By Fr. Christopher Foeckler, MJ •  St. Josaphat Formation Center • Phoenix, AZ

We are fast approaching the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady to three young shepherd children in Fatima in 1917. The message of our Lady of Fatima on the 13th of each month between May and October was a message of hope and of peace in the darkest days of World War I. It can be that for us today, too.

In 1917, Western Europe was tearing itself apart in its third year of a mechanized war of attrition, the brutality of which had never been seen before. More than a million men would be slaughtered in each campaign and for very little exchange of territory on either side. It was a deadly stalemate with no hope of peace in sight. Meanwhile in Eastern Europe, the ravages of the ‘Great War’ served to usher in the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the age of Communism along with its militant atheism that would enslave much of the world and produce millions
of martyrs.

To obtain peace, the children were asked for sacrifice: Our Lord said, “The sacrifice required of every person is the fulfillment of his duties in life and the observance of My law. This is the penance that I now seek and require;” the daily rosary: Our Lady instructed, “You must recite the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, for only she can obtain this;” and devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart: “Jesus wishes to establish throughout the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” The end of the war came almost exactly 13 months after the final apparition of our Lady of Fatima on October 13, 1917. We must use the same indispensable means to obtain peace in our days.

In his report on Fatima, then Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in the final paragraph: “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 Savior 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.’”

This post is also available in: Hindi Italian Polish Slovak Spanish Ukrainian