1938 aurora borealis and Fatima - were people aware of the prophecy?

[HomeschoolDad]

https://www.bluearmy.com/an-unknown-light-in-1938-demands-our-attention-even-today/

Were the words of Lucia generally known in the Church, among the faithful, before the aurora happened on January 25, 1938? Were there any stories in the Catholic press at the time, saying “this may be the unknown light that Our Lady prophesied at Fatima”?

We discussed this in homeschool literature class, as a segue from a story about the Aztecs and Quetzalcoatl, and called upon my mother, who was 7 years old at the time and recalled seeing it from the southeastern US. Her family was not Catholic and nobody knew of the Fatima message, but they were evangelical Christians and many feared it was the end of the world.

I am also trying to find a way to refute skeptics. If the message and prophecy were known by Catholics at large before the aurora, then nobody could say that the prophecy was fabricated. However, if this part of the message wasn’t revealed until after 1938, it would be very easy for a skeptic to say “there was no prophecy, the Church made up all of this after the fact, and made the prophecy fit the events”.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

The sign that preceded WWll was part of the three secrets, more specifically it was part of the second secret. The first two secrets were disclosed in Sr. Lucia’s third memoir which was written in 1941.

I don’t know if she told (or wrote) it to anyone like her religious superiors, spiritual directors, or her Archbishop before the time she wrote the memoirs.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

This is actually a pretty good movie. I’m not clear why it seemed to “disappear” as soon as it was made. It was supposed to come out in theaters — did that ever happen?

 

[HomeschoolDad]

The sign that preceded WWll was part of the three secrets, more specifically it was part of the second secret. The first two secrets were disclosed in Sr. Lucia’s third memoir which was written in 1941.

I hate to say it, and I am not saying I believe this, but given that the memoir came out in 1941, it would be very easy for a skeptic to say “she made the whole thing up to fit what actually happened”, or that she wrote this in obedience to superiors who told her to do it. In those days, one might have said “but the Church wouldn’t do something like that because the Church is holy”. That would prove absolutely nothing in our day and age.

I accept that it is a true prophecy, but I don’t have much in hand to refute a skeptic. The miracle of the sun (October 13, 1917) obviously happened — 70,000 eyewitnesses and an actual physical manifestation (the heat that dried everyone’s clothes) — but the aurora borealis isn’t as obvious a miracle. Again, I accept it, but I can see why others might not.

As Father Stanley Jaki pointed out, the miracle of the sun could have been a natural phenomenon (an “air lens”, a freak temperature inversion, or possibly “sun dogs”, which I have seen and which appear in The Deer Hunter), but having the people to assemble at a certain date and time, then having this to happen as predicted, indicates a supernatural event.

 

[Cruciferi]

January 1938 geomagnetic storm - Wikipedia

“Rand McNally, Jr., a renowned nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II, has discovered that some of the properties of the 1938 “great light” matched almost exactly the artificial aurora created in the 1958 Johnston Island “Teak” atomic test.”

Interestingly, that was the year Nuclear fission of heavy elements was discovered by the Germans.

A Sign? Weapons testing? A Natural Occurrence?

 

[GiftofMercy]

Pray for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate heart of Mary. It has not been done yet. The world has been consecrated but Sr Lucy said no no no, it was Russia that Our Lady wanted consecrated to her Immaculate Heart.

 

[commenter]

Pray for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate heart of Mary. It has not been done yet. The world has been consecrated but Sr Lucy said no no no, it was Russia that Our Lady wanted consecrated to her Immaculate Heart.

This disagrees with St JP 2, and Pope Emeritus.

Do you have specific sources more authoritative than those two men?

 

[GiftofMercy]

This is a topic for a new thread, rather than going off topic

 

[1Lord1Faith]

The proof of the consecration is in the pudding, and in the messages themselves.

For example, the consecration was done in 1984. The USSR collapsed in 1991, and was all but done by 1989. Also, the consecration was foretold to be “late”, so that Russia would have already spread its “errors”. The spread of Russia’s errors is what is being seen still today. But Russia itself is no longer atheistic.

 

[OldCAFMember]

I am also trying to find a way to refute skeptics. If the message and prophecy were known by Catholics at large before the aurora, then nobody could say that the prophecy was fabricated.

There will always be skeptics, no matter how iron-clad a miracle might seem. “And he said to him: If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe, if one rise again from the dead.” ((Luke `16:31). That is the nature of free will: We are never compelled to believe; therefore there will always been those who refuse to. Certainly there were when Our Lord came back from the dead.

I would not spend any time arguing apparitions and the like with nonbelievers, anyway.

 

[Sundiver]

My grandfather saw this aurora borealis and woke everyone up to come out side and see it. He said that it was a significant sign and that it meant that we were about to enter a world war again. I don’t know where he got the information about such a prophecy.

It gives me chills that I am reading this post on the anniversary of his death.

 

[commenter]

This is a topic for a new thread, rather than going off topic

Your post is fair and reasonable.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I am also trying to find a way to refute skeptics. If the message and prophecy were known by Catholics at large before the aurora, then nobody could say that the prophecy was fabricated.

No, but I would like to help them come to belief if I can, and at the very least skewer their assertions that the “unknown light” was more than just an unusual meteorological event. Having the prophecy be common knowledge before it actually happened would be very helpful. Having the prophecy to be published after the fact isn’t nearly as helpful.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

This VHS sleeve insert is very discouraging:

• It should be “it’s life”, not “its’ life”.
• It’s “Gandhi”, not “Ghandi”.
• Tim Pigott-Smith’s name is spelled two different ways on the cover.

It must have been Friday afternoon and they were in a hurry to get this out before they closed shop for the weekend

Please don’t hate me; I used to work as a proofreader for an ad shop and I got in trouble for pointing out that the names of towns where our stores were located had been spelled incorrectly. The supervisor told me “we’ve always spelled them that way”. I murmured inwardly, “yes, and you’ve always been wrong”. That is where I learned to dislike the “greengrocer’s apostrophe” — “banana’s”, “apple’s”, and so on. Life goes on…

 

[Tindomerel]

I don’t know if this helps and it has been many years since I read of this, but I believe Sr. Lucia, upon seeing the unknown light, wrote to the highest churchman in Portugal (the Cardinal Patriarch?) urging him to renew the request of Our Lady for the Pope’s consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart. As part of the letter, she wrote that war was now imminent and predicted that the countries that had most offended God would be those which would suffer most during the coming war. BTW, Adolf Hitler saw the light at Berchtesgaden and, as an occultist, apparently knew the significance of it as he said to all the top Nazis present, “Now, gentlemen, we move to bloodshed.” An old book about Fatima, if you can find it, may contain the information I recall. Good luck.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I don’t know if this helps and it has been many years since I read of this, but I believe Sr. Lucia, upon seeing the unknown light, wrote to the highest churchman in Portugal (the Cardinal Patriarch?) urging him to renew the request of Our Lady for the Pope’s consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart. As part of the letter, she wrote that war was now imminent and predicted that the countries that had most offended God would be those which would suffer most during the coming war. BTW, Adolf Hitler saw the light at Berchtesgaden and, as an occultist, apparently knew the significance of it as he said to all the top Nazis present, “Now, gentlemen, we move to bloodshed.” An old book about Fatima, if you can find it, may contain the information I recall. Good luck.

So are we to understand that the prophecy Lucia said Our Lady revealed to her, was not known by anyone except Lucia herself and possibly a small number of people close to her (religious superiors, spiritual director, etc.)?

That being the case, it seems safe to say that millions saw the unknown light, but nobody knew what it was. Then several years later, the prophecies are published. I hate to say it, but that’s not terribly convincing. I believe in it, but I have to be utterly honest and say that I am taking it on faith, taking someone else’s word for it. If the prophecy had been released and had been common knowledge before the event, it would be more credible.

I believe in Fatima and it forever changed my spiritual life — it’s why I pray the Rosary and wear the Brown Scapular continuously. But if it were all proven tomorrow to have been one big lie, it wouldn’t detract from the Catholic Faith one iota, nor would I change anything about my spiritual life.

Events that are photographed, which have eyewitnesses who provided written and even audio-visual testimony in the lifetimes of people now living, which have documentation even from secular newspapers, are not easily dismissed as frauds. (But then you have the people who claim 9/11 didn’t happen the way we saw it happen, and people who say that NASA perpetrated a fraud seven times by claiming to have gone to the moon.)

 

[jack63]

While I found the article very interesting, I struggled deeply with some of what was said in the article. For example…

“War is imminent. The sins of men will be washed in their own blood. Those nations will suffer most in the war which tried to destroy the kingdom of God.

So Lucia said this? Am I right? Or is this just hearsay?

Can I ask what Poland ever did to destroy the Kingdom of God? They suffered more than any other country. They had about 6 million dead which was approximately 17% of the their population.

https://topforeignstocks.com/2016/0...-as-a-percentage-of-each-countrys-population/

 

[HomeschoolDad]

While I found the article very interesting, I struggled deeply with some of what was said in the article. For example…

“War is imminent. The sins of men will be washed in their own blood. Those nations will suffer most in the war which tried to destroy the kingdom of God.

I have wondered if the “annihilation of several nations” referred to the various national groups of Jews — Polish Jewry, German Jewry, Dutch Jewry, and so on — as well as Gypsies (Roma), Ukrainians who died in the Holodomor, and so on.