Holiness and Constant Prayer
Our sainthood depends on our tur...
Beginning on this day in 1917, the third year of WWI, three children outside Fatima, Portugal began a series of visions of The Blessed Mother that would last exactly five months, concluding with “the miracle of the sun” on October 13th, while a crowd of as many as one hundred thousand people looked on. During that miracle, many saw the sun dart about in the sky, producing a multitude of colors, and drying out the ground and their rain-soaked clothes.
Many also had visions of Jesus, Our Lady of Sorrows, St. Joseph, and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.
The children, Lucia and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco were told to pray for the end of WWI, peace, and the conversion of Russia. They were also given three secrets.
In 1927 Lucia revealed that the first secret was about devotion to The Immaculate Heart of Mary. The second secret was a vision of hell and predicted a second world war. The third secret, sealed until 2000, indicated a “Bishop in white”, would be assassinated, and on this day in St. Peter’s Square in 1981, St. Pope John Paul II was shot and nearly killed.
Lucia became a Carmelite nun and lived until 2005. But, Jacinta and Francisco died just a few years after The Blessed Mother appeared at Fatima, in the last global pandemic.
A year before the apparitions at Fatima, the three children were greeted by an angel who called himself The Angel of Peace. He taught them this prayer to be said before The Blessed Sacrament:
Most Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit- I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifferences whereby He is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.
The children were taught four other prayers including this one from The Blessed Mother who told them to say it when offering up their personal sacrifices:
Oh my Jesus, I offer this for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
And Our Lady also taught them this prayer to be said daily for the conversion of sinners and world peace:
Oh My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy.
Our Lady of Fatima, please pray for us.
