By RAYMOND DE SOUZA
Part 4
“Contra factum non valet argumentum,” taught St. Thomas Aquinas. “It is useless to argue against facts.”
We learn in Sacred Scriptures that, from time to time, and according to the requirements of His divine Providence, God our Lord does send messages to the world. Angels have appeared to certain very fortunate people in the Old Testament, such as the mother of Samson, the young men in the furnace, and to Tobit and Tobias.
The New Testament begins with the apparition of the Archangel Gabriel to Our Blessed Mother, thus opening a new stream of contact between Heaven and Earth. But not only angels are sent by God to speak to men: People are sent, too, and the best example I know is when Moses and Elias appeared talking to Jesus on the day of the Transfiguration atop Mount Tabor.
God has sent Mary a number of times in human history. One of her most meaningful apparitions took place in the town of Lourdes, France, in 1858. A 14-year-old girl named Bernadette Soubirous claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary, who affirmed she was “The Immaculate Conception.” Naturally, not too many people believed her, as is wont to happen with the likes of us who must see in order to believe.
Very well, if you want to see it, you will. On February 25 of that year, Bernadette did something unusual: She started scratching the dry ground near the grotto of Massabielle, the place of the apparition. They asked her: Why? “Because the Virgin told me so,” was the reply. I can only imagine the smirks in the smiling faces of the incredulous Frenchmen who watched the scene. But their smirks did not last long: Soon a spring of water began to flow from the same dry ground, a spring that did not exist before, and is there to this day.
But it is no common spring: It has healing powers, unexplained to science! It is plain water, just like the water of the pool of Bethesda, where Jesus cured the paralytic (John 5:1-17). The waters of both the pool of Bethesda and the fountain of Lourdes are just plain old water, but the healing powers are the same!
But not everyone who entered the pool of Bethesda was healed, only the first one who plunged into the water. God’s Providence decided it hold be so, and so it was. Period. Likewise, not everyone who goes to Lourdes and bathes in the water is healed, only those whom God’s Providence chooses to heal.
The Church established a team of scientists, doctors, and other specialists to investigate the claims of cure. Make no mistake: They are not there to cut corners and make it easy to prove the miracle. No, they are there to assess the scientific veracity of the miracle in the most vigorous ways. And it has happened no fewer than 66 times!
But probably the most impressive Marian apparition took place in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917. This apparition could not be denied even by atheists, Freemasons, Church-mockers, agnostics, nitwits — all sorts of anti-Catholic people. This is the sequence of facts, summarized:
Three illiterate children claimed that a beautiful Lady appeared to them, saying that God was displeased with the sins of the world. She said that World War I was a punishment allowed by God because of sin. It was in July 1917. World War I raged on, without any sign of a peaceful solution. Against all political opinions, she said that the war was coming to an end — and it did in the following year. But, she added, if mankind did not stop offending God, another war, even worse, would come in the reign of Pius XI.
Please note: World War I was not yet finished, and she announced the outbreak of World War II! And who was this “Pius XI”? The children did not know, as the Pope of the time was Benedict XV. But there was a certain cardinal in the Vatican called Achille Ratti, who succeeded Benedict XV and chose for himself the name of Pius XI! He was elected Pope in the conclave of 1922 and died in 1939 — shortly after the invasion of Austria by Hitler in 1938.
Mary also announced that the way to prevent the war was for the Pope and the bishops to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart and to promote the devotion of reparation of the first five Saturdays.
Why Russia? It was a puzzling question, as Russia had just lost the czar and was ruled by a liberal government, headed in 1917 by a man called Alexander Kerensky. There was no Communist Party in Russia as such in 1917. It made no sense.
Mary promised that if they (the Pope and the bishops) heeded her requests, Russia would convert, and there would be peace. But if they did not heed her words, “Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the Church, many nations will be annihilated, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, the good will be martyred, but in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”
Today, almost 100 years later, haven’t we seen the tragic realization of those words? Except for her final triumph, haven’t we seen Communist-promoted wars, persecutions, martyrdoms?
But of course today it is easy to see what has happened, but in those days, how would Church and civil leaders be persuaded to believe? The Masonic government of Portugal laughed at the events in Fatima, arrested the children, intimidated the parents and family members, as they are wont to do when they want to stomp any growth of faith.
How did Mary find a way to persuade them that she was there in Fatima? Easy. She made the sun dance in the sight of 70,000 people gathered at the place of the apparitions! Yes, the sun danced in the sky and everyone, faithful Catholics, wishy-washy Catholics, atheists, Masons, agnostics, politicians of all sorts, couldn’t but affirm that they had seen the sun dance in the sky for about ten minutes, and the vision frightened the daylights out of them!
The miraculous event was reported by someone who could never be accused of being a pro-Catholic Church man: Avelino de Almeida, the chief editor of O Seculo, the liberal, anticlerical, and Masonic daily paper of Lisbon. He wrote:
“From the road, where the carriages were crowded together and where hundreds of persons had stayed for want of sufficient courage to advance across the muddy ground, we saw the huge crowd turn towards the sun which appeared at its zenith, clear of the clouds. It resembled a flat plate of silver, and it was possible to stare at it without the least discomfort. It did not burn the eyes. It did not blind. We would say that it produced an eclipse.
“Then a tremendous cry rang out, and the crowd nearest us was heard to shout: ‘Miracle! Miracle!. . . Marvel!. . . Marvel!’ Before the dazzled eyes of the people, whose attitude transported us to biblical times, and who, dumbfounded, heads uncovered, contemplated the blue of the sky, the sun trembled, it made strange and abrupt movements, outside of all cosmic laws, ‘the sun danced,’ according to the typical expression of the peasants.”
Avelino de Almeida was violently attacked by all the anticlerical press, but he had the intellectual honesty to renew his testimony. Fifteen days later, in his review, Ilustração Portuguesa, he illustrated his account with a dozen photographs of the huge ecstatic crowd, and repeated as a refrain throughout his article: “I saw it. . . . I saw it. . . . I saw it.”
And he concluded: “Miracle, as the people shouted? Natural phenomenon, as the experts say? For the moment, that does not concern me, I am only saying what I saw. . . . The rest is a matter for Science and the Church.”
This matter deserves greater scrutiny. Next article, “More on Fatima!”
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(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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