Mission Accomplished
by Fr. Roger J. Landry - March 11, 2005
Last month the last of the three Fatima visionaries, Sr. Maria Lucia of Jesus and the Sacred Heart, better known by her baptismal name, Lucia dos Santos, died at age 97.
As long as she was alive, there was always something "present-tense" about the Fatima apparitions. She was an unimpeachably sane and humble witness to the extraordinary intervention of the Blessed Mother in 1917 at the Cova da Iria. While her death obviously finishes her faithful testimony to the message she received, the importance of that message remains.
As in any private revelation, there is never a "new" communication, because God has already said it all in Sacred Scripture and Tradition. But what authentic private revelations like Fatima accomplish is to help us live more fully by Christ's definitive revelation in a certain period of history. The message Mary proclaimed in Fatima was the same her Son proclaimed in the Holy Land: the call to urgent conversion and penance, trusting in the Father's merciful love.
After having asked the three shepherd children to pray the Rosary and offer their lives for the conversion of sinners and reparation for the world's sins, she presented the central message of Fatima in three parts. The first was a vision of hell, in which the kids saw in graphic detail hell's repulsive horror. The second was a prophecy that World War I would soon end, but that if people did not stop offending God a worse one would erupt; she also warned that unless Russia were converted, the communists would spread their errors throughout the world, causing war, annihilating nations, persecuting the Church and martyring millions. The third part, commonly referred to as Fatima's "third secret," was a prophetic vision made public only in 2000. It showed a steep way of the Cross through a city laden with the corpses of martyred bishops, priests, religious and lay people, at the top of which was a "bishop in white" who was shot and killed.
Lucia (10), Francisco (9), and Jacinta (7) were obviously frightened by the images. But the Blessed Mother also gave them a source of hope, an antidote to the horror she revealed to them in these visions. She presented them with the earthly remedy against going to hell, against a world thrown into turmoil by atheistic communism, and against the bloody persecution of Christ's mystical body. It should still catch us by surprise: consecration to her Immaculate Heart, both of persons and nations (especially Russia).
Why this? For two reasons: first, because hell, the lack of peace in our world, and the persecution of Christ's mystical body are all the result of personal sins; and second, because consecration to her Immaculate Heart, properly and fully understood, is the best way to fight against sin.
An immaculate heart like Mary's is pure, and the "pure of heart… see God" (Mt 5:8); that vision of God in others and and in situations allows such a heart to say "fiat" to God in everything. Moreover, a heart like Mary's "treasures" God's word within and "ponders" it (Lk 2:19), ultimately giving it one's own flesh.
Such a heart is more powerful than all the bullets, bombs and hijacked airplanes that the world can muster. The "yes" that came from Mary's heart changed the history of the world. To the extent that that "yes" reverberates in hearts today, the history of the world will be altered for the better. This is what consecration to her immaculate heart means and effects.
Since he was a young priest, John Paul II has been consecrated to that heart. His papal motto, "Totus Tuus" comes from a short consecratory prayer of St. Louis de Montfort, which finishes, "Give me your heart, O Mary!"
When he was shot on the 64th anniversary of the first apparition, the "bishop in white" should have died according to both his doctors and the third part of the message, but he was saved, as he said, "by a mother's hand… that guided the bullet's path" and "halted" him "at the threshold of death." He recovered and three years later consecrated the world and Russia to Mary's Immaculate Heart. Was the sudden collapse of the Soviet empire a few years later just a coincidence?
When Mary appeared to the children in 1917, she said that Francisco and Jacinta would go to heaven soon (as they did, in 1919 and 1920, respectively), but Lucia would "stay down here for a while," because Jesus needed her to help establish in the world devotion to Mary's Immaculate Heart.
From Mary's eternal perspective, 87 years was a short time. But Sr. Lucia dos Santos used them well. May she whose heart was like unto Mary's now rejoice among Mary and all the santos in heaven.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
