by Barb Ernster –
The most important aspect of the Fatima message is how we respond to the only question Our Lady asked the three children on May 13: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you as an act of reparation and in supplication for conversion of sinners?”
By the time of the Oct. 13 apparition, we see perhaps in that great miracle of the sun, a foreshadowing of chastisement that awaits us if we are not willing. This is reinforced in the image of the third part of the secret where the Angel is about to strike the earth with a flaming ball of fire from the tip of his sword, crying for “Penance, penance, penance.”
On Oct. 13, 1973, Our Lady appeared to Sister Agnes Sasagawa in Akita, Japan, presenting again an image of chastisement in the form of fire falling from the sky: “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one has never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful…Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary.”
I don’t like to focus on apocalyptic things, but Our Lady herself shared these visions with us to remind us of what we are truly about – we are children of God, and that demands our love, our wills, our adoration and righteous living. As calamitous and frightful as these scenes are, we have to remember they are preceded by gentle invitations to respond: “Are you willing?”
At Akita, Our Lady asked Sister Agnes, “My daughter, my novice, do you love the Lord? If you love the Lord, listen to what I have to say to you.”
It is the same approach that Jesus took with everyone He encountered during His ministry. His mother and brothers are “those who hear the word of God and act on it” (Lk 8:21). His true disciples are those who deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Him (cf Mt 16:24). The road to perfection requires that we relinquish our earthly attachments—“Go, sell what you have and give to the poor” (Mt 19:20)—and build up treasure in heaven.
Jesus commanded His disciples to “put out into deep water and lower your nets” for a big catch. (Lk 5:4). Do we not need a big catch these days?
Where is God calling you?
We are at a serious point in our lives here in the United States in which God is asking us to go deeper. We may be asked to walk away from riches and the comforts we enjoy daily to follow Him. Are we willing? We may be asked to pick up heavy crosses, whether they are illnesses, deaths, broken homes, natural disasters, lost jobs, pensions and savings that disappear. Are we willing?
We may be asked to plunge deeper into God’s call for us, to cast our nets further. We may be asked to stand boldly for truth and risk being shunned by neighbors, colleagues or relatives—even members of our church and clergy—who otherwise have always liked us.
Yes, we are all called to daily prayer and sacrifice. But what else is God asking of you? Our Lady is leading this battle. We have to be willing to listen to her.
The practice of the First Saturday devotion can help us in this quest because it requires that we submit ourselves to regular examination of conscience. God cannot use us if we are not willing to look at ourselves and root out that which causes us to stumble. He needs people of pure hearts and intentions – not perfect, but willing and humble before Him. Then we can operate under the power of Almighty God. It also draws us closer to Our Lady and a deeper love for Jesus. Without this intimate bond, we are easily distracted by the things of earth.
Let us also pray for courage, especially in our daily Rosary. We need God’s grace to stand up to all fear, and accept and bear patiently with all that He wills to send us.
And finally, the Blessed Sacrament will strengthen us. As often as we can, we need to be close to Jesus in the Holy Mass or in adoration. Below is a beautiful prayer of adoration and surrender to Jesus, taught by Our Lady to Sister Agnes Sasagawa.
“Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, truly present in Holy Eucharist, I consecrate my body and soul to be entirely one with Your Heart, being sacrificed at every instant on all the altars of the world and giving praise to the Father, pleading for the coming of His Kingdom. Please receive this humble offering of myself. Use me as You will for the glory of the Father and the salvation of souls. Most holy Mother of God, never let me be separated from Your Divine Son. Please defend and protect me as Your special child. Amen.”
Barb Ernster is the Communications Manager and Editor for the World Apostolate of Fatima USA.
12 Responses
I wish to offer all I’m experiencing while here at recon to Gods great glory
Please pray for me that the mistake I made long ago will be turned right side up
Please remember my friend Regina today in surgery. Mary be with us always
Praying for you Fr. Ganley. God bless you!
Great message! Thank you for not being afraid in asking for sacrifice and penance. We must be bold if you’re going to call ourselves our lady’s Blue Army
Thank you for sharing this beautiful prayer of the Holy Eucharist…Please????Pray for me as I also am always????Praying for you & all humanity????. God bless you++????????
Please pray that my son returns to the faith and that he finds the employment God has for him. Blessings to all.
Thanks for sharing this urgent message.
Thank you for this article. This and all that you write gives me so much to contemplate and pray about.
Thank you Trudy
Thank you.
Prayer for conversion of two special friends. Return to Church for all who are afraid due to the virus.
Thank you, Lord, for all the gifts that you have given me. Please guide my children, and grandchildren, back to God and the Holy Church.
If we can pause, and see what is happening. Then the real appeal of Our Lady is that Her Mantle overshadows time, history, and century. The Blessed Mantle was unveiled in Genesis, Her offspring will crush the serpent’s head. The determinate of Salvation.
The great tragedy today is Abortion. However, when we’re often to hear of punishments, and great deluges. Let’s remember, prayer, petition, and asking. Advocate is the word. Paraclete is the Person, the Holy Spirit. And of which Emmanuel, God with Her, does He overshadow.
What must partake?
It is this. There is the necessity of Penance. This has never changed, and it will never change.
How then does this work with Punishment?
The Lord must dispossess people of their inordinate attachments. If it is a dog or cat… if it is a toy or car….if it is anything that robs life. All sinful and inordinate attachments will be taken away. The taking away is not because a dog or cat is bad. Or a car or a toy. It is the orientation and the disposition to them. The sin. The inclination of the fallen will.
However, there is still hope.
This is how it goes…
Pitbulls and animals used for sensationalism, or given excuses for mauling children. These creatures, I hope and pray, will be the first to go.
The Lord does not give into life what people use for inordinate attachments. Especially when people prefer animals over children (animals over having a family.) Or an orientation of desire and passion that is inordinate as well. If you are married, and contracept….if you are in a homosexual relation….if you commit or support an abortion….it’s pitiful. And here’s the remedy: your attachments will be dissolved! Gone! Banished! Your heart will be made ready for the Sacraments. For life. For the unborn child. You will learn that your heart grows cold as Pharaoh. And that is not the condition for a heart. It is the anti-condition of the heart.
The gravest and greatest sin is the absence of charity, mercy, and hope. And none of these God will do to place nor put a soul into despair nor to become despondent. However, detachment purifying like the Dark Night of the Soul must come to take place.
The Lord does not act without provision. And that is by His extraordinary act and will to take hope and courage.
He does not Judge without remedying what is wrong, or the illness. He does not bear judgement without Mercy. He must bear and give what is most necessary for the soul to flee from sin. To be filled up with what Our Lady had: grace. That is in the Sacraments, wherefore His grace is sufficient.
May Our Lady proceed. May She take charge as She did in the Wedding Feast at Cana.
The gracious treasure and sanctuary of hope and joy is in the chamber of Her Heart, the Immaculate Heart and Fortress. And here is the Communion of Saints!
This must come to be. The Triumph of Her Immaculate Heart! With the Church, Sinner, and Saints! Souls in Purgatory!
Justice is not done until Mercy arrives first. And Mercy abounds forever. God fulfills Justice through and in Mercy. Justice waits for Mercy to fulfill. Justice accepts Mercy. Justice is deficient without Mercy and the grace that fulfills it: Penance.
This world needs Penance! Not wars, not disease, not whatever other ill and ailment of society proceeds. Nope!
The world needs the miracle of the Nativity and Calvary, and the Resurrection. And everything leading in between and the fulfillment of them.
The world needs a great Penance. And the Church will do this in the Sacrament of Penance.
Watch those priests, nuns, sisters, and other religious, and faithful who have been wrong, who’ve done wrong, and have advocated wrong. I mean sin and evil.
The sacrilegious acts.
I hope and pray the Sacrament of Penance will be open up. And those in most of need of Mercy avail themselves. A mad rush and mass of sinners receiving the Sacrament. A great sign of Penance.
The Lord may work, I hope and pray, to detachments. Bringing souls from their inordinate attachments by the Penitent act, especially in the regard to abortion. The penitent will renounce their support, belief, and advocation of abortion. And anything else that is the absence of charity, hope, and mercy. Life, yes! Fiat! Death, no! Nihil!
If they do not act in Penance, then they will have a hay day of sinful attachments being taken away. To break them of this scourge and spell (curse.)
The Lord may work, I hope and pray, ensuring during this upheaval for the sinfully attached, He will not leave them to despair nor despondency. He will always give them His full love, hope, and strength. Never to lose courage. That they may come to their senses and receive life.
Again the real great sinful attachment is the denial of a child’s life, and the act of abortion.
These are the greatest offenses to Our Lady. Because, the greatest offense is the absence of charity., mercy, and hope. And Our Lady does not take refuge in vengeance. She takes refuge in Mercy, Hope, and Charity. In Her Son’s Presence.
A great Thanksgiving will follow. Because all sinful attachments will be purified. And people may see life! And be thankful. God does not need thanks. For He is God. However, His joy is to see in each person the reception of that joy of life. And thanksgiving is when Christ says: It is finished.
It is the joy the Lord wants to see us have. But not in our own privation. Because, well, that deprives the fullness and gift of charity. God does not need or want Thanksgiving. He wants us to take the pure joy in raising it up to Him. Which is the best offering: Thanksgiving. It is so we may experience what true charity is.
The great deluge will be people having their sinful attachments taken away, but not hopeless. Nor to be fallen into despair and despondency. But to take great courage in His Hope, Mercy, and Charity.
However, like the Prodigal Son, they will have to go through that great deluge, paving the way for Mercy. The real inheritance. That is love. Not what people mean by love. Not the lower and lesser qualities attributed to love. Not the desires and passions that often sinfully follow. Nope!
Love is the removal of the ailments causing a sinner to perpetually fall into sin. The cure of all ailments is in the Church. Her Sanctuary and Chamber: The Sacraments.
The Lord has agents: Priests, Nuns, Sisters, Monks, Friars, Deacons, Faithful, and Religious. He has the Communion of Saints, And by the Coronation and glory of them upon Our Lady’s head rests. The souls of Purgatory will have a a great joy!
I pray and hope this great marvel I ask for comes to pass. A time of hope, mercy, and charity.
Humanae Vitae!