considerations of fatima

Fatima and Lourdes are the two Ur apparitions.

That is to say, if any claims of apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the modern era are true, then these are the two to look at.

If these two are false, they're probably all false.

Surprisingly, atheistic commentator Richard Dawkins doesn't completely dismiss all apparitions out of hand.

He says some of them may have been perpetrated by what he calls trickster aliens.

Of course Richard Dawkins could be a trickster alien himself.

I mean, how would we know?

If we exclude aliens from the equation at least temporarily, we are left with Lourdes and Fatima as the apparitions which may reward close examination.

Medjugorje is also of interest because it is contemporary and ongoing and something of a cultural study.

But Fatima and Lourdes are the ones I'd look at if I thought any of them might be true.

The Catholic Church retains a certain measuredness in her attitude to all such claims and never makes an apparition an article of faith.

We never have to believe in them. The Church just thinks some are a bit more credible than others.

Where the Church thinks a claim of apparitions is false, her inclination is to let it peter out over time. She is not overly  confrontational in these matters. She doesn't seek to humiliate the collossal goobers who may be making up apparitions to make themselves seem interesting.

We might postulate several causes for apparitions: (1) People (collossal goobers) fake them to get attention; (2) People fake them to make money; (3) People fake them as a pious fraud, ie they mean well but they're essentially making it all up; (4) People fake them because their hold on reality is not strong; (5) People claim an apparition and an apparition has occurred but it has been caused by an evil spirit; (6) The apparition is genuinely from God.

Fatima is of enduring interest because during the cycle of apparitions (six in total in 1917) the final apparition featured a visual spectacle which thousands of people claimed to have seen.

The location remains a place of pilgrimage and I've heard some rather stirring attestations to a feeling of peace which purportedly prevails there.

There were also elements of prophecy at Fatima, with Lucia the visionary claiming the Blessed Virgin told her that if mankind did not repent, the world would be punished by a more terrible war (than World War One which was then underway) and that Russia would spread her errors throughout the world.

This prophecy is fairly incredible for 1917 but it seems Lucia did not reveal it until 1941 when predicting World War Two would be a bit less impressive since it had already started.

The prophecy about Russia spreading its errors throughout the world is still impressive in 1941.

What was to come?

After Lucia revealed the prophecy, Russia projected communism into China through Chairman Mao, and from there into Vietnam, Laos, Burmah, North Korea, and Cambodia.

Then Russia installed communist dictatorships in Ethiopia, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Mocambique, Angola and other African States.

Russia made satelites of many Arab nations.

Subsequent to Lucia's prophecy Russia annexed eastern Europe, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ablania, Hungary, and Yugoslavia.

Russia also went on to sponsor communist terrorist movements throughout Western Europe to wit: the IRA in Ireland, the Basques in Spain, the Red Brigades in Italy, Baader Meinhof in Germany and so on.

Russia also installed communist dictatorships in Cuba and Nicaragua, and sponsored communist revolutions all over central and South America.

None of that had happened yet when Lucia first predicted it.

That's some strike rate for any prophecy, even one purported to have happened in 1917 and only revealed in 1941.

Cards on the table.

I tend to think the Fatima apparitions are actual. They actually happened. They actually meant what they said. The prophecies relating to them actually came true.

I do not vouch for later claims of apparitions relating to Lucia or comments she made later in life. Her later purported statements require careful study in themselves.

But I would suggest the 1917 stuff is real.

There has been some undignified division among Christians arising from the Fatima apparitions. Consideration of these divisions requires discernment and calm.

To this day there are quite vituperative discussions in some quarters arising from claims that the Church did not heed a requirement of Fatima whereby Russia would be consecrated specifically to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Proponents of this view say that if a precise wording of consecration had been followed and precise forms adhered to, God would have had to convert all Russia.

For me these discussions can reek of scrupulosity, legalism, a misunderstanding of the nature of any prophecy and indeed a complete misunderstanding of the way in which we can approach God to ask him to do anything. I also sense in some of the discussions, that old divide and conquer mischievousness beloved of satanists infiltrating Christianity to spread vexation.

My assessment of Fatima is that the prophecy regarding Russia spreading her errors through the world, a prophecy revealed in 1941, absolutely came true.

Communist atheists in Russia did spread their errors throughout the world.

My assessment of the promise within the prophecy that if a consecration took place (and presumably if mankind repented) then Russia would be converted, also took place.

I regard the events of 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992 in Russia as the prophesied conversion of Russia, a miraculous gift of conversion to the world from God via our Lady Of Fatima,

I am saying that happened in those years was the conversion of Russia.

In this sense.

I have no other way of understanding Russia overnight allowing Poland, Czechoslavakia, Hungary, Romania, Albania, Bulgara, and Yugoslavia to go free. (And Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia for that matter.)

I have no other explanation for Russia overnight ceasing to bankroll her dictatorship proxies across Afriaca and Arbaia.

I have no other explanation for Russia overnight pulling the plug on the IRA and its ilk.

I have no other explanation for Russia withdrawing from its joint efforts with the communists of China whom it had installed, to take over the world.

I have no other explanation for Russia telling Castro that it would no longer bankroll the Cuban dictatorship or any of the other Communist terror movements in the Americas.

I have no other explanation for Russia allowing her historic vassals Ukraine, Belarus. Kazakhstan, Mongolia and others to walk free.

I have no other explanation for Russia at the height of her power, admitting Communism was a crock.

This was conversion.

But were we worthy of it?

Were we worthy of the gift given?

What did the free countries of the world, the USA, Canada, Ireland, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Israel and Western Europe do with the gift that was given?

We aborted the unborn. We euthanised the elderly. We assisted all age groups to suicide. We legalised drugs. We maintained our populace on mind numbing anti drepressants. We performed mutilating sex change operations on adults and children. We generated life in test tubes and murdered life there, killing ten babies for every one we brought to term. We pornographied the citizenry with salaciou films, music and books. (The bombardment of imagery criticised by Pope Benedict a few years ago.) We allowed scoundrels to terrorise the Catholic Church through slander. We acquiesced to mafias.

I would suggest that we showed ourselves unworthy of the miracles of Fatima, the various miracles, not least the conversion of Russia from her atheistic communist attempt to enslave the world.

We did not use the miracle we had been given as an opportunity to turn our lives towards God.

After Russia ceased to bankroll worldwide atheistic communism, which cessation was an incredible conversion of Russia, our societies and our cultures used the interim period of peace as an excuse to plunge headlong into ever greater excesses, ever greater barbarities, ever greater depravities.

But the miracle of Fatima did happen.

The prophecy of Fatima came true at every level.

A legalist might say: "Oh God has to convert Russia if some consecration is performed in a particular way."

I would say: "If we turn against God, consecration or no consecration, we cannot brandish any extract from any prophecy to tell God what he must do."

We should turn back to him.

He will have mercy.