Roberto
de Mattei
Corrispondenza
Romana
March
8, 2017
Those
who go on pilgrimage to Lourdes do so in order to immerse themselves in the
supernatural atmosphere of the place. The Grotto in which Our Lady appeared to
St. Bernadette in 1858 and the pools where the sick continue to be immersed in
the miraculous water, are fringes of a blessed land in a now ungodly society.
Those who go to Fatima, do so, on the other hand, to gain spiritual refreshment
not from a place, but from a heavenly Message: the so-called “secret” Our Lady
entrusted to the three little shepherds a hundred years ago, between May and
October in 1917. Lourdes chiefly heals
bodies, Fatima offers spiritual direction to disorientated souls.
On
May 13th 1917, at the Cova de Iria – an isolated place of rocks and olive
trees, near the village of Fatima in Portugal “a
lady dressed all in white, more brilliant then the sun, shedding rays of light,
clear and stronger than a crystal glass filled with the most sparkling water,
pierced by the burning rays of the sun"* appeared to
three children who were watching over their sheep, Francesco, Jacinta and their
little cousin Lucia dos Santos. This Lady revealed Herself as the Mother of
God, who was entrusted with a message for mankind and who gave an appointment
to the three shepherd-children for the 13th of every subsequent month until October. The
last apparition ended with a great atmospheric
miracle, named “the dance of the sun”, seen even from 40 kilometres away, by
tens of thousands of people.
The
secret revealed by Our Lady at Fatima contains three parts which form an organic,
coherent whole. The first is a terrifying vision of hell into which the souls
of sinners precipitate; the mercy of the Immaculate Heart of Mary counters this
punishment [and is] the supreme remedy offered by God to humanity for the
salvation of souls.
The
second part involves a dramatic historical alternative: peace - fruit of the
conversion of the world and the fulfilment of Our Lady’s requests, or a
terrible chastisement would await mankind if it remained obstinate in its
sinful ways. Russia would be the instrument of this chastisement.
The
third part, divulged by the Holy See in June 2000, expands on the tragedy in
the life of the Church, offering a vision of a Pope and bishops, religious and
laity struck dead by persecutors. Discussions that have opened up in recent
years about this “Third Secret” risk however in obscuring the prophetic force
of the Message’s central part, summed up in two decisive sentences: Russia “will
scatter her errors throughout the world” and “in the end, my Immaculate Heart
will triumph”.
On July 13th 1917, when Our Lady spoke these words to
the children of Fatima, the Bolshevik minority had still not attained power in
Russia. This would happen some months later with the “October Revolution”,
which marked the start of the world-wide diffusion of a political philosophy which
proposed to unhinge the foundations of the natural, Christian order of things.
“For
the first time in history – stated Pius XI in his encyclical Divini Redemptoris of March 19th
1937 -- we are witnessing a struggle,
cold-blooded in purpose and mapped out to the least detail, between man and all
that is called God." (2 Thess. 1,4)”. In the 20th century there are no other crimes comparable
to Communism for the temporal space in which it spread, for the territories it
embraced, for the quality of hate that it was able to secrete. After the
collapse of the Soviet Union these errors were as if released from the wrapping
that contained them to propagate like ideological miasma over the entire West,
under the form of cultural and moral relativism.
The errors of Communism seem to have penetrated inside
the Catholic Church itself. Pope
Bergoglio recently received in the Vatican the exponents of the so called
“popular movements”, representatives of the new Marx-Ecologist left and expressed his liking for the pro-Marxist
regimes of the Castro brothers in Cuba, Chàvez and Maduro in Venezuela, Morales
in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and José Mujica in Uruguay, forgetting
Pius X’s words in the encyclical Divini Redemptoris of March 19th 1937,
which defined social-Communism as “intrinsically perverse”.
The
Message of Fatima represents an antidote against the penetration of these
errors. Six Pontiffs have recognized and
honoured the apparitions in the Cova da Iria. Paul VI, John Paul II and
Benedict XVI visited the sanctuary as Popes, while John XXIII and John Paul I
went there when they were still Cardinals, Roncalli and Luciani. Pius XII, sent his delegate, Cardinal Aloisi
Masella, there.
Those
who have never been to Fatima shouldn’t miss out going this year, the centenary
of the event. Those who have been there
once or even more, [should] do as I have done: return. At least until Easter you will not find
masses of pilgrims. Ignore the new sanctuary, which in its ugliness brings to mind
the one of San Pio da Pietrelcina at San Giovanni Rotondo, and limit their
visits to the Chapel of the Apparitions and the old sanctuary, which shelters the
mortal remains of Blessed Jacinta and Francesco, and, the Cabeco hill, where, in
1916, the Angel of Portugal anticipated the apparitions to the three little
shepherds.
Fatima
discloses to its devotees the significance of the tragedy of our times, but
also opens hearts up to an invincible hope in the future of the Church and all
of society.
*according
to their words
Translation:
Contributor Francesca Romana
Also ran in “IL TEMPO"
