All I Know About Fatima

[Paddington]

About 100,000 people saw the sun move around.
3 children saw and heard Mary.
2 of the children died.
1 of them lived and later on relayed Mary's messages.
Catholics don't agree with what she really said.
One message was about a group ambush on a holy man in a white robe ascending a mountain and he gets killed with arrows.
John Paul II gets shot with a bullet by one guy and lives. He thought the vision was about him.
Wasn't there something about Russia in a message too? The country converts?
Fatima is not required Catholic belief, but you're expected to tell people that it for sure is real.
Fatima is in Portugal.
Next to Spain.
In Europe.
Earth.

There is what I know. I won't be surprised if you have much/many better things to say about it.

Peace,
Paddington

[StColette]

[quote]Catholics don't agree with what she really said.[/quote]

Many Catholics agree with what she said. If the Church had not agreed with what she said the apparition would not have been considered Supernatural in nature and considered an Approved Apparition.

[quote]Fatima is not required Catholic belief, but you're expected to tell people that it for sure is real.[/quote]

An individual Catholic does not have to believe or put faith into any Apparition, approved or otherwise. Apparitions are private Revelation and add nothing to the deposite of faith. Deposite of faith means something that we must believe and practice. As a Catholic you would be expected to say that the Church (the Holy See) has approved Fatima as a true occurance of the Supernatural and that it is non demonic in nature, for clarifcation sake.

2 of the children did die at a very young age. Both have been beatified by Pope John Paul II. Sister Lucia, who died not too long before Pope John Paul II, lived to be in her 90s. She was the eldest of the three children of Fatima. She and Pope John Paul II were very close from my understanding. Right before she died she sent a letter to the Holy Father but of course it's contents were never revealed. Pope Benedict XVI has waved the 5 year waiting period for the cause for Sister Lucia's beatification.

Our Lady had told Lucia that she would live on earth a very long time, Sister Lucia died at the age of 97.

The children at Fatima were subjected to some pretty harsh treatment by local law officals. They threatened the children with being burned to death in a furnace. They lied to Lucia and told her that they had already burned her two cousins to death in the furnace and if she didn't say she was lying then the same would happen to her. Lucia would not lie and say that what had happened had really not happened.

I could keep going lol but my advice is to get a good book on Fatima and start reading.

[Paddington]

Thanks St. Collete.

I'll try to get back here later.

BTW, I meant that Catholics don't agree (with each other) with (part of) what she said.
I can't tell for sure how you took it. Anywho....I betta get back to work.

[dominicansoul]

you will always have conspiracy theorists...and so it is even in the Catholic church about one of the most fascinating and revered apparition in our Church's history...

You have a certain group of Catholics who believe there is more to the third secret than what was revealed to us in the year 2000. But I don't think so. Sr. Lucia herself said all that the secret was revealed in its totality.

She appeared on the 13th of every month between May to October of the year 1917 in the country of Portugal.

She gave the children instructions asking them if they were willing to "suffer" in reparation for the sins of the world against Her Immaculate Heart.---to which the children agreed without hesitation.

She told two of the children they would be in Heaven soon, but Lucia would have to wait because her mission was not over.

She showed the children a vision of hell. She mentioned that many souls go to hell more so because of the sins of the flesh...

She mentioned that war was a punishment for sins, and that a worse war was coming if people didn't stop offending God. She told the children the world would know of this second war by a light. Sure enough, a light of unexplainable origin filled the sky on a day in the very year when Hitler invaded Poland...Lucia saw this light (and my grandparents and many people in this part of Texas) saw this light. It was seen from Italy to Africa, to the Middle East. The Holy Father saw this light. Scientists claimed it was a "strange and abnormal occurance of the Northern Lights" but Lucia knew better....she knew then that a second worst war was coming...

Her story is absolutely fascinating, and you need to read more and more about it...

One sad note: there is a faction of "catholics" who don't believe the Holy Father and the Holy See about the secrets. They have gotten so far out of hand that Pope John Paul had to silence one of the Priest and I believe excommunicated him and this group who have gotten so far off in conspiracy theories that now they are working against the Vatican! You can recognize this group by their anti-Holy See stance on most of the subjects.

[HisChildForever]

"Fatima: The Story Behind the Miracles" by Allegri is awesome I love Fatima.

[lilac_angel]

[quote name='dominicansoul' post='1600191' date='Jul 14 2008, 10:39 PM']She mentioned that war was a punishment for sins, and that a worse war was coming if people didn't stop offending God. She told the children the world would know of this second war by a light. Sure enough, a light of unexplainable origin filled the sky on a day in the very year when Hitler invaded Poland...Lucia saw this light (and my grandparents and many people in this part of Texas) saw this light. It was seen from Italy to Africa, to the Middle East. The Holy Father saw this light. Scientists claimed it was a "strange and abnormal occurance of the Northern Lights" but Lucia knew better....she knew then that a second worst war was coming...[/quote]

Wow. Just wow. I had never heard anything about that!

[Guest KevinSymonds]

Kudos to that person who recommended "Fatima: The Story Behind the Miracles." That is, perhaps, one of the best books on Fatima out there and it is because it is told from the family's perspective. Fr. Jose Valinho, Sr. Lucia's nephew (still living, btw), knew most of the people surrounding the events. He even had a hand in cutting off pieces of the [i]azinheira[/i] (sp?)--the little holm oak tree--that Our Lady stood upon The book recounts an interview with Jose Marto, Francisco and Jacinta's brother. Sadly, he died shortly after this interview and so the interview is very important.

A particular story that I loved from that book is how Fr. Jose relates an important theological question to Fatima. In the apparitions of the Angel of Peace, he gives Francisco and Jacinta the Precious Blood from a chalice. Where did the angel get that chalice? There aren't any in heaven. Fr. Jose relates how there was a priest, not far from Fatima, who went into his parish one day and discovered the tabernacle had been opened. He investigated and found that a ciborium had been taken (and replaced) and there were drops on the cloth inside that looked like the Precious Blood. Fr. Jose said that for years afterwards, this priest had a guilt upon him that he somehow failed in his duty to protect the Eucharist. Then, before this priest died, it was as if he had a revelation. Suddenly he had no more guilt and in its place was conviction. Fr. Jose, if memory serves, leaves the story at that.

Another good book is "Armchair Fatima" by Leo Madigan. I read that while in Fatima and it provides a lot of background that people do not know about.

"The Message of Fatima" is another book (from the 1950's) that will provide some interesting details not commonly known today, such as the interviews and transcripts of the children with Canon Galumba (I think that was his name) immediately after the October 13th apparition. This book also interviews others who were there in 1917 such as Senhora Carreira. Her story on the donkey in the Cova da Iria will have you in stitches. Another feature that is unique to this particular book (I have not read this detail in any other book) is how witnesses reported hearing the children's words as Our Lady rose to go back to heaven at the end of a particular apparition.

"Vision of Fatima" is a great book written by the priest-sculptor on how he created the Our Lady of Fatima statue under Sr. Lucia's direction.

You might have to go out of your way to find these books but they will grace your shelves, I promise you.

'Resources' on Fatima to stay away from (not an extensive list):

1) Any book dealing with or by Nicholas Gruner (one in particular called "Fatima Priest").
2) Any book by Fr. Paul Kramer ("The Devil's Final Battle").
3) The Fatima Crusader
4) www.fatima.org
5) Books by Christopher Ferrara
6) Books by John Vennari (though his book "Close-ups of the Charismatic Movement" is not completely off).
7) Books by Mark Fellows

The above people are just nuts, plain and simple. They are conspiracy theorists who partly have, regretfully, Mother Angelica on their side. She publicly stated in May of 2001 that she believed the Vatican did not disclose the entire Third Secret of Fatima. Gruner is the priest who was suspended, not excommunicated, by the Vatican for being in a canonically irregular situation with his bishop. His handle is that amongst all the other priests out there doing terrible things, he is the one being targeted by Rome. Why? Because of his belief that Rome is (supposedly) squelching the message of Fatima.

Fr. Kramer is a bit more sophisticated. His book (listed above) details out quite a bit of history. However, because of his bent on conspiracy theories, he is unable to look at documents critically. I have spent some effort over the past 4 years to researching Kramer's book and I have found some critical mistakes in his research that question his interpretation of the Third Secret's history.

Alas, I go on. Fatima is a subject that I know a fair amount on and enjoy talking about it.

Peace!
-Kevin Symonds