In 1917 Portugal, Mary told three young children she wanted Russia consecrated to her Immaculate Heart. When her requests were not notably heeded, Russia spread its influence around the world, writes Msgr. Pedro Lopez-Gallo.
A century ago, on May 13, 1917, two key events happened in the Catholic Church. First, and during the First World War, Pope Benedict XV, in the Sistine Chapel, consecrated Monsignor Eugenio Pacelli as archbishop, appointing him nuncio to Bavaria, Germany.
Archbishop Pacelli was to become Pius XII in 1939, just before the Second World War began, and came to be known as Pastor Angelicus (“Angelic Shepherd”).
The second event occurred in Portugal. Three young children – siblings Francisco (9), and Jacinta (7), and their cousin Lucia (10) – were tending their sheep when they were startled by a sudden burst of light which they thought was an approaching thunderstorm. Instead, before them, as Lucia would later recount in her memoirs, was “a lady, clothed in white, brighter than the sun.”
So began the remarkable series of apparitions at Fatima, a village about 80 miles north of Lisbon. The lady in white said: “I have come to ask you to come here for six months in succession, on the 13th day, at this same hour. Later, I will tell you who I am and what I want.”
A great deal happened in those six months, very little of which can be recounted here. Each 13th day of the following months, the lady returned as promised. Alongside her repeated appeals for penance, prayer, and fasting, she entrusted the children with three revelations. Together, these made up the so-called secret of Fatima.
On July 13, “Our Lady of the Rosary” (as she identified herself), entrusted the children with two parts of the secret. The first, and most important, we will deal with later. In the second, she warned them that unless the world repented, not only would the current war continue but it would soon be followed by another and much worse one, and this would be heralded by a “great sign” in the sky. (In retrospect, this is often identified as the great Aurora Borealis of January 1938, seen over France and much of Europe.)
To avert these horrors, Our Lady asked that Russia be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart, and that the First Saturday devotion be begun in reparation.
For those who take their Marian apparitions seriously, this is a clear-cut case of a prophecy come true. Our Lady’s requests were not notably heeded, and Russia did indeed spread its influence throughout the world, causing wars, persecutions, and martyrdoms on a vast scale, and the annihilation of nations.
The Holy Father (or rather, Holy Fathers, since it was done several times, just to be sure) consecrated Russia to her Immaculate Heart – albeit subtly, as they were prudently mindful of political and ecumenical sensitivities. Furthermore, a post-communist Russian religious revival – if not one unalloyed by other facts – has taken place, and, fragile though it now seems, one can indeed speak in general terms of a period of relative peace.
The third and most famous part of the secret was given on Oct. 13, 1917, the last of the appearances. This was the occasion on which the sun was said – and by thousands of people, a good number of whom had come to mock and “wag their heads” – to dance in the sky.
Unlike the others, this third part was not delivered in words, but visually – the Holy Father moving prayerfully through a corpse-strewn, ruined city, and set upon by assassins, he is martyred along with clergy, religious, and lay faithful.
Six decades earlier, in 1858, another apparition of Our Lady took place in Lourdes, France. A 14-year-old peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, had visions of the Virgin Mary who told her that she was the Immaculate Conception. At the same time a spring appeared. Miraculous healings were soon reported to have taken place, and the faithful began to flock to the miraculous water.
In 1862, the pilgrimage received official ecclesiastical recognition, a church was erected above the grotto, and beside it, from 1893 to 1901, was built the magnificent Church of the Rosary.
In 1956, Pius XII, the Pope I admire the most, appointed me secretary of the pontifical commission to celebrate the centenary of the apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes. Cardinal Eugene Tisserant was the president, and Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, was the Pontiff’s delegate to bless the Basilica dedicated to St. Pius X.
And what must I say about our beloved Mother of Guadalupe, who, some centuries before wanted to be the Mother of the Aztec nation and all Latin American Catholics?
On Dec. 9, 1531, Juan Diego, a 50-year-old native, saw the Virgin Mary at Tepeyac, a hill northwest of Mexico City. The Virgin instructed him to have the bishop build a church on the site.
He was afraid that the prudent Bishop Juan de Zumarraga would ask for proof of the apparition, but the beautiful Virgin told him “No temas. Soy yo to madre?” (“Do not be afraid. Am I not your mother?”)
As instructed, he gathered roses which he found on the hill – they were neither native to the area nor in season – and placed them in his tilma (mantle). Upon opening the tilma to reveal the miraculous roses to the bishop, there was something even more miraculous present – an image of the Virgin Mary.