Francis Johnston - Fatima: The Great Sign

Fatima:
The Great Sign

Fatima's central role in
theChurch, expounded
by popes, cardinals,
bishops and eminent
theologians

Francis Johnston

Copyright 1980, Francis Johnston

DEDICATION

To my dearest wife,
Joyce

CONTENTS

Chapter

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THE author wishes to express his grateful thanks to Rev. Dr. Luciano Guerra, Rector of the Sanctuary of Fatima, and Fr. Vincente Codina, C.M.F., of Fatima, for kindly checking the manuscript of this book and suggesting a number of improvements which were incorporated in the final draft, and to Reverend Mother Prioress, O.P., and the Dominican Nuns of the Perpetual Rosary, Pius XII Monastery, Fatima, for their invaluable assistance with research and constant prayers during the writing of this book. He also wishes to record his appreciation and gratitude to John Haffert, International Lay Delegate of the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima, for permission to quote from Soul magazine, the bi-monthly organ of the Blue Army in the United States, and from his books Russia will be Converted and Meet the Witnesses, in addition to transcribing important material from A Heart for All, including the theology of the Immaculate Heart of Mary by Cardinal (then Fr.) Ciappi, O.P., papal theologian; all three books being copyrighted by A.M.I. Press, Washington, New Jersey, U.S.A.

Thanks are also due to the editor of the Universe for permission to quote from an article in that newspaper on the Pilgrim Virgin statue, to Fr. Louis Kondor, S.V.D., for permission to quote extensively from his excellent bulletin Seers of Fatima, and for the inspirational ideas developed from this periodical. He also wishes to record his thanks to Mrs. Kay Tunstall of Tooting, London, for her generous assistance with research.

Finally a word of special gratitude is due to the Cistercian Trappist nuns of Holy Cross Abbey, Wimborne, Dorset, for their kind sustaining prayers while this book was in preparation.

Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima,
13 May 1979

COMMENDATION BY THE BISHOP OF LEIRIA-FATIMA

Alberto Cosme de Amaral, Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, thanks and praises all those who strive to make the message of Fatima better known and thereby lived. Among these is Mr. Francis Johnston, whose book Fatima: The Great Sign is destined to do much good to all who read it.

17 October 1979

Fatima has come to be a chosen place for extraordinary encounters of Faith, like so many others in the Old and New Testament. A Covenant was made, in the manner of a sacred commitment, between God and His people, through the hands of Mary, as if repeating the words of Ezekiel 36: 26-28: "I shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you. I shall put my spirit in you, and make you keep My laws and sincerely respect My observances... You shall be My people and I will be your God."... Here was built a changing, praying city, made up of living stones united to the Mystical Christ, the Head of the Church, the city which has come down from Heaven, from God (Apoc. 21:2). Here has been established the Tabernacle of God among men. (Apoc. 21:3).

From the homily delivered by Cardinal Vilela of Sao Salvador de Baia, Brazil, on 13 May 1979 at Fatima, in the presence of Cardinal Seper, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and 208 archbishops, bishops and priests before an estimated 1,300,000 pilgrims from all over the world.

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION

OVER six decades have now passed since the Mother of God spoke to the twentieth century from her pulpit at Fatima. And despite the awesome nature of her intervention, which many leading churchmen believe was a fulfillment of Apocalypse 12, her endeavour to save our civilisation from spiritual and physical ruin still remains a sign of contradiction to many of those to whom her words were addressed. While millions around the world respond to her pleas for prayer and penitence to attain the spiritual regeneration of our age and world peace, others, seemingly ignorant of Fatima's extraordinary biblical and eschatological significance, and contrary to the insistent exhortations of successive popes, persist in relegating the apparitions to a level where they can be safely minimised or disregarded altogether.

It is to the latter that this Introduction is especially addressed and it is my earnest hope that if they do no more, they will at least carefully weigh the words that follow against their own views on Fatima. For, before developing the main theme of this book, which is to expound the positive and indeed crucial role of Fatima today in the economy of salvation for all men, it needs to be demonstrated that the objections one hears against Fatima are entirely without foundation.

It is claimed that since Fatima is a private revelation, no one is obliged to pay serious attention to it. Others erroneously maintain that the several so-called difficulties inherent in the story undermine its validity, that devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which the Fatima message inculcates, is offensive to ecumenism, is an obstacle to union with Christ ("our sole mediator"), and has no place in this surging, post-conciliar Church. Still others regard Fatima as an essentially Portuguese affair, with only minor implications for the rest of the world. Many of these critics find the severe penances performed at Fatima repelling though these should be viewed in the light of the extraordinary penances undertaken by the three visionary children of Fatima after seeing the vision of Hell. Finally, there is widely lacking, not a knowledge of the facts of Fatima, for these are already fairly well known, but a realisation of what these facts mean, of their crucial bearing on the enormous problems and perils facing the world, of the compelling need to follow through all that the remedial message of Fatima entails. It is therefore imperative that we correct these serious misconceptions and open up the profound core of Fatima (which is still relatively unknown to many in the Church), to enable us to come to close and urgent grips with the great sign given by God to our age.

It is assumed that most readers are already conversant with the basic story of Fatima. Three Portuguese children, Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta, had a series of visions of an angel in 1916, and of the Blessed Virgin at monthly intervals from 13 May to 13 October 1917, in a sheep pasture near the village of Fatima, some 80 miles north of Lisbon. The children were entrusted with a message for mankind: pray and do penance for the "countless sins" of the modern world in order to save it, or Divine Justice would be compelled to punish humanity with a Second World War and the global spread of Communism in which entire nations would be "annihilated", before Russia was finally converted. The apparitions were confirmed on 13 October by the awesome miracle of the sun as far as is known, the only time in history (excluding the Resurrection), that God had performed a public miracle at a predicted time and place to prove something. An up-to-date account of the Fatima story is given later in this book.

Before we proceed further, it is essential that we correct the dangerous error that since Fatima is a private revelation, it can be safely ignored. Shortly before his election to the papacy as Pope John Paul I, Cardinal Luciani wrote in the Italian Blue Army magazine Il Cuore della Madre, January 1978:

"Someone may ask: so the cardinal is interested in private revelations. Does he not know that everything is contained in the gospel, that even approved revelations are not articles of faith? I know all that perfectly well. But the following is also an article of faith contained in the gospel: 'Signs will be associated with those who believe.' (Mk. 16:17). If it is the fashion today to examine the signs of the times... I think I may lawfully be allowed to refer to the sign of 13 October 1917, a sign to which even unbelievers and anti-clericals bore witness. And behind the sign itself, it is important to be attentive to the elements which this sign contains..."