X
Edition July
2000
Heart to heart
"The
Third Part of the Secret of Fatima"
EDITORIAL Mother Adela Galindo,
Foundress, SCTJM
© Only for
personal use
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
In this Jubilee Year, threshold of the Third
Millennium, the Holy Father has desired to make
public the text of the third part of the “secret
of Fatima.”
This singular event has caused all forms of
reactions. For some the secret was not as
dramatic or alarming as they expected, and they
have experienced certain discontent and
disillusionment. Others have taken advantage of
this in order to make people believe that the
messages of Our Lady were neither really
important, nor serious warnings. Neither of
these two extremes truly represent the essence
of the apparitions of Our Lady, her messages, or
the consequences that come from not listening to
her.
The Church – as mother, as teacher, and one
inspired by the Holy Spirit – has waited until
now to make known this vision. “Why now?” many
ask themselves. The reason is that the Church
must confirm the authenticity of the message by
seeing it fulfill itself. All prophecy is true
only when it is fulfilled. The Church acts very
cautiously concerning messages of future events
that have been prophesized in private
revelations by not approving them until they
have come to their fulfillment. As well,
together with the revelation of the secret, the
Church has desired to give an “attempt of
interpretation,” as Cardinal Ratzinger described
the document that he wrote to accompany the
publication of this secret.
My question is this: Have we taken the time to
read this secret in prayer? Have we asked
ourselves why the Holy Father wants all of us to
have access to this text and why he has made it
public? Have we reflected on what it means for
the world, for the Church and for each one of
us? St. Paul tells us in his letter to the
Romans, “We know that all things work for good
for those who love God, who are called according
to his purpose” (cf. 8:28). In light of this
Scripture, we can then ask ourselves why the
Holy Spirit desired that the entire Church come
to know this secret given by our Lady to the
shepherds at Fatima. What does the Lord expect
of us at this historic moment? What are his
designs for the Church in our time? I believe
that the text of the third part of the secret
answers this. And that is why I exhort each one
of you to pray so that it may be the Holy Spirit
who reveals to each one of you the transcendence
of this message.
Before anything else, there are various elements
that are important in this vision: an angel with
a sword of fire, emitting flames which seem to
ignite the world; our Lady, radiating a great
light from her right hand that put out the
flames of the sword; the angel shouting to the
world: “Penance, penance, penance!”; the Holy
Father, bishops, priests and religious climbing
up a steep hill, at the top of which was a great
Cross; the Holy Father crossing a city in ruins,
bent over in pain and suffering, praying for the
souls of the dead found along the way, and upon
reaching the foot of the Cross, suffering a
bullet wound that causes his death; many
bishops, priests, religious and lay people also
dying in the same manner; under the two arms of
the Cross, angels receiving the blood of the
martyrs and, with it, watering those souls who
draw near to God.
My brothers and sisters, how much is said to us
through these images! The Lord wants us to
understand how much modern man has acquired the
capacity for self-destruction. The human person
has reached such a degree of dominance that he
has desired to construct a worldly paradise
without God, to become the owner of power but
without God, to become independent from God by
silencing the voice and the law of God. He has
wanted to be his own God. But we must come to
understand that without God everything turns
against us; every power becomes an instrument of
destruction; all pleasure robs the human person
of his greatest dignity – the capacity to love.
All things without God lose their center, and
the consequences, my brothers and sisters, are
catastrophic. How can we not come to see this at
the end of this century which can be considered
the cruelest and bloodiest in the history of
man?
But there is an element that fills us with great
hope: the Blessed Mother, who with her great
light (her grace, holiness and maternal power),
puts out the flames of the sword. She lifts up
her hand and evil is dispelled. The Lord has
given to power to our Mother to defend us from
all evil, to step on the head of the serpent,
which is manifested in different forms in each
historic moment. She lifts up her hand and
intervenes in favor of us.
How important it is for us to recognize the
place that our Lady plays in the history of
salvation and in the happenings of the world.
Our Holy Father told us in his encyclical Mother
of the Redeemer that she is in the center of the
battle. She is situated in the very center of
that “enmity” (Gen 3:15), of that struggle that
has always been in the midst of the history of
humanity in the world and in the history of
salvation. This struggle has been so evident in
our times, and it has been revealed to us in its
intensity and its reality when, in the secret,
we see the suffering of the Holy Father, his
martyrdom (which was detained thanks to the
prayer and the penance of the three shepherds
and many others), and the martyrdom of many
bishops, priests, religious and lay people. Is
not that steep hill a symbol of the great
obstacles, oppressions, scandals, and
persecutions from which the Mystical Body of
Christ has suffered in this century, and from
which it still continues to suffer? Is not the
prophesized physical martyrdom of the Holy
Father an event that took place with the
assassination attempt on the 13th of May 1981
and that, thanks to the intervention of Our
Lady, was not successful? However, does not the
Holy Father bear in his heart a constant
martyrdom due to the state of so many in the
Church and the state of the world, which
distances itself more and more from God? Have
not many of our brothers suffered – and still
suffer – persecution in so many places where the
Christian faith is rejected and where atheism
reigns?
All of these vicissitudes to which the third
part of the secret refer, seem to pertain to the
past; however, the call of the Virgin to
conversion and penance still applies today. Why
is it just as necessary today to do prayer and
penance? It is necessary because there have been
events that have already taken place, but the
evils that were caused by them are still latent
in the modern world. They are still present in
different forms, with different names – and at
times even hidden under the appearance of
goodness.
The Angel shouted three times in a strong voice:
“Penance!” Let us hear this call. Let us hear
our Mother that asks us to consecrate ourselves
totally to her Immaculate Heart and to enter
into a way of life of prayer, sacrifice and
love.
My brothers and sisters, at the end of this
battle that takes place in our time, the
Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph. This is
our joy, our confidence and our hope! Just
before she died, Jacinta said, “I desire that
everyone know that all graces come to the world
through the Immaculate Heart.”
May the Immaculate Heart of Mary obtain for us,
through her powerful intercession and with her
maternal mediation, the graces of conversion of
heart and of peace. May she take the Church,
which finds itself in the midst of great
struggles and darkness, by the hand so that
under her maternal mantel we can arrive the much
awaited for new springtime of the Church.
In the Love of the Pierced Hearts,
Mother Adela, SCTJM
Foundress
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