WAF – An Enemy of Our Lady’s Message
J.M.J.
First Week of
Lent 2018
Dear Friend of our Lady,
The Act of Contrition is one of the trademark prayers that identifies and unites Catholics. It is a prayer that young children are taught to say when preparing to make their first Confession. It is the prayer said in the Confessional after confessing our sins.
Catholics are also taught to say this prayer as soon as one realizes that one has committed a sin.
Other times when it is recommended to pray the Act of Contrition: at the beginning of one’s morning and night prayers, prefacing other prayers said throughout the day, and before retiring at the end of the day.
And finally, one must pray the Act of Contrition when in danger of, or at the point of, death. We are even advised to pray throughout our lifetime for the grace to be able to offer this Act with true and perfect contrition at that terrible, final hour of our lives, when death is imminent.
To help remind Catholics of the importance of at least twice daily praying the Act of Contrition, we have enclosed a revised reprint of a bookmark titled, Act of Contrition, distributed many years ago by Our Lady’s Apostolate.
The Act of Contrition is widely known as a singularly Catholic prayer. Even Hollywood has long recognized it as such, as this story demonstrates:
Many years ago a fallen-away Catholic returning to the practice of his Faith set about relearning the prayers he had been taught in his youth – one of which was the Act of Contrition.
One evening while doing paperwork in front of the TV, he fell asleep. He was awakened in the middle of the night by the noise of a shoot-out scene in a Chicago gangster movie (a black-and-white oldie from the 1940s or 50s). He looked up just in time to see one of the gangsters being cornered by two others with their guns trained on him ready to kill.
The gangster whose life was about to end, appealed to his captors to wait a minute – and they did! He dropped to his knees and prayed the Act of Contrition, and the executioners did not interrupt him.
The reverting Catholic who witnessed this was surprised to see this scene included in a Hollywood movie, so different from the movie industry of his day, approximately 50 years later.
But another thing that caught the man’s attention was the wording of the prayer. He recognized the prayer in the movie as the version of the Act of Contrition he was taught as a child, versus the modernized version which he had more recently come across in the re-learning process.
He immediately wrote down the older version of the prayer, preparing to use that superior form which he had learned first as a child.
This returning Catholic’s account of what he witnessed should serve as a reminder to all of us of how great an influence Catholics had on society, including the movie industry, before the modernist and worldly changes invaded the Church following the Second Vatican Council.
Today, Hollywood uses every opportunity to blaspheme against Our Lord and Our Lady and the Catholic Faith. But 60 years ago, that would not have been tolerated, because hanging in the back of every Catholic church – and updated monthly – was a list of ratings assigned to newly released movies.
Movies with inappropriate or offensive content, or that attacked the Catholic Faith, were given a bad rating. And Catholics paid attention to this.
Hollywood knew that if the movie was not given a satisfactory rating by the Catholic Church, millions of Catholics would not go to see that movie. And because of that, many Hollywood film producers were very careful about movie content.
Praying the Act of Contrition is part of being Catholic and is part of the Message of Fatima, recalling Our Lady’s appeal to us to amend our lives – that is, to repent of, and confess our sins and lead truly Catholic lives.
For copies of the enclosed bookmark, call us at 1-800-845-3047 or 1-800-263-8160.
The False Friends of Fatima
Recently I received a letter from a volunteer for Our Lady’s Apostolate in Hawaii who requested to be removed from our mailing list because of a statement written in the December 2017 letter to volunteers about the World Apostolate of Fatima.
Here is the statement: “You recall that the puppets of the enemies of Fatima, the World Apostolate of Fatima (formerly the Blue Army) and other so-called ‘Fatima’ groups, use the argument of the ‘fall of Communism’ to support spreading the false notion that the Consecration of Russia has already been done.”
You may recall reading or hearing the many times that Father Gruner wrote or said, quoting Saint Thomas Aquinas: “Against a fact there is no argument”.
It is a fact that the Blue Army – re-named World Apostolate of Fatima (WAF) – has been saying that the Consecration of Russia was done more than three decades ago.
When they first began promoting this falsity, Father Gruner spent a great deal of time showing the proof to John Haffert of the Blue Army hierarchy that the Consecration had not been done.
Nonetheless, the Blue Army continued and continues to quote what has become known as the “Vatican party line” since then. The “Vatican party line” is what is touted by the enemies of Fatima within the Church – that the Consecration of Russia was done – despite all evidence to the contrary.
The Blue Army’s own publication in Spain (Sol de Fatima) published an article quoting Sister Lucy (after the 1984 Consecration of the World by John Paul II) in an interview clearly stating the Consecration requested by Heaven was not done since there was no mention of the country of Russia and the consecration was not done in union with all the Catholic bishops of the world.
For more than 30 years the Blue Army / WAF has ignored the facts and spread this lie. In doing so, they have misled and continue to mislead millions of Catholics. Over the years, the verbiage used to substantiate their claim that the Consecration was done has varied. Here are a few examples of the explanations I have heard from what I believe are innocent trusting supporters of WAF:
1. “Yes, it was the Consecration of the World that the pope did, and Russia is part of the world”. Unfortunately, this demonstrates a lack of understanding of the Catholic definition of what a consecration is.
2. “Yes, the world was given a period of peace as Our Lady promised, but it can’t last forever”. Really?, what world do they live in? On the other side was an image of a Sacred Host surrounded by rays of light, having the words: “Mane Nobiscum Domine” (Stay with us, O Lord) surrounding the image.
The fall of Communism is one of the arguments they use to support the claim of a period of peace we supposedly were given after the 1984 consecration (see Issue 120 of The Fatima Crusader to see what Russian Catholics have to say about that so-called fall of Communism).
But when asked about all the wars since then, and the greatest war of all, the war against the unborn – not only has it not gone away, but it has continued to spread around the world since the consecration of 1984 – they have no answer for that.
So what defines an enemy? Certainly misleading souls and jeopardizing their eternal salvation by not telling the truth as noted above is one sure sign of an enemy.
Almighty God sent His Mother with a Message so important that the confirmation Heaven gave proving that the message was from God was given by a Miracle of unprecedented proportions.
Greater still, the miracle was foretold 3 months in advance, as to the day, the time and the place and thus it was witnessed by 70,000 people – something that has never happened in the history of mankind.
Our Lord Himself defined His enemies with the following words: “He who is not with Me, is against Me”. If we spread false information despite all the evidence to the contrary, information that is calculated to lead to the eternal loss of countless souls, that is the hallmark of an enemy, or “false friend” of Our Lady of Fatima.
We cannot ignore the facts pertaining to the Fatima Message and miracle without offending Our Lord and Our Lady. Deliberately choosing to ignore the facts and to place the words of men over those of Heaven makes one an enemy of Christ.
But God gives us free will. We may not like the difficulties and problems caused by choosing God over men – Our Lord didn’t promise that following Him would be easy – and thus we are free to ignore the obvious and choose what is comfortable in order to make our lives here on earth easier, but to the detriment of our eternal salvation.
Enclosed is Issue 103 of The Fatima Crusader published in 2012. I encourage you to take the time to read the article by Father Gruner beginning on page 2: “Each of Us Must be Aware of: The False Friends of Fatima”; and the second article beginning on page 13 written by Michael Matt: “The Real Peace Plan … Listen to Your Mother.”
There are, of course, some other wonderful articles as well, such as: “Make Everything You Do a Sacrifice” by Michal Semin. You won’t be disappointed.
For more copies of Issue 103 of The Fatima Crusader, call us at 1-800-845-3047 or 1-800-263-8160.
You will notice in this magazine an ad for the book, False Friends of Fatima by Christopher Ferrara, published in 2012. It helps in this battle of promoting the full Fatima Message to know who some of the enemies are.
We are offering you a free copy of this book so long as you make a pledge to read it. We ask that you assist us with the postage and handling by sending a donation of $3.00, if possible.
And for extra copies of the book to give to others, we also offer it to you for free, as one of our apostolate’s volunteers, but we ask that if possible, you assist with the postage costs. Two copies of the book will cost approximately $3.50, four copies approximately $4.00 and five copies of this book will cost approximately $5.00 in postage and handling.
For a copy, or copies, of the book False Friends of Fatima call us at 1-800-845-3047 or 1-800-263-8160.
In the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts,
Joanna Swords
P.S. Don’t forget about our other apostolate literature to assist you with making a holy penitential Lenten Season: An Examination of Conscience for Adults (booklet), The Devotion of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary (leaflet and booklet), and The Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary booklet.