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Fatima, The Third Secret : By Visionary Sister Lucia
I write in obedience to you, my God, who
command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria
and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.
After the two parts which I have already
explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw 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 Our
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!'.
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,
men and women Religious 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, men and women Religious, 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.
END Quote of Third Secret
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The theological commentary :
And let us not say that it is God who is
punishing us in this way; on the contrary it is people themselves who
are preparing their own punishment. In his kindness God warns us and
calls us to the right path, while respecting the freedom he has given
us; hence people are responsible”.
… the purpose of all the apparitions was to help
people to grow more and more in faith, hope and love—everything else was
intended to lead to this. ...
A person who foretells what is going to happen
responds to the curiosity of the mind, which wants to draw back the veil
on the future. The prophet speaks to the blindness of will and of
reason, and declares the will of God as an indication and demand for the
present time. In this case, prediction of the future is of secondary
importance. What is essential is the actualization of the definitive
Revelation, which concerns me at the deepest level. ...
When, after the attempted assassination on 13
May 1981, the Holy Father had the text of the third part of the “secret”
brought to him, was it not inevitable that he should see in it his own
fate? He had been very close to death, and he himself explained his
survival in the following words: “... it was a mother's hand that guided
the bullet's path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of
death” (13 May 1994). That here “a mother's hand” had deflected the
fateful bullet only shows once more that there is no immutable destiny,
that faith and prayer are forces which can influence history and that in
the end prayer is more powerful than bullets and faith more powerful
than armies. ...
Beneath the arms of the cross angels gather up
the blood of the martyrs, and with it they give life to the souls making
their way to God. ... The blood of the martyrs is the seed of
Christians, said Tertullian. As from Christ's death, from his wounded
side, the Church was born, so the death of the witnesses is fruitful for
the future life of the Church. Therefore, the vision of the third part
of the "secret", so distressing at first, concludes with an image of
hope: no suffering is in vain, and it is a suffering Church, a Church of
martyrs, which becomes a sign-post for man in his search for God. …
In biblical language, the "heart" indicates the
centre of human life, the point where reason, will, temperament and
sensitivity converge, where the person finds his unity and his interior
orientation. According to
Matthew 5:8, the "immaculate heart" is a heart which, with
God's grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore "sees
God". To be "devoted" to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means therefore to
embrace this attitude of heart, which makes the fiat—"your will be
done"—the defining centre of one's whole life. ...
First of all we must affirm with Cardinal Sodano:
“... the events to which the third part of the ‘secret' of Fatima refers
now seem part of the past”. Insofar as individual events are described,
they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic
revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history
are bound to be disappointed. Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in
this way, just as Christian faith in general cannot be reduced to an
object of mere curiosity. What remains was already evident when we began
our reflections on the text of the “secret”: the exhortation to prayer
as the path of “salvation for souls” and, likewise, the summons to
penance and conversion. ...
I would like finally to mention another key
expression of the “secret” which has become justly famous: “my
Immaculate Heart will triumph”. What does this mean? The Heart open to
God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons
of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the
history of the world, because it brought the Saviour into the
world—because, thanks to her Yes, God could become man in our world and
remains so for all time. The Evil One has power in this world, as we see
and experience continually; he has power because our freedom continually
lets itself be led away from God. But since God himself took a human
heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the
freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word. From that time
forth, the word that prevails is this: “In the world you will have
tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn
16:33). The message of Fatima invites us to trust in this
promise. ...
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Father Robert Fox gives the following at his
web site: The final sentence of the Secret showing
two angels beneath the Cross, gathering up the
blood of the martyrs, and sprinkling it on the souls of those
making their way to God, reminds us of what has come down from the early
Church Fathers: the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christianity. This
gives cause for great hope for the new
springtime for the Church which Pope John Paul II foresees for
the third millennium.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation, in the
Commentary took special note of: “my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” He
concludes that Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the history of
the world, because it brought the Savior into the world. He ends on a
note of optimism of how Jesus Christ has
“overcome the world.” (Jn
16:33).
The Vatican Commentary on the “Message of Fatima” informs us that
prayer and penance for conversion is still in order. The reparation of
First Saturdays, needed for peace and
conversions, is a primary form of penance called for in the entire
Fatima message.
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