Our Lady of Fatima

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: It is the epic story of the 20th century with ramifications that reach us today.  It is the struggle of our day - the struggle between good and evil.  In 1917, during the height of World War I, three peasant shepherd children in Portugal reported a vision - an apparition of the Virgin Mary.  The whole thing might have been relegated to the pages of obscurity were it not for something remarkable.  The apparition told the three children that they were to return to the sacred place and meet with the Virgin Mary on the 13th day of every month for six consecutive months.  On the last visit, October 13, 1917, a sign would be delivered that would validate the apparitions to the Church and to the world.  So it happened, October 13th, 1917, on a day of pouring rain in Fatima Portugal, the children arrived to the usual place, where they were met by some 70,000 pilgrims seeking to know this apparition the children spoke of.  Some of them were curious.  Others were angry, feeling the children had led them on as a game.  Atheists were present as well, journalists from the national secular newspaper.  Pilgrims found themselves soaked by the downpours and ankle deep in mud.  When the apparition appeared to the children, few pilgrims saw only blue smoke where the Virgin Mary was said to be.  The children asked for the sign quickly for fear of what the crowed might do to them if it should be delayed.  They saw the Blessed Mother point upward, and when the three looked up, the crowed did as well.  At that moment the clouds parted and the rain stopped.  The sun was easily visible in the sky and was not painful to look at.  Suddenly the sun began to spin, whirl and change colors.  The vision was seen by all 70,000 pilgrims, and attested to even by the atheists.  As the crowed marveled at the sight, the sun began to fall, out of the sky and appeared as if it would directly land upon the crowed.  Panic struck and people began to scatter.  At that moment healings took place.  The blind could see, and the lame could walk.  Then the sun returned to it's place and everything was normal.  The clouds disappeared, and the day was bright and sunny.  The field, ankle deep in mud just moments ago, was now dry and firm.  Everyone's clothing was dry as well.  It was as if it had not rained at all.  The miracle at Fatima Portugal was attested to by all 70,000 witnesses, more people than witnessed the resurrected Christ nearly two-thousand years prior, and the event was reported in the liberal progressive newspaper O' Seculo.  It is considered an indisputable historic event.

Our Lady of Fatima

The miracle at Fatima was a sign, sent by God, to validate the message of the Virgin Mary to the three Portuguese peasant children.  It is a message for the Church and the whole world.  It was given to warn humanity of the grave threat of Marxism (communism and socialism).  The solar sign at Fatima came just days before the start of the Bolshevik Revolution that turned Russia from a Christian kingdom into a godless communist state.  The messages given to the children, later called "secrets," were specifically directed toward the people of the 20th century, right down to our very day in the early 21st century.  In summary, the "secrets" warned that if humanity did not repent of it's sins, God would send a greater war upon the people of the earth.  (That was World War II.)  Immediately after that war, Russia would spread it's communist/socialist errors around the world, using sexual immorality to weaken Christian civilization and infect the whole planet with it's lies.  (Some interpret the secrets to say that even the Church would be corrupted this way.)  The visions warned that sexual immorality sends more souls to hell than any other sin.  In the third and final "secret" a great calamity falls upon the Church and the pope himself suffers martyrdom.


Pope John Paul II believed he was the pope in the third "secret" because of the failed attempt on his life on May 13th of 1981, the sixty-fourth anniversary of the first apparition of the Virgin Mary to the Fatima children.  There are many however, who believe this failed assassination was merely are foreshadow of some later event yet to come.  Two things we know about this event.  First, the assassin, Mehmet Ali Ağca, was a mentally unstable Muslim.  Second, he was working in collaboration with the Soviet KGB.

The prophecy of the third "secret" is very direct.  The pope is killed, and clearly John Paul II was not, lending credence to the theory that the last Fatima "secret" prophecy has yet to be fulfilled.  Indeed, everything else the Fatima seers revealed has come true to the letter.  The Christian king of Russia was killed and Russia became a godless communist state, just as the children foretold months before the events.  There was a "greater war" (World War II) immediately following the foretold "great light" (aurora borealis) that would illuminate the night sky over Europe in 1938, just as the children foretold back in 1917.  World War II was greater than World War I, just as the children foretold.  Immediately after World War II, Russia began spreading it's communist/socialist errors around the world, just as the children foretold.  By the 1960s, the whole western world (Europe and North America) was immersed in sexual immorality (sexual revolution), which we later learned was promoted by communist agents embedded into Western universities, entertainment and popular media.  Since then, virtually every nation in the world (even the United States) has succumbed to outright socialism in some form or another, just as the children foretold.

Everything has come true, literally everything, just as they foretold.  The only problem is the 20th century is over, but it hasn't stopped.  The Soviet Union has fallen, but the communist/socialist errors of Russia (with all the sexual immorality attached) is still progressing right along as if nothing has changed.  It's as if the "errors of Russia" have taken on a life of their own and are now promoted by various Western nations as well.  The Church has suffered the worst sexual scandal in it's history, and is still reeling from the fallout with no apparent end in sight.  Everything the three little seers at Fatima foretold in their "secrets" has come true with pinpoint accuracy, but the most frightening prediction has come true in such a painful way that the long-term future effects are unthinkable.  Once Christian Europe has completely lost it's faith.  It has become a godless continent that is slowly being overrun by Muslims.  Yet, there is that looming prophecy about the pope.  If the martyred pope in the third "secret" is not John Paul II, than we still have that awful prospect to look forward to.  The message of Fatima is not over.  It's real and all around us.  We're living it!  We are the generation Our Lady warned.

There is hope however.  The overall message of the Virgin to the three children was that in the end, her Immaculate Heart (a grace given to her by her Son Jesus Christ) would prevail against the evils of this age.  She encouraged the children, and all of us, to live a life of prayer and purity.  She also gave specific devotions to make reparation for the sins of the world.  The message of Fatima is ultimately one of hope in a very dark and troubling time - our time.   It's a message that ultimately points to Jesus Christ.  Our Lardy of Fatima (the Virgin Mary) is HIS messenger and HE likely sent her to remind all Christians that the Catholic Church is HIS Church and they should all pursue unity with the Catholic Church.  This message is directed specifically toward the Eastern Orthodox, but also toward the Protestants as well.  In the end, when this prophetic episode of history comes to a close, the majority of Christians throughout the world will realize that.  Somehow in ways we cannot understand now, the "errors of Russia" will be purged from the world, and the Catholic Church will be renewed in a way not seen since the days of early Christianity.  That is the part of this epic that has yet to come - just as the children foretold.