Between May 13 and October 13, 1917, three Portuguese children received apparitions of Our Lady, near Fatima, a city 110 miles north of Lisbon. Mary asked the children to pray the rosary for world peace, for the end of World War I, for sinners and for the conversion of Russia.
During the apparitions Our Lady of Fatima revealed three prophetic “secrets,” the first two of which were revealed beginning in 1927 and refer to the vision Mary gave to the children of hell and the souls languishing there. Mary also urged an ardent devotion to her Immaculate Heart, she predicted the unleashing of violence upon the world in the Second World War, and predicted also the immense damage that Russia would do to humanity by abandoning the Christian faith and embracing Communist totalitarianism.
In 2000, Pope John Paul II directed the Holy See's Secretary of State to reveal the third secret; it referred to the persecutions that humanity would undergo in the last century: “The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated'”.
This has been interpreted to refer to the suffering of the popes of the 20th century, particularly the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981, which took place on May 13, the 64th anniversary of the apparitions. The Holy Father attributed his escape from certain death to the intervention of Our Lady: He said“... it was a mother's hand that guided the bullet's path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death.”
Yet the central meaning of the message of Fatima is no different from what the Church has always taught: it is, as Pope Benedict the XVI put it, the message of Fatima is “the exhortation to prayer as the path of “salvation for souls” and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.”
Perhaps the most well known utterance of the apparition of Our Lady at Fatima was her declaration that “My Immaculate Heart will triumph”. Pope Benedict interpreted this utterance as follows: “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.
With the help of Our Lady may we be faithful, as we prayed in the opening prayer, to persevere in penance and prayer for the salvation of the world, that we may further more effectively each day the reign of Christ.” For the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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