Feast of Saint Edward the Confessor (13 Oct 2009)

Ninety-two years ago today, on October 13, 1917, Our Blessed Mother appeared for the last and most important time at Fatima to the three children to whom she had been appearing and speaking on the 13th of each month since the previous May.

A great crowd of people, both the devout who had come to believe the children’s descriptions of their visions, and the merely curious, had gathered in the Cova da Iria, an open field near the Portuguese town of Fatima. It had rained all during the night, and most of the people there had no protection from the weather and as a result, were soaking wet. The Mother of God appeared to the children and told them to look up at the sun, which was a dull gray because of the rainclouds. As they looked at it, and the great crowd imitated their actions, the sun seemed to begin to spin like a pinwheel, showering the world below with bright colors, and to fall toward the crowd assembled there. Many were terrified, thinking that the world was about to end in a great collision of sun with earth. But then, the sun seemed to stop its earthward fall, and then to reascend to its normal place in the heavens. And the people gathered there then noticed that they and their clothes were completely dry after being thoroughly wet just a few minutes before.

Let us consider some of the elements of the whole Fatima event. The Mother of Jesus, clothed not in cloth but in light—the woman “clothed with the sun” of the Book of Revelation—had been asking the children to tell the world to pray the Rosary for the conversion of Russia, which officially became an atheistic communist nation that year.
She also asked for penance for the conversion of all sinners, and for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart by the Church. She foretold wars and sufferings brought about by human sins, but also promised, “in the end Russia will be converted, there will be peace,” and that her Immaculate Heart would triumph.

Since then, the first World War ended with terrible carnage, and a worse war began just 22 years later. Many rosaries have been prayed; much devotion has been generated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and to her under the title of Our Lady of Fatima—a Muslim name, by the way—Russia has renounced atheistic communism and is returning to its faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ in eastern orthodoxy. Is this what Our Lady prophesied? I don’t think so. Eastern Orthodoxy is schismatic, that is, not in union with the Pope, the Vicar of Christ on earth. Complete conversion of Russia to Christ must wait until the Christians of Russia accept the Pope as their spiritual leader. Our Lord’s desire must eventually be realized, “that there be but one flock and one shepherd.” The three children
who saw Our Lady at Fatima have all died and two of them, Jacinta and Francisco, have already been beatified.

Meantime, let us continue to be deeply devoted to the Mother of Christ, to her under the title of Our Lady of Fatima, and to her Immaculate Heart. Let us continue to pray the rosary for the total conversion of Russia to union with the Catholic Church and its supreme pontiff, whom Saint Catherine of Siena used to love to call “the sweet Christ on earth.” Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.