FATIMA

Apparitions of Mary the Mother of the God–Man Jesus Christ.

The apparitions of Saint Michael were also a preparation for the series of apparitions of Mary the mother of Jesus which began on the 13th of May 1917. The children were in the fields minding the sheep when Mary appeared to them from above a small Holmoak tree. They said they saw "a beautiful Lady from Heaven". Mary asked them – Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta to meet her in the same place on the 13th of each month for the next six months until October. Our lady promised the children that she would obtain a very big miracle for everyone to see on the 13^th of October. A crowd of 70,000 gathered, on that wet and dismal day, to see the promised miracle. Mary announced her identity: she was Our Lady of the Rosary, and she told them three "secrets". It had been raining all morning and then the amazing miracle happened. The rain suddenly stopped and the sun came out. The sun seemed to be veiled with transparent gauze which enabled everyone to look at it without difficulty. The grayish tint began changing as if into a shining silver disc, that was growing slowly until it broke through the clouds. And the silvery sun, still shrouded in the same grayish lightness of gauze, was seen to rotate and wander within the circle of receded clouds! At first it seemed to start spinning and dancing in the sky and then it began to plunge rapidly towards the earth. The crowd was terrified. They got down on their knees in the mud thinking they were finished and started begging God for Mercy. After a moment the sun stopped and returned to its normal position and then, twice more, repeated the same manoeuver. The people cried out as the Sun seemed to rapidly descend on them. All the people were weeping and praying bareheaded. These were seconds, moments, that seemed like hours. Later, people found that their clothing, which had been soaked in the downpour, and the ground was quite dry." Yet the event evidently was not just a local phenomenon or explainable as mass delusion because people who knew nothing about it saw the sun dancing in the sky from many miles away.

The 3 Secrets

The First secret

The first secret was a terrible vision of Hell

"Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror."

The Second secret

Our Lady said "You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. 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. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world."

The Third secret

Bishop da Silva of Leiria suggested to Sr Lucia to write down the third secret in September 1943 and she wrote it down on the 3rd of January 1944. She was afraid to reveal its contents and that is why there was a delay in writing. Bishop da Silva kept it in his posession until 1957 and then sent it to Rome. The Secret was made public on the 13 th May 2000 which was 83 years after the first apparition of our Lady to the children in the Cova da Iria in Fatima and 19 years after Pope John Paul was shot on the same day in Rome in 1981. Sister Lucia wrote
J.M.J. (JMJ means Jesus, Mary and Joseph)
The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria–Fatima, on 13 th July 1917. 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."

The crowd of 70,000 who saw the Sun dancing in the sky on the 13th of October 1917

Name:
E–mail:	Necessary for reply!
Comments	Please put your comments here and don't forget to put your email address above if you want a reply! You can delete this text before you start.
What do you think of this page	No comment Too long Not relevant Poor appearance

Back to top