Translation via Rorate's Italian contributor Francesca Romana:
May editorial from “Radicati nella Fede”There has been a great deal of talk about Fatima over the past years since Pope John Paul II revealed [as he desired] what was presented as the Third Secret. There was a great deal of talk about Fatima in the polemics that followed the revelation of the Third Secret, which many believe is [still] incomplete. We all remember the Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone on national television, presenting the notes written by Lucia and the envelopes which contained them, so as to disprove those who sustained that the Third Secret had been only partly revealed. We all remember the well-documented book by Antonio Socci “The Fourth Secret of Fatima”, and the lively debate that followed.
Well then, there has been a great deal of talk about Fatima, but what has become of the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary?
Certainly it is very much alive in some restricted circles, but is it still preached and practiced in the actual fabric of our parishes? To us it would appear not.
The practice of the first 5 Saturdays has practically disappeared, almost as if it were for ‘little souls’ which no longer corresponds to the way the Church nowadays intends devotion to Our Lady. Of course, nobody will publically deny that one can be devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but they will present this devotion as a question of personal piety and more effort than it is worth. But this is not the case!Faced with the disaster of the world becoming more and more atheistic, God Himself intervened at Fatima, indicating the way out of the destruction of humanity: devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.On the 13th July 1917 Our Lady spoke thus:
“The war [World War I] 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.”
Two years before, in 1915, the Angel of the apparitions invited the children to pray prostrated with him in reparation for the offenses to God by sinners, with especially these words: “Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I offer You the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the sacrileges, outrages and indifference by which He Himself is offended. And through the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of you the conversion of poor sinners."
There is this continuous return to the word “reparation” , which now, is completely incomprehensible to the Catholic world of today: Our Lady asks for the prayer of the Rosary and to offer the Communion of Reparation, to make amends, precisely, for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference by which God is offended. Our Lady requests the Communion of Reparation for the conversion of sinners, so that they are saved from that hell She showed them on the 13th of July 1917:
“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.[...]”
Is this acceptable to the “renewed” Church of modernity – to the so-called post-conciliar adult Christians? When considering Fatima, they speak of the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II and the Christians killed in the 20th century as if these were at the heart of the message – but they speak no more about reparation. Why?
It is simple - because the outlook towards the sin of man and the mercy of God has changed: in short, for the new Christians, sin no longer offends God.
Here we go again: modernist Catholicism modifies the dogmas and the truths of the Faith. When it does address sin it does not say anymore what the Church has said for nineteen centuries.
For the modernist, in theory or in practice, sin hardly exists any longer, since it does not offend God. Sin, they say, does not offend God, but harms only the sinner. Sin, they say, does nothing to God. Sin, they say, does nothing but harm the sinner by making him lose Divine life – this [at least] is conceded – but, at the same time, it offends other people. With these conditions, sin no longer has the characteristic of an offence or the destruction of honour towards God, of His glory, of His praise; it no longer has the characteristic of disobedience towards the laws of God. To sum up, sin is no longer Catholic, and thus does not need any reparation!
Let us be aware now brothers and sisters - how can they speak about Fatima, when they have destroyed the heart [of the message]? We need to be vigilant against a false and merely sentimental devotion to Our Lady which will never bring us to what the Blessed Virgin asks of us continually: our conversion, for our own good and that of the whole world.
A new religion has arisen which destroys the basic concept of sin.
We found a fine description of this dramatic situation in the Church from an enlightened Bishop:
“Further, it is said that, as a consequence, God does not chastise sin with some temporal or eternal punishment. Since sin does not offend God, He will not punish it. In any case God is goodness itself: how could He inflict punishments on sinful man? No, it is man himself that punishes himself, suffering the consequences of his errors, and hell – if there is anyone there – is nothing other than exclusion - self-exclusion - from divine love.
So hell (for these false modern Catholics ) is not a punishment inflicted by God anymore. God no longer has the right to punish. Consequently man is exempt from any duty in making reparation to God. That is, what we call, in our catechism - the satisfaction for sin – the fact that the sinner must satisfy Divine Justice because of his sins. Satisfaction – the need to expiate one’s own sins so as to make reparation to God’s honour – does not exist anymore. Man needs only repair his own spiritual health. Making reparation to the glory of God, cooperating in the saving of creatures fallen into sin, is not required anymore!
But, every one of you know about the wonderful Catholic doctrine on satisfaction, which is all for the glory of God, so that sinful man may rise up and give praise and glory to God again - lifting up his fallen nature by means of satisfaction and by means of a punishment that he undergoes willingly.”
But some will say what happened to the Mercy of God?
The infinite Mercy of God is All on the Cross, where Jesus repairs for our sins with the shedding of His Most Precious Blood. Jesus, satisfied Divine Justice by dying for our sins. This Mercy is infinite. This satisfaction is infinite – and requires us to be part of the great reparation!
What sense would the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ have, if it were not for this satisfaction of God’s Justice? The Cross of Christ would become a kind of sham, of [merely] a ‘good example’ given by Jesus showing how He loves us! No! Jesus satisfies Divine Justice, truly makes reparation for our sins and does not make a “puppet theatre” of His love.
But He does more: He asks us, in His Mercy, to participate in this great reparation – not to deny it!
You belong to the Mystical Body of Christ, you have been given the grace to offer up your sacrifices everyday, in union with the Cross of Christ, so that you may make amends for your sins and those of the world: this is the dignity of the Christian! God, in Christ, makes use of the difficulties of living! Without this goodness of God which renders your suffering valuable, it would be infinitely sad because it is empty. What a grace! However, it is necessary to accept the truth of faith enclosed in the word “reparation” so that this grace is activated.
Let us live the month of May being faithful to the Rosary but also with this spirit of reparation.
