+Jaime Cardinal Sin, D.D.
THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA (Revised Edition)
PHILIPPINES
THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA The Message of His Eminence, Jaime L. Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila, during the Marian Year in 1985 and the Closing of the Tricentennial Celebration of the Religious of the Virgin Mary in the same year.
Republished by permission of Serviam Foundation and distributed by Paulines Publishing House Daughters of St. Paul 2650 F.B. Harrison Street 1302 Pasay City, Philippines E-mail: edpph@paulines.ph Website: www.paulines.ph Cover design: Ann Marie Nemenzo, FSP Cover photo and inside images are taken from public domain sites of the internet All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Revised Edition 1st printing 2017 ISBN 978-971-590-841-2
at the service of the Gospel and culture
TABLE OF CONTENTS Editor’s Note The Message of Fatima The Apparitions of Fatima The Vision of Hell An Interview with Lucia Mankind Gets a Message The Road to Peace Penance and Reparation Prayer – Conversion Consecration Prayer to Our Lady of Fatima
v 1 5 11 16 18 23 32 38 39 48
The Message of Fatima EDITOR’S NOTE Thirty-three years ago, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, headed then by ArchbishopAntonio Mabutas, declared a special Marian Year for the entire Philippines, to be celebrated from December 8, 1984 to December 8, 1985. Archbishop Mabutas described the Philippine situation at that time in the following words: “Perhaps not since the period of the SecondWorldWar have our people faced a year of such bleak prospects as they faced with the ending of 1984. For those socially and economically disadvantaged—that is, the majority of our people—1985 seems to promise perhaps even more privation, more widespread unemployment, increased inflation, greater hardships, with no end of the tunnel in sight. For so many who are suffering from difficulties and uncertainties, burdened by injustice and crushed by violations of human rights, the foreseeable future seems to bring little prospect of relief. In sum, the present year is hardly a year for facile optimism or bright hope. v
The Message of Fatima It is in this context of hardship and uncertainty, of conflict and near-loss of hope that, we believe providentially, the MarianYear opens for us.” Within this celebration of the Marian Year, then Archbishop of Manila, Jaime Cardinal Sin, published with Paulines Publishing House the booklet The Message of Fatima, echoing to our people the Blessed Mother’s call to prayer and conversion. Significantly, the following year, in February 1986, the prophetic call of our dear Cardinal Sin set to motion the peaceful revolution of EDSA, which we believe, happened through the intercession of the Mother of God. This year, the universal Church celebrates the centenary of the Blessed Mother’s apparitions to three shepherd-children in Fatima, Portugal. Paulines Publishing House would like to offer to our people again Cardinal Sin’s booklet The Message of Fatima, to shed light in our country’s present moment of darkness. We need to hear again our Blessed Mother’s call to prayer and conversion. We need to renew our hope in her maternal protection for our dear Philippines, the Pueblo amante de Maria. vi
The Message of Fatima Carberry of St. Louis, ring with even greater force today. Let us then, together meditate a while on the prescription for world peace brought down from heaven by no less than the Mother of God herself.
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AN INTERVIEW WITH LUCIA
T
he famous Jesuit apostle of God’s mercy, Fr. Lombardi asked Lucia in an interview: “Is the Better World Movement a response of the Church to the words spoken by Our Lady?” “Father,” replied Lucia, “there is certainly a great need for this renewal. If it is not done, and taking into account the present development of humanity, only a limited number of the human race will be saved.” “Do you really believe that many will go to hell? I hope that God will save the greater part of humanity.” “Father, many will be lost.” “It is true,” Fr. Lombardi countered, “that the world is full of evil, but there is always a hope of salvation.” “No, Father,” declared Lucia, “many will be lost.” Fr. Lombardi remembered that Lucia had seen hell and added: “Her words disturbed me. I returned to Italy with that grave warning impressed on my heart.” This interview was published in the Vatican’s L’Osservatore della Domenica, 7 February, 1954. 16
The Message of Fatima We would be wise also to impress that grave warning on our hearts.We must never lose sight of God’s mercy. In this, Fr. Lombardi is undoubtedly correct. But it will do us no good but much harm to stress God’s mercy at the expense of his justice. Those who say: God is infinitely merciful and therefore there is no room for hell, have got the argument all wrong. Our Lady, who certainly knows her theology because she sees God face to face, argues this other way: God is infinitely merciful; therefore, how abominably horrible and monstrous sin is, if it compels infinite mercy to punish it with hell! That is the same conclusion drawn by Jacinta with the supernatural insight afforded her. “[Lucia] tell everyone what hell is like so that they will not sin anymore and not go there!” In her last illness she said: “If people only knew what awaits them in eternity, they would do everything in their power to change their lives.” Let us here and now draw that same conclusion, because that is exactly what Our Lady wants: our conversion, a change in our lives. 17
MANKIND GETS A MESSAGE
F
atima teaches that war and other widespread sufferings and calamities that afflict large masses of humanity are divine punishments for sin, in particular for such sins as have become a way of life, a lifestyle. Such sins transcend individual dimensions and become sins of the community or society because they infect and characterize a whole culture, a whole mores. Think, for example, of the sexual permissiveness, of the greed for wealth, of the craving for comforts, of the thirst for power. Instant wealth, ill-gotten power, cheating, homosexual relationships, abortions have become socially acceptable and legitimized as the modern way of living, the liberated lifestyle of the 20th century humanity.2
2. Cardinal Sin wrote this booklet in the 20th century (1985). But the same things can be said now of the 21st century. 18
The Message of Fatima People sometimes complain: So-and-so is such a good man, a real saint. Yet he always has the most rotten luck. On the other hand, so-and-so is a criminal, thoroughly evil. But he has everything one can wish for. Where is God’s justice? Why are the good punished and the evil rewarded? Once again, such people have got the argument by the wrong end. Except for Jesus and Mary, there is no one so holy as not to be guilty of actual sin. Holy Scripture says that the just person falls seven times a day. Conversely, there is no person so evil that he/she does not do some good. God’s justice requires that He punish the evil done by the good person and reward the good done by the evil person. The catch is that the individual person has an immortal soul and outlives this earthly life. So, whereas God can defer the reward of the good person to the next life, he cannot do the same in the case of the unrepentant evil person. Since that individual cannot be rewarded in the afterlife, the person has to receive his/her reward in this life. Evil people, then, prosper in this life precisely because 19
The Message of Fatima God is just. Rightly considered, the prosperity of the evil is an ominous sign. But the case for human societies is exactly the reverse. Except for the Church, which is a supernatural society, all other human societies are earthbound: none transcends this life. Filipinos will go either to heaven or to hell in the next life. But there is no next life for the Philippines itself. Our country must receive its just reward or punishment right here on this earth. If it is faithful to God, acknowledges his divine sovereignty and in its lawmaking and other public actions obeys God’s commandments, then God will bless our country with prosperity and peace in the here-and-now. But if the Philippines puts itself above God and makes a mockery of his divine law, then God will punish its people in the here-andnow with civil unrest, sedition, fratricidal strife, bankruptcy, insecurity, hunger, natural hardships and other calamities, war. This is not an invention of mine, nor is it a new revelation made at Fatima. It is pure and simple biblical 20
The Message of Fatima truth. St. Paul tells us that whatever happened to the Jewish nation happened as a prefigurement of what would similarly happen to us. The history of Israel in the Ancient Testament was meant and written down for our instruction in the New Testament. Open the Bible and you will find that the misfortunes of Israel, the calamities, pestilences, droughts, famines, and especially wars, defeats and captivities, happened because they turned their backs on God and on his law. Read the Prophets and you will discover that in the name of God they prophesied fire and blood and sword, ruin and desolation and death, because the people walked in pride, because they perpetrated abominations in the sight of God, because they worshipped Baal, because they indulged in the lusts and excesses of the flesh, because they did not do justice to the orphan and the widow and the weak and the poor. “Hear the word that the Lord hath spoken concerning you, O ye children of Israel. . . You only have I known of all the families of the earth. Therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities... 21