Fatima theology. Confused

[Todd977]

Hi Todd, you said
It should be noted that God gives sufficient grace to everyone to be saved even without our prayers and personal sacrifices for their conversion but many sinners do not cooperate with that sufficient grace. By our prayers and sacrifices we ask God to give sinners even more grace to bring about their conversion.

But isn’t this a contradiction? Surely if something is sufficient in itself, it does not require anything extra. If we find that a sinner does not respond to sufficient grace, then surely that sinner has rejected the only amount of grace necessary for his salvation?

If we have to pray for more grace, does that not make the original amount of grace insufficient?

But isn’t this a contradiction? Surely if something is sufficient in itself, it does not require anything extra. If we find that a sinner does not respond to sufficient grace, then surely that sinner has rejected the only amount of grace necessary for his salvation?

If we have to pray for more grace, does that not make the original amount of grace insufficient?

What I meant by “sufficient grace” was the minimum amount of grace necessary to cause a sinner’s conversion if he cooperates with that grace. The Catholic Encyclopedia article on “Actual Grace” compares “merely sufficient grace” with “efficacious grace.”

God is good and reaches out to every sinner at least once in their life trying to get them to convert. By our prayers and sacrifices we ask God to reach out again to sinners who have previously resisted His attempt(s) to get them to convert.

 

[Della]

I agree, some of this is quite confusing and disturbing. Especially the “only I can help you” part. I don’t know how to react.

I rather think it meant that in that particular circumstance God had sent her to deal with the upcoming war by her intercession and heavenly aid, not that God isn’t involved or no one else could possibly help. We all help by being faithful and doing what God wants us to do. In a world-wide situation, such as a world war, Our Lady’s aid is the strongest next to Our Lord himself. We call upon her because she is the Second Eve who gave birth to the Second Adam, ushering in the age of grace. She is our mother in the order of grace–the mother of all mankind in Christ. Her prayers and aid are very powerful with God for that reason. The words are not meant exclude other helpers, but to emphasize that Mary had been chosen to be the main advocate for us at a time when the world was in such great danger. I venture to say that she is our best hope, of all the intercessors in heaven next to Our Lord himself, in our times, as well.

 

[Sephero]

Hi Commentator, thanks for that reply. I realise now that I do not have to hold to these private revelations so much now, and that I do need to better educate myself on what the actual Church teaches as a matter of fact. I was wondering, is there some way to learn about the official teachings of the Church that are dogmatic, other then reading the entire catechism at first? I find the catechism very heavy work to go through.

Hi Della, you said

I rather think it meant that in that particular circumstance God had sent her to deal with the upcoming war by her intercession and heavenly aid, not that God isn’t involved or no one else could possibly help.

But this leads into total confusion, because Our Lady of Fatima, has said that " He [God] is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war…"

So God punishes the world by means of war.
Mary stops the punishments by her intercession.

Heaven sends war as punishment.
Heaven aids us by Marys intercession.

How do we understand this?

Many thanks,
Mark

 

[Della]

Hi Commentator, thanks for that reply. I realise now that I do not have to hold to these private revelations so much now, and that I do need to better educate myself on what the actual Church teaches as a matter of fact. I was wondering, is there some way to learn about the official teachings of the Church that are dogmatic, other then reading the entire catechism at first? I find the catechism very heavy work to go through.

Hi Della, you said

But this leads into total confusion, because Our Lady of Fatima, has said that " He [God] is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war…"

So God punishes the world by means of war.
Mary stops the punishments by her intercession.

Heaven sends war as punishment.
Heaven aids us by Marys intercession.

How do we understand this?

Many thanks,
Mark

Mary is saying that war could be avoided if the world asked for her intercession and aid, but apparently the world didn’t do that, did it. I’m certain, however that Mary’s intercession and aid mitigated the worst aspects of war for many people. We can never know what might have happened if Mary had not interceded.

All of God’s promises and warnings are conditional. If we repent, he does not send destruction or allow it. If, however, we do not repent, whatever God warned us would happen happens.

Our Lady helps us but we have to want to be helped. She is not, nor is God, a magician who makes things happen without our cooperation. We have our part to play too. That’s why God asks for our prayers for each other and to help prevent dire situations, like war, as much as is possible for us to do.

World war is disastrous and we nearly lost the war to the Nazis. I am sure that Mary’s intercession and aid prevented that. It’s why we very much need to ask for her aid in our troubled times, as well.

 

[Wesrock]

Think of Jonah and Nineveh. God told Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and warn them of God’s judgement. Jonah went and preached to them that Nineveh would be destroyed within 40 days, that the sentence had been passed. Nineveh repented, and God in his mercy forgave them, and did not bring judgement upon then city, even though He had already sentenced them, if you will.

Mary, in a sense, was acting as Jonah, and also as an appointed intercessor, requesting that people heed her. And remember that any intercessory power of hers is derived from God and Christ. It’s not her acting separate from God or in opposition to God. Heaven sent Mary, too. You are seeing a dichotomy where there is none. Now, keep in mind that God’s judgement, war, etc… are being simplified here. It’s more nuanced, as Don Ruggero pointed out, that men bring war upon themselves. God, in his providence, may allow us to do so. Our own sins circle back on us through more sin (not like karma, but more of a downward spiral of our own making).

 

[mattp0625]

Hi Commentator, thanks for that reply. I realise now that I do not have to hold to these private revelations so much now, and that I do need to better educate myself on what the actual Church teaches as a matter of fact. I was wondering, is there some way to learn about the official teachings of the Church that are dogmatic, other then reading the entire catechism at first? I find the catechism very heavy work to go through.

Hi Della, you said

But this leads into total confusion, because Our Lady of Fatima, has said that " He [God] is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war…"

So God punishes the world by means of war.
Mary stops the punishments by her intercession.

Heaven sends war as punishment.
Heaven aids us by Marys intercession.

How do we understand this?

Many thanks,
Mark

I recommend EWTN Called to communion with Dr David Anders. You can find archives on YouTube

 

[Sephero]

Think of Jonah and Nineveh. God told Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and warn them of God’s judgement. Jonah went and preached to them that Nineveh would be destroyed within 40 days, that the sentence had been passed. Nineveh repented, and God in his mercy forgave them, and did not bring judgement upon then city, even though He had already sentenced them, if you will.

Mary, in a sense, was acting as Jonah, and also as an appointed intercessor, requesting that people heed her. And remember that any intercessory power of hers is derived from God and Christ. It’s not her acting separate from God or in opposition to God. Heaven sent Mary, too. You are seeing a dichotomy where there is none. Now, keep in mind that God’s judgement, war, etc… are being simplified here. It’s more nuanced, as Don Ruggero pointed out, that men bring war upon themselves. God, in his providence, may allow us to do so. Our own sins circle back on us through more sin (not like karma, but more of a downward spiral of our own making).

Thank you Wesrock this is becoming much clearer now.

Thank you also Della for you reply, and mattp for the recommendation.

I’m still having difficulty with this part.

“Pray, pray very much,
and make sacrifices for sinners.
For many souls go to Hell because
there is no one to make sacrifices
for them.”

“Many souls go to Hell because there is no one to make sacrifices for them.”

So there are not enough saints, or holy people on earth, or Christs sacrifice was not enough? I really don’t get this bit. It would seem if this were true, Gods saving work and sacrifice was not sufficient, and we (as Mary says) do not even have enough souls to save some souls from going to hell?

Not only that, but someone might interpret this as, “I did not make a sacrifice in my life today, perhaps a soul has gone to hell because of this.”

Difficult to comprehend.

Todd you also mentioned "

God is good and reaches out to every sinner at least once in their life trying to get them to convert.

"

I would have thought that God never stops calling us?

 

[Wesrock]

Are our prayers ineffective? To propose that praying has no impact seems heretical in itself. Jesus exhorts us to pray, for ourselves and for each other. To build ourselves up and to help others stay steadfast in their faith.

Could you please help explain how Christ’s sacrifice is being made insufficient.

 

[Mintaka]

Well, the Bible says that Christ’s suffering on the Cross isn’t the only suffering the whole Body of Christ has to do.

Colossians 1:23-24 –

“…the hope of the Gospel which you have heard, which is preached in all Creation that is under heaven, whereof I Paul am made a minister – I who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His Body, which is the Church.”

It’s a mystery. It’s hard to accept. It’s a lot easier to accept if you learn about it as a kid, which was part of the point of Fatima.

Similarly, we are told in the Bible to pray for each other, and keep on praying, so that we may be saved:

James 5:16 –

“…Pray for each other, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man avails much.”

2 Thessalonians 1:11 –

“For which reason also, we pray always for you; that our God would make you worthy of His call, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith in power…”

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, 25 –

“Always rejoice. Pray without ceasing. In all things give thanks. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you all… Brothers, pray for us.”

And of course, Jesus says in His prayer, and in many other places in the Gospels, that we should pray that we not enter into temptation. Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray for everyone to be delivered from evil, including ourselves. So of course we pray for souls not to go to Hell.

But the more that a society doesn’t care if people go to Hell and doesn’t pray, the more people are probably going to Hell in that society.

 

[Sephero]

Are our prayers ineffective? To propose that praying has no impact seems heretical in itself. Jesus exhorts us to pray, for ourselves and for each other. To build ourselves up and to help others stay steadfast in their faith.

Could you please help explain how Christ’s sacrifice is being made insufficient.

I think it is sufficient, I just don’t understand then how Our Lady of Fatima can then say.

“Many souls go to Hell because there is no one to make sacrifices for them.”

From Catechism 604

“There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.”

So my understanding is that someone has made a sacrifice for them, not no one, and the person was God none the less.

So would it not make more sense to say something like,

“Christ died for many[all], but because of your lack of charity [prayers] for your brothers and sisters, many souls are not going to be saved. Because although God has given them sufficient Grace to return to him, out of the hardness of their heart, they would not turn, and ye did not pray for the extra Grace”.

Or something to that affect, the more you try suss it out, the more complicated it gets to be honest.

 

[Wesrock]

But if that’s exactly what it means, then what is the issue? Did not Saint Paul say, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.”

Paul suffers for them, the Church, to complete “what is lacking” in Christ’s afflictions. Is Paul therefore saying that Christ’s afflictions were insufficient? Or do we recognize that God calls on us to act as members of Christ’s body.

He tells us, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” To live an upright, Christian life is to be a living sacrifice. And “Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

The Apostle informs us that, “we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word; but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.”

By failing to offer up prayers and praise to God and by failing to live as Christians, by failing to make of ourselves living sacrifices, we fail to set the proper example, we cause scandal, we push away those who might seek to join the faith if we had been living properly. The failure of men to live more deeply as Christians and to truly uphold Christian values and be the sweet aroma of Christ in the world, as part of Christ’s own body, has certainly led to less people coming to Christ.

 

[Good_Fella]

The apparition also taught that one’s suffering in this life could obtain salvation for others. In The first appearance, it asked the children if they would “bear all the suffering (God) wills for you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners.” And in the fourth appearance, the apparition told the children, “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners. For many souls go to Hell because there is no one to make sacrifices for them.” In this way, too, our Lord’s offering for us is denigrated by the idea that our suffering somehow supplies for others that which is missing in His offering of Himself. This is a blasphemous delusion,
showing Satanic pride in thinking that we can save others by our prayers and suffering, thereby putting ourselves in the place of Christ. I have to agree, is not Christs sacrifice sufficient?

What Our Lady of Fatima told the three shepherd children is in keeping with sacred Scripture

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.
Colossians 1, 24

For even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs more than once. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that accumulates to your account.
Philippians 4, 16-17

I pray therefore that you may not lose heart over my sufferings for you; they are your glory. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.
Ephesians 3, 13-14

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people … *This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, **who desires all people to be saved **and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
1 Timothy 2, 1-4

I appeal to you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
***Romans 12, 1 ***

For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
2 Corinthians 1:5

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace… Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And, “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” Therefore,** let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good**.
***1 Peter 4:10-19 ***

Unto whom coming, as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen and made honourable by God: Be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 2, 4-5

You’re kindly invited to visit my website.

blessedaboveallwomen.co/2016/10/07/the-lord-is-with-thee/

PAX
:heaven:

 

[Della]

Thank you Wesrock this is becoming much clearer now.

Thank you also Della for you reply, and mattp for the recommendation.

You’re welcome.

I’m still having difficulty with this part.

“Pray, pray very much,
and make sacrifices for sinners.
For many souls go to Hell because
there is no one to make sacrifices
for them.”

“Many souls go to Hell because there is no one to make sacrifices for them.”

So there are not enough saints, or holy people on earth, or Christs sacrifice was not enough? I really don’t get this bit. It would seem if this were true, Gods saving work and sacrifice was not sufficient, and we (as Mary says) do not even have enough souls to save some souls from going to hell?

Not only that, but someone might interpret this as, “I did not make a sacrifice in my life today, perhaps a soul has gone to hell because of this.”

Difficult to comprehend.

Jesus’ redemptive death did just that–redeemed us. That is what he completed on the cross. However, salvation is a separate thing. All men were redeemed by Christ’s death, but not all men will be saved. How is that possible if Jesus’ death accomplished both redemption and salvation? I’ll attempt to explain. Redemption was accomplished on the cross. It is an eternal sacrifice to the Father which Jesus continually offers to him. Salvation was made possible through Christ’s redemption, it’s not guaranteed. We have to cooperate with God’s grace. One of the ways we do that is pray for each other.

And yes, I’d hate to think that I could have helped save someone but was lax in prayer or in aiding them bother physically and spiritually and offering my sufferings in union with Christ’s sufferings for their salvation. Remember, we’re all been redeemed, but we have not yet been saved. Anyone of us could reject God at any point in our lives. The salvation of souls depends on our cooperation with God’s grace. We offer our sufferings to aid others to salvation, just as Christ offered his for the same thing. We do this in union with him and in cooperation with God’s grace.

 

[Good_Fella]

Why are we making reparation to Mary?

We make acts of reparation to Mary because of the insults and offenses hurled against her Immaculate Heart. The greatest offense committed against her is our sins against God and her Son. Protestants who call Mary “a sinner” insult her; those who publicly object to her Immaculate Conception and Assumption into Heaven offend her, since it is God who has “done great things” for her (Luke 1:46-49). And those who object to her chastity and Perpetual Virginity offend her, since they question her personal closeness to God and her cooperation with His grace.

What exactly is reparation?

The act or fact of making amends or atonement in order to restore right conditions or relations to what they were before something went wrong. It basically applies to the losses sustained or the harm done because of some immoral or wicked action done out of hate or cold indifference. With respect to God, reparation means making up with greater love the failure in love through sin, ours and that of others. With respect to Mary, it’s no different because of the trespasses against her which demand forgiveness. Recall the Lord’s Prayer. Hence, reparation means restoring what was unjustly taken and compensating with charity for the hatred or indifference that caused the personal injury. We Catholics are confident that the love we show for our Blessed Mother and our honour of her maternal dignity shall be more than sufficient to repair the offense she’s had to take by the hatred and indifference of others.

“When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is going to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.”

On the night of January 25, 1938, Sister Lucy saw the ominous red glow Our Lady had foretold would be the great sign that God was “going to punish the world by means of war, famine and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father”. On the following day the strange phenomenon of the “illuminated night” was reported in newspapers across Europe and North America. 3 Sister Lucy understood that the punishment of the world was about to begin, and several weeks later, in March [1938], Hitler invaded Austria and annexed it to Germany, and this act began the escalation of events which transformed the various aggressions of Germany, Italy and Japan into World War II.

Firstly, God punishing us, is that even legit? A God who is Love, is actively punishing us? Not only that, but apparently using Hitler as the means?

God chastised the world in the time of Noah, didn’t he? Anagogically, the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell to the invading Assyrians in 721 B.C. because of the sin of idolatry. God sent Shalmaneser and Sargon to chastise the Israelites. In 605 B.C., God sent the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, to besiege Jerusalem in the Southern Kingdom of Judah because of the sin of the Jews. The City of David eventually fell and the population deported to Babylon in captivity and slavery. God acted as a loving father who disciplined his children more than anything else in order to restore them in a right relation to Him for their true happiness. The Israelites and the Jews had to see for themselves that their salvation couldn’t come from the pagan gods of their captors.

“…in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary in order to obtain peace for the world . . . because only She can help you.”

Only Mary can help us, God is not available, or to angry perhaps?

In His love and mercy, God chose to save the world through Mary and nobody else. Only she participates in the redemption in the hypostatic order of Christ’s incarnation. Because of Mary’s intimate association with her Son in his work of redemption, all the graces we receive from Jesus come to us first and foremost through Mary by virtue of the dignity of her Divine maternity. She alone is our universal mediatrix of grace, because she alone is our spiritual mother - the new Eve by Divine ordinance. (See Luke 1:43-44).

blessedaboveallwomen.co/2016/09/11/be-it-done-to-me/

PAX
:heaven:

 

[commenter]

Well…it’s leaving one rather hampered when on the one hand one wants to have a discussion that impinges upon the theology of revelation and then declares that one of two testaments of Sacred Scripture one is no good at.

The theology of history that derives from the Babylonian exile and the fall of Jerusalem and the southern kingdom provides an archetypal paradigm for the question you ask. The paradigm runs thus:

1. God establishes a covenant with His people
2. The people are not faithful to the covenant
3. God sends prophets to the people to call them to conversion and repentance.
4. In so far as there is conversion and repentance, there is restoration, albeit there can yet be very unpleasant consequences.

We encounter this repeatedly in the course of salvation history in the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament.

In the case of the Babylonian exile, we have the paradigm as above except that the prophets – notably Jeremiah – who come with a message from the Lord of the need to repent and to abjure infidelity to the covenant. The message is rejected, as is the messenger.

The result is the fall of the Davidic throne, the people being taken away in exile for decades, the destruction and dispoiling of the temple of Solomon. All of these were completely unthinkable from the perspective of the people of God in view of the divine promises that had been made. How did this happen? It engendered an existential crisis, to use a modern term and a modern concept.

God did not destroy the temple but He did not intervene to prevent its destruction. The chain of events in human history were purely predicated on the action of human actors. God, being omniscient, knew thoroughly and absolutely the chain of events and what would or (even could) result from various decisions.

The resolution to the conundrum is ultimately through the prophets God sends to lead the people out of exile, notably Ezekiel, who present that what happened occurred precisely as the fruit of infidelity to the covenant.

War is, as the Virgin articulated, the fruit of sin. Whether it was the war that took the Jewish people to live in Babylon as captives of the victors or whether it was World War I or World War II.

God does not inflict war upon humanity. Humanity inflicts war upon humanity. An event of a person will lead to a result/many results…some of which can be foreseen humanly and others which cannot. Except God. He is omniscient as well as omnipresent.

God can intervene in His providence – which Our Lady said He would do, if the people repented of sin, turn to the Lord in prayer, and ASKED Him to intervene.

This is not unlike the analogy of a human parent. A parent can watch a child, grown or not, make a mistake. They can warn the child not to do something – such as touch a hot stove. If the child reaches out and touches the hot stove, the burn is not the punishment of the parent…it is the consequence of the child touching a hot stove. Of course, the parent knows that the child may remember the consequence as a lesson for future consideration…also concerning matters much more important that putting a finger to a stove.

If people do not ask God to intervene, that violates the theology of secondary causality in what the Church teaches regarding prayer, well articulated by Saint Thomas Aquinas…to wit:

God associates human beings with Himself in the ordering of creation. We do this in various ways, including prayer.

• Human life and human crops rely upon rain; drought conversely is a crisis
• Human beings cannot (at least absolutely, in spite of things like cloud seeding) cause rain. God causes rain through the laws of nature
• We can pray for rain and God conjoins the granting of rain, at times, to our asking for it
• When we pray, we are not telling God something He does not know…He knows we need rain
• When we pray, we are not trying to persuade God to do something against His will by sending rain
• It is not a mercantile transaction…sending the right combination of prayers and sacrifices does not compel God, by means of a bargain, to send rain
• When we pray, we are participating through secondary causality in the rain which He sends. We are co-workers with Him in the order of His creation
• If, on the other hand, we do not ask…because we cannot be bothered, do not believe, choose not to confess our reliance on Him, one can say He “punishes” us by not sending rain but that is a very poor way of expressing it. We are punishing ourselves by not turning to Him in our need and asking Him to send the rain

Thank you for this good explanation! If you have time, I would appreciate another. My understanding is that Fatima was reviewed and approved by the Vatican as a private revelation in 1930, based on information made available to it then. Since then, many subsequent actions were reported (such as Sr. Lucia seeing an ominous light over Europe in 1938) or various disclosures made by Mary to Sr. Lucia prior to 1930, but likely not communicated to the Vatican as of 1930 and “disclosed” publicly in the 1940s.
There may be other disclosures.

It seems to me that all the information publicly disclosed after 1930 is not part of the “approved revelation”; neither approved nor rejected by the Church.

 

[Todd977]

Todd you also mentioned
God is good and reaches out to every sinner at least once in their life trying to get them to convert.
I would have thought that God never stops calling us?

Perhaps this is a better metaphor: God continuously calls to sinners trying to get them to listen to him, to convert and take advantage of Christ’s saving sacrifice. For those sinners who ignore God’s first call and then develop a sort of selective deafness to God’s usual calling, we pray and offer sacrifices as a way of asking God to call even louder than usual to those sinners to try to get them to listen to him, to convert and take advantage of Christ’s saving sacrifice.

 

[Della]

Perhaps this is a better metaphor: God continuously calls to sinners trying to get them to listen to him, to convert and take advantage of Christ’s saving sacrifice. For those sinners who ignore God’s first call and then develop a sort of selective deafness to God’s usual calling, we pray and offer sacrifices as a way of asking God to call even louder than usual to those sinners to try to get them to listen to him, to convert and take advantage of Christ’s saving sacrifice.

Another way we might look at this is we pray that God will soften their hearts/wake them up to their need of him. For, God is like the sun that always shines brightly. It is Earth that obscures the sun with clouds and tree cover, etc. We build houses in which we hide from the sun. We pray for people that they will rise above the clouds, step out from under the trees, come out of the houses of their darkened hearts and embrace the sunlight–metaphorically speaking.

 

[MooCowSteph]

While we are not required to believe or follow any particular private revelation, as was previously mentioned, the things contained in these quoted passages are consistent with Catholic doctrine (if they were not, the apparition would not have been approved).

“Offering up”. or using our suffering in order to aid in the salvation of others is a long held teaching, and particularly Catholic. Protestant brethren will take particular offense to this. I’ve researched the issue a bit, and suffice it to say that there isn’t really anything to back up the teaching in the very early writings of the church fathers, at least not that I have found. But if you believe in an authoritative, teaching church, then early proof of that belief isn’t necessary.

We are priests, the priesthood of believers, and priests offer sacrifice. We can offer our individual sacrifices to Jesus on behalf of ourselves and others, just as priests offered sacrifices on behalf of others in the OT.