Listen, the very reason that all the bishops of the world (at least those still in union with Rome) will one day join with the pope in the consecration of Russia is, because as Our Lady Fatima foretold, "it would be late" and as our Lady of Garabandal foretold that "communism would return" and "things would be at its worst" before the Warning. Because things will be 'at there worst 'throughout the world', every bishop will know that our lady is the only remedy and her consecration is the only hope the world has at that point. I see this so crystal clear. There is no ambiguity in these words from the Mother of God. Things to this date have not been 'at there worst' and apparently our previous popes have concluded this and realized there were not enough bishops to join in this consecration, because they believed they themselves could awaken the world through their social justice teachings alone. To this point they have not concluded that it will take Mary's intervention to save the world.
Andy is right, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Or as Jesus said, 'By their fruits you shall know them'. If the Consecration had been done the World..and the Church...especially the Church ...would be very,very different than they are today. We need Russia's conversion because she will either become a Sword of Truth or a monster who will destroy us all. God has a particular plan for Russia and requires the act of Faith of the Consecration in order in order for this to be accomplished. We all need Russia to be converted,we need it very,very much. 'Earlier this month, NATO's top military leader U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove said the forces currently arrayed along Ukraine's border could overwhelm the troubled state's forces in as little as five days.' http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/30/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-military-idUSBREA3T0E920140430 May 13th Twelve Days Time May 13th this year also falls on a Sunday.
May 13th is a Tuesday this year and also the day many on this board will consecrate ourselves to Jesus through Mary. Some for the first time and others a renewal. It can't get here soon enough!!
The consecration is a beautiful thing, however what our Lady of Fatima asked of us lay people and priests was to participate in the 5 consecutive First Saturday's of Reparation. Who has done this? Few! Very few. No one has a right to ask the pope to consecrate Russia when they have not done what our Lady has asked of themselves. These are the two conditions for peace. Have we all done our part?
"To Whomever Embraces This Devotion, I Promise Salvation" ... Our Lady of Fatima, June 13, 1917 What an admirable, stupefying promise made June 13, 1917! Yet in spite of this promise we are still tempted to doubt. Jacinta of Fatima, by a special grace, felt her heart consumed by an ardent love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But we? We are cold, or our fervor is so short-lived! Could we ever know if we had sufficient devotion so that Our Lady would be bound to keep Her promise to us? It is here that we are wonderstruck by the limitless Divine Mercy, and the profoundly Catholic character of the revelations of Fatima. In the whole message, there is not an ounce of Protestant subjectivism! Here, Heaven goes to the limits of indulgence, and the most sublime prophecies ("God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart") are exchanged, translated into very small requests, clear and precise requests, easy requests which leave no room for doubt. Everyone can know if he has accomplished them or not. A "little devotion" practiced with a good heart is enough to receive infallibly for us, this grace — ex opere operato, so to speak — as with the sacraments; and what a grace — the grace of eternal salvation! It is worth the effort to give careful study to such a magnificent promise. It is the fulfillment, the perfect expression of the first part of the great Secret, which is entirely concerned with the salvation of souls. From Fatima to Pontevedra: the fulfillment of the Secret. In describing the apparitions and explaining the message of Pontevedra, we will simply comment on the words pronounced by Our Lady on July 13, 1917. They are concise, but so rich in meaning: "If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved ... I will come to ask for ... the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays of the month." Here then is the first "Secret of Mary" which we must discover and understand. It is a sure and easy way of tearing souls away from the danger of hell; first our own; then those of our neighbors; and even the souls of the greatest sinners, for the mercy and power of the Immaculate Heart of Mary are without limits. December 10, 1925: The Apparition of the Child Jesus and Our Lady On the evening of Thursday, December 10, after supper, the young postulant Lucy — who was only eighteen years old — returned to her cell. There she was visited by Our Lady and the Child Jesus. Let us listen to her account:2 (written in the third person) "On December 10, 1925, the Most Holy Virgin appeared to her, and by Her side, elevated on a luminous cloud, was the Child Jesus. The Most Holy Virgin rested Her hand on her shoulder, and as She did so, She showed her a Heart encircled by thorns, which She was holding in Her other hand. At the same time, the Child said: ‘Have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce It at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of Reparation to remove them.’ "Then the Most Holy Virgin said: ‘Look My daughter, at My Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce Me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console Me and announce in My name that I promise to assist at the moment of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the First Saturday of five consecutive months shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep Me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making Reparation to Me."3 What a touching scene, and yet so simple, described with the sobriety of the Gospel itself! What a charming dialogue, in which the Child Jesus and His Mother take turns speaking — He to plead Her cause, while She makes Her requests … to lead us back to Him. As usual, the seer totally effaces herself here, not telling us a word about her own feelings. Is this not the surest mark of authenticity, which gives her account all its freshness? She is there to see, to listen, and to relate what happened, and nothing more. Yet, what intimacy between the Blessed Virgin and Her messenger! Like Saint Catherine Labouré, she received that day the privilege of being touched by Our Lady in a solemn and affectionate gesture, just as when a mother wants to give a child a confidential mission. The Blessed Virgin placed Her hand on Lucy’s shoulder, giving her to contemplate Our Lady’s most sorrowful Heart, and make It known to others. Finally, the tone is the same as in the words of the great promise! It is the same as in the apparitions of 1917: what conciseness in the words of the great promise! It is the same conciseness that is found in the Secret of July 13th, where a single word could not be suppressed without seriously damaging the sequence of thought. This too is a solid mark of authenticity. The transmission of the Message How did Lucy go about making Heaven’s requests known? We know that she immediately told everything to her superior, Mother Magalhaes, who had been completely won over to the cause of Fatima and now had a sincere respect for the seer. She herself was ready to obey the requests of Heaven. Lucy also informed the confessor of the house, Don Lino Garcia: "The latter, (she recalls) ordered me to write down everything concerning (this revelation) and to keep these writings, which might be needed."4 But he continued to wait. Lucy wrote a detailed account of the event for her confessor Monsignor Pereira Lopes from Asilo de Vilar. Unfortunately this letter was lost, and we only know of its existence because it is referred to in a later letter. On December 29th, Mother Magalhaes informed Bishop da Silva of what had happened, but she was not very precise.5 At this point Lucy finally received the response of Monsignor Pereira Lopes. He expressed reservations, asked questions, and advised her to wait. A few days later, on February 15th, Lucy answered him, giving him a detailed account of events. Fortunately, this extremely important letter has been preserved for us.6 We will follow this precious text step by step, adding our own subtitles and comments. A painful wait "Most Reverend Father, "I would like to thank you very respectfully for the kind letter you were so good as to write to me. "When I received it and realized that I still could not fulfill the desires of the Blessed Virgin, I felt a little sad. But I realized right away that the Blessed Virgin desired that I obey you. "That put me at rest, and the following day, when I received Jesus in Communion, I read Him your letter and I said to Him: ‘O my Jesus! With Your grace, with prayer, mortification and confidence, I will do everything obedience permits me and You inspire me; the rest You must do Yourself.’ "I remained like that until February 15th. Those days were a continued inner mortification for me. I wondered if it had been a dream; but I knew it was not: I was certain that it was real! But still I asked myself how Our Lord could have deigned to appear again to me, who had responded so badly to the graces I had received! "The day I was supposed to go to confession was approaching, and I didn’t have permission to say anything!7 I wanted to tell my Mother Superior but during the day my occupations would not permit me, and in the evening I suffered from headaches. Then, fearing to commit a fault against charity I thought: ‘This will be for tomorrow; I offer You this sacrifice, my dear Mother.’ One day after another went by this way, until today. "On the 15th, I was very busy with my work, and I was hardly thinking of that (the apparition of last December 10) at all. I was going to empty a garbage can outside the garden."
The account of a charming prelude (November or December, 1925) "At the same place, a few months before, I had encountered a child, whom I asked if he knew the Hail Mary. He had answered ‘Yes’, and I had asked him to say it to me, to hear him say it. At the end of three Hail Marys, I asked him to say it alone. Since he kept silence and seemed unable to say it alone, I asked him if he knew the church of Saint Mary. He said yes. Then I told him to go there every day and say this prayer: ‘O my Heavenly Mother, give me Your Child Jesus!’ I taught him this prayer, and I went away." Here, by force of events, Lucy is obliged to speak about herself a little, and her rare confidences reveal to us something of her marvelous soul.8 Near the portal of the garden, she encounters a child. Immediately it occurs to her to talk to him about the Virgin Mary; to teach him to pray. Then she asks him to recite a Hail Mary … for the joy of hearing it. Since he would not say it alone, she recites it with him three times, according to the ancient practice of the three Hail Marys in honor of Our Lady. Since the child did not seem willing to recite the Hail Mary alone, our catechist, who did not want to lose this opportunity of fulfilling her mission of making Our Lady known and loved, suggested another idea: she invited him to visit Saint Mary’s Church every day. In fact, the Basilica of Saint Mary Major is quite near the house of the Dorothean Sisters. Was it shortly before or after the apparition of the Child Jesus, on December 10? We do not know. In any case, the little postulant taught the child this beautiful and short prayer which was surely her own as well, her most frequent and fervent prayer of this Advent of 1925. "O my Mother in Heaven, give me Your Child Jesus." And she went away. "If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace … I will come to ask for … the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays of the month." … Our Lady to Sister Lucy, July 13, 1917 February 15, 1926: A new Apparition of the Child Jesus Lucy’s moving account, which we are quoting at length, continues: "So, on February 15, coming back as usual (to empty a garbage can outside the garden), I found a child there who seemed to be the same one as before, and I asked him: ‘Did you ask our Heavenly Mother for the Child Jesus?’ The child turned to me and said: ‘And you, have you revealed to the world what the Heavenly Mother asked you?’ And, having said that, he turned into a resplendent child. "Then recognizing that it was Jesus, I said to Him: "My Jesus! You know what my confessor said to me in the letter I read You. He said that this vision had to be repeated; there had to be facts permitting us to believe it, and that the Mother Superior alone could not spread this devotion." "It is true that the Mother Superior alone can do nothing, but with My grace, she can do everything. It is enough that your confessor gives you permission, and that your superior announce this for it to be believed by the people, even if they do not know whom it was revealed to." "But my confessor said in his letter that this devotion already exists in the world, because many souls receive You every first Saturday of the month in honor of Our Lady and recite the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary." "It is true, My daughter, that many souls begin, but few persevere to the very end, and those who persevere do it to receive the graces promised. The souls who make the Five First Saturdays with fervor and to make Reparation to the Heart of your Heavenly Mother, please Me more than those who make fifteen, but are lukewarm and indifferent." "My Jesus! Many souls find it difficult to confess on Saturday. Will You allow a confession within eight days to be valid?" "Yes. It can even be made later on, provided that the souls are in the state of grace when they receive Me on the first Saturday, and that they have the intention of making Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary." "My Jesus! And those who forget to form this intention?" "They can form it at the next confession, taking advantage of their first opportunity to go to confession." "Right after that He disappeared, without me finding out anything more about Heaven’s desires, up to the present."9 Here again, the internal criticism of this text excludes all the denials of those who would explain this apparition away by suggesting it to be the fruit of illusions or inventions of a disturbed mind. The facts reported — so charmingly! — are too clear, simple and supernatural to be the invention of a diseased soul. At the same time, they are too surprising, mystifying even at first glance, to be the work of any theologian. Who could have invented such an account from scratch? In the first place, our seer is emptying the garbage cans of the convent every day, for months. And she is happy. She does not seem disturbed by the humiliating circumstances of the apparition. To remind her of Its great designs over the world and the salvation of souls, Heaven chose precisely the moment when Its messenger was occupied in a very humble and abject little chore. Note well: a proud person, a mythomaniac deceived by illusory apparitions would have imagined extraordinary or at least uncommon circumstances, but never these. She would have been afraid of appearing ridiculous and not being believed. As for herself, Lucy relates the facts in all simplicity just as they took place, without being astonished that the Divine Child, born in a stable, chose this humble circumstance to manifest Himself. It now remains for us to explain the meaning and significance of the message of Pontevedra, which although it remains only the complement — or rather the fulfillment of the Message of Fatima — it takes on the most singular importance. "It is true, My daughter, that many souls begin, but few persevere to the very end, and those who persevere do it to receive the graces promised. The souls who make the Five First Saturdays with fervor and to make Reparation to the Heart of your Heavenly Mother, please Me more than those who make fifteen, but are lukewarm and indifferent." … Jesus speaking to Sister Lucy of Fatima
