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....

The Prophecy of Fatima (Part 1)

The story begins 91 years ago when 3 Portuguese children, Jacinta Marto, Lucia dos Santos & Francisco had claimed to have a vision of Mother Mary in a place called Fatima in Portugal. Hence, it got the name, "the Prophecy of Fatima" or "the Fatima Prophecy".


The description of the Appartition....
Lúcia described seeing the lady as "brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal ball filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun."


Children required to do penance. upon revelation of the 3 secrets.
Lúcia's says, the lady confided to the children 3 secrets. She exhorted the children to do penance and to make sacrifices to save sinners. These children wore tight cords around their waists to cause pain, abstained from drinking water on hot days, and performed other works of penance.


The children were asked to say the Rosary every day.
Lúcia said that of most important of all, the lady asked them to say the Rosary every day, reiterating many times that the Rosary was the key to personal and world peace. At the time, many young Portuguese men, including relatives of the visionaries, were fighting in World War I (1914-1918).



Attention brings problems to the children...

Attracted by reports of visions & miracles, thousands of people flocked to Fátima and Aljustrel in the following months. On August 13, 1917, the provincial administrator and Arthur Santos & anticlerical Freemason , believing that the events were politically disruptive, intercepted and jailed the children before they could reach the Cova da Iria that day. Prisoners held with them in the provincial jail later testified that the children, while upset, were consoled by the inmates, and then led the inmates in praying the Rosary.



Unsuccessful attempts by the administrators to get the secrets prematurely.
The children were subject to interrogation by the administrators and yet they were unsuccessful in their attempt to get them to reveal the content of the secrets. In the process, he frightened the children that he would boil them one by one in a pot of oil unless they confessed the secrets. The children, however, resisted. That month, instead of the usual apparition in the Cova da Iria on the 13th, the children reported that they saw at nearby Valinhos, the Lady again on August 19th the same year.


Thousands witnessed the "Miracle of the Sun".
During July, The Lady had promised to the children a miracle for the final apparition, on October 13, so that all would believe. What took place on that fateful day became known as the "Miracle of the Sun". A crowd of approximately 70,000 gathered at Cova da Iria to witness including newspaper reporters and photographers. The continuous rain had finally ceased and a thin layer of clouds cloaked the silver disc of the sun such that it could be looked upon without hurting one’s eyes. Lúcia called out to the crowd to look at the sun. Sometime while Lucia was pointing towards the sun and seeing various religious figures in the sky, the sun appeared to change colors and rotate, like a fire wheel. For some, the sun appeared to fall from the sky before retreating, for others, it zig-zagged. The phenomenon was witnessed by most in the crowd as well as people many miles and miles apart.


Witnesses described what they saw in the press.
1. Columnist Avelino de Almeida of O Século (Portugal's most influential newspaper, which was pro-government in policy and avowedly anti-clerical), reported the following "Before the astonished eyes of the crowd, whose aspect was biblical as they stood bare-headed, eagerly searching the sky, the sun trembled, made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws - the sun 'danced' according to the typical expression of the people."

2. Dr. Domingos Pinto Coelho, an eye-specialist, wrote for the newspaper Ordem describes, "The sun, at one moment surrounded with scarlet flame, at another aureoled in yellow and deep purple, seemed to be in an exceeding fast and whirling movement, at times appearing to be loosened from the sky and to be approaching the earth, strongly radiating heat".

3. The special reporter, O dia, of the Lisbon Daily reported in the edition for the October 17, 1917, "...the silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy grey light, was seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds...The light turned a beautiful blue, as if it had come through the stained-glass windows of a cathedral, and spread itself over the people who knelt with outstretched hands...people wept and prayed with uncovered heads, in the presence of a miracle they had awaited. The seconds seemed like hours, so vivid were they."


Could there be another Astronomical explanation to the phenomenon of the Sun described by many?
No movement or other phenomenon of the sun was registered by scientists at the time. According to contemporary reports from poet Afonso Lopes Vieira and schoolteacher Delfina Lopes with her students and other witnesses in the town of Alburita, the solar phenomena were visible from up to 40 kilometers away.


Eventhough we are inhabitants of earth, there are many things on earth that are not fully understood. Only 5% of the deep sea have been explored leaving another 95% still unknown. How can science explain the rational or the mystique of the sun? Scientists can't explain all the phenomenon especially when it comes to things that are related to the divine though they may try....