Fatima: August 13.

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
August 26-27:  21st Sunday in Ordinary Time.

An unusual, unprecedented type of apparition 

The fourth apparition apparition of Our Lady in Fatima, Portugal, on August 13, 1917, is less well known than those of July 13th and October 13th. Yet it deserves to be, for it is completely atypical and unique in the history of apparitions.  First, because of the vast number of witnesses. Already, on July 13th, the number had reached an exceptional figure of about 5,000 people. On the 13th of August, there were 18 to 20,000 people in attendance—an astounding figure. In com-parison, the affluence in Lourdes peaked at only about 8,000, on March 4, 1858. 

But what sets this apparition apart is that it took place without the seers. This had never happened in the history of  recorded apparitions. On that day the young seers were   absent, for they were locked up in a jail by the civil authorities! Yet the thousands of people present witnessed all the external signs seen in the previous apparitions: the flash of lightning, accompanied by two formidable claps of thunder, then the apparition of a small cloud on the green oak with a noticeable change in the natural light around. 

These external signs seen by thousands of people without the presence of the seers is a unique event.

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” St. Augustine said: “Bad times! Troublesome times! This is what people are saying. Let our lives be good, and the times will be good. We make our times. Such as we are, such are the times.”
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2017: Fatima Centenary Year
August 19-20:  20th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

 

“A friend of mine was a student in France in 1967-68 at the Catholic University of the West. And one day her class visited a chateau in the Loire Valley. The teacher took them into a room with an enormous stretch of hanging fabric, many yards across from one wall to the other. And on the fabric were hundreds of ugly knots and tangles of stray thread in a chaos of confused shapes that made very little sense. And the teacher said, “This is what the artist saw as he worked.”
 

Then she led my friend and her class around to the front of the fabric. And what they saw is the great Tapestry of the Apocalypse of St. John, the story of the Book of Revelation in 90 immense panels. Created between 1377 and 1382, it’s one of the most stunning and beautiful expressions of medieval civilization, and among the greatest artistic achievements of the European heritage.
 

Here’s the point. We don’t see the full effects of the good we do in this life. So much of what we do seems a tangle of frustrations and failures. We don’t see — on this side of the tapestry — the pattern of meaning that our faith weaves. But one day we’ll stand on the other side. And on that day, we’ll see the beauty that God has allowed us to add to the great story of his creation, the revelation of his love that goes from age to age no matter how good or bad the times. And this is why our lives matter

 

So have faith. Trust in the Lord. And believe in his love.”

 

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. July 27, 2017

 

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St. Augustine said: “Bad times! Troublesome times! This is what people are saying. Let our lives be good, and the times will be good. We make our times. Such as we are, such are the times.”

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August 9: Feast of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein:

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
August 12-13:  19th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Polish-born Jewess Edith Stein, one of the Twentieth Century’s leading philosophers, embraced the Catholic faith in 1931. Because of her Jewish origin, she was interned by the Nazi regime in Auschwitz concentration camp, and martyred on August 9, 1942.  Her biographer, Freda Mary Oben , writes:

“I have always felt deeply the pain of the human condition; before my conversion [Oben converted from Judaism to Catholicism in 1960; and learned German to read Stein in the original], however, I did not know how to confront it. Through Stein’s life and her writings, I recognize the unique redemptive role of woman. Stein believes that God combats evil through the power of woman’s maternal love. That power exists independently of woman’s marital status and should be extended to all persons with whom she comes in contact. Everywhere, there is a need for such love, and it is essential to woman’s nature that she give it. Just as the Mother of Christ appeared publicly at the crucifixion, so, too, a woman must be involved today in the struggle between good and evil.”       

Edith Stein, in a lecture in Zurich, 1932,  “Challenges Facing Swiss Catholic Academic Women”:
“Academics and Public Life:  I have reached the core of a burning question, one on which Swiss academics differ. I do not want to impose my opinion here. Permit me only to pose a question and cite a quotation.
  

Question: Are we familiar with the work of the adversary? In the mine fields of today’s society, can we justify looking back-wards continuously while our adversary wages war against our views?

 

A quotation: A prince of the Church can answer this question better than I can. In Cardinal Faulhaber’s commentary on the vesper psalms, he explains the middle verse of the “Magnificat.” He writes:
       

‘Who still dares to say that politics has nothing to do with religion and that souls directed towards God, especially women, should stay far from public life?  If the quiet virgin of Nazareth, her soul resting completely in God her saviour,   could be concerned with the happenings on the world scene (middle verse of the Magnificat), then religious people, including women of course, dare not indifferent as to whether the arm of God is seen in world events. They must not be unconcerned as to whether the God-willed spiritual, political, and economic order is established. Nor may they be unconcerned when dogmatic intellectuals confuse people with their knowledge when political leaders strike out God’s  name from public life, or when capitalistic exploiters are upsetting the economic order…’  

The example of Mary is relevant here. She is the ideal type of woman who knew how to unite tenderness with power. She stood under the cross. She had previously concerned herself about the human condition, observed it, understood it! In her son’s tragic hour she appeared publicly. Perhaps the moment has almost come for the Catholic women also to stand with Mary and with the Church under the cross! ”

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St. Augustine said: “Bad times! Troublesome times! This is what people are saying. Let our lives be good, and the times will be good. We make our times. Such as we are, such are the times.”

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Mother Teresa of Kolkata and Pope John Paul II

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
August 5-6:  Transfiguration of the Lord

Mother Teresa of Kolkata: 
“Perpetual adoration with exposition needs a great push. .. People ask me: ‘What will convert America and save the world?’ My answer is prayer. What we need is for every parish to come before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Hours of prayer.”

Pope John Paul II:

“The worship of the Eucharist outside of the Mass is of inestimable value for the life of the Church... It is pleasant to spend time with him, to lie close to his breast like the Beloved Disciple ...and to feel the  infinite love present in his heart...St Alphonsus wrote: “Of all devotions, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the greatest after the sacraments, the  one dearest to God and the one most helpful to us.”