The Secret of Fatima apparitions and why it is important!

About Fatima Pilgrimage site. Here, is just to recap.

On 13. May, 1917, three children were pasturing their little flock in the Cova the Iria, parish of Fatima, They were called, Lucia de Jesus, and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto.

About Midday, after praying the Rosary, they saw a brilliant light and thinking it to be lightning, they decided to go home. But as they went down the slope another flash lit up the place and they saw on the top of the Holmoak a Lady more brilliant than the sun from whose hands hung a white rosary.

The Lady told the three shepherds that it was necessary to pray much and she invited them to return to the Cova de Iria during five consecutive months on the 13th day of that hour.

According to Memoirs of Sister Lucia, the so-called Secret of Fatima is composed of three parts:

First Part – Vision of Hell

We are told by Sister Lucia, in nr. 2 of her Third Memoir, regarding the apparition of July 13, 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, Iike 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 repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to Heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.”

The Secret of Fatima apparitions

Chapel of Apparitions

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Second Part – Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

In nr. 5 of said Third Memoir, Sister Lucia, mentioning the Apparition of June 13, 1917, says that Our Lady:

“told me on June 13th, 1917, that she would never forsake me, and that her Immaculate Heart would be my refuge and the way that would lead me to God. As she spoke these words, she opened her hands, and from them streamed a light that penetrated to our inmost hearts. I think that, on that day, the main purpose of this light was to infuse within us a special knowledge and love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary 14, just as on the other two occasions it was intended to do, as it seems to me, with regard to God and the mystery of the most Holy Trinity. From that day onwards, our hearts were filled with a more ardent love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary”

Third Part – Vision of Bishop dressed in white

During the apparition of July 13, 1917, according to the final report in nr. 5 of the Fourth Memoir of Sister Lucia, Our Lady, after saying that Russia would spread her errors throughout the world, promote wars and persecute the Church, if Her requests weren’t listened to, adds:

“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 will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved; etc… Do not tell this to anybody”

The three Little Shepherds, despite innumerous threats, kept inviolable this Secret, which was later on put to writing by Sister Lucia, in obedience to an explicit order of the Bishop of the Diocese of Leiria and afterwards sent to the Holy See. Finally, on May 13, 2000, at the conclusion of Mass presided by Saint John Paul II in the Prayer Area of the Shrine of Fatima,

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His Eminence Angelo Cardinal Sodano, Secretary of State of the Vatican, announced, in summary form, the meaning of the content of the Third Part of the Secret of Fatima, whose entire text would afterwards be divulged by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. According to the text published in the Portuguese edition of the weekly newspaper L,Osservatore Romano, year XXXI, nr. 1, May 20th, 2000, pag. 9.

The Secret of Fatima apparitions

Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity

Cardinal Sodano goes on to say:

“This vision of Fatima is directed mainly to the struggle of atheistic systems against the Church and Christians in general and describes the tremendous suffering of the witnesses of the faith in the last century of the second millennium. It is an unending Way of the Cross, led by the Popes of the XX Century”.

Next, we reproduce the text of the Third Part of the Secret as written by Sister Lucia on January 3, 1944, as it is patent in documents published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, edition of the year 2000 of the Libreria Editrice Vaticana: “J.M.J.

The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima, on 13 July 1917. I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine. After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’. And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with its prinkled the souls that were making their way to God. Tuy, 3-1-1944”.

Let us remain close in the same prayer! May the Lord bless you abundantly!