"Why 2017 is such a Critical Moment"

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Excellent, thought-provoking article by Msgr. Pope entitled: “St. Michael and Our Lady of Fatima: Why 2017 is such a Critical Moment” was published recently in the National Catholic Register. I read it online and will quote a few passages:

…It has been 100 years since the apparitions at Fatima and 500 since the Protestant revolt. The 1517 revolt ushered in a shocking, wrenching pruning of the Church. So did the apparitions in 1917, when Our Lady warned of great suffering if we did not pray and repent. God seems to permit (not cause) such things either as penance or as purification.

The last 100 years have seen horrifying warfare, death tolls in the hundreds of millions driven by ideological conflict, abortion on demand, the destruction of marriage and the family, sexual confusion and misbehavior, and the rise of the culture of death (the demand for the right to die and the right to kill). Indeed, Christendom in the West is in the midst of a great collapse: tepid and compromised faith, a tiny minority who attend Mass, and the growth of militant secularism. Who among us can deny that the Church, especially in the affluent West, has been under attack. We have preferred to sleep through most of it and make one compromise after another. Who among us can deny that we need another “counter-reformation”?..

…A final aspect of the Fatima apparition came to light in 1981 when Sister Lucia wrote to Msgr. (now Cardinal) Carlo Caffara at the Vatican to thank him and to assure him of prayers for the founding of the John Paul II Institute on Marriage and the Family. In the letter she also related something she heard from Our Lady: a final battle will signal the end of the period in which we now struggle. Sister Lucia recounted Our Lady’s words as follows:

The final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family. Don’t be afraid, … anyone who works for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be fought and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue. … However, Our Lady has already crushed its head.

May God grant us grace to be fully awake to receive and to be fruitful in using the graces of this 100th Anniversary of Mary’s Apparitions at Fatima. I encourage all to read Msgr. Pope’s article prayerfully.

Full article can be read HERE

 

[St_Francis]

Thanks for posting this! 2017 does seem like an important year, and the renewal of interest in what Our Lady of Fatima said, and of praying, is really great!

 

[1Lord1Faith]

This bolded part of the article by Msgr. Charles Pope refers to things said by Our Lady of Akita. I’ve heard it said that the Fatima and Akita messages are in line with each other. Is there any part of the message from Fatima that says anything like the part here that I’ve bolded?

And so here we are at the culmination of the battle. Though it is disheartening, the battle in the Church over the sanctity of holy matrimony has reached the highest levels, just as our Lady said. Cardinal is pitted against cardinal, bishop against bishop. In the wider culture, marriage has been redefined; biblical and natural law teachings have been set aside. At this point I don’t think that our culture has a definition of marriage at all; it’s whatever anyone wants to say it is. This is no minor error; it is a civilization killer.

 

[Blood_Angel]

The final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family

I really want to get married and start a family, it’s all I’ve ever wanted
I even waited until marriage for sex even before I ever thought of becoming Catholic, I feel as if Satan is already winning in my own life in regards to marriage.

 

[marypiopadre]

People have been saying its the end since the year 2000, take it with a pinch of salt

 

[Binto]

People have been saying its the end since the year 2000, take it with a pinch of salt

Exactly. I’m not worried. Trump is God’s answer to this long exile, anyway. Watch as our country starts acting like it’s supposted to again. 2017 is going to be a great year for the US. Haters can hate. Exciting times!!

 

[Binto]

That aside, why does the 500th anniversary of Protestantism and the 100th anniversary of Fatima have to be this terrible, punishing year??? Can’t it be a great revival instead? Why do we always have associate these “prophesies” with doom and gloom? God loves us, guys!!! He wants to reward his people more than punish em’. I’m optimistic! Good times ahead!!

 

[St_Francis]

That aside, why does the 500th anniversary of Protestantism and the 100th anniversary of Fatima have to be this terrible, punishing year??? Can’t it be a great revival instead? Why do we always have associate these “prophesies” with doom and gloom? God loves us, guys!!! He wants to reward his people more than punish em’. I’m optimistic! Good times ahead!!

These types of prophecies generally mean this: The path you are on leads to Hell.

It doesn’t mean that one is doomed to go to Hell, but that if one continues on that path, that is where one will end up.

Would you say there is less sin now than there was in 1917? Would you say there are more people living devout, prayerful, holy lives?

Can we honestly say that we have changed the path we are on?

Our Blessed Mother told us at Fatima what it would take to change the path we are on. The grace is there for us to begin the revival through our prayers, fasting, and almsgiving. God is just waiting for us to do those things to unlock the grace for a great revival!

 

[Nelka]

Maybe a miracle at Fatima that converts all protestants to Catholicism?

 

[MariaChristi]

Thanks for posting this! 2017 does seem like an important year, and the renewal of interest in what Our Lady of Fatima said, and of praying, is really great!

Thanks for your reply, St. Francis. Let us keep praying our Rosary as Mary asked. Let us pray with ever growing attention and devotion to her Immaculate Heart.

 

[MariaChristi]

This bolded part of the article by Msgr. Charles Pope refers to things said by Our Lady of Akita. I’ve heard it said that the Fatima and Akita messages are in line with each other. Is there any part of the message from Fatima that says anything like the part here that I’ve bolded?

Thanks for your reply, 1Lord1Faith,
It seems to me that all Mary’s Messages point back to the Gospels. She is ever repeating in different ways what she told the servants at Cana, “Do whatever He tells you”.

The Vatican has published extensively on the Message of Fatima. See HERE

 

[MariaChristi]

That aside, why does the 500th anniversary of Protestantism and the 100th anniversary of Fatima have to be this terrible, punishing year??? Can’t it be a great revival instead? Why do we always have associate these “prophesies” with doom and gloom? God loves us, guys!!! He wants to reward his people more than punish em’. I’m optimistic! Good times ahead!!

Dear Binto,

The warnings of a Mother are always to help her children and to keep them from hurting themselves. Mary’s messages are reminding us of the good we need to do, and to stop offending God. God has revealed all we need to do to be happy and holy – but from the original sin up to today, some men and women choose to disobey God’s Law of Love and commit evil instead. Today, human persons choose to hurt themselves and others in the process.

No one but God, knows for sure what this year will bring to each one and to all. It is for us to hear what God has revealed to us in His Commandments and to do the truth we hear. Perfect love casts out fear. Yes, God desires to save all men and He gave us free will to choose the good. How beautifully Mary teaches us to pray not only for ourselves but for others in most need of God’s Mercy! She desires as God does to see all her children safely home.

 

[MariaChristi]

Maybe a miracle at Fatima that converts all protestants to Catholicism?

Thanks for your reply Nelka. Pope Benedict XVI (at that time Cardinal Ratzinger) wrote the “Theological Commentary” on the third secret of Fatima at the request of Pope St. JPII. His concluding words are both helpful and beautiful:

…And so we come to the final question: What is the meaning of the “secret” of Fatima as a whole (in its three parts)? What does it say to us? First of all we must affirm with Cardinal Sodano: “… the events to which the third part of the ‘secret’ of Fatima refers now seem part of the past”. Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed. Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way, just as Christian faith in general cannot be reduced to an object of mere curiosity. What remains was already evident when we began our reflections on the text of the “secret”: the exhortation to prayer as the path of “salvation for souls” and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.

I would like finally to mention another key expression of the “secret” which has become justly famous: “my Immaculate Heart will triumph”. What does this mean? The Heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the history of the world, because it brought the Saviour into the world—because, thanks to her Yes, God could become man in our world and remains so for all time. The Evil One has power in this world, as we see and experience continually; he has power because our freedom continually lets itself be led away from God. But since God himself took a human heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word. From that time forth, the word that prevails is this: “In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). The message of Fatima invites us to trust in this promise.

– Joseph Card. Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregationfor the Doctrine of the Faith

 

[mkoopman]

The church will withstand even the gates of hell. Pope Leo’s prophecy relates one hundred years where God gives Satan an opportunity to destroy the church. Fatima is certainly a good candidate for that pivotal moment when The Prince of Lies was given a “lie”-sense to attack the church Jesus founded. As Mary is Mother of Jesus and in this mother of the mystical body that is His church it is fitting that she would announce hope on such an eve of misery.

I hear many of those who believe this conjuncture of prophecy as Pharisees. The rule book given by Sr. Lucia calls for a 15 yard penalty if Russia is not facing East during Orthodox Easter … didn’t St. John Paul II say that all good dogs go to heaven therefore Jacinta could not have passed through Purgatory. The level of some of the “prophetic rulebooks” on how we should tie our hand to allow Fatima to wash over the world as a laundry detergent are astounding. A big lump of nonsense legalism and not the law of God written on our hearts.

Look at what is happening in the world, the whole world, the complete, or to use a familiar term for many in these forums, “the fullness” of the Body of Christ. His Truth, His Body and His Church is not constrained to the confines of either Western or Eastern Catholicism but is meant to be the whole people of God evangelized by all of the baptized.

So, the gates of Hell are withstanding and many are gawking at the prophetic rulebook to keep the gates from opening into the church. But, take a look at the attacks on marriage and the family and the dignity of the human person. The unborn are discarded and those who should be mourning are on TV morning shows exuberant about how wonderful it is to kill your own child while self identifying as Christian.

Has Satan been successful? Are we staring at Fatima as the gate keeping rule set while the fence is down? Is it only the gates that remain intact? What is the outcome, how long must we suffer for the repentance that is not arising from the whole church?

 

[MariaChristi]

…Has Satan been successful? Are we staring at Fatima as the gate keeping rule set while the fence is down? Is it only the gates that remain intact? What is the outcome, how long must we suffer for the repentance that is not arising from the whole church?

Dear mkoopman,

Thanks for your reply. I’m not sure if you read my reply to Nelka posted on Jan. 25, in which I quoted from the “Theological Commentary” by then Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus), but let me repeat the very last paragraphs because Pope Emeritus answers your questions:

…I would like finally to mention another key expression of the “secret” which has become justly famous: “my Immaculate Heart will triumph”. What does this mean? The Heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the history of the world, because it brought the Saviour into the world—because, thanks to her Yes, God could become man in our world and remains so for all time. The Evil One has power in this world, as we see and experience continually; he has power because our freedom continually lets itself be led away from God. But since God himself took a human heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word. From that time forth, the word that prevails is this: “In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). The message of Fatima invites us to trust in this promise.

– Joseph Card. Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregationfor the Doctrine of the Faith

Mary is both Mother and Model of the Church. In today’s Gospel we heard the Beatitudes in which Jesus taught, “Blessed (Happy) are the pure in heart for they shall see God”. Mary’s Immaculate Heart is united with the Heart of Christ. If we remain in Him as she did on this earth, growing in faith, hope and above all Charity, then indeed her Immaculate Heart will triumph in our hearts – and we shall see God as He promised.

It is so important, for us to remember, “… since God himself took a human Heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word… .” Hope that helps a bit.

 

[Beautiful]

God bless you MariaChristi.
God bless Msgr. Pope.

 

[MariaChristi]

God bless you MariaChristi.
God bless Msgr. Pope.

Dear Beautiful,

God bless you too, and thanks so much for your reply. This 100th Anniversary Year of Mary’s Apparitions is not something to be ignored but something to be pondered and something that urges us to learn what we can about God’s Will for us in the present. I was grateful to find the article, by Msgr. Pope, on the Fatima Apparitions of 1917 and their significance to us in 2017.

Private Revelations are intended to help us better live the Gospel in our own time. I pray that many of us are beginning to hear Jesus through Mary’s words at Cana, “Do whatever He tells you”. Mary always points to Christ and I think the apparitions of Fatima will draw us closer to Him if we are seeking Him.

I’m reminded of the “wise men” who journeyed from afar, seeking the Newborn King. They “found the child with His Mother”. Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.