Fatima Centenary 4: First apparition of Our Lady, May 13 1917

April 29-30: 3rd Sunday of Easter
2017: Fatima Centenary Year

On Sunday May 13 1917, after early Mass, the three children, Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta, took their flock of sheep to the Cova da Iria (‘Cove of Peace’) to graze them, while they themselves ate their lunches and said their prayers. It was a beautiful sunny day. While the children were playing their games, they saw what seemed to be a flash of lightning.  They thought a thunderstorm was brewing so they decided to head home. Hurrying with their flocks, they saw another flash. They had gone a few steps more when before them, on a small holmoak tree, they saw a lady dressed in white. 

Lucia described her: “She was more brilliant than the sun, and radiated light more clear and intense than a  crystal glass filled with sparkling water, when the rays of the burning sun shine through it.”  She    appeared about seventeen, wore a mantle and a tunic that seemed to be made of light. Around her neck was a cord with a little ball of light. There was a star       toward the bottom of her tunic. In her hands were beads of a rosary which shone like stars, with the cru-cifix the most radiant of all.” 

All three children saw the Lady. Only Lucia and Ja-cinta could hear her. Only Lucia spoke to her.
  “Where are you from?
  “I am from heaven.”
   “What do you want of me?”
  “Return on the thirteenth of the month for six months, at the very same hour. Later on I will tell you who I am and what I want. Afterwards I will return here yet a seventh time.”   (She appeared to Lucia on June 16 1921)
Lucia asked about two young women who had  recently died.
  “Is Maria Neves already in heaven?”
  “Yes, she is.”
  “And Amelia?”
   “She will be in purgatory until the end of the world.”
(It was later learned that Amelia died in circumstances involving immoral behaviour.)

 Then the Lady asked: “Are you willing to offer your-selves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?”
The children responded with great enthusiasm:
   “Yes, we are willing.”
   “Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.”
   A light from our Lady enveloped the children and consoled them greatly. Lucia describes:
    “Our Lady opened her hands for the first time, communicating to us a light so intense that, as it streamed from her hands, its rays penetrated our hearts and the innermost depths of our souls, making us see ourselves in God, Who was that light, more clearly than we see ourselves in the best of mirrors. Then, moved by an interior impulse that was also communi-cated to us, we fell on our knees, repeating in our hearts:  ‘O most Holy Trinity, I adore you! My God, my God, I love You in the most Blessed Sacrament!’ Our Lady made another request: “Pray the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world, and the end of the war.”
This request for the daily Rosary for peace was the only request Our Lady repeated in all six apparitions.
From Fr Andrew Apostoli CFR, Fatima for Today: the urgent Marian message of hope ,    (Ignatius Press, San Francisco 2010)

Jesus asks for a Feast of Mercy

April 22-23, 2017
Divine Mercy Sunday

 

 

"I desire that there be a Feast of Mercy. I want this im­age, which you will paint with a brush, to be solemnly blessed on the first Sunday after Easter; that Sunday is to be [known as] the Feast of Mercy. (St Faustina's Diary, 48)

I desire that priests proclaim this great mercy of Mine towards souls of sinners. (Diary, 50)

Tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy.

The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day all the divine floodgates through which grace flow are opened.

 

Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity.

Everything that exists has come forth from the very depths of My most tender mercy. Every soul in its relation to Me will contemplate My love and mercy throughout eter­nity.

The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter." (Diary, 699)

RESURRECTION OF JESUS

Easter Sunday, 15-16 April Sunday of the Resurrection

 

Sir Norman Anderson

Anderson's conclusion, 'after a lifetime of analysing this issue from a legal perspective, was summed up in one sentence': "The empty tomb, then, forms a veritable rock on which all rationalistic theories of the resurrection dash themselves in vain." [J.N. D. Anderson, The Evidence for the Resurrection (Downers Grove, III; Inter Varsity Press, 1966), 20 ("...one of the towering legal intellects of all time, the Cambridge-educated Sir Norman Anderson, who lectured at Princeton University, was offered a professorship for life at Harvard University, and served as dean of the Faculty of Laws at the University of London.' - Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ, 300-301)

William Craig

"The Gospels were written in such temporal and geographical proximity to the events they record that it would have been almost impossible to fabricate events...The fact that the disciples were able to proclaim the resurrection in Jerusalem in the face of their enemies a few weeks after the crucifixion shows that what they proclaimed was true, for they could never have proclaimed the resurrection (and been believed) under such circumstances had it not occurred... If there had been a conspiracy, it would certainly have been unearthed by the disciples' adversaries, who had both the interest and the power to expose any fraud. Common experience shows that such intrigues are inevitably exposed." From his Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection

"WE have two narratives of Hannibal crossing the Alps to attack Rome, and they're incompatible and irreconcilable. yet no classical historian doubts the fact that Hannibal did mount such a campaign. That's non-biblical illustration of discrepancies in secondary details failing to undermine the historical core of a historical story."

(quoted in Strobel, The Case for Christ, 290-291. William Lane Craig, doctorates in philosophy (Uni of Birmingham, England) and theology (University of Munich); visiting scholar at the Higher Institute of Philosophy at the University of Louvain. His books include Reasonable Faith; No Easy Answers; Knowing the Truth about the Resurrection; The Only Wise God; The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe; and (with Quentin Smith) Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology. He is a member of nine professional societies, including the American Academy of Religion and the American Philosophical Association.

N.T. Knight (Bishop of Durham, Oxford NT scholar)

(from 'The Self-Revelation of God in Human History', Appendix B, in A Flew, There is a God, pp206-207)

"The third fascinating feature of the [resurrection] narratives is the place of the women... In the ancient world, Jewish and pagan, women were not credible witnesses in the law court....It's fascinating that in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John we have Mary Magdalene, the other Marys, and the other women. And Mary Magdalene, of all people (we know she had a very chequered career in the past), is chosen as the prime witness: she is there in all four accounts. As historians we are obliged to comment that if these stories had been made up five years later, let alone thirty, forty, or fifty years later, they put Mary there is, from the point of view of Christian apologists wanting to explain to a sceptical audience that Jesus really did rise from the dead, like shooting themselves in the foot. But to us historians this kind of thing I gold dust. The early Christians would never, never have made this up. The stories - of the women finding an empty tomb and then meeting the risen Jesus - must be regarded as solidly historical."

Pascal, Pensees 322, 310.

"The hypothesis that the Apostles were knaves is quite absurd. Follow it out to the end, and imagine these twelve men meeting after Jesus' death and conspiring to say that he had risen from the dead. This means attacking all the powers that be. The human heart is singularly susceptible to fickleness, to change, to promises, to bribery. One of them had only to deny his story under these inducements, or still more because of possible imprisonment, tortures and death, and they would all have been lost. Follow that out."

7 Tips for a good confession, from a saint and spiritual guide (Part 2) St. Francis de Sales

- April 1 & 2, 2017
- April 8 & 9, 2017
Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord.
 

 

 

 4.   .. the saint recommends: "Examine closely what special reason you have for accusing yourself thus, and when you have discovered it, accuse yourself simple and plainly of your fault."

       "For instance, when confessing that you have not loved your neighbour as you ought, it may be that what you mean is, that having seen someone is great want whom you could have succoured, you have failed to do so. Well the, accuse yourself of that special omission: say, 'Having come across a person in need, I did not help him as I might have done,' either through negligence, or harness, or indifference, according as the case may be.

        "So again, do not accuse yourself of not having prayed to God with sufficient devotion; but if you have given way to voluntary distractions, or if you have neglected the proper circumstances of devout prayer - whether place, time, or attitude - say so plainly, just as it is."

 

5. St. Francis de Sales says it is important to get to the root causes of sins: "Do not be satisfied with mentioning the bare fact of your venial sins, but accuse yourself of the motive cause which led to them. For instance, do not be content with saying that you told an untruth which injured no one; but say whether it was out of vanity, in order to win praise or avoid blame, out of heedlessness, or from obstinacy."

 

6. He also notes the importance of giving sufficient context. "Say whether you continued long to commit the fault in question, as the importance of a fault depends greatly upon its continuance: e.g., there is a wide difference between a passing act of vanity which is over in a quarter of an hour, and one which fills the heart for one or more days." It's thus helpful, he says, to mention "the fact, the motive and the duration of  your faults. ..."

"Do not spare yourself in telling whatever is necessary to explain the nature of your fault, as, for instance, the reason why you lost your temper, or why you encouraged another in wrong-doing.

"Thus, someone whom I dislike says a chance word in joke, I take it ill, and put myself in a passion. If one I like had said a stronger thing I should not have taken it amiss; so in confession, I ought to say that I lost my temper with a person, not because of the words spoken so much as because I disliked the speaker; and if in order to explain yourself clearly it is necessary to particularize the words, it is well to do so; because accusing one's self thus simply one discovers not merely one's actual sins, but one's bad habits, inclinations and ways, and the other roots of sin, by which means one's spiritual Father acquires a fuller knowledge of the heart  he is dealing with, and knows better what remedies to apply. ..."

 

7. Finally, St. Francis recommends sticking with the same confessor, when possible: "Do not lightly change your Confessor, but having chosen him, be regular in giving account of your conscience to him at the appointed seasons, telling him your faults simply and frankly, and from time to time--say every month or every two months, show him the general state of your inclinations, although there be nothing wrong in them; as, for instance, whether you are depressed and anxious, or cheerful, desirous of advancement, or money, and the like."

 

The Introduction to the Devout Life was written in the early 17th century for the laity. It can truly be referred to as a "timeless classic," since the book still today offers a guide to beginners in the spiritual life -- and not just beginners, since as with any relationship, our friendship with God requires returning again and again to the basics.