Sister Lucia’s Self Examination: A Path to Holiness
It’s always refreshing to know that the saints or saintly people had a human side. Some, like St. Louis de Montfort and St. Damien of Molokai, both had angry temperaments that they had to conquer. Sister Lucia was known for her “rough” temperament and tendency towards impatience with others. As a young Dorothean nun at […]
United Around the Fatima Message
We just returned from a beautiful pilgrimage to Fatima. The past eight days were spent with the members of the Apostolate for Family Consecration who are celebrating the 50th anniversary of their founding. We congratulate them and are honored to have shared this time with them. We appreciate that they came to us to organize […]
Sister Lucia was a Martyr to Daily Duty
If there is anything we can learn from Venerable Sister Lucia, it is heroic patience and perseverance, which she embraced fully as each day unfolded – one to the next – until her death at age 97 on Feb. 13, 2005. As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of her holy passing, Lucia is a good reminder of how to become a saint through what she called “the long, hard road of martyrdom that has to do with daily living.”
The Holy Year Has Arrived! The Jubilee of Hope and the Centennial of the First Saturday Devotion
We welcome 2025 in a special way. The Holy Father has declared a Holy Jubilee Year dedicated to the virtue and message of hope. At the same time, we also commemorate the 100th anniversary of the apparitions in Pontevedra, Spain where Our Lady gave us the First Saturdays devotion. It is no coincidence that the Holy Year and this great anniversary come together in this special year. The message of Fatima was first presented to us by an angel who laid the foundation of this spirituality by calling for pardon through the adoration of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Eight years later, the last surviving seer, Sr. Lucia, was given the formula for obtaining mercy and hastening the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart promised at Fatima. Eucharistic devotion is at the forefront of this devotion. How appropriate that this unique convergence comes only one year after the great year of the Eucharistic Revival.
A Sign from Our Lady? News from the Pilgrim Virgin Tours
There have been a number of reports of supernatural manifestations stemming from the International Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima, during her visitations to parishes, particularly in the dioceses of Youngstown, OH this past week, and Rockville Center, NY in May.
Finding Fatima Through The Lord of the Rings: Part 2 – Through the Fires
As I established in the first part of this series, Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien discouraged his audience from reading The Lord of the Rings as an allegory. This doesn’t mean that similarities between his fantasy and Catholicism shouldn’t be made, though. In fact, doing so only serves to strengthen our understanding of our Faith.
Man’s Search for Peace
There is much news today that point to the rumblings of war. Pope Francis noted two years ago that we are living through a “third World War,” one that is being fought piecemeal, referring to the Russian/Ukraine conflict. Since Oct. 7, 2023 – the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary – we have watched the destruction unfold in the Israel/Gaza conflict, and the ideological divide unfold in this country, threatening civil peace here. The upcoming election looms large, and both sides of the political spectrum threaten that the other side will destroy democracy in this country. Anxiety levels are at an all-time high.
Mary Calls Us To Deep and Abiding Prayer
Prayer is the mainstay of the Christian and Catholic life and so it isn’t surprising to see how, once the Fatima children had experienced the awesomeness and power of the angel of Fatima and the beauty and goodness of Our Lady, they increasingly devoted their lives to prayer.
A Smaller, More Spiritual Church is Emerging
As we honor the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Friday and Saturday, I am heartened by the great mission given to Lucia dos Santos at Fatima in 1917, to establish devotion to the Immaculate Heart throughout the world, and that Jesus desired this devotion to be placed next to devotion to His Sacred Heart.
First Saturday and the Spiritual Motherhood of Mary
Many of you have probably heard about the movement for a fifth Marian Dogma, specifically to declare the Blessed Virgin Mary as “Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate,” and you wonder how this movement aligns with the message of Our Lady of Fatima. We know that Sister Lucia never recorded Our Lady at Fatima ever saying anything about a fifth Marian dogma, but this does not mean there are not many significant parallels to the Fatima message. Many of you might be surprised to hear that the movement for a fifth Marian dogma actually pre-dates the supernatural events at Fatima.
