“I am convinced that the principal cause of evil in the world, and the falling away of so many consecrated souls, is lack of union with God in prayer.” (Sister Lucia of Fatima)
The following is a letter from Sister Lucia to her nephew. There is important spiritual guidance for us, for this particular time.
Dear Father Valinho,
I see from your letter that you are worried about the turmoil and the disorientation of our times. It is indeed sad that so many are allowing themselves to be dominated by the diabolical wave that is sweeping the world, and they are so blind that they cannot see their error.
But their principal error is that they have abandoned prayer. Thus, they turn away from God, and without God everything is lacking to them. For, “without Me you can do nothing.” What I recommend to you above all is that you draw close to the Tabernacle and pray. In fervent prayer you will receive the light, strength and grace that you need to sustain you, and to share with others.
Guide those under your care with humility, with gentleness and at the same time with firmness, because superiors above all have the duty to maintain the truth in its proper place, always with serenity, with justice and charity. For this reason they need to pray more and more, to keep close to God and to tell Him about all their affairs and all their problems before they discuss them with human beings.
Follow this road and you will see that in prayer you will find more knowledge, more light, more strength, more grace and virtue than you could ever achieve by reading many books, or by great studies. Never consider as wasted the time you spend in prayer. You will discover that in prayer God communicates to you the light, strength and grace you need to do all He expects of you.
The only important thing for us is to do the will of God: to be where He wants us to be, and to do all He wants of us, but always with humility, knowing that of ourselves we are nothing and that it is God who works in us and through us, to accomplish His work. Therefore, we all need to intensify our life of intimate union with God, and this we can attain only through prayer.
It is in prayer that the soul encounters direct contact with God, who is our strength and the end, the source of all good. Let time be lacking for everything else, but never for prayer, and you will experience the fact that, after prayer, you can accomplish a lot in a short period of time.
All of us, but especially the superior without prayer, or [the one] who habitually sacrifices prayer for material things, is like a hollow, split reed that serves only to beat the whites of eggs into castles of foam, which, without sugar to sustain them, soon dissolve and become as polluted water.For this reason, Jesus Christ said, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt loses its strength, it is good for nothing but to be thrown out.”
We can receive our strength from God alone. We must draw close to Him for Him to communicate it to us. We can only realize this closeness through prayer because it is in prayer that the soul encounters direct contact with God.
I would like you to pass on these recommendations to your religious brothers. Let them experiment with them; then you can tell me if I was wrong.
I am convinced that the principal cause of evil in the world, and the falling away of so many consecrated souls, is lack of union with God in prayer.
The devil is very smart and watches for our weak points so that he can attack us. If we are not careful and attentive in obtaining the strength from God, we will fall, because our times are very bad and we are weak.
Only God’s strength can sustain us. See that you take everything with calmness and with great confidence in God. He will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He will supply for our insufficiencies.
Sister Lucia dos Santos, I.C.D..
† . † . †
I’ve been a bit critical of what appears to be hypocrisy among some Catholic bloggers and journalists. This is because it seems that few of them see the importance, urgency of helping you prepare your soul for the severe trials you will be facing. Our Lady of the Rosary, the Immaculata, came to help us abide in her Son’s love, which is the only way we will survive the darkness to come.
How do we abide in His love? Not by allowing ourselves to be diverted by all the useless froth stirred up as Sister Lucia points out so well in her letter above. But by drawing close to God in prayer. Our devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary must become the driving force of our lives, the gauge by which we determine the value of all our actions. These times are dangerous to our faith, and very, very uncertain. We must make it a priority to get our souls as fortified with grace and as bonded with the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts as possible.
If we lose the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Penance – and make no mistake, that is the ultimate goal of Pope Francis! – if we lose these precious channels of grace, there will be an instantaneous ebbing of grace from the world which will give satan and his minions a huge boost. Our society no longer understands the gravity of mortal sin or the massive power of satan in the absence of grace, but a world stripped of the grace of the Mass will be a terrifying place.
Editor’s Note: Written in 2017; it is much clearer now.
I realize that Return to Fatima is not light-hearted entertainment. And I am frankly critical of those who want to endlessly discuss the precise meaning of the “Bishop in white” and so on. I believe it would be unconscionable of me to let this site degenerate into discussions of what this or that obscure revelation means towards the fulfillment of the Fatima prophecy about exactly when and how the chastisement will occur. In fact, it is occurring now.
You must make ready the way of the Lord in your own heart. Repentance, true and thorough repentance is essential. And it is not at all essential to your spiritual survival that you know what Julie Jahenny thought or whether or not Akita is part of Fatima’s message. It is not necessary to agonize over these things; and the bloggers who insist on ever. more false “revelations” are dangerously misleading their readers.
We need to focus on the necessities and give thanks to Our Lord and Our Blessed Mother for always providing so generously for our real needs. They love us, and will get us through this, but only if we we rely on them and not on our own ability to provide for our needs by watching you-tube videos and interminable discussions online.
Most of all, we all need to cultivate the childlike humility, purity, and obedience we once had, but have sadly lost. This is because of our hardness of heart. The world has made us sarcastic and cynical. How can this be counteracted? How can we regain our childlike love of God?
Through Our Lady’s Rosary. That is what it is for. We grow in love as we pray it, with love for her, and asking her to teach us to love her Divine Son, our Savior as she does.
It is that simple. Really! Every one of you who reads this understands that a relationship that is neglected eventually withers away. This world is thoroughly occupied by the ancient enemy of Christ our Lord. And he never misses an opportunity to leverage it against us, attempting to crowd out God’s loving message of salvation, which is contained in Our Lady’s message at Fatima, especially Eucharistic Adoration (while it can still be found!) and her Holy Rosary.
In the letter above, Sister Lucia recommended Eucharistic adoration to her nephew. Many of us today no longer have the ability to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. I hope that those who are still able to do this will pray for those of us who do not!
And all of us have our Rosaries, so let us take these weapons in hand and pray, pray most of all, as Our Lady of the Rosary told us 100 years ago, (written in 2017) for the conversion of poor sinners, especially for the Pope, the hierarchy and for all those who tragically have lost the ability to repent. This loss is spreading rapidly. Please, pray for sinners!
NOTE: The sources for this letter are two: Frere Michel’s Third Volume of The Whole Truth About Fatima, in which he gives the date for this letter as, April 13, 1971 ; and Monsignor Cirrincione’s little gem of a book, “Fatima’s Message for Our Times” in which Msgr. only mentions the date of the letter as 1971.
Remember – Our Lady needs us to obey: First Saturdays of Reparation, daily rosary, at least 5 mysteries, wear her brown scapular and live your Total Consecration to her Immaculate Heart, offering our daily duties in reparation and for the conversion of poor sinners.
Open your hearts to the Lord and serve Him only: and He will free you from the hands of your enemies. With all your heart return to Him, and take away from your midst any strange gods” (I Kings 7:3)
✝︎ Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of our hearts, Mother of the Church, do thou offer to the Eternal Father the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the conversion of poor sinners, especially our Pontiff.
✝︎ Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy kingdom come! Viva Cristo Rey!
✝︎ St. Joseph, protect us, protect our families, protect our priests.
✝︎ St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
~ by evensong for love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, King.
Vouchsafe that I may praise thee, O Sacred Virgin! Give me strength against thine enemies!
