One hundred years ago in Portugal, an angel appeared to three peasant children. He appeared three times in the coming months. Then six months later on May 13, 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared.
She kept her appointment with them on the thirteenth day of the month for the next six months, and in visions gave them prophetic secrets about the future. Then on October 13, 1917 she appeared before them and made the sun spin and dance for tens of thousands of witnesses.
That’s what happened at Fatima…or did it?
The occurrences at Fatima in 1916 and 1917 were certainly astounding. If the shepherd children were to be believed, they really did see and speak with an angel from heaven who prepared the way for them to meet Mary.
Furthermore, every pope from Pius XII (who was consecrated as bishop the same day the visions of Mary began) onward have expressed their belief that the events at Fatima were genuinely supernatural, and that the whole of mankind, as well as Catholics, had best pay attention.
The peasant children—a brother and sister Jacinta and Francisco Marto and their older cousin, Lucia Santos—reported that the Blessed Virgin gave them a terrifying vision of hell. The second message predicted that the great war would end, but that if we did not mend our ways and consecrate Russia to her immaculate heart, a second more terrible war would break out.
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A sign would be given in heaven that would mark the beginning of the second war.
Just twenty one years later an unusual blaze of light radiated across the Northern Hemisphere. It was so bright people in Paris thought the sky was on fire. It was January 1938. A month later Hitler seized Austria, invaded Czechoslovakia, and the next year his troops swept across the Polish border.
The third message was apocalyptic in tone. Kept secret for most of the twentieth century it sparked huge levels of speculation until it was finally revealed in the year 2000 and linked to the assassination attempt on Pope St John Paul II on the sixty fourth anniversary of the visions: May 13, 1981.
As we approach the one hundredth anniversary of the events at Fatima, Catholics who are apocalyptically inclined tend to make connections with other prophecies. They huddle and discuss the famous prophecies of St Malachy pointing out that the “Last Pope” is now on the throne of Peter.
They remember a legend about Pope Leo XIII’s terrible vision in October 13, 1884—thirty three years before the miracle of the sun at Fatima. In this vision the pope overheard a conversation between Satan and Jesus in which Satan requested more power and more time to destroy the church. Jesus granted him more power and one hundred years.
Prophecy watchers connect Pope Leo’s vision with Fatima, count down one hundred years, and predict that something big is going to happen in 2017.
