Homily: May 13 2016 - Our Lady of Fatima - Three Secrets

99 years ago, on May 13, 1917, Our Lady began appearing to 3 little shepherd children near Fatima, a city 110 miles north of Lisbon, Portugal.   Mary asked the children to pray the rosary for world peace, for the end of World War I, for the conversion of Russia, and to pray especially for sinners in danger of hell. She urged the children also to offer their lives in reparation for the sins which offend God—to make mortifications throughout the day for the conversion sinners.

Our Lady showed the children three secret images to encourage us to accept God’s will.  The first secret was an image of souls languishing in hell. They saw blackened souls wailing in hell, surrounded by torturing demons. She showed them what was at stake if souls continued in error.

The second secret was a prediction.  She told them that world war one was about to end, but unless the world turned all the more to the Gospel of her son, then a worse war would come.  And if Russia was not consecrated to her Immaculate Heart, it would spread it atheistic communist errors throughout the world.  Great destruction would come about, and the Church would be persecuted.  But in the end, her immaculate heart would triumph.

The third secret, made known to the world during the reign of Pope John Paul II was a vision of an angel with a flaming sword, who cried out “Penance, Penance, Penance” and Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious were going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross. There they beheld a Bishop, dressed in white, shot by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him. Two angels then gathered the blood of the martyrs in holy water buckets and sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.

So, in essence, Our Lady showed to the three children of Fatima, much of the terror of the 20th century which contained more death, destruction, and martyrdom than all of the previous centuries combined.  The Church suffered terribly in the 20th century: 8000 priests in Spain alone, killed in the 1930s; 3000 in Mexico, 6000 priests sent to the concentration camps of the Nazis. How many more in China, Russia, the Ukraine. How many souls turned away from the saving faith in the 20th century to the errors of atheism and the grave sins of the sexual revolution.

Yet, Our Lady promised, in the end, “Her Immaculate Heart would 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.

May we take seriously Our Lady’s message to pray the rosary, to do penance for sinners, to seek the purification of our own hearts from all resistance to God, “that we may further more effectively each day the reign of Christ.” For the glory of God and salvation of souls.