“Penance, penance, penance,” cried the angel, pointing to the earth with his right hand in the “Third Secret” of Fatima.
This Lenten season is a perfect time to tie repentance into Fatima’s century-old call for penance and sacrifice.
In his book Fatima for Today, Fatima authority Father Andrew Apostoli of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal reveals that Carmelite Sister Lucia, the longest-living Fatima visionary, assured that we learn from Fatima that our penance and sacrifices will turn our hearts toward God, help convert sinners, and make reparation for offenses committed against God.
And there’s papal agreement, too. “The insistent invitation of Mary Most Holy to penance,” St. John Paul II said in his homily at Fatima May 13, 1982, “is nothing but the manifestation of her maternal concern for the fate of the human family, in need of conversion and forgiveness.”
The Thompsons of Hanceville, Alabama — Steven, Maria and their three sons and two daughters, ranging in age from 4 to 13 — are devoted to living out the Fatima message.
As Maria said, “Our Lady of Fatima is guiding our family.”
“For Lent, penance is something we definitely focus on,” she said, adding that Our Lady’s July message “asks [us] to continue to make sacrifices for our sins and for sinners and pray the ‘Sacrifice Prayer’ often. Any child could learn it in a heartbeat.” (Our Lady said, “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 offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’”)
To remind her children, Maria posts the Sacrifice Prayer around the house during Lent and encourages her children to offer up little irritations — for example, when a child stubs a toe, or when “I don’t want to give my little sister the ball right now.”
The bonus is that, with this prayer, “by the end of Lent they will all know it by heart,” she said. The Thompsons reinforce this Lenten lesson though the year with stories of saints who made sacrifices.
This is in keeping with the counsel of the World Apostolate of Fatima, also called the Blue Army, on its website: “Daily offer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the sacrifices demanded by the duties required of your state in life, as well as whatever hardships and difficulties God permits to touch your life, in reparation for your own sins, for the sins of others, and for the conversion of all sinners. In other words, ‘Offer it up.’”
