For every gamer out there, who is a member of the Catholic Church, and doesn’t know the history of a Marian (appearance of the Virgin Mary) visitation of a small town in Portugal, known as Fatima, here is a brief history.
On May 13, 1917, three small Portuguese children named Lucia, and her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta, ages 10, 9, and 7, were watching their families sheep, and busy praying the Rosary, cheatingly as they only said “Hail Mary” for each decade. Suddenly there were numerous flashes of lightning, and fearing a storm, the children gathered their herd to go home. A second later, they saw a young woman, that Lucia would later claim was more brilliant than the sun, above a tree. She held a Rosary made of pearls, and told them not to be afraid, that she was from Heaven.
She wanted them to pray the Rosary every day, and to visit the Cova, a hollow area where they were in, each thirteenth day, for the next six months, then she would reveal who she was, and what she wanted. At first the children decided not to reveal anything, as a socialistic/communistic government was in place in Portugal (much like it is, once again after the last elections), so not to get into trouble with the law, or their families. It was the young brother and sister, cousins of Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta who blurted out what they had seen, as soon as they could to their mother. She in turn, told Lucia’s mother, and the two accused the poor girl of making up fanciful lies and filling the heads of the younger two. She would not recant, but tearfully insisted that what they had said, was true. At first her mother refused to allow her to go back to the Cova, but eventually relented.
Month, by month, they visited, saw the sights of Hell, and were asked to pray the Rosary for peace. She warned them that unless people turned from their sins, there would be a much worse war that would break out during the reign of Pope Pius XI. There would be a light in the sky that all could see (this happened in January 25, 1938) that people would know a new war was coming to punish man for his sins. No one paid heed, and World War II, broke out. She asked for the consecration to her heart, by the Pope and ALL of his bishops in unison, to stop this from happening, and to stop the spread of Communistic Russia and its errors from spreading from all over the world.
Eventually the socialistic government had heard enough, and kidnapped the children, and threatened them with boiling oil to say it was all a lie. The children would not relent, and the people demanded their release. Knowing it was in no win situation, they let them go, hoping people would have enough of this “myth”. On the last month, October 13, 1917, Mary announced that she was the “Lady of the Rosary”. Close to seventy thousand people came, hearing that some sort of miracle had been promised. Among them were state journalists and newspaper reporters eager to disprove Fatima as nothing but Fanciful lies. Lucy’s mother feared for her safety if there would be no miracle, but the young girl never lost belief, neither did her cousins.
The rain had been pouring non stop for many hours, and everyone was drenched. At first, once the visitation started to happen, people murmered against the children. There was no miracle. Then Our Lady stretched out her arm, toward the sun, at which point Lucia told the crowd to look at it. It seemed to dance, with multi colors around it, and then appeared to descend upon the Earth. People panicked and begged for forgiveness of their sins, and the sun eventually returned to its proper place. Interesting enough, after the miracle, everyone who had been wet from the rain, even the ground which had been soaked, was drier than dry, free from even the mud on their clothes. This is a documented event, and pictures of people staring straight up into the sky as the sun danced and fell, can still be seen.
Our Lady begged us to pray the Rosary every day, and attend The first Friday and Saturday of five consecutive months for reparation of our sins. She also asked that Russia be Consecrated to her heart as early as 1929. While many popes have Consecrated the world to her heart, and John Paul mentioned Russia in 1984 with SOME of his bishops along with the world, there has never been a proper Consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart, by the Pope and ALL his bishops worldwide.
In 1919, Francisco died, and a year later so did Jacinta as prophesized by Mary. Lucia was left alone, and became a nun. She revealed two of the three secrets of Fatima, as allowed by Mary, and offered the third to Pope John XXIII in 1960. It reportedly was so terrible that it made certain popes tremble after reading it.
Even in 2000, there was speculation that the whole story of the third secret was not released. It mentions the pope being killed in the mist of followers, and another part supposedly mentions priests falling from grace and living in lives of sin, and that the corruption would go all the way up to the Vatican.
Sister Lucia, the last of the Fatima Seers died February of this year (2005). Interesting her room, which she has been locked in since around the nineteen sixties was locked down hours after her death, and Vatican officials hastily took over her writings.
Sorry this was long, but the story is so big, there could have easily been more pages. If you want to learn more, you can write to:
The Fatima Center
Servants of Jesus and Mary
17000 State Route 30
Constable, NY 12926-9989
A word of warning, The Fatima Crusader has a tendency to swing very far to the right, almost to the point of breaking away from Rome, and towards the group called the LeFevrebans (can’t spell this right). This group is not part of the Church, and a lot of what they believe is in error. Other than this, The Fatima Center is very interesting.
I only have one request. Anyone who reads this, and doesn’t agree with my beliefs is free to say so, but if you feel that you want to be a smart ass in your response, please keep it to yourself. If you have a dissenting idea, I don’t care, go a head and print, agree with me, the same, just don’t be a smart ass. Thank you for listening to me, and I hope this has been informative.