From Fatima to Medjugorje
Fatima
Our Lady’s 3 messages and requests at Fatima were:
(1) The Vision of Hell
– Pray for sinners’ repentance – pray the Rosary every day
– Reparation – sacrifice and suffering. She told us that hell exists and that souls are being lost to it because there is no one to make reparation for their sins
– “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.”
(2) War
– To have world peace and end the war, pray the Rosary every day (13 May 1917) (World War I 1914-1918)
– “If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse war will break out”
– To prevent this, Our Lady requested, “I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If My requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace…”
(3) “There will be errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer….” (first revealed on 1 March 1944)
Devotion to the Immaculate Heart was central to the Fatima Message. God determined that the Consecration of Russia and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays be the means of implementing this devotion throughout the world, and gave this task to His Pope and bishops and to individual souls to practice and promote this devotion.
In order to move ever closer to Her, and therefore to Her Son, Our Lady stressed the importance of praying at least five decades of the Rosary daily. We must also make sacrifices, especially the sacrifice of doing our daily duty, in reparation for the sins committed against Our Lord and Our Lady. She also stressed the necessity of prayers and sacrifices to save poor sinners from hell.
Our Lady promised, “In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph…”
– assassination attempt of Paul John Paul II on 13 May 1981
– Apparition of Our Lady at Medjugorje on 25 June 1981
– On 25 March 1984 in Saint Peter’s Square, while recalling the fiat uttered by Mary at the Annunciation, the Holy Father, in spiritual union with the Bishops of the world, entrusted all men and women and all peoples to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in terms which recalled the heartfelt words spoken in 1981
– The US President and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed a treaty calling for destruction of intermediate-range nuclear missiles on 8 December 1987 (Immaculate Heart of Mary)
– 1989, the fall of the Communist regimes in the Soviet Union
Medjugorje
Medjugorje Apparitions started on 24 June 1981. At about 6 pm, when six young people saw on the hill several hundred meters above the place called Podbrdo, a young woman with a child in her arms, who gave them a sign with her hand to come nearer. Surprised and scared, they did not approach her. The next day, 25 June 1981, at the same time, four of them felt strongly drawn towards the place where they had seen the person the day before which, they had recognised as Our Lady. The group of Medjugorje visionaries was formed. They prayed and spoke with Our Lady.
On the second day, coming down Podbrdo, Our Lady appeared one more time saying, “Peace, peace, peace and only peace”. Behind her, Maria could see a cross. After which Our Lady repeated, in tears, the following words, “Peace must reign between man and God, and between all people!”
“……..through me, God can lead you into the depths of the spiritual life. Little children, do not be afraid, because I am with you even if you think there is no way out and that Satan is in control. I am bringing peace to you. I am your mother, the Queen of Peace. I am blessing you with the blessings of joy so that for you God may be everything in your life.” (July 1988)
1. Thereafter, 25 June is celebrated as the Anniversary of the Apparitions. According to the testimony of the visionaries, from that day onwards, they had daily apparitions, together or separately, wherever they were. Topics of these messages are appeals for peace, conversion, prayer, fasting, reparation, mass.
– “I have stayed with you this long so I might help you along in your trials.” (7 February 1985)
– “Dear children, if you live the messages, you are living the seed of holiness.”
(10 October 1985)
– After many years, Our Lady was disappointed and said, “You speak much, little children, but you work little on your conversion. That is why, convert and start to live my messages, not with your words but with your life.” (September 1998)
2. Conversion and Prayer School
Our Lady asked us to be armed with the following means, “Five stones of Medjugorje” and She reminded us of what Christ Our Lord asked us to do in the Bible:
(1) Prayer of the Rosary: “Pray, pray, pray, prayer is the basis of peace”.
(2) The Eucharist (Holy Mass): “the Holy Mass is the climax of prayer”.
(3) The Bible – read the Holy Scripture every day.
(4) Fasting: “Let the people perform strict fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, except the sick”, “The best fasting is on bread and water”.
(5) Monthly Confession: “In confession, many blessings are received”.
– “My presence here is to take you on a new path, the path to salvation. This is why I call you, day after day to conversion. But if you do not pray, you cannot say that you are on the way to being converted.” (June 1992)
– “I have come to you to help you and, therefore, I invite you to change your life because you have taken a path of misery, a path of ruin. When I told you: convert, pray, fast, be reconciled, you took these messages superficially. You started to live them and then you stopped, because it was difficult for you.” (March 1992)
– In 1984, the day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady invited everyone to pray the Rosary every day on Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries
– Pray 3 hours a day!
– To prepare for receiving the Holy Eucharist, Our Lady told the Visionaries to pray two decades of the Rosary before mass and one thereafter
– Prayers should be for: those who didn’t know God, for the conversion of sinners, Purgatory, and the Holy Father
3. Hell
– Our Lady didn’t hide: Punishment for all sinners is Hell
– “Dear children, you are forgetting that I desire sacrifices from you so I can help you and drive Satan away from you.” (September 1986)
4. Pray for the non-believers
– Those who convert include non-believers in God, Our Lady said, Satan enter the world because there are non-believers, war, secession, suicide, drugs, divorce, abortion, etc…..all these are created by non-believers. Our Lady appeared to one of the Visionaries, Mirjana saying that in our prayers, we should pray earnestly for non-believers, “I desire that you present prayers at the intention of my children who are unaware of my love and my Son’s love.”
– Since 1987, our Lady has selected the 2nd of each month to pray with Mirjana for the non-believers
– “Reconcile with yourself, with God, with your neighbours. In this way you will help me. Convert the non–believers. Wipe the tears from my face!”
5. Reparation and fasting (Wednesday, Friday)
– “Today I invite you to do works of mercy with love and out of love for me and for your and my brothers and sisters. Dear children, all that you do for others, do it with great joy and humility towards God. I am with you and day after day I offer your sacrifices and prayers to God for the salvation of the world.” (November 1990)
– “Today I call on you to begin fasting with the heart……fast out of gratitude” (September 1984)
– “Dear children! Today I call you to renew prayer and fasting with even greater enthusiasm until prayer becomes a joy for you.”
6. Consecration
– “I am inviting you today to the prayer of consecration to Jesus, my dear Son, so that each of you may be His. And then I am inviting you to the consecration of my Immaculate Heart….. so that all belong to God through my heart” (October 1988)
7. Messenger of Peace
– “I invite you to be carriers of good and peace. God can give you peace only if you convert and pray. Therefore, my dear little children, pray, pray, pray!” (May 1993)
(Our Lady requested people to pray 3 times, this can be understood as: for personal needs, for undertaking God’s Will and for the purpose of God’s Will)
– “Today also I invite you to prayer. Only by prayer and fasting can war be stopped… I invite you to decide for God and He will protect you and show you what you should do and which path to take. I invite all those who have said “yes” to me to renew their consecration to my Son Jesus and to His Heart and to me so we can take you more intensely as instruments of peace in this unpeaceful world.” (April 1992)
8. Prayer Groups
– “In your work and in your everyday life, put God in the first place. I call you today with great seriousness to obey me and to do as I am calling you.” (December 1987)
– “Renew prayer in your families and form prayer groups. In this way, you will experience joy in prayer and togetherness. All those who pray and are members of prayer groups are open to God’s will in their hearts and joyfully witness God’s love.” (September 2000)
Our Lady’s message at Medjugorje on 25 August 1991: “Today also I invite you to prayer, now as never before when my plan has begun to be realized. Satan is strong and wants to sweep away plans of peace and joy and make you think that my Son is not strong in his decisions. Therefore, I call all of you, dear children to pray and fast still more firmly. I invite you to realize through the secrets I began in Fatima may be fulfilled. I call you, dear children, to grasp the importance of my coming and the seriousness of the situation. I want to save all souls and present them to God. Therefore, let us pray that everything I have begun be fully realized.” (This is the only message that Our Lady mentioned Fatima)
One of the purposes of Our Lady’s Apparitions at Medjugorje and Fatima, was to make us respond to Her in this world which is full of sins so that Her Immaculate Heart will eventually win against Satan.
Spiritual Director
Fr. Francis Tam