity. That which would have been unthinkable in 1917 is today a common sight in our streets. And what do we say of such sins as euthanasia, the legalisation of same-sex "marriages" and the veritable explosion of pornography, blasphemies and atheism? In short, has the world got better or worse since Our Lady came to Fatima asking for conversion?

One wonders what the fools, who close their eyes to the obvious reality, are thinking when they blithely declare that God is happy with the world of today. Indeed! Do they not know these things run counter to all Our Lady said?

Of course, there are quite a few 'evolutionist' sociologists who take pride in saying things are better today than yesterday and therefore can only get even better tomorrow. Our Lady assures us the opposite is true: tomorrow will only be better if we amend our lives. No matter how standards of living, the economy, medicine, or education improve, we are headed for disaster unless we do what she asked.

Regrettably, there also appears to be no shortage of optimistic theologians who win popularity by affirming that almost nobody is condemned to hell. Our Lady says the opposite, not only in word, but also with the irrefutable argument of facts: at Fatima she opened hell to the gaze of the three terrified little children. She did this so that they would tell the whole world what they had seen. Isn't it better to believe Our Lady than wishy-washy pop theology?

So then, what were Our Lady’s requests? She came to Fatima to ask for several things: the consecration of Russia by the Pope, united with all the bishops of the world; that the faithful go to confession and communion on the first Saturday of each month in reparation for sins and for the conversion of sinners; that we pray the Rosary every day; and, above all, that the world converts.

To be sure, some people do the First Saturday devotion. Many pray the Rosary. But what of the conversion of humanity as a whole – as Pope John Paul II remarked? Why is it still walking "in the opposite direction" to Fatima?

All this adds up to one thing: the Message of Fatima is absolutely relevant today. It is more up-to-date than ever. It urgently needs to be better known, better understood and better loved.

When it is, when it is finally heeded, the way will be open for the fulfilment of another prophecy made by Our Lady at Fatima. Following the eventual conversion of the world there would come peace – real peace, lasting peace; peace based on justice and virtue. "In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph," she predicted. It will be what St Louis de Montfort called the Reign of Mary. It will also be the Reign of Christ. For the triumph of Mary is the triumph of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

When will this happen? It would be foolhardy to suggest a date; but happen it will. What good reason then for us to be hopeful. Let's look forward to that day, full of joyful confidence in Mary.
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