We are facing something inexplicable to science. A handkerchief that has on one side an image that looks like Padre Pio’s face and on the other side the face of Jesus. That it has no traces of paint and that it appeared in a miraculous way. It is a handkerchief that touched Padre Pio’s face a year before his death.

THE DEATH, BURIAL, AND ASSUMPTION
OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN
ACCORDING TO THE VISIONS OF
VENERABLE ANNE CATHERINE EMMERICH

DEATH, BURIAL, AND ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN

And now the altar with its covers, one red, the other white, was placed in front of the Crucifix of the Blessed Virgin’s own oratory. Peter here celebrated the Holy Mass with the same ceremonies as I had seen him first observe in the church at the Pool of Bethsaida. Tapers, not lamps, were burning on the altar. Mary was in a sitting posture on her couch during the whole celebration. Peter was vested in the large mantle and the pallium, whose colors glanced from white to red.Our Lady’s Last Communion

     These he wore over the white robe. The four Apostles assisting him were also vested in festal mantles. After the Communion, Peter gave the Blessed Sacrament to all present. During this Holy Mass, Philip arrived from Egypt. Weeping bitterly he received the benediction of the Blessed Virgin, and after the others the Blessed Sacrament.

    Peter bore the Blessed Sacrament to Mary in the cross hanging on his breast, and John carried on a shallow dish the chalice containing the Most Sacred Blood. This chalice was white, small as if for pouring, and of the same shape as that used at the Last Supper. Its stem was so short that it could be held with two fingers only. Thaddeus now brought forward a little incense-basin. Peter first gave the Blessed Virgin the last anointing, just as that Sacrament is administered at the present day. Next he administered Holy Communion, which she received sitting up without support. Then she sank back again on her pillow and, after the Apostles had offered a short prayer, she received the chalice from John, but not now in so upright a posture.

    After Communion, Mary spoke no more. Her countenance, blooming and smiling as in youth, was raised above. I no longer saw the roof of her chamber, and the lamp appeared to be suspended in the open air. A pathway of light arose from Mary up to the heavenly Jerusalem, up to the throne of the Most Holy Trinity. On either side of this pathway, I saw clouds of light, out of which gazed angelic faces. Mary raised her arms to the Heavenly Jerusalem. Her body with all its wrappings was floating so high above the couch that I could see under it. A figure of light, also with upraised arms, appeared to issue from Mary. The two choirs of angels united under this figure and soared up with it, as if separating it from the body, which now sank back upon the couch, the hands crossed upon the breast. Many holy souls, among whom I recognized Joseph, Anne, Joachim,Johnthe Baptist, Zachary, and Elizabeth, came to meet her. But up she soared, followed by them, to her Son, whose Wounds were flashing light far more brilliant than that which surrounded Him. He received her and placed in her hand a sceptre, pointing at the same time over the whole circumference of the earth. At last I saw, and the sight filled me with joy, a multitude of souls released from purgatory and soaring up to heaven, and I received the surety that every year, on the feast of Mary’s assumption, many of her devout clients are freed from purgatory. The hour of Mary’s death was made known to me as that of None, at which time also Jesus had died on the cross. Peter and John likewise, must have seen the glory of Mary’s blessed soul, for their faces were turned upward, but the other Apostles were kneeling bowed to the ground. The body of the Blessed Virgin lay radiant with light upon the couch, the eyes closed, the hands crossed upon the breast. All present knelt adoring God.

    At last the women covered the blessed remains with a sheet, put all the furniture of the house aside and covered it, even covering the fire-place. Then they veiled themselves and prayed together in a space in the front of the house, sometimes kneeling, some-times sitting. The Apostles too enveloped their head with the scarf they wore about their shoulders, and ranged in order for prayer. They took turns, two at a time, to kneel and pray at the head and feet of the blessed remains. I saw them exchanging places with one another four times in the day, and I like-wise saw them making the Way of the Cross.

    Andrew and Matthias were busy preparing the place of burial, which was the little grotto that Mary and John had arranged at the end of the Way of the Cross, to represent the Holy Sepulchre of Christ. It was not so large as Jesus’ tomb, being scarcely as high as a man, and was surrounded by a little garden hedged in by stakes. A pathway ran obliquely down into it, and the stone couch, which was like a narrow altar, was hollowed on top to the shape of a body enveloped in its winding-sheet, the head being a trifle higher than the foot. The Station of Mount Calvary (the Crucifixion) was on a hill near by. No cross was erected on it, but there was one cut out on the stone. Andrew was especially active in preparing the grotto, and setting up a door firmly in front of the tomb proper.

Our Lady’s Blessed Remains

    The blessed body was prepared by the women for burial. Among them I remember having seen a daughter of Veronica and John Mark’s mother. They brought spices and pots of fresh herbs, in order to embalm it according to the Jewish custom. They closed the house, and worked by the light of lamps. They opened up the apartment back of the fireplace and removed the screens that inclosed the little alcove used by the Blessed Virgin as a sleeping-place, in order to have more room for their work of embalming. The wicker screens of the alcove were not again replaced, for immediately after the obsequies they along with those of the clothes-press, were put out of sight by the maidservant. Only the altar was allowed to remain standing before the Crucifix in Mary’s sleeping-apartment. The whole house had now become like a little chapel, in which the Apostles prayed and celebrated the most holy and unbloody Sacrifice. While the women were preparing the holy body for burial, the Apostles prayed, choir and choir, sometimes in the front apartment, sometimes outside the house. The women went about their task most devoutly and reverently, just as had been done when preparing the most Sacred Body of Jesus for burial. The body of the Blessed Virgin was lifted in the linen of the deathbed and laid in a long basket, which had a lid and which was filled with covers, so that when lying on them, it rose above the edge. The body was of a dry, indescribable whiteness as if shining with light, and of so little weight that, like a mere husk, it could be raised quite easily on the hands. The face was fresh and blooming. The women cut off some locks of hair to keep as relics. They laid bunches of herbs around the neck and throat, under the arms, and in the arm-pits.

    Before the holy body was shrouded in its white garments and enveloped in the winding-sheets, Peter celebrated the Unbloody Sacrifice on the altar of the oratory and gave Holy Communion to the other Apostles. After that Peter and John approached the body in their mantles of ceremony. John carried a vessel of oil, with which Peter anointed, in the form of a cross and with accompanying prayers, the fore-head, hands, and feet of the holy body, which was afterward entirely enveloped in linens by the women. They placed on the head a wreath of flowers, white, red, and sky-blue, as a symbol of Mary’s virginity, and over the face a transparent veil, through which it could be seen encircled by the wreath. The feet also, which were bound up in aromatic herbs, could be traced through the linens that enveloped them. The arms and hands were bound crosswise on the breast. Thus prepared, the holy body was laid in a coffin of snow-white wood with a tightly fitting, arched cover, which was fastened down at the head, the foot, and in the middle, with gray straps. The coffin was then laid on a litter. Every thing was done with the utmost solemnity, and all were penetrated with deep emotion. The sorrow of the mourners was more human and more openly expressed than at Jesus’ burial, at which holy awe and reverence predominated.

    When it was time to bear the coffin to the grotto, one half-hour distant, Peter and John raised it from the litter and carried it in their hands to the door of the house, outside of which it was again laid on the litter which Peter and John then raised upon their shoulders. Six of the Apostles thus carried it in turn. The coffin hung between the bearers as in a cradle, for the poles of the litter were run through leathern straps, or matting. Some of the Apostles walked before the coffin praying, and after it came the women. Lamps, or lanterns on poles, were carried.Our Lady’s Burial

    Before reaching the grotto, the litter was set down. Four of the Apostles bore the coffin in, and placed it in the hollow of the tomb. All went, one by one, into the grotto where they knelt in prayer before the holy body, honoring it and taking leave of it. Then the tomb was shut in by a wicker screen that extended from the front edge of the tomb to the top of the vaulted wall above. Before the entrance of the grotto, they made a trench which they planted so thickly with blooming flowers and bushes covered with berries that one could gain access to it only from the side, and that only by making his way through the under-wood.

    On the night following the burial, took place the bodily assumption of the Blessed Virgin into heaven. I saw on this night several of the Apostles and holy women in the little garden, praying and singing Psalms before the grotto. I saw a broad pathway of light descend from heaven and rest upon the tomb. In it were circles of glory full of angels, in the midst of whom the resplendent soul of the Blessed Virgin came floating down. Before her went her Divine Son, the marks of His Wounds flashing with light. In the innermost circle, that which surrounded the holy soul of Mary, the angels appeared like the faces of very young children; in the second circle, they were like those of children from six to eight years old; and in the outermost, like the faces of youths, I could clearly distinguish only the face, the rest of the figure consisting of perfectly transparent light. Encircling the head of the Blessed Virgin like a crown, was a choir of blessed spirits. I know not what those present saw of all this. But I saw that some gazed up in amazement and adoration, while others cast themselves prostrate in fright upon the earth. These apparitions, becoming more and more distinct as they approached nearer, floated over the grotto, and another pathway of light issued from it and arose to the heavenly Jerusalem. The blessed soul of Mary, floating before Jesus, penetrated through the rock and into the tomb, out of which she again arose radiant with light in her glorified body and, escorted by the entire multitude of celestial spirits, returned in triumph to the heavenly Jerusalem.

    Next day when the Apostles were engaged in choir service, Thomas made his appearance with two companions. One was a disciple named Jonathan Eleasar, and the other a servant from the most remote country of the Three Holy Kings. Thomas was greatly grieved when he heard that the Blessed Virgin was al-ready buried. He wept with an abundance of tears quite astonishing to behold, for he could not forgive himself for coming so late. Weeping bitterly he threw himself with Jonathan at his side on the spot upon which the blessed soul of Mary had left her body, and afterward knelt long before the altar. The Apostles, who had not interrupted their choir-chanting on account of his coming, now gathered around him, raised him up, embraced him, and set before him and his companions bread, honey, and some kind of beverage in little jugs. After that they accompanied him with lights to the tomb. Two disciples bent the shrubbery to one side. Thomas, Eleanor, and John went in and prayed before the coffin. Then John loosened the three straps that bound it, for it rose high enough above the troughlike couch to admit of being opened. They stood the lid of the coffin on one side and, to their intense astonishment, beheld only the empty winding-sheets lying like a husk, or-shell, and in perfect order. Only over the face was it drawn apart, and over the breast slightly opened. The swathing-bands of the arms and hands lay separate, as if gently drawn off, but in perfect order. The Apostles gazed in amazement, their hands raised.

Our Lady’s Tomb

John cried out: ” She is no Ionger here! ” The others came in quickly, wept, prayed, looking upward with raised arms, and finally cast themselves on the ground, remembering the radiant cloud of the preceding night. Then rising they took the winding-sheet just as it was, all the grave linens, and the coffin to keep as relics, and returned to the house by the Holy Way, praying and singing Psalms.

    When they entered the house, John laid the folded linens on a little flap-table before the altar. Thomas and the others were in prayer, but Peter went a little apart, as if pondering some mystery. After that I saw him celebrating divine service at the altar be-fore Mary’s Crucifix, and the Apostles standing in order behind him, praying and singing. The women were standing in the doorways and by the walls of the fireplace.

    The young servant that had come with Thomas looked quite unlike any of those present. He had small eyes, high cheek-bones, forehead and nose remarkably flat, and his complexion was brownish. He was already baptized. He. was perfectly innocent, and obeyed orders simply. He did all that he was told, remained standing or sitting wherever they told him to do so, turned his eves in any direction indicated to see whatever was pointed out to him, and smiled upon every one. When Thomas wept, he wept also. He always remained with Thomas, and I saw him dragging immense stones when Thomas was building a chapel.

    I often saw the Apostles and disciples standing together in circles and relating where they had been and giving their experience.

    Before the Apostles left Mary’s house to journey again into distant parts, they rendered the grotto of the tomb wholly inaccessible by raising an embankment of earth before the entrance. At the rear however they made a low passage to the back wall of the tomb proper and an opening in the wall, by which one could look down upon it. This passage was known only to the holy women. Above the grotto they built a chapel of wood and wickerwork, and hung it with mats and tapestry. The little altar consisted of a stone slab, the step too was of stone. Behind the altar hung a strip of stuff on which was sewed or embroidered quite simply in the colors of her festal robes a picture of Mary. The little garden in front of the tomb, and especially the whole of Mary’s Way of the Cross, was beautified by them. While engaged in this task of love, they prayed continually and chanted Psalms. The apartment of the house in which Mary had had her oratory and sleeping-alcove, was converted into a little church. Mary’s maid continued her abode in the front part of the house, and two of the disciples were left there by Peter for the benefit of the Faithful dwelling in that section of the country.

    The Apostles with tears and embraces took leave of one another after they had once more celebrated solemn service in Mary’s house. An Apostle or disciple often returned at different times to pray there. I saw also that here and there, out of devotion and in reverence for the Blessed Virgin, churches were built by the Faithful in the same style as her house, and that her Way of the Cross and her tomb were for a long time devoutly visited by the Christians. I had a vision of those early times, just after Mary’s assumption into heaven: A woman living near Ephesus, who entertained great love for Mary, visited her house. On her return she caused an altar like that she had seen there to be made, and covered it with a very costly cloth of tapestry. The woman was very poor, and had to defray the debt she thereby incurred by the sale of a piece of her property. Finding herself after some time in dire distress, she went, though very sorrowfully, to a married Christian and sold to her the beautiful altar-cloth. But when the feast of Mary’s assumption came round, I saw the poor woman very much troubled at no longer having the cloth with which to adorn her little altar. She went very humbly to the house of the purchaser, who meanwhile had given birth to twins, and begged her to lend her for the feast the cloth she had sold her that she might adorn with it the altar of the Blessed Virgin. But the present owner would not hear to lending it, and her husband repulsed the poor woman with the words: ” Mary is dead and needs not the cloth; but my wife who bought it needs it. ” The poor woman went away sad, and complained to Mary of her want. Next night, I saw the Blessed Virgin appear to the sleeping couple. She looked displeased and told them that, as a punishment of their hard and unchristian sentiments toward the poor, devout woman, their children would die and they themselves become poorer than the one whose request they had spurned. The couple awoke, and looked upon it at first as an empty dream. But on finding the twins dead, they recognized their offence with bitter lamentations. With many tears the husband took the cloth to the poor woman for the feast. Both husband and wife did penance. They received forgiveness from Mary, and the punishment in store for them was averted.

***********

https://www.jesus-passion.com/VirginMary%27sDeath.htm

Beirut: The Explosion Stopped at the Iconostasis

At least the altar in St Dimitrios Greek Orthodox Church in Achrafieh, less than a kilometre away from the Beirut explosion, survived unharmed, Father Youil Nassif told media.

After the explosion, Nassif rushed to his church to check for damage: the nave was in ruins, windows were broken, the pews damaged.

However, the altar space behind the iconostasis was almost unscathed including the chalice, the book, relics and even an oil lamp which the explosion was not able to extinguish.

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https://gloria.tv/post/HxTkxzFLDpN96uH8YvVqXsQuS

The priest who was blown away during a live-streamed Mass after the August 4 explosions in Beirut is Father Marwan Moawad, the parish-priest of Saint Maroun, Bouchrieh, only three kilometres from the explosion.

Father Moawad had started a Maronite Catholic Mass at 6.00 p.m. Only eight people were present because of the coronavirus curfew (AgenSir.it, August 6).

Eight minutes later, the church started shaking. Those inside thought this was an earth-quake. The light went out. Then the devastating explosion followed.

The glass shattered and the shrapnel hit those in the church.

A shock wave tore the locked side door off its hinges and threw it into the church.

Everybody was thrown to the other side of the church and fell to the ground. Three persons were superficially injured by glass splinters. Pictures of the Aftermath.

https://gloria.tv/post/CB4HviQwBmRP4cvcPYr7FrrRR

Video at link.

After yesterday’s huge explosion which erupted in the port of the Lebanese capital, debris fell on a priest and his faithful at Beirut Mar Maroun Church during a live-streamed Mass.

The video shared by Alhurra.com correspondent Steven Nabi shows the celebrant swinging the thurible in front of the altar when the debris come down.

The fate of the people seen in the video is unknown.

Video at link.

https://gloria.tv/post/kGBcfx7e3FPx2cQHjTh79YEot

Fire: Rastafarian Causes Panic in Church

A thug attempted to set a crucifix on fire on July 19 outside St Martin De Porres church on St Lucia (Caribbean) while parishioners were praying inside. The cross and Christ’s effigy burned briefly but the fire extinguished.

The man then entered the church with two more incendiary devices. He yelled, the parishioners panicked and escaped while some restrained the man and handed him over to police.

Castries Archbishop Robert Rivas said that the perpetrator is known from suffering form a psychological disorder. He has performed similar stunts before.

According to Rivas, the man spoke with slogans associated with the Rastafarian cult which is related to racism and black supremacism.

https://gloria.tv/post/tEYvUpRnv3zB4U9HuSYdfyRXz

Same Night: The Devil and An Angel Come Along (Video)

A statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe at St Joseph’s Church in Upland, California, was vandalised on July 21 by a thug.

A security camera shows how the criminal violently kicked the statue of its socket with his right foot.

Later that same night, a young man came along. He saw the desolation and put the statue back into its place as well as he could. Then he started praying.

https://gloria.tv/post/1G6qWhZrRcmw4feexGujqhguL

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Innocence, joy, and expectation, remained for Francisco and Jacinta, but for Lucia it did not. Doubt multiplied with every reference by her mother or Father Ferreira to the devil and his sharp connivance. On the eve of the great day, with the pilgrims coming from all sections of the mountainside, her despair had mounted to such proportions that she announced to her cousins her decision not to go to the Cova da Iria on the following day. The children were shocked; they looked betrayed; only their love for their Lady was able to rally them to defiance of Lucia, who had guided all their actions till now.

“We will go anyhow,” Jacinta said. “And if you’re not there to do it, I will speak to the Lady.”

Lucia said softly, “Why are you crying, Jacinta?”

“Why? Why do you think?” Her tears, as big as lemon drops, continued to fall. “Because you won’t come with us, that’s why.”

“I’m afraid to go.”

“But why be afraid? The Lady will expect you, Lucia.”

“I know that she will.”

Lucia had never really doubted that the Lady would be there. The question that held her in terror was not one of presence, but of identity. Who was the Lady? And by whom was she sent?

“If she asks for me, Jacinta, you tell her why I’m not there. Because I am afraid it is the devil who sends her to us!”

She turned from them and raced back to the seclusion of her own darkened room, away from her cousins’ tearful pleas, away from her own mother’s scolding and everlasting questions, away from Father Ferreira’s grim authority, away from the devils who plagued her days, and even invaded her dreams.

But on the next day, suddenly, like some dusty crepe raised from the corpse of hope, Lucia’s doubts were mercifully dissolved. She could not explain it, nor was she especially anxious to trace the source. The important thing was that faith and joy and hope were restored to her. Exactly when it was time to leave for the Cova da Iria, she ran, free of fear, to her cousins’ house.

“I’m coming!” she shouted. “I’m coming with you—wait!”

Olimpia Marto, the mother of Jacinta and Francisco, is today, in her eighties, a happily adjusted lady, free of all imagined care. She is by her very nature a genial assassin of gloom, and we are certain that in 1917 she was rarely, if ever, the victim of foolish fears.

Nonetheless, on this 13th day of July, with her youngest children gone from the house, she confessed her sudden terror. Long before noon the roads and lanes of the serra were crowded with pilgrims. It is likely that never before in her life had she seen an assemblage of so many people in one place. What if, among the thousands, there was one fanatic who might try to hurt her children? What if, among the thousands, there should prove to be, as Father Ferreira’s concern implied, one truly evil one? She ran in a kind of panic to Lucia’s mother.

“We must go after them, do you hear?” she pleaded with Maria Rosa. “We must go now, or perhaps we will never see them again!”

The more excitable, less optimistic Maria Rosa appears for some reason to have ridden this emotional storm with greater calm than her sister-in-law.

“Olimpia,” she said, “if our Lady really appears to them, she will look after them—no? And if not?” Here Maria Rosa shrugged her inability to deal with matters beyond her understanding, but her statement, as it stands, seems to be her first concession that there might, after all, be some truth in Lucia’s story. She decided to go with Olimpia to the Cova. To conceal their identities, they tossed their overskirts over their heads and approached the scene by a back road that was little used. Arriving there, they concealed themselves behind some rocks, each holding in her hand a blessed candle. “Because,” Olimpia has explained, “if we had seen anything evil, we were prepared to light them.”

Ti Marto also made this journey to the Cova da Iria, but in faith rather than fear, and openly, along the road where the press of the traffic was greatest.

This day I left home determined to see what would happen (he has told us). I could not believe the children were telling lies. How many times I had said to my sister-in-law, “Maria Rosa, if people say all this is just the invention of the parents, you and I know it is not true. We have never encouraged them one bit, and even Father Ferreira says it could be the work of the devil!”

But what a crowd of people were there that day. I could not see the children, because there were so many people in the Cova by the tree. I kept getting closer to them, and then I could see two men, one of them from Ramila, and the other from Fatima, trying to make a barrier around the children so they would not be crushed. These men saw me and grabbed my arm and they called to the crowd, “Here is the father, let him through!” And so, down by the oak tree, I got close to my Jacinta. Lucia, I could see a little way off. She was saying the Rosary and the people were responding aloud. When the beads were finished, she jumped up suddenly. “Close your umbrellas,” she called to the people who were using them to shade the strong sunlight. “Our Lady is coming!” She was looking to the east and I was too, but I could not see anything at first. But then I saw what looked like a little greyish cloud resting on the oak tree. The heat of the sun was suddenly less severe. A fine fresh breeze was blowing, and it did not seem like the height of summer. The people were silent, terribly silent, and then I began to hear a sound, a little buzzing sound it was, like a mosquito in a bottle. I could not hear any words, but just this buzzing. I have often thought that talking on the telephone must sound like that, though I have never talked on one. What is this buzzing? I asked myself. Is it near or far away?

This buzzing sound, referred to by Maria da Capelinha on the occasion of the June apparition, and here by Ti Marto in July, and by countless witnesses in the subsequent and more widely attended apparitions, is too well established by responsible testimony, to be shrugged away. Like the little globule, or ball of light, that so many have attested marked the arrivals and departures of God’s living Mother at the small oak tree, it is part of the Fatima story, and part of truth—a gentle inference from heaven, rather than a blow. Exactly why God chooses to draw His pictures dimly for some, and with the-powerful light of creation for others, we do not pretend to know.

But for Lucia and her cousins there was no dimness. Now, above the little tree, the Lady stood. Her beauty taxed their senses. To Jacinta and Francisco, who had never doubted, it was joy renewed. But to Lucia it was more than that. It was a confirmation. It was a homecoming for the heart and spirit. It was everything. It was the Light of God reflected in His Mother. It was knowledge. It was the end of doubt.

“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?”

(The reader will note, and we hope without impatience or fatigue, that there is no cleverness to this story. The dialogue is always much the same. The Lady speaks her message with a sameness that an able stage director would discard. And yet she gives to all the world the one prescription that the world most needs.)

“I want you to come back here on the thirteenth of next month,” the Lady said. “Continue to say the Rosary every day in honour 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,” said Lucia, “yes.” She was braver now. Love had restored her. In her gladness she wished only to repair the damage of her recent distrust. “I would like to ask who you are,” she said to the Lady, “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,” the Lady said, “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, the Lady said, 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.¹⁴ 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,” the Lady said. (The tone here is almost like that of any harried mother importuned unreasonably.) “Tell her I know very well when I shall come to fetch her.” There is unquestioned sternness here, for at Fatima, time and again, our Lady made it unmistakably clear that she was speaking for a just and hideously wounded Christ, whose patience, if not exhausted by the sins of the world, had known such trial that even the Infinite had wearied. The Blessed Mother confided to Lucia and her cousins still another secret.¹⁵ “Make sacrifices for sinners,” she instructed them, “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.”

As she spoke these words (Lucia tells us in her memoirs), the Lady opened her hands, as she had in the preceding months, but instead of the glory and beauty of God that her opened hands had shown us before, we now were able to behold a sea of fire. Plunged in this flame were devils and souls that looked like transparent embers; others were black or bronze, and in human form; these were suspended in flames which seemed to come from the forms themselves there to remain, without weight or equilibrium, amid cries of pain and despair which horrified us so that we trembled with fear. The devils could be distinguished from the damned human souls by the terrifying forms of weird and unknown animals in which they were cast.

Ti Marto, who was witnessing the actions of the children by the little oak tree in the Cova da Iria that day, recalls that Lucia gasped in sudden horror, that her face was white as death, and that all who were there heard her cry in terror to the Virgin Mother, whom she called by name.

The children were looking at their Lady in terror, speechless, and unable to plead for relief from the scene they had witnessed. Sadly, but kindly now, the Lady told them:

“You have seen hell, where the souls of 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.¹⁶ And when you see a night that is lit by a strange and unknown light, 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,” the Lady continued, “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. Remember, you must not tell this to anyone except Francisco.”

The third apparition was over.

“Is there anything more that you want of me?” Lucia had asked the Lady.

“No, my child; there is nothing more for today.”

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/true-story-of-fatima-5915