Tomorrow we celebrate Our Lady of Fatima, the most well-known Marian feast of this “Month of Mary.” The message from Fatima is a great message of hope. Yet a hope that is not naïve to real challenges that we must face together with the Lord.
In 1917, while another world crisis raged, the First World War, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared on the edge of Europe, in Portugal, to three children who were pasturing their family sheep. She appeared 6 times, both to comfort and to challenge us with a message that is still very relevant.
The global difficulties of the 20th century have continued into the 21st – as Our Lady of Fatima noted they would and will – until humanity truly heeds the commandment of Jesus to live the Law of Love and not to worship the false god, money. Yet she promises that she will accompany humanity to the triumph of Love (“In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph”).
During the apparitions Mother Mary insistently called us to pray the Rosary for conversion of our hearts.
On October 13, 1917, 70,000 people gathered for the last apparition, waiting for the promised sign that the visions were authentic. They were not disappointed. In the middle of drenching rain, the sky suddenly cleared and all witnessed a terrifying dancing of the sun. It moved around the sky in colorful and frightening fashion for 10 minutes! When it was over, everything was dry. Even atheist journalists, who had gone to try to debunk the event, then had to testify to what happened.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Rev. 21:1-2
“Sacred Scripture calls this mysterious renewal, which will transform humanity and the world, ‘new heavens and a new earth’”. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1043. (To learn more, read #1042-50)
