A BLESSED FEAST OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA TO YOU!
On this 107th anniversary of Her first apparition, May 13, 1917, The Fatima Center staff wishes you, dear devotee of Our Lady of Fatima, a blessed feast day!
Appearing “more brilliant than the sun,” Our Lady announced to Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto, God’s Will to save the world in these times through devotion to Her Immaculate Heart. “To whomever embraces this devotion,” She added, “I promise salvation. These souls will be dear to God, as flowers placed by Me to adorn His Throne.”
God’s timing is always perfect. Thus, we do well to reflect upon why Our Lady appeared when She did, and not at some other time in world history. God’s ways are inscrutable, deep, and far beyond man’s understanding. While faith and meditation may give us insights into His solicitous wisdom, we men can never presume to exhaust the ways of Divine Providence. Nevertheless, in honor of Her feast day, we offer the following considerations.
However, we acknowledge that there are more we have yet to consider.
Please add other reasons in our comment section below.
WHY DID GOD CHOOSE MAY 13th?
In a presentation I gave, “The Holy Face Will Conquer Communism,” I discussed a powerful connection between this date and the holy Veil of Veronica and the defeat of the enemies of the Church. (I invite you to watch it or listen to the extended version of the talk.)
In the 13th episode of the series, Signs and Secrets of Fatima, Marianna Bartold also took on this question. I invite you to watch or listen to her episode. Her reasoning includes connections to papal authority, historical events, and several of Our Lady’s titles. For example:
- Pope St. Boniface IV’s conversion (and consecration) of the Roman Pantheon into a church in 609.
- Following a Portuguese victory for independence, King John – with the Pope’s blessing – dedicated the country to Our Lady and ordered Portuguese cathedrals to be named in Her honor. This all took place at Fatima / Leira.
- The Clementine Meridian Line tracking the sun in one of Our Lady’s Roman basilicas.
- Our Lady’s titles of Queen of Angels and Queen of Martyrs.
- May 13th is also the Feast of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, a devotion popularized by St. Peter Julian Eymard and Pope Pius IX.
In addition to all these reasons why God chose to send His most holy Mother to us on this privileged day, consider as well the following four reasons.
MARY, QUEEN OF PEACE
First, Our Lady appeared in the midst of the Great War when “civilized Christian” Europe was on the verge of destroying itself. She came to bring peace, which remains an essential dimension of Her Message. She promised a period of peace for our war-ravaged world that has forgotten God.
However, She came only in answer to the Pope’s specific request. On May 5, 1917 Pope Benedict XV published a letter in the Diocese of Rome, requesting Our Lady’s aid. The Pope had exhausted every possible means he had of promoting peace, despite being an experienced Vatican diplomat, and so turned to Her as the “last and greatest” resort. He also specifically invoked Her as “Queen of Peace” and formally added this title to the recitation of the Litany of Loreto, one of the few public litanies of the Church.
Eight days later, Our Lady appeared at Fatima! The poor illiterate shepherd children certainly had no idea that half way across Europe the Supreme Pontiff and Vicar of Christ had just offered a solemn and heartfelt plea to the Queen of Heaven. Yet Our Blessed Mother told the children that the Great War would end. And through them She gave mankind the only means by which future peace could be established.
MAY CROWNING AND THE HOLY EUCHARIST
Second, Our Lady appeared in May. This month is traditionally dedicated to Our Lady and the recitation of Her holy Rosary. In all Her apparitions, She repeatedly insisted that we pray the Rosary every day, almost as if extending that May devotion to every month of the year.
A highlight in May is for Our Lady’s statue to be crowned by one of the First Communicants. This crowning of Mary fits in perfectly with the Message of Fatima, because God desires Her Immaculate Heart to reign as Queen over the whole world along with the Sacred Heart of Our Lord.
In addition, the Fatima Message is supremely centered upon the Holy Eucharist. The Angel of Fatima miraculously brought the Fatima seers Holy Communion in the fall of 2016 – by a great miracle, they became First Communicants! The Angel, whom Fatima experts believe was St. Michael, taught them very important prayers of reparation to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. As we know, acts of reparation remain at the heart of the Fatima Message.
We should also not forget that the culminating vision of Fatima at Tuy, Portugal on June 13, 1929 was highly Eucharistic. Sister Lucia received a great revelation of the Blessed Trinity in which the Sacred Host and Chalice figured most prominently. It was on that day that God requested that the Consecration of Russia now be performed by the Pope in union with all the Catholic bishops of the world.
ATHEISTIC ERRORS COVER THE WORLD
Third, Our Lady appeared just before the diabolical and Marxist atheistic revolution, which had been growing steadily in intensity throughout the 19th century and would soon take its most dramatic step in over-running Russia. She came to warn mankind of the errors of Russia even before those errors began wreaking their havoc on a suffering world, which was already ravaged by the Great War.
She would come to warn us about the errors of Russia before anyone was aware of the terrible things which would occur as these errors spread throughout the world.
The devil always relishes mocking God by inverting His right order. It seems commensurate with that diabolical logic that international atheistic communists chose May 1st as the day and month when they would celebrate their “worker’s revolution” (see a ‘Saint Life’ article on this subject). Our Lady countered their demonic choice by strengthening the month of May as Her month, a month which continues to give Her suffering children great hope during this crisis.
THE LITURGY OF THE CHURCH
Fourth, please consider the following from the Breviary for May 13:
“May 13th … is kept at Rome the dedication of the Church of St. Mary-of-the-Martyrs; this building was called the Pantheon or temple of all the gods, but the blessed Pope Boniface IV cleansed that old temple, and consecrated it in honor of the Blessed Mary, always a Virgin, and of All Martyrs, in the time of the Emperor Phocas.” (Roman Martyrology, Office of Prime)
How eminently appropriate that God would choose this day for the first apparition at Fatima. This day was already sanctified by the dedication of a highly significant church to Our Lady’s honor. Are not all Catholics meant to consecrate themselves to Our Lady? Is not Russia, the largest nation upon earth, meant to be consecrated to Our Lady and thus lead the whole world in a great conversion to God?
The Pantheon had been a pagan temple dedicated to the sum of all pagan deities. We know pagan idols are all demons; thus, they accurately represent all error and heresy. Have we not seen all these demons unleashed upon the world in our time by the spread of Russia’s errors, atheism, freemasonry, and modernism, the synthesis of all heresies?
Under the Pope, this building became a church in which all martyrs are honored. We know from the Secret of Fatima (including the Vision revealed in June 2000) that the Fatima Message prophesies the coming martyrdom of many faithful souls.
And this particular church was Roman and consecrated by a saintly pope. Pope St. Boniface IV (+615) succeeded Pope Gregory the Great. The Church celebrates his feast on May 8th. Boniface IV helped further the spread of monasticism, which desperately needs to be revived today. He also helped solidify the great liturgical work of St. Gregory in permanently establishing the Traditional Rite of the Mass in the heart of the Church. The recovery of this Mass is urgently needed today as well. It will inevitably be an essential part of the great Catholic restoration which comes in the wake of Fatima’s divine fulfillment.
Does not God’s selection of this day, in conjunction with His divine liturgy, clearly foreshadow how a saintly pope will be called to lead the one true Church of Christ – during the trials of a great martyrdom – out of heresy, precisely through a Marian consecration? This “Fatima” restoration will in turn restore celibate religious life and fully recover the Holy Mass of All Ages.
CONCLUSION
God’s timing is always perfect and impeccable. May this truth increase our trust in His Divine Providence, especially in this year when the world is facing such terrible crises.
This past month we’ve seen riots on our university campuses. The problem of illegal immigration and unsecured borders is becoming the most heated issue in this presidential election year. Our bi-weekly series, Church and State, has amply documented how the judicial system has been completely subverted. Ideologies from the ‘culture of death’ – including abortion, sodomy and transgenderism – are gaining greater ascendancy across the globe. Wars continue to wage across the globe, including escalating action in the Ukraine and accusations of genocide in Palestine.
Our beloved Church continues to be devastated by attacks upon the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass from the hierarchy, an increase in cancellations of good bishops and priests, and more heterodox Vatican documents, such as Fiducia Supplicans and Dignitias Infinita. A group of Catholic faithful, including priests and theologians, are even calling for Francis to resign, repent and do penance for the harm he has caused the Church.
Every indicator we have points to the fact that things will only continue to worsen. Likewise, our sense of the Faith tells us this is true, because we know we have not obeyed Our Lady of Fatima.
During the height of the First World War, Our Lady announced God’s promise that when the incomparable merits of the Immaculate Heart of Mary are solemnly invoked by the Church – through the Consecration of Russia and the promulgation of the Reparatory Devotion of the First Saturdays – God will relent from punishing the enormous sins of the world and will instead grace the world with conversion and peace.
Tragically, as these requests of Our Lady of Fatima have remained unheeded, the world has sunk day by day and year by year ever deeper into grave errors and crimes, which have brought ever greater and prolonged punishments from Heaven, including wars and persecutions of the Church, while hell is being filled with the souls of poor sinners.
The eternal salvation or loss of countless souls continues to hang in the balance as we approach the limit of God’s patience. It is urgent that we faithful LIVE and SHARE the Message of Fatima with others. What better way to honor Our Lady on Her feast day than to spread Her Message? You can easily remember the essentials to Her Message with the acronym Roman Catholic S.O.S.[1]
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Will we obtain the Consecration of Russia in time to prevent the martyrdom of the faithful throughout the world and the annihilation of whole nations? “Sacrifice yourself for this intention, and pray!”
Our Lady of Fatima, ora pro nobis!
ENDNOTES:
[1] The acronym R.C.S.O.S. will help you remember the following key points from the Message of Fatima, which we are ALL called to live:
- Roman Catholic – Remain in the State of Grace.
- S.O.S. – From the Barque of Peter, we must send up to Heaven a great plea for divine assistance.
- [R]osary – Pray it every day.
- [C]onsecrate – Yourself to Our Lady, and pray for the proper Consecration of Russia.
- [S]capular – Be invested in and faithfully wear the Brown Scapular.
- [O]ffer – prayer and penance, penance, penance! – including your daily duty – in reparation for sins, for the conversion of sinners, and for the Pope.
- [S]aturday – Practice the First Saturdays devotion and Communion of Reparation every month.
I briefly explained these points in the last ten minutes of the conference ‘Fatima 101: The Message,’ which is linked here: Video; Podcast. Likewise, I talked about them at our recent conference in Dallas (February 2024), in a conference titled ‘Fatima Basics.’