November 2005 Print

FATIMA Pilgrimage of Reparation, 2005

Bishop Fellay explained this morning why we are having this pilgrimage in this odd year 2005 and not 2007, though we had a pilgrimage in 1997 and in 1987.  The reason is that the profanation of the shrine which took place last year of all dates happened on the feast of St. Pius V. This is something the Novus Ordo Church doesn't realize because they have changed the date of St. Pius V's feast day. But God knows and the devil knows that for traditional Catholics, the fifth is the feast of St. Pius V. In this profanation at the site of the apparition–the very spot where Our Lady appeared to the children–on the altar of that place, the Hindu priests said some Hindu prayers to the devil, to Shiva. You've probably seen the pictures. In times past, if an altar was profaned, there had to be a certain ceremony and a reconsecration of the altar in the church.

Bishop Fellay also mentioned that it's not just this act on May 5th of last year that brings us here. It's not just about a year before in October, 2003, when there was an ecumenical meeting at Assisi and the Society of St. Pius X was the only one who protested, for which we distributed 10,000 leaflets against it. It is not just the building of this multi-faith shrine that they're building right now. All these things are signs of a greater battle going on. It's really the battle of the devil against Our Lady, the battle of the two standards: the Woman against the dragon. These are all symptoms that the dragon wants to take Our Lady's place.

In the very old exorcism, the original edition of Pope Leo XIII, it said that where Our Lord has established the See of Peter, there the enemy has also established his seat, his headquarters, obviously referring to Rome. A hundred years ago that seemed quite strange, but now we understand. Also, in light of Our Lady of La Salette, Rome shall lose the Faith and become the seat of the anti-Christ. This refers to Rome and the whole Catholic Church.

Fatima is something very unique in the whole world. It is a private revelation although it appeals to the whole Church, and it is clear by what is happening that the devil wants to overshadow Our Lady and take over. Now when you drive on the two traffic circles you cannot see the basilica anymore. You used to be able to see the basilica there, but now there is construction going on and the basilica is hidden; and they took down the cross that used to mark the beginning of St. Lucy Street. These things are not happening by accident.

Bishop Fellay also mentioned this morning that we are here on a pilgrimage. We must take this seriously, which means making an extra effort to control yourself and not go shopping or do any other activities which distract from the atmosphere of the pilgrimage, which is like a mini-retreat. If you have done the retreats you know there are certain circumstances that favor a good retreat: mortification of the eyes, silence, more prayer, and so on. This is not a party, it's a pilgrimage of reparation. If you have not done anything extra–the Way of the Cross was a little extra sacrifice–you still have the next 24 hours in which to do something for Our Lady. We will see in a moment how we can make reparation in detail, but tonight at dinner and tomorrow at lunch, cut back a little bit, do something for Our Lady. After all, we are adults. Our Lady appeared to these children 7, 8, and 10 years old, and they would spend a whole month without drinking. Can you spend a day without drinking? Half a day? These children put us to shame. We think that we're adults and we know it. Well, they were way ahead of us. Let us make a little effort with food and drink, not necessarily regarding quantity, but certainly quality. Do something to show Our Lady you see the thorns in her Immaculate Heart and you want to pull one out. If each one of us would pull one out of her Heart, Our Lady would be pleased with our visit to her shrine.

The Message of Fatima

First, I would like to give you an overview of the message of Fatima, very briefly. We will see that the whole message of Fatima is reparation to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart. What does it mean to make reparation to Our Lady? We'll see the different types of offenses to Our Lady, and, finally, how to make reparation. There's one thing that comes out very clearly. If you look at the three apparitions of the Angel in 1916 and the six apparitions of Our Lady in 1917, you will notice the word "reparation." When you read the various words of the message this word reparation always implies pardon. When the angel first appeared to them, he said, "Fear not, I am the angel of peace, pray with me." And then he taught them the first part of the prayer of Fatima: "O my God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love Thee. I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love Thee." So immediately the angel was teaching the children to ask pardon for those who have no faith, those who disbelieve, those who doubt, and those who have false worship.

About one-sixth of the world's people are Catholic. That means over five billion people do not have the true worship of God, so the angel is teaching them the First Commandment: adore. Adore for those who do not adore or adore the devil. The Hindu worship that took place was devil worship, and believe me, you have to go to India to see the diabolical aspect of Hinduism. In Asia, we have Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and materialism; but of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, Hinduism is truly the most visibly explicit religion of the devil. They have true devil worship. The monks I saw in Singapore were possessed. They pierced themselves with spears. They walk on burning coals. They still do it today. Publicly, people come for a show. It's diabolical. They make these shrines in India and people will walk 300 miles to go and worship in a mountain. Nobody knows what's going on in these shrines, what kind of perversities are taking place. It's terrible to think that a man from that religion came to profane the shrine of Our Lady. That's why we must adore as the angel said, "I ask pardon for those who do not believe and do not adore." So that's the first apparition of the angel saying, "Pray for yourself and make up for the other people." We have to make reparation.

In the second apparition, again the angel said, "What are you doing? Pray, pray a lot. Offer everything to the Almighty, everything you can think of, little children. Make a sacrifice as an act of reparation." Again, the word reparation; "...for the sins by which He is offended and supplication for the conversion of sinners." That's the second apparition of the angel. And in the third, it was the same thing. In the third, he teaches the second part of the prayer of Fatima: "Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly, and I offer Thee the most Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ present in all the tabernacles of the earth in reparation." In reparation! Why do we say this prayer? In reparation. And also, as you can see, this reparation is very Eucharistic because just before this apparition, as the angel was holding the host and the chalice, the host was dripping in the chalice before he gave them communion. "Take and drink the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Repair their crimes and console your God." This was the angel speaking; Our Lady had not even come yet. The angel was preparing them, preparing Our Lady's way.

Our Lady came in May, June, July, August, September, and October of 1917, and again Our Lady asked, "Would you offer to God Almighty an act of reparation for sins by which He is offended?" Our Lady mentioned this. That was in June. In May, she appeared with her wounded heart, a heart full of thorns. When your children come to you from walking in the forest and they've just run into a thorn bush and now they've got thorns stuck on them and you have to pull them out, it pains you. It pains you whenever you see your child in pain. What if they had a nail or thorn in their foot? It's truly painful. Well, to have a nail in your heart is even more painful.

It makes me think of a story in Vietnam. It happened in 1954 or 1955 when they split Vietnam in two. You may have heard of Dr. Tom Dooley. He was called one night by some children to go and visit somebody who was sick, a priest, so he followed the children through the rice fields until he came to a little hut. He came into the little hut and saw a man lying in bed with a blanket over his head and ladies standing next to him. Was he dead? They pulled the blanket from over his head and the lady said, "This is my brother. He's a priest. The Communists planted nails in his head." The nails were still there and nobody knew how to pull them out. So Dr. Dooley had to pull them out. And he came back every day to take care of this poor priest. He did this for about a month until one day he came at the end of that month and couldn't find him. He was told that the priest went back to his village. They needed him and so he had to go. He didn't want to wait. Having nails in the head is obviously painful.

The Need for Reparation

Our Lady showed these thorns in her heart to show the depths of her sorrows. That was in June. In July, she showed them hell and asked them to pray in reparation for sins committed against the Immaculate Heart. This was 1917. In 1925, Our Lady came back to insist again, to follow up on what the angel had said and on what she herself had said. In 1925 she asked for the first five Saturdays in reparation for the offenses against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And in 1929 she came back for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It's always the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As Bishop Fellay beautifully said this morning, "It's incredible that God would say 'There are so many sins, I just don't know where to start. Where to start? Well, if you just console My Mother, I will be content with that.'" It's really mind-boggling and hard to believe that God would say that's all we have to do as a start. We will see that it is in Divine Providence, in the Divine Strategy that we start with this, and then, of course, Our Lady brings us further to other things.

This is to remind you a little bit of this message of Fatima. It is in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Let's go to the Gospel for a moment to analyze and consider the wounds of Our Lord's Sacred Heart. We see that Jesus reacted very quickly and very strongly when His Father was offended. On two occasions, Our Lord got angry: twice, publicly with the Pharisees. He was strong with them, but when He expelled the buyers and the sellers from the temple: "This is the house of my Father! You have made it a den of thieves." He would come back to Fatima to do that here again. We see Our Lord as well reacting very strongly when the Holy Ghost is offended. When the Pharisees were whispering, "This man has an impure spirit," Our Lord said, "The sin against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the sin against the Holy Ghost will not be forgiven. Don't you dare speak against the Holy Ghost." Our Lord is defending the honor of the divine charity of the Holy Ghost. But Our Lord was hurt personally throughout the Gospel. He was hurt in a very deep way, mostly by the ingratitude of men. This ingratitude almost killed Him. Ingratitude is painful.

Let us think of a time in our lives when, after having been very good to someone, this person turned against you. They just walk away like children who have just received their whole education from you and they're not grateful–it's painful. Parents are trying to prepare the future of their children and a child just slams the door or walks away after all these years of effort. It seems that it has all gone down the drain. It hurts. Parents see it happen in our families, to our teenagers losing the Faith even after going to Catholic school. Parents come and cry on our shoulders. "Father, my grown-up kids have lost the Faith." It hurts. Well, Our Lord has suffered this ingratitude very much, many times. Remember we heard recently about the ten lepers that were cured. Where are the nine others? And in the garden, He said "My soul is sorrowful even unto death." He would have died had not His divinity sustained Him.

When He appeared to St. Margaret Mary in 1689, He showed His heart wounded, bleeding with thorns as well. Our Lord complained to St. Margaret Mary of the ingratitude, contempt, and indifference of men. "After everything I have done, there's not more of a response from men." It hurts. And so knowing how Our Lord was treated and Our Lord was rejected by His own people, it will help us to understand Our Lady's sorrows. You cannot understand well Our Lady's sorrows unless you understand the link between Our Lady and Our Lord. It is hard to think of Our Lady as the Mother of God, but that is what we have to keep in mind whenever we speak of her. All of her titles are the very first thing God had in mind when He thought of Our Lady. Our Lord did not come like Adam, nor in a chariot of fire like the one Elias was taken away in. No, He came as a little baby, therefore He needed a mother. And from that idea, from that thought, everything else flows in the life of Our Lady. Likewise, all her privileges: the Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, Her motherhood of men, co-redemption, her Assumption; all her titles are connected with her being the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me take another example to help you relate to Our Lady and her sorrows. Think of that other mother about 103 years ago, the mother of St. Maria Goretti. Imagine you were the neighbor of the Goretti family in a very small place just south of Rome. Imagine you heard the noise and everyone calling for help. You walk into the house and you see on the ground a little 11-year-old girl stabbed 14 times. She's still bleeding and the story goes around that a big man, Alexander, tried to rape her and she resisted, so he stabbed her. Think of the mother. If that happened to one of your daughters and you walked home one day and you saw her on the floor, how would you feel? How would you console such a mother? You know if you had any medical skill you would try to take care of the girl right away. You would try to do something to console her by trying to save the life of the daughter. Keep that in mind because when we speak of Our Lady, she's a mother, and one great source of her sorrows is precisely that her Son has been stabbed and wounded. And now we come before her and we cannot just be like tourists as so many people in Fatima are.

"It's a nice place, let's go shopping and then go home." If you say that, you miss the whole point of Fatima. Who can tell the love of such a Mother for such a Son? The famous Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange says that Our Lady, because of her fullness of grace from the first moment of her immaculate conception, was above and higher than all the saints and all the angels together, and God knows that many saints have had a great love for Our Lord. How much love the Mother of God had for Him. Our Lord said to the Samaritan woman, "If thou didst know the gift of God." Well, He didn't have to say that about Our Lady; she knew. She held Him in her hands that Christmas with tears of joy and adoration. Is it possible? Well, yes, it is possible. And from this love flows compassion. Compassion means "to suffer with." How much you parents suffer with your child even if he just falls off his bicycle or gets hurt at school or God knows what. This bond is stronger than death. Well, you see how Our Lady suffered this ingratitude.

Think of Bethlehem. She wanted to tell them, "My child is the Messias you are waiting for!" No, there was no room for them. She kept her mouth shut–it was not up to her to reveal the secrets of the King. That was Bethlehem, her home town, the town of King David. In Nazareth, Our Lady got a fright one day. Jesus had left her about 6-8 months, and one day he came back after having fasted 40 days and having seen John the Baptist; one day He went back to Nazareth. Our Lord must have been very pleased to have been back with His mother. So back He stayed at His mother's house, at His own home, and it was only on the Sabbath that He went to the synagogue to preach. Then He got up and explained the Gospel about the Prophet Isaias: "The spirit of God is upon Me and He has sent Me to preach the good news, the Gospel, to the poor." And then some people in the synagogue said, "Why don't you do here in Nazareth the things that you do in Capharnaum?" They could not understand Our Lord. "How come you're doing these miracles over there when you were brought up here? Why don't you do miracles here?" Our Lord answered them, "No one is a prophet at home" and so forth. And they got angry. We are talking about Our Lord's public life. They got up and grabbed Him and Our Lord allowed them to do that. They brought Him to the top of a cliff and they tried to push Him over. Our Lady must have heard the shouting and you know she must have always been pondering this prophecy of Simeon that a sword shall pierce her heart. She knew the sacrifice was going to come, so she may have wondered, "Is it today"? They were going to throw Him off the cliff in Nazareth! And then mysteriously, St. Luke says, He walked away. We all know what happened. They froze and Our Lord just walked away or else He just disappeared.

At that very spot they erected a church to Our Lady of Sorrows, for Our Lady weeping. She did not know if that was going to be the time. She must have heaved a great sigh of relief when she saw the people going back and Our Lord safe. She knew something had happened, and that He had not died. This was Nazareth where Our Lady saw the ingratitude of her own neighbors. It happened in Jerusalem as well, in the holy city where Our Lord was received triumphantly on Palm Sunday. Our Lady, on Good Friday, heard everybody shouting for the crucifixion, for His death. Just think of it! Perhaps some of you are mothers of priests. When you know that your son may be arrested or put to death for being a good priest, you know that parents witnessing the death of their children has happened before. You have in the Books of Machabees the mother who saw her seven children being led to death. It's hard, but especially when it's done by those who should have acknowledged Him as the Savior, that was even harder. Our Lady suffered as much as Our Lord at the ingratitude of the apostle, one traitor among the twelve. That was tough. It was not the Romans, not even people Jesus had cured, it was one of His own who turned the heel against Him. Our Lady must have been thinking how much He's hurt, betrayed by one of the twelve, and that wounded her as well. We have a reminder every day at Mass of all this ingratitude of men towards Our Lord which Our Lady felt in the Last Gospel, which St. John wrote after having lived with Our Lady. St. John must have been very impressed when Our Lady spoke of the story of the Nativity or other events. He must have observed Our Lady speaking of the sorrowful side of these mysteries, and wrote it down: "He came to His own and His own received Him not."

In the history of the Church God has raised special congregations, hundreds and hundreds of men and women who devoted their whole lives to contemplating and consoling Our Lady, to preaching Our Lady's sorrows, for instance, the Servites, a famous order of great apostles, or the Passionists, who preach the Passion of Our Lord and the sorrows of Our Lady. The Redemptorists are also very famous for preaching the Passion–of course, most of the orders have preached the Passion. Some of them are more dedicated to the Passion, and by the will of God it is one aspect of the Society of Saint Pius X to have devotion to Our Lady of Compassion. Our Sisters and Oblates are very much devoted to Our Lady of Sorrows. So you see, when we think of Fatima, we have to think of Our Lady as the Mother of God, and we're going to make reparation because she's wounded, she's hurt.

Her Immaculate Heart Is Offended

How is she hurt? She is hurt in two ways: indirectly and directly. She is hurt indirectly by all the modern offenses against Our Lord, and particularly against the Holy Eucharist. She knows. Was she there when Jesus spoke of the Bread of Life during the famous sermon in St. John, Chapter 6: "And she saw the people going away"? Was she there perhaps at the multiplication of the loaves? She knew how much Our Lord wanted to give Himself. "What a burning desire I have had to eat this Passover with you. You have no idea how much I have been waiting for this day of the institution of the Holy Eucharist." It is something mind-boggling for the angels: God would become our food. "Your fathers ate the manna in the desert and they are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever." "This is My Body." When Our Lord said "This is My Body" in Our Lady's hearing, she could say, "Yes, I gave it to Him." In a very special way the very physical part of Our Lord's Body comes from Our Lady, and so what Jesus owes to His mother is precisely His very physical side. He owes everything to His mother.

We mentioned a moment ago the third apparition of the angel at Fatima when He was holding the host and the host was dripping, and he said "Take and drink the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is horribly outraged in this sacrament. Console your God." The angel said that He is horribly outraged, and that was in 1916, not 2005. In 1916, Portugal had the traditional Mass all over, the traditional Mass was celebrated the world over. Why does the angel say "horribly outraged"? What would he say today? Obviously, the angel saw the profanation of the shrine by this Hindu worship that took place last year. He saw all these New Masses as well, which are a profanation of the Holy Eucharist. He saw this false worship which is against the Holy Eucharist, the Trinity, the Redemption. And don't forget the Hindus as well in their worship at the Capelhina last year not only profaned the altar, but they profaned Our Lady as well by making her a goddess.

I once met a Hindu on a plane. He told me there were three million gods amongst the Hindus, so Our Lady is just one more. But that is an insult. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that St. Paul had performed miracles in Athens and they wanted to worship him. "No, I'm only a man, only a creature." Well, these Hindus worship Our Lady as they would worship other Hindu goddesses. So that's an insult. How did we get this far? How did we get to Fatima? What do you think Pius XII or St. Pius X would have thought if they had known what is happening today? St. Pius X died at the thought of the First World War about to begin. He knew that this blood bath was about to start, and that literally killed him. How would he have reacted had he known what would happen in Fatima, if he had known there would be this pagan worship, these heretical gatherings taking place?

Communism and the New Mass

There has certainly been a progression. The principles swallowed at Vatican II are now blossoming with this construction and its whole mentality. I would like just to highlight one little aspect of Fatima and the New Mass through the means of Communism; there is a link between Communism and the New Mass. When I mention Communism I'm sure you're all thinking of Russia. "It is in Eastern Europe, China, Vietnam–okay, it's there, our priests have been there, it's for real. But that does not really concern us here in the United States." Well, it does, very much so, since Communism is all over the world in every country. Let me prove it to you a little bit through the angle of the New Mass. As you know, Pius XI condemned Communism in 1937. He should have consecrated Russia to the Immaculate Heart. He got the request in 1931 but he did not want to do it because he was sending missionaries at that moment to Russia, and that would have possibly provoked some problems. It is when the missionaries were killed that he said, "You cannot dialogue with Communists; it is intrinsically perverse." Then he wrote Divini Redemptoris [available from Angelus Press. Price: $1.75–Ed.]. The message of Fatima spread in the 1940's and 1950's. However, when Vatican II was about to be convened Pope John XXIII made an agreement with Moscow that there would be no public condemnation of Communism. That was a condition for the Russian Orthodox to be able to come to the Council. And Archbishop Lefebvre brought to the Secretary of the Council a list of 454 names asking for the condemnation of Communism, which is the greatest social plague in the 20th century and they lost it, they "misplaced" that list at the critical moment.

So then, the Second Vatican Council did not condemn Communism and it was supposed to deal with the problems of modern times. As a result or a step further in this regression, this retreat from the battle against Communism, four years later the New Mass came in. We in Asia had to dwell a little bit on this particularly because of our work. We have to deal with Chinese, trying to enlighten people who are in China or outside of China on how to keep the Faith in a Communist regime and trying to pass on to the underground Catholics who are in China who are persecuted. All of them are underground and they all have the New Mass. And so we have tried to make the people understand that you cannot fight Communism with the New Mass. Why? Because the New Mass has the ideas of Communism. Here are four specific areas:

1) Communism is man-centered. There is no God, there's only man. I saw once in a Chinese city a huge billboard in front of a condominium. I asked my interpreter what it said. "Let us build a new world based on man." That's Vatican II! Paul VI said, "We more than anyone else have the worship of man." At the end of the Council, everything was human: human conscience, these inalienable human rights, and so forth. Well, that is the whole idea of Communism, which says there is no God, only man. And the whole new liturgy is man-centered. That is very, very clear. There you have one Communist idea.

2) Having rejected God, you reject at the same time authority because all authority comes from God. And therefore Communism promotes liberty and equality for all. It's revolutionary, the mass of the people rebelling against those in authority. You have no right to have authority. We will decide, it's the people's power. So they invert the pyramid. In the New Mass it's the same thing. You have just witnessed a beautiful pontifical Mass with all the ranks from the bishop down. Even among the acolytes, there's a first acolyte and a second acolyte and so forth. The one who has to incense has to incense according to a certain order. Everything God does is orderly. The universe is made orderly and the Church is very much done in order. Communism is against order. So in the new liturgy they have leveled everything. They have concelebrations. They have now leveled the people and the priest and this whole notion of hierarchy is gone. That's a very strong communist idea.

3) Communism is a system of lies. There are so many lies all over these countries in all directions. Think of all these countries: Vietnam, Russia, China. In all of these countries, those who are inside don't know what is happening outside. The Party controls the media. For example, in China, you cannot access certain news sites because they control them and they are blocked. Why? Because they do not want people to know what is happening outside. And so they "create" reality. They tell the people, "You have the best lot and you should be very happy. We take care of you. If you knew what was happening, you would know how terrible it is outside." So the people inside are being told lies about what is happening outside, and all the people outside don't know what's happening inside because they're twisting the reality of what's really happening. In Vietnam, about 70% of the children are undernourished; 70%! Nobody knows that. And the higher members of the Party, about 500-1000, are multi-billionaires! And you have 70% of the nation, especially the youth, who are almost starving. We don't hear these things. We hear lies.

So how does this apply to the New Mass? There are a lot of lies around this new liturgy. Lies in relation, not to inside and outside, but in relation to today and yesterday. They will tell us, "Now you should be happy, now you understand what is going on up there with the priest at the altar. In the old days they didn't have a clue. It was all in Latin and nobody knew Latin and it was all mysterious. You couldn't see what the priest was doing because he was turning his back, and now you know what the priest is doing. You should be so happy now you know what is going on." Of course, in the old days, people died for the Mass. Nowadays they're not dying for the Mass. Go to Ireland or England, go to Vietnam or China; people died for the old Mass in these places.

First of all, it is false that people did not know Latin in the old days. Back then people knew much more Latin than they do today. Latin was taught in schools and people knew quite a lot. They knew that the Mass is not a question of understanding every word the priest says. It's a mystery! And by throwing away Latin you could say they threw out the baby with the bath water. Well, if that's all it is, then why bother going to Mass? So now nobody goes. So, there are lies in relation to getting the lay people involved with the liturgy. "Come on, we must participate. You see, before Vatican II, the lay people did nothing and were kept away. You know it was a male chauvinist society, the priests were running everything." Excuse me, but I was not born long before Vatican II.

For many of you who were in Ireland or those of you who come from Ireland you know that the Legion of Mary started in 1921, and it was very active. You have the St. Vincent de Paul Society and all these third orders around the world where the lay people were very active, much more active than they are today. In the fifties in the Philippines they were opening one presidium of the Legion of Mary every hour. That's a group of five to ten people starting. For a number of years they were opening a new group of legionaries every hour! And the Legion of Mary was strong in China. It started only in 1947 or 1949 by Fr. McGrath. This priest was alone in the center of China where his bishop sent him the handbook for the Legion and said, "I don't have any priests; take this." In those days the priest respected the bishop so he said, "Well, if the bishop sent this to me, maybe I should study it." He was from Dublin and did not know the Legion very well, so he studied the book. In one year when he put it into practice he did so much work and put in so much effort that the Legion spread very fast throughout China. By 1955, Mao Tse Tsung said himself that the Legion of Mary was the number one enemy of China.

On September 8 we will be recalling the 50th anniversary of the first big arrest in Shanghai. It happened on September 8, 1955, when Cardinal Kung and a few thousand people were arrested along with a number of priests and faithful among whom some are probably still alive today. Communism is a system of lies, and around the New Mass we find a lot of these lies about what was happening before.

4) Communism's whole regime makes people believe that they have the power. It's people power, which is a big lie again. We know that it's the Party which is running everything. The New Mass is the same thing. They changed it and said, "We did it for the people! The people asked for it." The people did not ask for this. They did not ask for Communion in the hand, it was imposed on them. And people did not ask for all these things. It was run by a clique of modernists who run everything. And the congregation is made to believe that it's all necessary for the celebration of Mass. Not just the people, but the priests themselves believe that. Bishop Fellay said that about 60 percent of Novus Ordo priests will not say Mass if they're alone. Sixty percent world wide! Why should I say Mass? There's nobody here. That thinking implies that the people are necessary for the Mass. Well, they're not. The priest may say it alone. A monk in a monastery may be alone for months and he can say Mass. The Mass is infinite! It's the sacrifice of Our Lord. Of course the fruits of the Mass will be received in more souls if there are people there, but if the priest is alone the Mass is still of infinite value. And so it's an illusion. Lately when all these lay people are taking part in the Mass, it's an illusion that they have the power just as in Communism. Lies again.

So this is what we are trying to tell our friends over there in Asia. We cannot fight Communism with the New Mass. And they are very sensitive to that. You talk about the crisis in the Church, and they have problems understanding what is happening in the rest of the world. They've been cut off for 30 years. They won't believe the things you tell them. Maybe you've seen the book Peter Lovest Thou Me? [available from Angelus Press. Price: $14.95–Ed.] and all the pictures in it. I showed this to a priest in Vietnam and said, "Father, look at this book. This is what happened!" And he said, "No, these are fake photos, not true ones. It cannot be." It's a fact–they refuse to believe the reality. So if they cannot accept reality, the scandal happening at Assisi and all these things, then it seems that they're very sensitive to the ideas of Communism. They know that. They're personally fighting Communism.

So Fatima has a very clear Eucharistic aspect from the angel asking reparation for today for the profanation of the altar at the Capelhina on the feast of St. Pius V. And when we see these Eucharistic profanations, what should we do? I think we should think of the Last Supper when, just before instituting the Blessed Sacrament, Our Lord said these painful words, "One of you will betray me." They all got up. "Is it I Lord, is it I?" Everybody was asking this and everybody got up except one–John. They were all leaning on their left elbows and reclining in their seats while John rested in front of Our Lord. We know that from the details of the Gospel. And when John heard Our Lord say this–and no doubt there must have been a sadness in that voice–he thought, "There is a traitor here!" St. John rolled on himself and he ended up leaning on the Sacred Heart and St. John must have been thinking, "How hurt, my dear Lord, how hurt You must be! Is it possible? One of us? If You say so then it will be so, but poor Jesus! After everything You did for us, after all the years of teaching, the miracles, and yet one of us will betray You! We were the chosen ones, we were your intimate friends and yet there is a traitor amongst us." It's much worse than if it was one of the Pharisees or one of the ungrateful lepers. But no, it is one of His own who turns his heel against Him.

Well, that is what the angel is saying to us here at Fatima: "Console your God horribly outraged in this sacrament." Fatima has a Eucharstic message. We should ask ourselves if we are all convinced about hanging on to the traditional Mass. Let us hang on to the Mass in a spirit of reparation as well. And whenever we hear this profanation, whatever type it is, that takes place especially around the Mass in the sacred liturgy, then let us be like St. John. Kneel down and take your crucifix and kiss the Sacred Heart and say "My Jesus, I'm sorry!" If a priest, bishop, or the pope does this, "My Jesus, I'm sorry." Let us console Him. These are what I call the indirect offenses against the Immaculate Heart. By offending Our Lord there's repercussion in the Immaculate Heart because we're offending Her Son and she knows what this has cost Him.

Now let us look at the direct offenses against the Immaculate Heart, those which Our Lord has specified here in Fatima. One of our priests, Fr. Labouche, who was superior of Portugal for a while, has just written a booklet, The Immaculate Heart of Mary Outraged [as yet unpublished–Ed.], and I will read you just a few examples of these profanations which have taken place. As Bishop Fellay said, these certainly call the wrath of God to awaken in a frightening way. If Jesus stood up to defend the honor of His Father and of the Holy Ghost, He's going to stand up one day to defend the honor of His Mother. "Don't you dare touch my Mother!" His mother is the most precious creature that He has made. St. Thomas himself says, "It's one of the three things God could not have done better than He has done. These three things are the Incarnation, the glory of heaven, and His Blessed Mother." God could not have made a creature more perfect than Our Lady. So when we offend Our Lady, it does not go unnoticed.

For the Honor of Our Lady

I will give you an example of how Our Lady's honor is being touched. But, first of all, why the first five Saturdays? Sister Lucia asked Our Lord explicitly that question: Why five? Because before 1917, of course, there was the devotion of the nine first Fridays and there was a devotion of the fifteen first Saturdays, and they still have this devotion. Many congregations still practise it. Well, Our Lord answered, because there are five types of offenses or blasphemies uttered against the Immaculate Heart of Mary: blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception, blasphemies against her virginity, against the divine motherhood by refusing to acknowledge her also as mother of men, blasphemies of all those seeking publicly to put in the heart of children indifference or contempt or even hatred against the immaculate Mother, and, lastly, offenses of those who outrage her directly in her holy images and statues.

Let's look in detail at all the blasphemies publicly spread by all the Protestant sects all over the world against Our Lady, against her virginity. "Jesus had many brothers and sisters. Our Lady had many children." That is a blasphemy against her virginity. It's a dogma of our Faith. It's revealed in Scripture that Our Lady was a virgin. Fr. Labouche says that he saw in Portugal a few years ago members of a sect called the Universal Kingdom of God distributing leaflets telling people to break statues of Fatima here in Portugal, promising them the blessings of God. Well, it is true that Luther in 1523 said, "I would like to completely get rid of the worship of Mary because of the abuse which is being made of it." So the disciples of Luther are doing the same thing today. In Brazil, one of the greatest Catholic nations in the world, a Protestant pastor on national TV gave a kick to the statue of Our Lady of Aparecida, patroness of Brazil. Imagine if in Ireland they would kick Our Lady of Knock on TV, calling her a horrible doll! God sees these things. There are sins crying to heaven for vengeance, and the insults of our Blessed Mother are certainly among them.

You may have heard, around December of last year in Argentina, again there was a sacrilegious, blasphemous exhibition against Our Lady. The theme was Our Lady having conceived by the Holy Ghost. Our faithful in Argentina reacted by organizing a procession to the Cathedral. But they went to see the parish priest in the Cathedral where it was taking place. "Father, do something about it. Our Lady is being insulted!" The priest said that it was none of his concern. This, I think, would hurt more than the actual blasphemies themselves, because we know they're done by the enemies of God. But for a priest to do nothing? If their earthly mother were being publicly abused, then they would jump up and do something, but they have lost that devotion to Our Lady. It's one of the tragedies of the modern clergy.

Here in Fatima on the front page of the magazine of the shrine of Fatima, October 28, 2003, (it's called the Noticias de Fatima) headlines read: "A Sanctuary to Many Creeds." Another magazine of the Blue Army read "Fatima, a Call to the Unity of Christians, Muslims, and Jews." So Fatima, according to them, is Jesus and Barabbas on the balcony. We're back to that; we're living the Passion all over again. "Choose." "Okay, fine, let's unite both." Then Father gives a whole list of blasphemies and then he explains why they are all attacks against the mediation of Our Lady. And the Vatican has said explicitly: "In the name of ecumenism we cannot define this truth. Maybe it is theologically dependable, but because of Vatican II, because of the direction Vatican II has given, now it is not appropriate to define this truth." There was a group of 39 theologians called the Group des Dombes (named after a place in France) who studied between 1990-1996. Twenty were Protestant and 19 were Catholic. These 39 published a study on Our Lady and ecumenism. Unfortunately, the Vatican is following the conclusion of their study, which is full of these ecumenical errors, if not heresies, where they say that Our Lady at the foot of the Cross was not meriting for us in any other way than any one of us Christians. So notice the subtlety here: you have opposite errors where they bring down Our Lady and make her just like one of us. This means we could say that she's not the Immaculate Conception, or on the other hand, you could say that we are all Immaculate Conceptions!

It's just like what Martin Luther says about the priests: a priest is just an ordinary man, and then he turns around and says that everyone is a priest. Well, they're insulting Our Lady by denying everything, even her divine motherhood. There's a shrine in France called Our Lady of Laus. It's an apparition approved by the Church in 1668. A Protestant asked this lady to whom Our Lady was appearing, "Can we be saved in Protestantism?" And the seer replied, "Well, I leave that up to God." Our Lady came back later and said, "Listen, my daughter, because you have too much human respect and you fear to say the truth, you will not see me for a while, because of human respect." She was afraid to hurt them and their feelings.

Another apparition of our Lady at a French village that today is called Notre Dame de l'Osier (see picture p. 33), happened in 1649, she appeared to a Calvinist who did not want to bother too much about her. Our Lady threatened him, saying, "Your end is going to come soon. Unless you convert, you're going to be one of the hottest charcoals in hell. But if you convert, I will protect you before God." At the end he got scared and he did convert. In Japan they have changed the Hail Mary, and in the Japanese Hail Mary, it's no longer "Blessed art thou amongst women." They removed the phrase "amongst women." It's just "blessed art thou." Our Lady is no longer unique, she is no longer the one woman who will crush the devil's head; she's just a woman. That's a blasphemy against her.

Father mentioned that he had heard from a reliable source that there's a secret society which has operated for many years, of which the members commit themselves to insult Our Lady; they give money, toys, and sweets to children to recite litanies of blasphemy against her. There's a counter-miraculous medal that has been made with "O Mary conceived with sin." The devil knows who he is fighting. Of course, you have all the movies that are done against Our Lady. So these are the direct offenses. Our Lady is obviously hurt. Why is she hurt? She's hurt not because all these insults against her virginity, her Immaculate Conception, her Divine Motherhood, and her mediation are against her, but because these are gifts of God. She has received these gifts, she did not take them herself. They are gifts of God and it's her duty to be faithful.

It's like Archbishop Lefebvre said: "This Mass is not mine. I did not make the traditional Faith. I have received it. I have to defend it." And Our Lady is hurt because by insulting her and her privileges, we are insulting Almighty God who put her there. That's why we must make reparation.

How Can We Make Reparation?

What is the best way to pull the thorns out of her Immaculate Heart? Well, you don't have to think very hard, because she herself has told us. It's the whole devotion of the First Saturdays. It could not be more simple, it's all spelled out; we just have to check that we've done it each month, and that's the way she wants to be consoled. Let me explain the wisdom behind these First Saturdays. It was December 10, 1925. In 1917 she said, "I will come back to ask for the Communion of reparation of the First Saturdays." She came back eight years later in 1925 with the Child Jesus. The Child Jesus said first, "Have compassion on the heart of your most holy Mother. She's a mother whose heart is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment without there being anyone to make an act of reparation to remove them." Then Our Lady said, "See, my daughter, my heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me, and say that I promise to assist at the hour of their death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their soul all those who for five months on the first Saturday will 1) Go to confession, 2) receive Holy Communion, 3) recite the Rosary, and 4) keep me company for 15 minutes while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, 5) in a spirit of reparation. This is the great promise of the First Saturdays.

And that is part of the message of Fatima. Don't forget, it's not just the consecration of Russia which must be done by the Pope. It is also the consecration and the promotion of the First Saturdays. So let's look at these five points. Firstly, confession. Our Lady wants us to go to confession. Our Lord had been doing miracles for years, He had cured everybody in so many places, but there was still something more Jesus wanted to do. And if you see the way it develops in the Gospel you see the gentleness and delicacy of God's grace. Soon after a man was lowered from the ceiling Jesus said, "Your sins are forgiven you," and the Jews were scandalized. And Jesus, who knew what they were thinking, said, "Why are you thinking this in your heart?" So everything Jesus said was spread around by the people. Our Lord's fame was growing, and you know what people were saying after this? "He can read in people's hearts, He can forgive sins." That's how Our Lord gently let that word out, and finally they started to germinate. One time, it was either in Magdala or along Lake Genesereth, this woman who had a lot on her soul had heard about this Prophet, and she did not feel at peace with herself and she wanted peace. She had heard somewhere about this Prophet that he cures and talks to the people and that He also forgives sins. She had never heard that before. "No prophet before had ever forgiven sins. But this Man does it and He reads hearts, so I won't have to say anything. He will read my heart. He knows." And so she managed to find Him. He was in the middle of a banquet. She walked in and fell at His feet. Everyone just stopped what they were doing because there was a street woman in the room. And she just started to bathe His feet in her tears and wipe them with her hair. Just think of the joy of Our Lord. This is the first time someone reads the heart of Our Lord! Yes, the Good Shepherd has come to cure and make miracles, but it is more than that. He wants to cure souls. And the joy of Our Lord, who has found this lost sheep–that was the purpose of the Incarnation and the Redemption. He died on the Cross to wash away our sins, not to cure our diseases. It' a battle between sin and grace. Our Lady knows that. Our Lady has only one desire.

St. Jerome says that all the graces that are in Our Lord are also in Our Lady. In His encyclical Ad Diem Illum [available from Angelus Press. Price: $2.95–Ed.], St. Pius X said says very clearly these words, which are being denied today in the Vatican document: there's no exception, everything Our Lord has merited in justice–strict justice–Our Lady has also merited out of charity. And so she has one desire, and that is to see grace in our hearts by going to confession. That's why that's the first condition of the first Saturdays: make your peace with God. And many of you have probably been to confession on retreat, and you know that you must just let it out just like St. Augustine in Milan when he fell under the tree and said "My God, my God! Why can't I just have this peace now?" St. Augustine like us was struggling and thought that at that moment he wanted to be pure, but "not right now." He was struggling and thought, "Why not now?" Our Lady gave him that grace and then St. Augustine became St. Augustine. He got that grace just like St. Mary Magdalen at the feet of Our Lord. It's the greatest joy we can give Our Lady to get the thorns out of our own heart, the thorns of sin. We're causing joy to Our Lady because she knows when we do that it's the greatest joy we can give Our Lord, and Our Lady rejoices when she sees Jesus rejoicing.

Secondly, once we have been to confession and our soul is at peace, then we can receive Holy Communion. And that's what She wants: for us to unite with Our Lord. Just as Our Lord said at the Last Supper, "that I be in them and they be in Me." Our Lord has this desire to come into us. Holy Communion is not for the tabernacle. The real tabernacle is the human heart. The tabernacle is only the lobby, the waiting lounge. Our Lord is there for us. "Give us this day our daily bread." And I hope, my dear brethren, that after this pilgrimage all of us make the resolution to make more frequent confessions and more frequent Communions.

Thirdly, Our Lady asks for vocal prayer, which is the Rosary, and mental prayer, which is meditation. Our Lady is a very good retreat mistress. She wants us to receive the sacraments. We're not good Catholics unless we receive the sacraments frequently. Let us not deceive ourselves. Even if you say the Rosary occasionally, that's not enough. Confession and Communion: that's what Our Lady wants here at Fatima. And then, by saying the Rosary we're reviewing her life story and the life story of Our Lord. It's not just mysteries of the past, but these mysteries are alive when we mediate on them. There's a special grace attached to them every day in the liturgy when we celebrate the mysteries. And mental prayer has to sink in. We know the story of Bethlehem and the story of the Crucifixion, but what does it mean for you? Do you realize how much you have cost Our Lord? Or how infinitely lovable He is? We need to meditate and think about it. Think heart to heart with love.

Finally, all these conditions, confession, communion, the Rosary, meditation: all four with the intention to make reparation to the Immaculate Heart. That is what Our Lady has asked, and the best thing that we can do to console her is to do it. If you have done it once, do it again. Do it for someone else, your family and friends, for those you work with, for all those who don't do it and to console Our Lady. Don't just do it one time and say "Okay, I'm fine now, I've got my insurance policy." No, keep doing the First Saturdays and don't forget that it is to console Our Lady. And, finally, Our Lady is asking for sacrifices and the consecration of Russia to herself. As Bishop Fellay said today, "As much as it is in our power, we consecrate Russia, but let us consecrate each one of us individually to her Immaculate Heart." As St. Alphonsus says: "God wills it, Our Lady deserves it, and we need it."