by
Damien F.
Mackey
----------------------------------------------------------------------
At Fatima in May of 2010 Pope Benedict XVI said,
“We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s
prophetic message is complete.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It has
been a very healthy sign for the Church and the world in general that Church
leaders, stung by the often badly-managed paedophilia crisis, have now begun to
admit of an underlying sinfulness. In the spirit of great men and women of the
Old Testament, like Jeremiah (3:5; 14:20), and Daniel (9:5), and Queen Esther
(14:6), they are saying: “We have sinned … we acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, the iniquities of our fathers ... we beg forgiveness”. The
earlier tendency to close ranks and to try to ignore the deep-seated problems
has ever so slowly given way to a spirit of repentance and expressions of
sorrow for the victims. Many of the latter have, not surprisingly, received
this belated turnaround with scepticism. And the distrust sown has even
provided the secular authorities with an excuse to intervene in Church affairs,
as in the case of the raids by Belgian state police on Church property.
How did
this disastrous state of affairs ever come into being?
Simply
because, as in the case of the Jews of Jeremiah’s time, the genuine prophetic
warnings were ignored; our own going back at least as far as Fatima in 1917,
when Our Lady of the Rosary had warned (echoing her Son’s, ‘Unless you repent
you will all likewise perish’, Luke 13:3), that “If” humankind refused to
respond to the signs of the times, then unimaginable devastations would follow,
devastations both physical and spiritual. The horrors of two World Wars and the
concentration camps were not even to be the end of it. A tidal wave of “error”
was next to be unleashed upon the world from Communist Russia. Fatima seer, Sister
Lucia, spoke of that in 1946.
Chronologically,
the World Wars and the spread of error have corresponded closely with Blessed
Anne Catherine Emmerich’s prediction that the Devil would be let loose about
50-60 years before 2000 AD, with some lesser demonic unleashings to occur even
earlier than that, in approximately her own time (i.e., 1774 – 1824).
This
period included the terrible French Revolution.
Some
sixty years after Catherine’s ‘own time’, Pope Leo XIII experienced a most
terrifying demonic visitation that seemed to play out, on a cosmic scale, God’s
formerly permitting of Satan to buffet an individual, the righteous Job. Or,
even more notably, reminiscent of the “hour [of] the power of darkness” when
Jesus Christ was handed over to his enemies (Luke 22:53). I refer to:
The Vision of Pope Leo XIII
(October 13, 1884)
Exactly
33 years to the day prior to the great Miracle of the Sun in Fatima, that is,
on October 13, 1884, Pope Leo XIII experienced a remarkable vision. When the
aged Pontiff had finished celebrating Mass in his private Vatican Chapel,
attended by a few Cardinals and members of the Vatican staff, he suddenly
stopped at the foot of the altar. He stood there for about 10 minutes, as if in
a trance, his face ashen white. Then, going immediately from the Chapel to his
office, he composed the prayer to St. Michael, with instructions that it be
said after all Low Masses everywhere. When asked what had happened, he
explained that, as he was about to leave the foot of the altar, he suddenly
heard voices – two voices, one kind and gentle, the other guttural and harsh.
They seemed to come from near the tabernacle. As he listened, he heard the
following conversation [http://www.stjosephschurch.net/leoxiii.htm]:
The
guttural voice, the voice of Satan in his pride, boasted to Our Lord:
“I can
destroy your Church.”
The
gentle voice of Our Lord:
“You can?
Then go ahead and do so.”
Satan:
“To do so, I need more time and more power.”
“To do so, I need more time and more power.”
Our Lord:
“How much
time? How much power?”
Satan:
“75 to 100 years, and a greater power over those who will give themselves over to my service.”
“75 to 100 years, and a greater power over those who will give themselves over to my service.”
Our Lord:
“You have
the time, you will have the power. Do with them what you will.”
Absolutely
incredible! Almighty God, who assuredly does not tempt us to sin, here allowing
Satan the freedom to exercise real power against his Church, just as He had
permitted in the case of the trials of Job, and, later, of Jesus Christ. To
bring forth a greater good. In the first case, the perfecting of Job. In the
second, the salvation of the entire human race. And, now, in our day, the
purification of the Church – the Bride following her Crucified Spouse by
imitating his Passion, Death and Resurrection.
Surely nothing
better explains this chaotic age in which we have found ourselves than the
combined testimonies of Blessed Catherine, Pope Leo, and Lucia in this regard.
All Hell
breaking loose!
And we
are not to blame God for this. We have only ourselves to blame, and our
forefathers. And now our Church leaders are starting to say it. But all
Catholics need to say it, in the words of Daniel (9:5): “We have sinned, and
have dealt perversely, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even turning
aside from thy precepts and from thine ordinances”. Catholics first, to lead
the way, so that other Christians, but also Jews, and Moslems, and Hindus, and
indeed the whole world, will follow suit. ‘For it is not sacrifice alone that
pleases God, but a humbled contrite heart’.
But now
we shall also have to pay the cost, and most surely we are already paying it. Did
not Pope Francis comment recently (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29190890):
"Humanity needs
to weep, and this is the time to weep," he said.
"Even today,
after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third
war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction" …. [?]
And
Fatima may give a hint of other horrors yet to come; Fatima supplemented
perhaps by some of those frightening post-1920’s Marian apparitions. Here of
course we speak only of those apparitions that have been solidly approved by
the Church. So, perhaps it was wishful thinking that the contents of the Third
Fatima Secret were initially interpreted as being all completely done and
dusted by the end of the C20th. As if the C21st century has suddenly set
humankind in the right direction.
Thankfully
Pope Benedict XVI en route to Fatima for the celebrations of the 13th
of May, 2010, offered a more realistic interpretation of the Third Secret.
Colleen Hammond gives this account of it (http://www.colleenhammond.com/blog/2010/05/pope-fatima%E2%80%99s-prophetic-message-is-not-complete/):
Pope:
“Fatima’s prophetic message is NOT complete”
Don’t
remember seeing this in the news, eh?
On board
a jet bound for Fatima on May 11, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI answered a question
regarding the Third Secret that put him at odds with the ‘official’ Vatican
interpretation of the Secret propounded in 2000. The year 2000 Commentary
claims that … the prophecy of the Third Secret is completely fulfilled by the
1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II.
For a
multitude of reasons … this interpretation was denounced as insufficient by
tens of thousands of Catholics the world over. During Pope Benedict’s latest
trip to Fatima, however, the Pope did not speak of the Fatima prophecies as
already fulfilled, but linked the Third Secret with the present pedophilia
scandals in the Church, and indicated the prophecy of the Secret includes
future events. ….
[End of
quote]
And the
Pope associated his Fatima message with the old Babylonian Captivity, the era
of Jeremiah, Daniel and Esther mentioned above. (From the Vatican’s website):
Esplanade of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima Thursday, 13 May 2010
Dear
Pilgrims,
“Their descendants shall be renowned among the nations […], they are a people whom the Lord has blessed” (Is 61:9). So the first reading of this Eucharist began, and its words are wonderfully fulfilled in this assembly devoutly gathered at the feet of Our Lady of Fatima. Dearly beloved brothers and sisters, I too have come as a pilgrim to Fatima, to this “home” from which Mary chose to speak to us in modern times. I have come to Fatima to rejoice in Mary’s presence and maternal protection. I have come to Fatima, because today the pilgrim Church, willed by her Son as the instrument of evangelization and the sacrament of salvation, converges upon this place. I have come to Fatima to pray, in union with Mary and so many pilgrims, for our human family, afflicted as it is by various ills and sufferings. Finally, I have come to Fatima with the same sentiments as those of Blessed Francisco and Jacinta, and the Servant of God Lúcia, in order to entrust to Our Lady the intimate confession that “I love” Jesus, that the Church and priests “love” him and desire to keep their gaze fixed upon him as this Year for Priests comes to its end, and in order to entrust to Mary’s maternal protection priests, consecrated men and women, missionaries and all those who by their good works make the House of God a place of welcome and charitable outreach.
These are
the “people whom the Lord has blessed”. The people whom the Lord has blessed
are you, the beloved Diocese of Leiria-Fatima, with your pastor, Bishop Antonio
Marto. …. In God I embrace all [Portugal’s] sons and daughters, particularly
the afflicted or outcast, with the desire of bringing them that great hope
which burns in my own heart, and which here, in Fatima, can be palpably felt.
May our great hope sink roots in the lives of each of you, dear pilgrims, and
of all those who join us through the communications media.
Yes! The
Lord, our great hope, is with us. In his merciful love, he offers a future to
his people: a future of communion with himself. After experiencing the mercy and
consolation of God who did not forsake them along their wearisome return from
the Babylonian Exile, the people of God cried out: “I greatly rejoice in the
Lord, my whole being exults in my God” (Is 61:10)”.
The
resplendent daughter of this people is the Virgin Mary of Nazareth who, clothed
with grace and sweetly marvelling at God’s presence in her womb, made this joy
and hope her own in the canticle of the Magnificat: “My spirit rejoices in God
my Saviour”. She did not view herself as a fortunate individual in the midst of
a barren people, but prophesied for them the sweet joys of a wondrous maternity
of God, for “his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation”
(Lk 1:47, 50).
[End of
quote]
The Pope
then later went on to make the all-important statement relevant to the Third
Fatima Secret:
We would
be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete. Here there
takes on new life the plan of God which asks humanity from the beginning:
“Where is your brother Abel […] Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from
the ground!” (Gen 4:9). Mankind has succeeded in unleashing a cycle of death
and terror, but failed in bringing it to an end…
In sacred
Scripture we often find that God seeks righteous men and women in order to save
the city of man and he does the same here, in Fatima, when Our Lady asks: “Do
you want to offer yourselves to God, to endure all the sufferings which he will
send you, in an act of reparation for the sins by which he is offended and of
supplication for the conversion of sinners?” (Memoirs of Sister Lúcia, I, 162).
[End of
quote]
The Holy
Father’s Fatima Homily is filled with a realistic hope, based on the promised
Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary “in the end”. And we, too, can share in
that same hope based on that same promise. We must ever resist a tendency found
amongst some Christians to focus upon all the ills of the world, seeing a
conspiracy around every corner; or, like St. Peter, taking one’s eyes off
Christ to focus on the terrifying, storm-tossed waves. Nevertheless, we must
also be realistic. We well know of the great ancient enmity, that there is most
definitely a diabolical conspiracy in process even in our own very era. And so
we have our work cut out.
Theologian
Frits Albers (RIP), who had studied for the priesthood at Nijmegen (Holland),
used to tell of the Teilhardian modernism in supposed Catholic places like
Louvain University back as early as the 1940’s.
By the
1970’s, things had of course become far worse still. On June 29, 1972, His
Holiness Pope Paul VI stunned
the world with the alleged (some have disputed this) words: “From some fissure
the smoke of satan entered into the temple of God. ...”.
The
testimony of veteran exorcist, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, may serve to bring us right
up to date about the present horrific state of affairs even in the Vatican: the
consequences of that satanic infiltration included power struggles at the
Vatican as well as “cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are
linked to the Demon”. It is always difficult to confirm or verify, from a
distance, the full accuracy of such reports. But sometimes insiders will let
the cat out of the bag, as did Communist, Bella Dodd, whom Archbishop Fulton J.
Sheen converted in 1952.
And as
has Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence officer
ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc, who has told of his
involvement in a plot to discredit Pope Pius XII (See:http://article.nationalreview.com/303351/moscows-assault-on-the-vatican/ion-mihai-pacepa
On
occasion readers can send us some very startling reports, certain of which
tend, quite unrealistically, to attribute all presumed conspiracies to the
Jews.
There was
something of a light-hearted moment in the 2005 documentary Protocols of Zion, which documents the rise of
anti-Semitism in the US after the 9/11 attacks. Here was commentator Marc Levin
walking up and down the streets asking random people about Jews and
anti-Semitism. He then comes upon a group of feisty young street protestors,
black Americans, one of whom argues with him about how, as he thinks, all the
Jews have taken over New York. Levin asks him what he means, and the guy
responds,
“Even the
mayor of New York [at the time, Giuliani] is Jewish!”
Levin
tells the young pontificator that he’s wrong.
“Oh
really?” he says, “Jew-liani? Jew-liani? That doesn’t sound Jewish to you?”
Everyone
laughed.
Far less
humorous, and much closer to home (Australia), is this item:
Australian Adept Unveiled World Satanic Control
by Henry
Makow Ph.D.
January
3, 2010
In an
explosive deathbed confession, a former head of the satanist “Alpha Lodge” in
Sydney, Australia, revealed the pervasive worldwide power of organized
Satanism, which is synonymous with the Illuminati.
“Things
are not as they seem – and they have not been for a long, long time,” he wrote,
describing a wholesale betrayal of society by its ostensible leaders.
“Petor
Narsagonan” aka “Frater 616” died March 25, 2004. Recently, his executor, an
“Aloysius Fozdyke” (their satanic names) sent the 15 pp. document by email to
Arthur Cristian, webmaster of “loveforlife.com.au”.
“I have
felt it necessary to edit very little of this work,” “Fozdyke” wrote to
Cristian, “although legal considerations have ensured that some names and
details were excised. It was his intention to have this published in the
popular media.”
What
follows is a synopsis of this shocking document focusing on Satanic power and
influence. Satanic influence is “now so pervasive as not to be readily
noticed,” Frater says. Satanists are laced throughout Australian society, and
the pattern is replicated everywhere. They include politicians, doctors, high
ranking police officers, lawyers, decorated military men, media personalities,
fashion models and social workers. The most talented have lifestyles maintained
by crime under a veneer of respectable professionalism and knowledge. Marginal
types (prostitutes, drug dealers) are important to Satanism but are merely
tools.
Frater
explains he got involved in a satanic group in university in 1971. “I fell
through a crack in reality... I escaped the mundane through one of western
society’s fault lines”. “A mentor” in the Satanic network set him up in the
travel business and for years Frater live a life of unimaginable wealth,
occultism and debauchery. He studied the black arts: divination, dark
meditation, sacrifice, sexual vampirism, voodoo dolls and sex magic. Each day
ended with a “Black Mass orgy of unforgettable and unspeakable delight.” ….
[End of
quote]
Excerpt
from a Poem by recently deceased Sydney poet, Patrick Moylan
The woman
of agony from the flaming furies
Came
winging up from the underworld depths
To start
quarrels and wars
Upon the
Earth for unfortunate man.
Her
only pursuit to revel in strife
With
her mind a whirling vortex
Of a
thousand odd tricks
To
deceive and cajole the naivety of man
And
exploit opportunity
To
cause any argument
Of one
with another
Anything
she hopes
That
will lead to blood-shed
Destruction
and famine
Suffering
and death
Madness
among men
Being
her greatest objective.
|
Locked
into her hair
Nestle
two coiled snakes
Poised
rearing to strike
At her
given command
By the
slightest pretext
From
her horrific snarled mouth
Like
that of a mad savage dog
With
out-turned bared lips
From
the underworld depths
Hell-bent
she rises in fury
To drag
men down to the deep buried pit
Wonder
you must in the events of man
How far
she has advanced
In her
planned Goal of Death ....
|
Now she
glides across slowly
...To
stir the strife cauldron
As she
wings on her way
Wonder
just where
She is
perched right this minute
Perhaps
scanning the horizon
For
more likely prey
Innocently
unsuspecting her invisible presence
Never
resting but planning unceasing
To
satisfy her desire for bloodshed and death
|
Our blessed Lady years ago requested
During a time of violence and war
At a place called Fatima
For your Rosary of Prayer
To block the Hellspirit
And stop her marauding and sowing of strife
To regain world peace
In the Great World War
Yet since that distant time
Some well thinking religious people
Outright refrain
To speak about Fatima
And our Lady's requests
As part of their chores
Of church canon laws
But please God let's hope
Just the same
They'll not be blown up ....
|
We find a
sharp contrast between the Marian-inspired hope of popes Benedict XVI and Francis,
and the prevailing despair of our times. It is like a drama story that is
filled with many dark twists and turns, but with the author knowing that
ultimately it will finish on a happy note. The basis of Benedict XVI’s and
Francis’s hope has the same foundation as it had for the three Fatima seers: Jesus
Christ.
Pope Benedict again:
Moreover,
that Light deep within the shepherd children, which comes from the future of
God, is the same Light which was manifested in the fullness of time and came
for us all: the Son of God made man. He has the power to inflame the coldest
and saddest of hearts, as we see in the case of the disciples on the way to
Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:32). Henceforth our hope has a real foundation, it is based
on an event which belongs to history and at the same time transcends history:
Jesus of Nazareth. The enthusiasm roused by his wisdom and his saving power
among the people of that time was such that a woman in the midst of the crowd –
as we heard in the Gospel – cried out: “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and
the breasts that nursed you!”. And Jesus said: “Blessed rather are those who
hear the word of God and obey it!” (Lk 11:27-28). But who finds time to hear
God’s word and to let themselves be attracted by his love? Who keeps watch, in
the night of doubt and uncertainty, with a heart vigilant in prayer? Who awaits
the dawn of the new day, fanning the flame of faith? Faith in God opens before
us the horizon of a sure hope, one which does not disappoint; it indicates a
solid foundation on which to base one’s life without fear; it demands a
faith-filled surrender into the hands of the Love which sustains the world.
[End of
quote]
We must
allow hope to evaporate the paralysing fear of our times.
In fact,
though it might not seem so, the turning point might already have been reached.
According to the conversation overheard by Leo XIII, Satan was granted “75 to
100 years”. That was in 1884. And to what date do 100 years bring us from
there? To 1984, and that was a most significant date in relation to the
Fatima prophecies (and possibly the year intended in St. Don Bosco’s Dream).
For it was in 1984 that there occurred the long-awaited and long-neglected
collegial consecration of Russia - but now also including the entire world
(since ‘Russia’s errors’ had by now gone out worldwide) - to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary. On the 25th of March 1984, in the square of St.
Peter’s Basilica, the great Marian Pope, John Paul II, achieved the
consecration in union with a moral majority of the world’s bishops.
And this,
after several unsuccessful attempts by the modern popes.
Sr.
Lucia, at that stage the sole remaining Fatima seer, ultimately accepted that
this was the act of consecration that Our Lady of the Rosary had requested at
Fatima. It was a consecration that Heaven had asked for, and expected,
back in the 1920’s. But Satan had managed to thwart and delay it, owing to the
lack of will on the part of most Catholics. Perhaps it took the near violent
death and then miraculous ‘resurrection’ of this great Marian pontiff, John
Paul II, to achieve what had for so long remained unfulfilled.
In my
Fatima book, The Five First Saturdays (1994), a decade later – updated
at:
The Five First Saturdays of Our Lady of Fatima
I took up
in some detail the attractive theme introduced by Blue Army writers, that the Fatima series echoed the drama of the
Book of Esther, both having a beginning and a concluding on the 13th
day of a month. In the case of Fatima, the initial series of apparitions
occurred between May 13 and October 13 of 1917, culminating in the great solar
miracle, ‘so that all would believe’. I likened the wicked edict of
Haman, the enemy of the Jews in the Book of Esther - who had planned to destroy
the entire Jewish race, the church of that time - to Satan’s pitch for souls,
especially in the modern era.
The
terrifying Fatima apparition of Hell was Satan’s calling card. Mordecai’s
countermanding edict echoed of course the Divine work of salvation, and Our
Lady of Fatima’s key role (like Queen Esther’s) in it, with a special
culmination in 1984. Error had gone out universally (Haman’s edict), but now
(in 1984) God had applied the brakes to it (cf.
Mordecai’s edict). Haman was exposed and executed, but his minions were still
active and the final victory would therefore be delayed.
In
contemporary terms, the cap had been placed securely over Satan’s destructive
oil leak, shutting down its flow, but the sludge and pollution still remain
everywhere.
Is it too
much to say that, along parallel lines with the Book of Esther, the 1984
consecration was God’s countermanding Edict against the former unleashing of
error? And that, with it, the Devil’s 100 years of being let off the leash were
brought to an end. A final crushing of his already crushed head? And that it
remains to mop up the mess, along with Satan’s still very active minions? Error
to be reined in by Truth?
People of
good will on earth must co-operate to cap the far-reaching error spill; Truth,
the antidote to error, needing to be held up everywhere, in everything, at
every level. As said, we have our work cut out. And it may be that, as in the
drama of Esther, it will all come down to a last throw of the dice and to a
last minute rescue, with much “bloodshed … suffering and death” (as in
Patrick Moylan’s poem above) at the end. For, as Mordecai had dreamed (Esther
10:10-11): “For this purpose [God] made two lots, one for the people of God
and one for all the nations, and these two lots came to the hour and moment and
day of decision before God and among all the nations”.
Our ‘ray
of hope’ at the end of all this ‘gloominess’ is the sure fulfilment of that
other great Fatima promise: an era of peace and the Triumph of the
Immaculate Heart. Pope Benedict XVI had well in mind this happy future for
humankind when he said at Fatima, may “the seven years which separate us from
the centenary of the apparitions hasten the fulfillment of the prophecy of
the triumph of the Immaculate Heart, to the glory of the Blessed Trinity.”
In the meantime, as he went on to tell us:
... we
must cultivate an interior watchfulness of the heart which, for most of the
time, we do not possess on account of the powerful pressure exerted by outside
realities and the images and concerns which fill our soul (cf. Theological
Commentary on The Message of Fatima, 2000). Yes! God can come to us, and show
himself to the eyes of our heart. An example and encouragement is to be found
in the shepherd children, who offered their whole lives to God and shared them
fully with others for love of God. Our Lady helped them to open their hearts to
universal love. .... Only with this fraternal and generous love will we succeed
in building the civilization of love and peace.
[End of
quote]
We
greatly look forward with Pope Benedict XVI to Fatima in the year of 2017:
In seven years [now only two years] you will return
here to celebrate the centenary of the first visit made by the Lady “come from
heaven”, the Teacher who introduced the little seers to a deep knowledge of the
Love of the Blessed Trinity and led them to savour God himself as the most beautiful
reality of human existence. This experience of grace made them fall in love
with God in Jesus, so much so that Jacinta could cry out: “How much I delight
in telling Jesus that I love him! When I tell him this often, I feel as if I
have a fire in my breast, yet it does not burn me”. And Francisco could say:
“What I liked most of all was seeing Our Lord in that light which Our Mother
put into our hearts. I love God so much!” (Memoirs
of Sister Lúcia, I, 42 and 126).
