The Prophecy of Fatima (Part 2)

(Photo) Pope John Paul II speaking with Lucia de Santos, 93, on May 14, 2000.

The first secret: Was a 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: It is a statement that World War I would end and supposedly predicts the coming of World War II should God continue to be offended and if Russia does not convert. The second half requests that Russia be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart:


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.



Controversies of the 2nd Secret...

Some critics are saying that the second prophecy was only disclosed on August 1941 which is after the WWII had begun. Therefore, it is difficult to define it as a prophecy. But still then, on July the 7th, 1952, Russia was consecrated by Pope Pius XII.



The Third Secret.

The third part of the secret was written down "by order of His Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and the Most Holy Mother ..." on 3rd January 1944. Bishop Silva, visiting Lúcia on 15th September 1943 while she was bed-ridden, first suggested that she write the third secret down to ensure that it would be recorded in the event of her death. Lucia was hesitant to do so, however. Finally, in mid-October, Bishop Silva sent her a letter containing a direct order to record the secret, and Lúcia obeyed. In June of 1944, the sealed envelope containing the third secret was delivered to Silva, where it stayed until 1957, when it was finally delivered to Rome.




It was announced on 13th May 2000, 83 years after the first apparition of the Lady to the children in the Cova da Iria, that the third secret would finally be released. The text was published on 26th June 2000:


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.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger tries to sum up the 3rd secret...
Along with the text of the secret, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger published a theological commentary, in which he states that:
"A careful reading of the text of the so-called third 'secret' of Fatima ... will probably prove disappointing or surprising after all the speculation it has stirred. No great mystery is revealed; nor is the future unveiled."
After explaining the differences between public and private revelations, he cautions people not to see in the message a determined future event:
"The purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably fixed future. Its meaning is exactly the opposite: it is meant to mobilize the forces of change in the right direction. Therefore we must totally discount fatalistic explanations of the “secret”, such as, for example, the claim that the would-be assassin of 13 May 1981 was merely an instrument of the divine plan guided by Providence and could not therefore have acted freely, or other similar ideas in circulation. Rather, the vision speaks of dangers and how we might be saved from them."
He then moves on to talk about the symbolic nature of the images, noting that:
"The concluding part of the 'secret' uses images which Lucia may have seen in devotional books and which draw their inspiration from long-standing intuitions of faith."
As for the meaning of the message:
"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.

Controversies begin surrounding the 3rd Secret...

The Vatican withheld the third secret until June 26, 2000 – despite Lúcia's declaration that it could be released to the public after 1960. Several sources, including Canon Barthas and Cardinal Ottaviani, said that Sr. Lúcia insisted to them it must be released by 1960, saying, "by that time, it will be more clearly understood." When 1960 passed without any such announcement, immense speculation over the content of the secret materialized.

Father Nicholas Grunner from Fatima Center disapproves...

The Fatima Center, which is run by Father Nicholas Gruner makes an objection & disapproves of the content of the 3rd secret. Gruner was suspended as a priest by the Avellino, Italy diocese. The Congregation for the Clergy announced on September 12th, 2001, that Gruner's suspension was "confirmed by a definitive sentence of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature." Father Gruner rejected the validity of the suspension and continues to perform the functions of a priest. On November 22, 2006, the Italian author Antonio Socci published Il Quarto Segreto di Fatima (The Fourth Secret of Fatima) in Italian, which also argues that the Vatican has not formally released the entire Third Secret. These critics, for example, point to the fact that Lucia's vision, as recorded in the officially released text, does not contain any words from Mary, as one might expect, and says nothing about a crisis of faith in the Church.

3rd secret reveals the doomsday??

Some say that the 3rd secret is a warning that the earth will be hit by a comet or asteroid in 2012 in the style of "Armageddon" or "Deep Impact" movies. Somehow, humankind will not perish altogether though the extent of damage will be quite substantial. But, I have heard quite a lot of fancy theories of Armageddon in the past such as 7th of July 1977 or 7-7-77 & another fancy one is on the year 2000 about some milenium bug. Lets not bug ourselves with the unknown uncertainties & just get on with living in the present. Anyway, if it should come, why worry? We are all going to die someday, aren't we. If it would help, do a little prayers on daily basis & should earth be struck by a comet, then be it so.

We may be the inhabitants of earth, but each living mortal is not going to be here forever. The best principle one can have is to extend one's love to another humankind irrespective of culture, creed, religion or geographical background and seek the divinity within ourselves. One thing that we can remind ourselves is that science cannot explain the rational or the mystique of the dancing sun and certainly scientists can't explain all the phenomenon especially when it comes to things that are related to the divine though they may try....