On this Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, I give you three points to consider.
First, in today’s Bollettino (daily Vatican Press Office announcement) there is a notice of a presser on 17 May for the presentation of new norms for the investigation of apparitions and other phenomena. Is it a little cynical to connect such a presser with Our Lady of Fatima. After all, it is a Monday. However, it was announced today. And the document itself? There is a penchant recently for signing or release documents that are troubling on certain days. Wasn’t Taurina cacata… sorry Traditionis custodes (Jailers of Tradition) released on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel?
Some have opined that this document, coming from the Dicastery (Congregation) for the Doctrine of the Faith may be intended to cast doubts on even previously approved apparitions. That’s worrisome.
Next, Fr. Longenecker posted a close-up photo of the bullet that nearly felled John Paul II on this day in 1981.
Detail of the bullet that entered John Paul IIs body and is now built into the crown of the image of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal. pic.twitter.com/B33bNSlY1N
— Fr. Dwight Longenecker (@dlongenecker1) May 13, 2024
That round was full metal jacket (FMJ). THANK GOD it wasn’t a hollow point or modern self-defense round designed to “mushroom”. FMJ tends to go straight through until energy is spent. Mushrooming rounds do more damage and transfer more energy on impact.
That’s a consolation.
Meanwhile, something was made known to me a while back that I have been pondering. It involves the enigmatic Third Secret of Our Lady of Fatima. It vexes me.
A refresher:
The three children who were the seers at Fatima, received three secrets from Our Lady. Carmelite nun Sister Lúcia, who as a little girl was one of the three children to whom Our Lady appeared, revealed two secrets in 1941. She did not disclose the third secret until 1943 at the command of the bishop. She wrote it down and sealed it in an envelope and indicating that it should “opened and read to the world upon her death or in 1960, whichever would happen first.” It was eventually sent to Rome in 1957 where it was stored away securely. The text of the description of the vision of the Third Secret was released by the Vatican in 2000. We have the explanations offered by Our Lady of the first two secrets. We only have the description from Our Lady to Lúcia, but not the explanation. Why is that?
There is controversy about the Third Secret. Firstly, the timing of its release was a problem. Also, the other secrets have explanations from Mary. Where’s Mary’s explanation of the Third?
More in this book, CLICK.
Also, the Third Secret was kept in both the archive of the Holy Office and also in a safe in the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace… so it was divided. That’s consistent with the first two: description and explanation. Also, there are indications that Popes read the Third Secret for “first time”… twice. How do you do that if it is one thing? Was one the text and the other the explanation?
In 2000 Card. Ratzinger gave a theological explanation. Frankly, his explanation didn’t resolve the questions. And, with due respect, if I have to choose between Ratzinger’s explanation and what the Mother God might have to say… well…..
In any event, we return to the element in the text of the description of the Third Secret vision that bothers me the most.
Here is the whole text. The part in question is in bold.
“I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine. After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: “Penance, Penance, Penance!” And we saw in an immense light that is God: “something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it,” a bishop dressed in white. “We had the impression that it was the Holy Father.” Other bishops, priests, men and women religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other bishops, priests, men and women religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two angels each with a crystal aspergillum in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.
What bothers me? Not the part about persecution. That’s a given.
Note that reference to seeing an image like to that of an image in a mirror.
When you see someone pass in front of a mirror, you seetwoof them, the real one and the image. Two.
Hence, in this case, the vision involved seeingtwo figures dressed in white, one being the real one and the other being the image of the real one. And, according to the description, Lúcia says she saw whom she took to be the Pope and a figure that was not the Pope but an image like the Pope.
Puzzling.
I am one of those who believe that we have not received the entirety of the Third Secret. We have the description of the vision and I do not doubt its accuracy. However, I strongly suspect that there is an additional part, Mary’s own explanation of the vision. She explained the other two, after all.
People speculate about what the vision of the Third Secret means. If the Holy See wants to reaffirm that we are not bound to believe in even approved apparitions of heavenly things, even less are we bound to believe human explanations of those apparitions.
