Mary in Private Revelation

My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love you! I beg pardon of you for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love you.

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore you profoundly and 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 outrages, sacrileges and indifferences with which he 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 (25). 

The historic Fatima apparition of July 13, 1917, can arguably be designated as the single most important revelation of the entire Marian Age. This message establishes: the quintessential importance of devotion to the Immaculate Heart; a vision of Hell; the conditional chastisement that would fall upon humanity during the twentieth century; the request for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart, and the promise of eventual victory with the "Triumph" of her Immaculate Heart:

A few moments after arriving at the Cova da Iria, near the holmoak, where a large number of people were praying the Rosary, we saw the flash of light once more, and a moment later Our Lady appeared on the holmoak.

"What do you want of me?" I (Lucia) asked.

"I want you to come here on the 13th of next month, to continue to pray the Rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you...."

"Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially whenever you make some sacrifice: O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary."

As Our Lady spoke these last words, she opened her hands once more, as she had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a sea of fire. 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 huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me.) The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. Terrified and as if to plead for succor, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and sadly:

"You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war 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 illuminated 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 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 will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world...."

"When you pray the Rosary, say after each mystery: O my Jesus, forgive us, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are most in need" (26).

This third Fatima message introduced the title "Our Lady of the Rosary" and re-emphasized the crucial need to pray the Rosary daily for world peace and for the end of World War I—a goal that God ordained to be realized only through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary (because only she can help you).

The three children received a vision confirming the reality of Hell and a conditional prophecy of a Second World War, persecutions of the Church, the annihilation of nations and suffering by the pope, if the world did not convert and continued its ubiquitous offenses against God, and specific reference is made to the Russia-based errors of Communism.

Yet Our Lady of the Rosary also revealed a message of hope. Through the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and the later revealed First Saturdays of Reparation, Mary’s Immaculate Heart will eventually triumph and a period of peace will be granted to the world. "In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph… and a period of peace will be granted to the world." It is towards the fulfillment of this prophecy that every other authentic Marian apparition of the twentieth and twenty-first century has been directed and in which they find their purpose.

In the 1917 apparition of October 13, Mary identified herself as Our Lady of the Rosary and again called the world to pray the Rosary daily for peace in the world:

"I want to tell you that a chapel is to be built here in my honour. I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day. The war is going to end, and the soldiers will soon return to their homes."

"I have many things to ask you: the cure of some sick persons, the conversion of sinners and other things...."

"Some yes, but not others. They must amend their lives and ask forgiveness for their sins."

Looking very sad, Our Lady said:

"Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended."

Then, opening her hands, she made them reflect on the sun, and she ascended, the reflection of her own light continued to be projected on the sun itself....

After Our Lady had disappeared into the immense distance of the firmament, we beheld St. Joseph with the Child Jesus and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun. St. Joseph and the Child Jesus appeared to bless the world, for they traced the Sign of the Cross with their hands. When, a little later, this apparition disappeared, I saw Our Lord and Our Lady; it seemed to me that it was Our Lady of Dolors. Our Lord appeared to bless the world in the same manner as St. Joseph had done. This apparition also vanished, and I saw Our Lady once more, this time resembling Our Lady of Carmel (27).

At the end of this sixth apparition, the 70,000 onlookers witnessed the extraordinary physical sign which became known as the "solar miracle." The sun appeared to dance in the sky, giving off various colors and then approached the earth with great intensity, only to return later to its position in the sky. The solar miracle was reported in the major secular, anti-Catholic newspapers of Portugal, with the headlines reading, "The Miracle of Fatima" or "How the Sun Danced at Noon over Fatima" (28).

The seventh apparition to the professed Sr. Lucia of the Immaculate Heart took place in her Spanish convent on December 10, 1925. It is here that the important revelation of the five First Saturday devotions occurs. This is the account from Sr. Lucia’s diary:

On December 10, 1925, the most Holy Virgin appeared to her, and by her side, elevated by a luminous cloud, was a child. The most holy Virgin rested her hand on her shoulder, and as she did so, she showed her a heart encircled by thorns, which she was holding in her hand. At the same time, the Child said:

"Have compassion on the Heart of your most holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them."

Then the most holy Virgin said:

"Look, my daughter, at my Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me, and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me" (29).

We see here (with a theology similar to the Scapular devotion), the invitation of the Mother of Jesus to intercede for the "gifts of eternal salvation" (cf. Lumen Gentium, No. 62), which necessitates the freely-willed cooperation of the individual. The great gift of the five First Saturdays devotion directs the faithful to the heart of the prayer and sacramental life of the Church, with Sacramental Confession, Eucharistic reception, and the praying and meditating on the Gospel mysteries of the Rosary, all with the overall intention of offering reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This motherly heart is mystically wounded "at every moment" by the ongoing rejections and blasphemies from so much of humanity who reject her love and her role as their Spiritual Mother. Our Lady herself refers to her Heart, "surrounded by thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude" (30).

All of her earthly children are therefore invited to "console" her Immaculate Heart through the five First Saturdays devotion with its extraordinary promise of "the graces necessary for salvation," a devotion which for many of Our Lady’s children becomes a perpetual practice of reparation and love.

On May 13, 2000, Pope John Paul II beatified the child visionaries, Francisco and Jacinta, at the Fatima Shrine, and announced the release of the "third part" of the July 13, 1917, message, known as the third secret of Fatima, which was publicly released on June 28, 2000:

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" and 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 it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God (31).

Although various interpretations have been offered regarding the third secret, the comments of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (at that time Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), provides fruitful insight as to its ingoing relevance:

The angel with the flaming sword on the left of the Mother of God recalls similar images in the Book of Revelation. This represents the threat of judgment which looms over the world. Today the prospect that the world might be reduced to ashes by a sea of fire no longer seems pure fantasy: man himself, with his inventions, has forged the flaming sword. The vision then shows the power which stands opposed to the force of destruction—the splendor of the Mother of God and, stemming from this in a certain way, the summons to penance. In this way, the importance of human freedom is underlined: the future is not in fact unchangeably set, and the image which the children saw is in no way a film preview of a future in which nothing can be changed. Indeed, the whole point of the vision is to bring freedom onto the scene and to steer freedom in a positive direction. The purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably fixed future. Its meaning is exactly the opposite: it is meant to mobilize the forces of change in the right direction (32).

Contemporary Reported Apparitions

Since the time of the Second Vatican Council, an unprecedented number of Marian apparitions have been reported throughout the world. Marian apparitions have been reported from such international locations as Cuapa, Nicaragua; Akita, Japan; Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina; Kibeho, Africa; Naju, Korea; Betania, Venezuela; Hrushiv, Ukraine; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and several other places. A good number of these apparitions have received official approval, while others still remain under Church investigation.

How should the faithful respond to a reported apparition before the Church has granted her official approval? By the Church’s own teaching and practice, it is clear that the faithful are free to believe in a reported apparition if nothing in the message or concurring phenomena are contrary to faith and morals as taught by the Church. Oftentimes, it is precisely the response of the faithful to a reported apparition site that invites the Church authorities to enter into a process of official evaluation and examination—a process which is of imperative importance to the faithful and to all involved.

For example, when the 70,000 onlookers at Fatima saw the solar miracle and began, along with the three visionaries, to live the message of Fatima in 1917 before official Church approval was given in 1930, they were in no sense violating proper Catholic response to private revelation or Church authority. It is a historical fact that the Basilica at Fatima was well under construction and the hospital completed by the time the 1930 official approval by the Church was pronounced. Moreover, John Paul II beatified Jacinta and Francisco for their heroic response to the Fatima message, although both died years before the Church granted the Fatima apparition her official approval.

Nonetheless, before an announcement is made regarding any reported Marian revelation, the Catholic faithful must retain an attitude of obedience to the Church—any individual determination concerning a reported Marian apparition must include a clear willingness to accept the final and definitive judgment of the Church.