THIRD APPARITION of OUR LADY

As the July date approached Lucia continued to be troubled by the words of her pastor that the devil might be behind the apparitions.

As the July date approached Lucia continued to be troubled by the words of her pastor that the devil might be behind the apparitions. Finally, she confided to Jacinta that she intended not to go. When the day finally dawned, however, her fears and anxieties disappeared, so that the noon hour found her in the Cova with Jacinta and Francisco, awaiting the arrival of the beautiful Lady.

The apparition of July 13th would prove to be in many ways the most controversial aspect of the message of Fátima, providing a secret in three parts which the children guarded zealously. The first two parts, the vision of hell and the prophecy of the future role of Russia and how to prevent it, would not be revealed until Sr. Lucia wrote them down in her third memoir, at the request of the bishop, in 1941. The third part, usually called the Third Secret, was only later communicated to the bishop, who sent it unread to Pope Pius XII.

A few moments after arriving at the Cova da Iria, near the holmoak, where a large number of people were praying the Rosary, we saw the flash of light once more, and a moment later Our Lady appeared on the holmoak.

“Lucia,” Jacinta said, “speak. Our Lady is talking to you.”

“Yes?” said Lucia. She spoke humbly, asking pardon for her doubts with every gesture, and to the Lady: “What do you want of me?”

I want you to come back here on the thirteenth of next month. Continue to say the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, to obtain the peace of the world and the end of the war, because only she can obtain it.

“Yes, yes.”

“I would like to ask who you are, and if you will do a miracle so that everyone will know for certain that you have appeared to us.”

You must come here every month, and in October I will tell you who I am and what I want. I will then perform a miracle so that all may believe.

Thus assured, Lucia began to place before the Lady the petitions for help that so many had entrusted to her. The Lady said gently that she would cure some, but others she would not cure.

“And the crippled son of Maria da Capelinha?”

No, neither of his infirmity nor of his poverty would he be cured, and he must be certain to say the Rosary with his family every day.

Another case recommended by Lucia to the Lady’s assistance was a sick woman from Atougia who asked to be taken to heaven.

Tell her not to be in a hurry. Tell her I know very well when I shall come to fetch her.

Make sacrifices for sinners, and say often, especially while making a sacrifice: O Jesus, this is for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for offences committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

[First Part of the Secret – The Vision of Hell]

As Our Lady spoke these words she opened her hands once more, as had during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now following back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me do). The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. terrified and as if to plead for succor, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly:

[Second Part of the Secret]

You have seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. It is to save them that God wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If you do what I tell you, many souls will be saved, and there will be peace.

This war will end, but if men do not refrain from offending God, another and more terrible war will begin during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night that is lit by a strange and unknown light [this occurred on January 28, 1938], you will know it is the sign God gives you that He is about to punish the world with war and with hunger, and by the persecution of the Church and the Holy Father.

To prevent this, I shall come to the world to ask that Russia be consecrated to my Immaculate Heart, and I shall ask that on the First Saturday of every month Communions of reparation be made in atonement for the sins-of the world. If my wishes are fulfilled, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, then Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, bringing new wars and persecution of the Church; the good will be martyred and the Holy Father will have much to suffer; certain nations will be annihilated. But in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and the world will enjoy a period of peace. In Portugal the faith will always be preserved…

[Third Part of the Secret – Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith, “The Message of Fátima”]

{After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’.

And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in white; ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross, he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.}

Remember, you must not tell this to anyone except Francisco.

When you pray the Rosary, say after each mystery: O my Jesus, forgive us, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are most in need.

“Is there anything more that you want of me?”

No, I do not want anything more of you today.

Then as before Our Lady began to ascend towards the east, until she finally disappeared in the immense darkness of the firmament.

The possession of the Secret proved to be very great trial for the three young ones. Family, neighbors, followers of the apparitions, even the clergy, tried unsuccessfully to get them to reveal it. Finally, as the day of the August apparition approached even the civil government, which was secular and virulently anti-clerical, alarmed by the numbers of people taking an interest in the Fátima events, attempted to wrest it from them and in the process expose the Church as a collaborator in a fraud.

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/devotions/third-apparition-of-our-lady-23365

(OSV News) — Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster of the Most Holy Rosary claimed to have had profound religious experiences, beginning in her childhood. She was born Mary Elizabeth Lancaster April 13, 1924 in St. Louis. Her great-grandmother, Mary Madden, had been a slave.

In a short autobiography discovered after Sister Wilhelmina’s death, she wrote that at her first Communion in 1934, 9-year-old Mary Elizabeth had “an unforgettable experience,” where “Our Lord asked me if I would be His.” “He seemed to be such a handsome and wonderful Man. I agreed immediately. Then He told me to meet Him every Sunday at Holy Communion. I said nothing about this conversation to anyone, believing that everyone that went to Holy Communion heard Our Lord talk to them.”

Notes with her eight-page autobiographical sketch, as shared by her religious community, also mentioned that the future Sister Wilhelmina also had a vision of the Virgin Mary, who thanked her for praying the rosary.

Foundress of the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles, in Gower, Missouri, Sister Wilhelmina died in May 2019 at age 95. On April 28, her body was exhumed from her grave to move it to a tomb in the monastery’s chapel. Despite her body not being embalmed, damage to her wooden coffin, and water sitting on her grave — all elements that should have contributed to her body’s decomposition — her body was found remarkably intact, the community’s sisters say.

The sisters said that a sainthood cause for Sister Wilhelmina may be taken up should widespread devotion to their foundress first be established.

Read the rest https://www.detroitcatholic.com/news/missouri-benedictine-foundress-recounted-childhood-visions-of-jesus-mary https://www.detroitcatholic.com/news/missouri-benedictine-foundress-recounted-childhood-visions-of-jesus-mary

Morticians Mystified by Sister Wilhelmina’s Body: ‘Something Special Going on There’

Jack Klein, owner of Hixson-Klein Funeral Home in Gower, Missouri, confirmed that the religious sister’s body was not embalmed and that the wood coffin was not placed into any outer burial container.

Shannon Mullen/Joseph Bukuras/CNANationMay 26, 2023

Editor’s note: This story was updated on May 28 after diocesan spokesman said she was mistaken when she told CNA that Bishop Vann Johnston had ‘been in touch with someone in Rome’ about the condition of Sister Wilhelmina’s body.

Expert morticians are scratching their heads at the recently exhumed body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, a Benedictine nun who died in 2019 and now appears to be in an unexpected state of preservation.

The reactions come a week after the abbess and sisters of the community that she founded, the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles, unearthed the 95-year-old African American religious sister’s simple wooden coffin on May 18 from the cemetery on the monastery grounds in rural Gower, Missouri, to relocate her remains to a final resting place inside their chapel.

Rest of the story here.https://www.ncregister.com/cna/morticians-mystified-by-sister-wilhelmina-s-body-something-special-going-on-there

A Miracle In The U.S.

May 25, 2023 by sd

Famous is the image in Syracuse, Sicily, which emanated tears in 1953, as a pregnant woman who slept beneath it was cured of toxemia so severe it had temporarily blinded her. [See yesterday’s story]

It was upon waking — and finding herself wonderfully able to see — that Antonina Lannuso (and husband Angelo) noticed it weeping.

It is now known as the Weeping Madonna of Syracuse (in Italian, Madonna Delle Lacrime), and a large church, with towering spire, was built to house it.

We have come to learn that four years before that event, incredibly, and far across the ocean, another image connected to the Madonna “wept” and was also in a city named Syracuse — this one in Upstate New York.

The occurrence: Tuesday, April 13, 1949, during Holy Week.

That day, the strongest earthquake in more than 130 years rattled the Pacific Northwest, killing eight. It was a mega-event, dominating news.

But in Syracuse, New York, the city’s attention was focused elsewhere — to be precise, on a house at 511 Hawley Avenue.

As the Post-Standard reported: “On April 3, 1949, while cleaning her home, Viola Martin, a divorced mother of four, placed a 2-foot tall plaster statue of Saint Anne, the mother of Mary, onto a windowsill. It fell outside and struck a rock, smashing into pieces. The statue left a small cross on the rock.

“Somehow, the head of the statue remained intact, suffering only a small scratch on its nose, and landed in the driveway.

“Shirley Anne, 11, the oldest of the children, and described as ‘very religious,’ found the head while playing and gave the statue a kiss.

“The head, she said, began to weep tears. She went to tell her mother. When her mother saw the teardrops, she was shocked.”

Soon, throngs were crowding the home’s front porch hoping to catch a glimpse of an 11-year-old girl and her weeping statue of Saint Anne and thousands more when the statue’s head was brought to Our Lady of Pompeii Church, where tears were witnessed by twenty people, including three priests, altar boys, and nuns. The tears reappeared when they were wiped away, usually materializing after the devout girl kissed it.

It even bears resemblance to the Sicilian image that would lacrymate four years hence [below].

A frenzy ensued, so many coming to see that police had to restore order. Said the newspaper: “Shirley Anne lightly touches her lips to the forehead, then holds the head away from her. In a moment, the dull plaster finish begins to glisten at the corner of one eye. The glistening spots spread, and touching them leave no doubt, that they are watery, tear-like liquid. If the tears are wiped away, they reappear when Shirley Anne again kisses the statue.”

Herman Borzner, the paper’s chief photographer — who called himself a “pretty skeptical guy” — said he “wouldn’t begin to explain it, but I saw water appear in the crevice between the eye and the nose on one side of the face.” Ditto for a nearby college professor.

(copyright, Heritage Microfilm)

The tears even appeared on live television — but stopped on Good Friday.

No coincidence, that it was Holy Week. The mother of Mary, weeping along with her daughter, weeping for her grandSon.

1949 was the year Israel formed as an independent nation, NATO was formed, and Russia tested its first atomic bomb. And perhaps it is no coincidence that the miracle was the same day as that quake. (The greatest quake ever to hit Alaska would occur fifteen years later — on Good Friday, 1964.)

The name “Syracuse”  is from a pre-Hellenic word, perhaps Phoenician serah “to feel ill,” in reference to its location near a swamp. In biblical terms, it can also mean “to draw violently.”

And there we have it, in a nutshell, to discern.

Two cities named “Syracuse.” Two weeping icons.

[resources: books on the Virgin Mary]

catholiclayman
On March 5, 2023, there was a Eucharistic miracle – multiplying of the Host – during the distribution of communion… it was reported immediately by an extraordinary minister who was a last-minute substitution for the Pastor (whose thumb was bandaged before the Mass). The Pastor is Rev. Joseph Crowley of the St Maximilian Kolbe Parish at St Thomas Catholic church in Thomaston, CT. This parish was previously known as St Thomas Parish until a merger and was the last parish served by Blessed Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus. This video is the beginning of the 3/12/23 Homily where Fr Crowley reviews the details of the Miracle that he witnessed at the 3/5/23 10am Mass. We are in the year of the Eucharistic Revival! Log into Facebook STMKP | Saint Maximilian Kolbe Parish

Pray for Turkey and Syria!

On Feb. 6, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, devastating millions and killing approximately 42,000. The death toll continues to rise as rescue efforts are underway.

One incredible testimony moving across social media discusses the miraculous survival story of a five-year-old boy rescued 192 hours (8 days) after the earthquake.

Upon questioning, authorities asked how he survived for so long.

According to the French organization SOS Christians of the East, the boy said a man dressed in white provided him food and water and disappeared.

Here’s the tweet below: