Catholic Replies
Editor’s Note: Continuing our summary of the six appearances of Our Lady of Fatima 100 years ago, here is an account of what happened on July 13, 1917.
The third appearance of Our Lady of Fatima occurred on the 13th of July, and about 4,000 people were present, although once again only the three children were able to see and hear the Virgin. This was a very momentous event in which our Lady revealed three “secrets” to the visionaries. Lucia would make two of the secrets known in memoirs published in 1941, and wrote about the third secret in 1944, but put it into a sealed envelope that was not be opened by the Pope until 1960. The contents of that secret were revealed by Pope John Paul II in 2000.
At the start of the July apparition, Lucia asked three questions of the heavenly visitor: 1) “What do you want of me?” Our Lady told her to return on the 13th of August and keep praying the rosary daily “in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary…because only she can help you.” 2) Lucia asked the Lady to help overcome the skepticism and ridicule she had been enduring by working a miracle “so that everybody will believe that you are appearing to us.” The Virgin told her that she would perform a miracle in October. 3) Lucia also asked favors for various people. Mary had told her in May that those requesting the favors would have to pray the rosary to obtain them.
The children then had one of the most frightening experiences of their young lives when the Blessed Mother showed them a vision of Hell with demons and souls in human form shrieking and groaning as they floated in a sea of fire. “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go,” said our Lady. “To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.”
After this scary vision, the heavenly visitor taught the children a prayer to be said at the end of each decade of the rosary: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fire of Hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy.”
The vision of Hell so moved Jacinta that she spent much time in the nearly three years before her death in 1920 performing many penances to save souls from Hell. In fact, when Francisco died in April 1919, Jacinta declined the offer of our Lady to go to Heaven with her brother and said she wanted to stay on Earth longer to suffer for sinners.
The second secret was our Lady’s promise that World War I would end soon (it ended 16 months later) and her warning that an even greater war would break out during the papacy of Pope Pius XI unless people ceased offending God (Pius XI did not become Pope until 1922, and he reigned until 1939).
She said that the start of that war would be signaled by “an unknown light” in the skies, which would be a sign that God was “about to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.”
That unknown light illumined the skies over Europe for five hours on the night of January 25 and 26, 1938, and German troops occupied Austria just two months later, starting World War II, which led to the deaths of 50 million people, more than double the 20 million who perished in World War I.
In this appearance, Our Lady of Fatima predicted the rise of Russian Communism and asked for “the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.” She said that “if my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace. If not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated.”
“In the end,” the Blessed Virgin promised, “my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.”
Pope John Paul II consecrated the whole world, including Russia, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1984, but the conversion of Russia and world peace will not fully come about until people cease offending God, pray the rosary daily, and make the five First Saturdays.
The famous third secret, which Lucia sent to the Holy Father in 1944, was not made public until May 13, 2000 at a Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II for the beatification of Francisco and Jacinta.
According to Lucia, the three children were given a vision first of an angel pointing to Earth with his right hand and crying out, “Penance, Penance, Penance!” The trio then saw “a bishop dressed in white” going up a steep mountain, trembling with pain and sorrow and “praying for the souls of the corpses he met on the way.” When the bishop reached the top of the mountain, on which there was a huge cross, he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him. The soldiers also killed other bishops, priests, men and women religious, and many laypeople.
After reading the letter composed by Lucia, Pope John Paul said that it referred to the assassination attempt against him on May 13, 1981. The reason he was not killed, said the Holy Father, was that “a mother’s hand” had deflected the bullet that should have killed him. The bullet was subsequently set in the crown on the statue of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal, and John Paul visited there on May 13, 1982 to thank the Blessed Mother for saving his life.
Ever since 1960, when the Pope was supposed to open the envelope from Lucia containing the third secret, there had been much apocalyptic speculation about its contents.
However, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, published a commentary in June 2000 that rejected all such speculation. He said that the vision was “in no way a film preview of a future in which nothing can be changed,” but rather a summary of the “violence, destruction, and persecution” that took place in the 20th century. The bishop in white, he said, was “a convergence of different Popes,” from Pius X to John Paul II, who shared in the sufferings of the century. That John Paul did not die in 1981, said Cardinal Ratzinger, proved that “faith and prayer are forces that can influence history, and that in the end prayer is more powerful than bullets and faith more powerful than armies.”
Those expecting exciting revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history, said Cardinal Ratzinger, “are bound to be disappointed. Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way.”
He said that what is important about the third secret is “the exhortation to prayer as the path of ‘salvation for souls’ and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.” When asked later if any part of the third secret had not been revealed, Lucia, speaking from her convent in Coimbra, Portugal, replied: “Everything has been published; there are no more secrets.”
Q. I live in a retirement home where most of the residents are over 80. It is not uncommon for some to be drinking coffee or tea shortly before Mass begins, and even bringing containers into the auditorium where daily Mass is offered. Yet they all receive Holy Communion. Has the rule for fasting for one hour before receiving Communion been relaxed for the elderly, and can the local ordinary change it? — W.B., Oregon.
A. The one-hour fast from food and drink, with the exception of water or medicine, is a universal law that applies to all Catholics who wish to receive the Holy Eucharist worthily, according to canon 919 §1 of the Code of Canon Law. This brief period of fasting, which is a way of demonstrating spiritual preparation and reverence for the sacrament, has been in force since 1964. The ancient fast from midnight the night before was reduced to three hours in 1957 and to one hour seven years later.
Section three of canon 919 responds to your question when it says: “Those who are advanced in age or who suffer from any infirmity, as well as those who take care of them, can receive the Most Holy Eucharist even if they have taken something during the previous hour.”
We wonder, though, if those retirement home residents who bring drink containers to Mass couldn’t be persuaded to fast from their coffee or tea for one hour prior to Communion.
