About Fatima and the Pope (as we refer to the vision of Jacinta about the Pope and the 3rd Secret). In the last circular letter Fr. Gobbi spoke already about the need to be united to the Holy Father and to pray for him.
 

About the promise that Mary said at Fatima: “at the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” Almost every message ends with this announcement. Fr. Gobbi spoke many times about this in the past years.
 

So many times I have experienced this presence of the Blessed Mother even by just reading one of Her Messages. I remember that not long ago, for some days, I was very sad and preoccupied for many problems that were piling up as an unbearable weight. One morning, during my time of prayer, I opened our Book at random thinking: who knows what Our Mother thinks about these problems. Her Book was opened on the theme-page of the year 1980:

Your Victorious Mother.

At that moment all the weight disappeared, because I knew that the Blessed Mother was aware of my problem. I did not feel all alone any more. I was confident, because our Victorious Mother was at my side.
 

These words should convince us to work day and night to be able to fulfill one of the commitments of the MMP: We promise to lead the faithful entrusted to our care to a renewed devotion to you.

The Blessed Mother told Fr. Gobbi: "At this present time, Jesus is greatly saddened, even angered at seeing how numerous those priests are who have turned away from me in their hearts, who have forgotten me in their lives, who have blotted me out in the souls of so many of the faithful... I will again have to go about searching out from among priests those who are faithful, those who listen to me, those who love me. Through them I will again shine more resplendently in the Church…The Mother has, from Jesus the power to bring back home the children who have gone astray." (1/8/73.)

"I want every priest of my Movement and every priest who has consecrated himself to me to pray, suffer and work in order to bring me back once again into the midst of my faithful." (1/11/73.)
This is the work which I am carrying out in the Church through you… No external interference will ever be able to harm this work of mine which I am jealously bringing to birth for the salvation of my church. 27/5/74.

I quote from Sr. Lucy’s writings: It must have been in 1914 or 1915… One day, as we were on the slope of the hill known as the Cabeco, we saw something like a white cloud in the shape of a human being, which had come down from the sky and was passing slowly in front of us, above the trees that stretched down to the valley at our feet, as if wishing to attract our attention and keep our eyes fixed on it… This apparition happened several times in different places…. I do not know what it was nor what it meant. But I was left with an interior conviction… that it was the Guardian Angel. Perhaps, in that form and without speaking, he wished to make his presence felt and so prepare our souls for the accomplishment of God’s design.

We know the rest of the story about the 3 apparitions of the Angel in 1916, as we will describe later in this meditation on the subject of prayer. If God wanted to introduce the apparitions of Fatima with the presence of the Angels, we must conclude that the many Messages about the Angels that we find in our Book must be of great importance. I strongly suggest finding them on Sept. 29 and Oct. 2nd of several years. For example, the Message of Sep. 29- 87, says: I bid you to live always in intimacy and familiarity with your guardian Angel. Call upon them in necessities; invoke them in dangers; associate them in your work; confide to them your difficulties; seek them in moments of temptation. They now must form one single entity with you.

Sr. Lucy said that right on the first apparition, the Angel told the 3 Children: "Pray with me. Kneeling on the ground, he bowed down until his forehead touched the earth. Led by a supernatural impulse, we did the same and repeated the words which we heard him say: “My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love you! I ask pardon of you for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love you!” Having repeated these words three times, he rose and said: “Pray thus. The hearts of Jesus and Mary are attentive to the voice of your supplications.” At the second apparition the Angel said: “What are you doing?” he asked. “Pray! Pray very much! The Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy on you.” At the end of every apparition the Virgin Mary will say: I want that you recite the Holy Rosary every day."

In the message of June 12 – 78 the Blessed Mother said: "Now that you are living through those events I have foretold you, what must you do, my poor children, to run for shelter. First of all, have recourse to prayer. Pray more; pray with greater confidence; pray with humility and absolute self-abandonment. Especially, recite the holy rosary every day."

At Fatima the Angel also said: "the Hearts of Jesus and Mary are very attentive to the voice of your supplication." We should repeat very often these reassuring words to the faithful, especially when we begin our Cenacles. Thus the awareness of the presence of Jesus and Mary, when we pray, will grow ever more and more. Our prayer will in fact always bring forth the fruits wanted by God.

Our Blessed Mother said: "By your prayer, you prevent error from becoming even more widespread; you hold in check the action of the Evil One, you move to the counter-attack, and you limit, more and more, his capacity to act. And in the end, through your prayer, you are able to gain the victory: it will be God alone who will conquer, through you." (12/6/78) This message tells us how it is more important to carry forward the small light of our prayer, than to “curse the darkness”. Part of the same request for prayer are hundreds of messages where Our Blessed Mother insists that we should multiply Cenacles with Priests, Families, Children, young people and all the faithful.

Faith, Hope and Charity: the first message of Fatima

My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love thee. This is the first prayer and therefore the first teaching given to us at the apparitions of Fatima. It is very interesting that also the Encyclicals of Benedict XVI are about the Theological Virtues.

Our Catechism says: "The theological virtues have God himself as their origin, motive and direct object. Infused with sanctifying grace, they bestow on one the capacity to live in relationship with the Trinity. They are the foundation and the energizing force of the Christian moral activity…"

On June 3rd – ’89 the Blessed Mother said: "The grace of the redemption is communicated by means of the seven sacraments. With grace there becomes implanted in the soul the seeds of supernatural life which are the virtues. Among these, the most important are the three theological and the four cardinal virtues: faith, hope, charity, prudence, fortitude, justice and temperance."

The Angel doesn’t give a difficult lecture to the 3 children of Fatima. He invites them to prostrate themselves at the beginning of their prayer. In other words he teaches them that when you pray, you are always in the presence of God, and as we are before Him, we should prostrate ourselves –at least in our heart- as poor creatures. Moreover, he helps them to understand about the absolute necessity of the theological virtues by including them in their first prayer. Their practice will come later, during the rest of the apparitions. Then they said: "I ask your forgiveness for those who do not believe," etc. In this second part of the prayer, already the Angel invites them to begin their role as intercessors, as later, the Blessed Mother will teach them in a more exhaustive way. Later we will talk more about this.

Benedict XVI in his Encyclical on Hope, says: It was commonly thought that monasteries were places of flight from the world and of withdrawal from responsibility for the world, in search for private salvation. Bernard of Clairvaux, who inspired a multitude of young people to enter the monasteries of his reformed order, had quite a different perspective on this. In his view, monks perform a task for the whole Church and hence also for the world. He uses many images to illustrate the responsibility that monks have towards the entire body of the Church, and indeed towards humanity,
He applies to them the words of pseudo-Rufinus: The human race lives thanks to a few; were it not for them, the world would perish…(#15).

In the MMP, the Blessed Mother teaches us also to become one of the few. On May 14/89, She said: "For this I have formed for myself the army of my littlest children, in every part of the world, and I am asking of them that they consecrate themselves to my Immaculate Heart. thus I am leading them to live only for the glory of God, by means of fait and charity, and I myself am jealously cultivating them in my heavenly garden. Then each day I present myself before the throne of my Lord in an act of profound adoration; I open the golden door of my Immaculate Heart; and I offer in my arms all these little children of mine, as I say: ‘Most Holy and Divine Trinity, at the moment when You are being universally denied, I present to You the homage of my motherly reparation, by means of all these little ones of mine whom I am forming each day to your greater glorification. Thus again today, from the mouths of infants and sucklings the Lord receives his perfect praise." We should all be conscious of this role to which Our Mother is calling us.
 

Sacrifices and sufferings offered

Sr. Lucy wrote that during His second apparition the Angel said: “Offer prayers and sacrifices constantly to the Most High.” How are we to make sacrifices? I asked. “Make of everything you can a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission, the suffering which the Lord will send you”. And she continues: "It was for this reason that we began, from then on, to offer to the Lord all that mortified us, without, however seeking out other forms of mortification and penance, except that we remained for hours on end with our foreheads touching the ground, repeating the prayer the Angel had taught us."

During the apparition of May 13, the Blessed Mother asked: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which His is offended, and of supplications for the conversion of sinners?” –Yes, we are willing.” “Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.”

In very many Messages that we have in the MMP Our Mother repeats the same request. I am going to quote only the one of June 12/78: "Offer up the holocaust of your suffering. The hours through which you are living are truly difficult and painful. Yet through this holocaust, you are able to save those who are seeking your ruin, and you are able to do well to those who are, for you, a scourge."

Fr. Gobbi received this message in Hong Kong. Our Blessed Mother was talking to all her children in China. In those years they were suffering prison and torture. We all know that this is going on even now. I am sure that it is much easier for us to offer to God what we do not like.
 

One of the most repeated themes of Fatima is to pray and to make sacrifices for sinners. On July 13 the Blessed Mother said: "Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially whenever you make some sacrifice: “O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” At this point She showed them Hell, and said: "You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. When you recite the Holy Rosary, after each mystery say: “O My Jesus forgive us our sins…”

Sr. Lucy wrote this account on Blessed Jacinta: It was a lovely day, but the sun was blazing, and in that arid, stony wasteland, it seemed as though it would burn up. We were parched with thirst, and there wasn’t a single drop of water for us to drink! At first, we offered the sacrifice generously for the conversion of sinners, but after midday, we could hold out no longer. As there was a house quite near, I suggested to my companions that I should go and ask for a little water.

They agreed to this, so I went and knocked on the door. A little old woman gave me not only a pitcher of water, but also some bread, which I accepted gratefully . I ran to share it with my little companions, and then offered the pitcher to Francisco, and told him to take a drink.
     - I don’t want to. He replied
     - Why?
     - I want to suffer for the conversion of sinners
     - You have a drink, Jacinta
     - But I want to offer this sacrifice for sinners too.
Then I poured the water into a hollow in the rock, so that the sheep could drink it, and went to return the pitcher to its owner. The heat was getting more and more intense. The shrill singing of the crickets and grasshoppers coupled with the croaking of the frogs in the neighboring pond made an uproar that was almost unbearable.

Jacinta, frail as she was, and weakened still more by the lack of food and drink, said to me with that simplicity which was natural to her:
     - Tell the crickets and the frogs to keep quiet! I have such a terrible headache.
     - Then Francisco asked her
     - Don’t you want to suffer this for sinners?
     - The poor child, clasping her head between her two little hands replied:
     - Yes I do. Let them sing!

We have this repeated on the Message of Dec.31/96: "Make reparation for my poor sinful children. I ask of you that which I asked of the three children to whom I appeared at Fatima. Do you wish to offer your life in a spirit of prayer and reparation for the salvation of all sinners, especially those who have most need of divine mercy? So form, with me, a great network of love and salvation, spread out over the whole world."
 

On May 13/76, Our Mother said: "Today, my beloved sons, recall my coming down upon this earth, in the poor Cova da Iria in Fatima. I came from Heaven to ask you for the consecration to my Immaculate Heart…This is then the hour to have recourse to great remedy that the Father offers you to resist the seductions of the Evil One and to oppose the real apostasy… To everyone who consecrates himself to me I again promise salvation; safety from the error in this world and eternal salvation…and through you priests many of my children will make this consecration."

The three children could not understand the word Consecration, that Our Blessed Mother mentioned when She spoke about Russia. However she asked them to fulfill all the commitments that are included in the act of Consecration: devotion to Her Immaculate Heart; the offering to God of all the sufferings that He was going to allow in their lives, the many voluntary sacrifices and prayers to console the Sacred Hearts and for the salvation of sinners; to pray especially for the Pope and for the Church; to keep far from sin, and to spread all over the world the devotion to Her Immaculate Heart.

We know quite well that everything we promise in the Act of consecration, is part of our normal duties towards God and the Church. In fact this is why the Blessed Mother founded the MMP: She new that we were going to face an almost universal Apostasy even within the Catholic Church. In fact at Fatima She predicted that most of the Catholic countries were going to loose their true faith. We should truly thank God, who through the Messages of the MMP and the Cenacles the Blessed Mother has helped us to remain in the true faith. To this regard we have many messages. I quote only one:
"With my Marian Movement of Priests, I am today inviting all the children of the Church to gather together in a continuous cenacle of prayer with me, your heavenly Mother. I am inviting all bishops, the priests, the religious and the faithful. My Immaculate Heart is the place of this new, spiritual and universal cenacle. You must enter into it through your act of consecration, which commits you to me forever, so that I may unite my voice to yours in calling down upon the Church and upon all humanity the gift of a second Pentecost. Only the Spirit of the Lord can renew the Church with the splendour of its unity and its sanctity. Only the Spirit of the Lord can overcome the power and the victorious force of the huge Red Dragon, which, in this century of yours, has broken loose everywhere, in a formidable way to seduce and ensnare all humanity."
 

Necessity of reparation and the first Saturdays

On December 10th, 1925, the Most Holy Virgin appeared to Sr. Lucy. Now I quote Sr. Lucy: By the Blessed Virgin’s side…elevated on a luminous cloud, there was a child. The Most Holy Virgin rested her hand on her shoulder, and as she did so, she showed her a heart encircled by thorns, which she was holding in her other hand. At the same time, the Child said: “Have compassion on the Heart of your most holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.” Then the Most Holy Virgin said: “Look, my daughter, at my Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”

In the MMP we have the same message given to us so many times. I wish to quote the one given on April 2/88:
"I came from heaven to ask you to offer me the five first Saturdays of the month, I asked this of my daughter, Sister Lucia, when she was in the convent of Pontevedra, on the 10th of December, 1925. I asked that this day be spent in a spirit of reparation for the offences which are directed at your heavenly Mother. For this reason I am asking you to offer it to me, with the recitation of holy rosary, with the meditation upon its mysteries, with sacramental Confession, (Sister Lucia added that we may go to confession another day but that we must be in the state of grace) and a Communion of reparation, and with the renewal of your act of consecration to my Immaculate Heart. In this way you can make reparation for the offences which are directed at me and which cause my Heart to suffer so much. If you do what I ask of you, devotion to me will spread more and more, and then I will be able to exercise the great power which the Most Holy Trinity has granted to me."

In all the apparitions (for Ex. La Salette, Lourdes, Fatima), the Blessed Mother repeats the request to make reparation for the sins committed against God. We have already quoted Sr. Lucy about how seriously the 3 children accepted this request from Mary. They became true martyrs with the sacrifices and prayers they offered day and night to God, to console Him and to save sinners. I would like to quote another page from her Diary: Francisco was a boy of few words. Whenever he prayed or offered sacrifices, he preferred to go apart and hide, even from Jacinta and myself, Quite often, we surprised him hidden behind a wall or a clump of blackberry bushes, whither he had ingeniously slipped away to kneel and pray, or “think”, as he said, “of Our Lord, Who is sad on account of so many sins.”

     - If I asked him: “Francesco, why don’t you tell me to pray with you. And Jacinta too”
     - I prefer praying by myself,” he answered, so that I can think and console Our Lord, Who is so sad!”
     - I asked him one day:
     - Francisco, which do you like better – to console Our Lord, or to convert sinners, so that no more souls will go to hell?
     - I would rather console Our Lord. Didn’t you notice how sad Our Lady was that last month, when she said that people must not offend Our Lord any more, for He is already much offended? I would like to console our Lord, and after that convert sinners so that they won’t offend Him any more.

In the MMP, Our Mother says: My sons, be the perfect consolers of my Son Jesus. Never as at the present time has his Divine lament been so often repeated: “I looked for comforters, and I found none.” Therefore, I want you all consecrated to my Heart to make you all into perfect consolers of the Heart of my Son Jesus.

Let them, (my Priests) be solely and always concerned about the salvation of so many of my children who, more and more each day, are being lost and falling into the hands of Satan. Do they not feel my great motherly sorrow which is growing ever greater? Let them live solely with me, to console the Heart of my Son Jesus. Jesus, at this time must be consoled. Let it be my priests who will be the consolers of his Most Sacred Heart!

The role of the Eucharistic Adoration and Holy Mass in the Messages

The Messages “To the Priests, Our Lady’s beloved sons” have played a decisive role in my priestly life and of course in my consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These Messages helped me to discover the necessity to give as much time as possible to the Eucharistic Adoration, first in my prayer life, and consequently in the life of the Parish. Actually the words of Our Blessed Mother were truly instrumental in beginning Perpetual Adoration at St. Pascal Parish in Toronto, and a weekly day of Adoration in other smaller Parishes. After the Cenacles that I have conducted in all of the USA and Canada, many Parishes started Perpetual Adoration. Many contact persons of the different Cenacles let me know about it with an expression of real triumph. Already in 1973 Our Lady was telling us: "They must let themselves be led by me, like little children. They must begin again to pray more, to love Jesus more, too adore Him more in the mystery of the Eucharist, so that He becomes the sun which illuminates their whole life." (1/9/73). Only later on, and only little by little by little did I start to understand the messages that were teaching us to become one with the Sacrifice of Jesus at Holy Mass, which we celebrate every day. On Nov. 28, 1979 Our Mother said: "Precious is your life of prayer: the Liturgy of the Hours, meditation, the holy rosary, but above all the lived-out celebration of Mass which truly renews the Sacrifice of the Cross. Oh, what weight Holy Mass has to compensate for, and to destroy, the evil which is daily brought about by so many sins and by such a widespread rejection of God!"

St Padre Pio said that the day we will eliminate Holy Mass, the world will be destroyed in an instant. Further, we learn from the Blessed Mother about the necessity of becoming one with the Eucharistic Victim. Especially in the Messages given on Feb.2nd, She speaks often about this: "In the spiritual temple of my Immaculate Heart, I have already prepared for you the altar, upon which you too will be immolated for the salvation of the world." (2/2/96).

On the last ten years the church has given us great teachings about the mystery of the Eucharist: the Encyclical on the Eucharist, the letter of John Paul II “Mane nobiscum Domine”, and the Documents before and after the Synod on the Eucharist.

The Message of Fatima is a Eucharistic Message

The Message of Fatima is, first of all, a Eucharistic Message. In fact, it was through the Eucharist that the Angel prepared the Children for the apparition of Our Lady. This is how Sr. Lucy describes the third apparition of the Angel: "While we were there, the Angel appeared to us for the third time, holding a chalice in his hands, with a host above it from which some drops of blood were falling into the sacred vessel. Leaving the chalice and the host suspended in the air, the Angel prostrated on the ground and repeated this prayer three times: “Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore You profoundly, and I offer You the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference with which He Himself is offended. And, through the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of You the conversion of poor sinners. Then, rising, he once more took the chalice and the host in his hands. He gave the host to me and to Jacinta, and to Francesco he gave the contents of the chalice to drink, saying as he did so:
“Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Repair their crimes and console your God.” Once again, he prostrated on the ground and repeated with us three times more, the same prayer “Most Holy Trinity…”, and then disappeared."

In this Apparition, with the words, the gestures of the Angel and, above all, with the prayer that he taught the children, we find a summary of all the spirituality of Eucharistic Adoration and of how to celebrate and assist at the Sacrifice of Holy Mass. This is exactly what the Blessed Mother has been teaching us in Her Messages. We quote just one:
"These times were foretold by me at Fatima, through the voice of the Angel who appeared to the children to whom he taught this prayer: “Most Holy Trinity…” This prayer was taught for these times of yours. Jesus is surrounded today by an emptiness, which has been brought about especially by you priests, who, in your apostolic activity, often go about uselessly and very much on the periphery, going after things which are less important and more secondary, and forgetting that the center of your priestly day should be here, before the tabernacle, where Jesus is present and is kept especially for you.

Sister Lucy says this about little Francesco: "Sometimes on our way to school, as soon as we reached Fatima, he would say to me:-“Listen! You go to school, and I’ll stay here in the church, close to the Hidden Jesus. It’s not worth my while learning to read, as I’ll be going to heaven very soon. On your way home, come here and call me.” Francesco went between the baptismal font and the altar and that was where I found him on my return. Later, when he fell ill, he often told me, when I called in to see him on my way school: “Look! Go to the church and give my love to the Hidden Jesus. What hurts me most is that I cannot go there myself and stay awhile with the Hidden Jesus.” After his first Holy Communion he will tell Lucy: Today I am happier than you are, because I have the Hidden Jesus in my heart."

Also the first Apparition of May 13th gives a great emphasis to the Eucharist, both, for Adoration to the Blessed Sacrament and of immolation together with the Eucharistic Victim. To the question of Our Lady: "Are you willing to offer yourselves 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 answered: Yes, we are willing."

Our Lady continued: "Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort."
At this point the three children experienced the illumination. In other words, the Blessed Mother wrapped them with the light in which they saw themselves as God sees them. (we will say more about this illumination later in this talk).
Sr. Lucy tells us what happened at this same moment: "Then moved by an interior impulse that was also communicated 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!”

I find that this apparition is very, very interesting. The three children had just offered themselves as victims to God, to atone for sins and to save sinners. In this way they fulfill -as St. Paul puts it- what is lacking in the passion of Our Lord. And further, we know that Our Lord perpetuates his offering to the Father in the Sacrifice of Holy Mass. Fatima, therefore, calls each one of us to become a “living Eucharist”.

Eucharist and Trinitarian prayer

The three children, when immersed in the Divine world, through the teaching of the Angel and later of the Blessed Virgin, discover that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But finding themselves still on this earth, they can see, in this Divine illumination, what we do not see when we enter the church: with the Eucharistic Jesus, they learn to feel also the presence of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The two prayers that we have already quoted confirm all this: “O Most Holy Trinity…I offer you...” And: “O Most Holy Trinity…I adore you present in the Most Holy Sacrament.” The children ask pardon to all three Persons of the Blessed Trinity for the sins committed against the Eucharist. We have a beautiful confirmation of all this in the Message of Aug.8-’86: "You know, beloved sons, that wherever the Son is, there too the Father and the Holy Spirit are always present. Just as, in the glory of heaven, Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, in intimate union with the Holy Spirit, so also when, at your bidding, He becomes present in the Eucharist and is placed in the safekeeping of the tabernacle, surrounded by my motherly Heart, close to the Son there is always the real presence of the Father and the real presence of the Holy Spirit; there is always present the Divine and Most Holy Trinity."

In 1929 Sr. Lucy had a vision, after which she said: “I understood that the mystery of the Most Blessed Trinity was shown to me.” I quote from her Notes: "Suddenly the whole chapel was illumined by a supernatural light, and above the altar appeared a cross of light, reaching to the ceiling. In a brighter light on the upper part of the cross, could be seen the face of a man and his body as far as the waist, upon his breast was a dove also of light and nailed to the cross was the body of another man. A little below the waist, I could see a chalice and a large host suspended in the air, on to which drops of blood were falling from the face of Jesus Crucified and from the wound in His side. These drops ran down on the host and fell into the chalice. Beneath the right arm of the cross was Our Lady and in her hand was her Immaculate Heart. (It was Our Lady of Fatima, with her Immaculate Heart in her left hand, without sword or roses, but with a crown of thorns and flames). Under the left arm of the cross, large letters, as if of crystal clear water which ran down upon the altar, formed these words: “Grace and Mercy.” I understood that it was the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity."

We who belong to the MMP are as fortunate as the children of Fatima. The Blessed Mother speaks to us as well, as she guides us to the Blessed Trinity: "My word is therefore like a drop of dew which I cause to fall from my Immaculate Heart into your hearts, that they may be able to open up to the warmth of the new life which I am cultivating within you, to offer you as fragrant flowers, now finally opened, to the perfect homage of the Most Holy Trinity." (9/2/85).

The Illumination

Sr. Lucy says that after the three children had accepted the request to offer all the sufferings that God was going to ask them, the Blessed Mother told them: “Then you are going to have to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.” The illumination therefore, was part of the comfort that had just been promised. Sr. Lucy continues: As She pronounced these last words, 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 more clearly than we see ourselves in the best of mirrors.

Then moved by an interior impulse that was also communicated to us, we fell on our knees, repeating in our hearts:
“O most Holy Trinity, I adore You! My God, I love you in the most Blessed Sacrament!” Also during the second apparition, the illumination had as its first aim to console the children as they were immersed in God, and experienced the greatness and the goodness of the Almighty. In fact The Blessed Mother had just announced the early death of Francesco and Jacinta, and had promised Lucy: “Do not be discouraged, I will never abandon you.” This is how Sr. Lucy narrates all this. The vision will concern both: those who will soon go to Heaven and the one who will stay longer on earth.

As our Lady spoke these last words, she opened her hands and for the second time, she communicated to us the rays of that same immense light. We saw ourselves in this light, as it were, immersed in God. Jacinta and Francesco seemed to be in that part of the light which rose towards heaven and I in that part which was poured out on the earth. In other words Our Lady is, with the Good Shepherd, a Mother who accompanies us, both here on earth and on our last journey to Eternity.

She is the Woman clothed with the Son: in other words, clothed with God, and She enlightens us with that same immense light. With the Illumination, therefore, the three children felt an anticipation of the future happiness, and were also able to fulfill their own particular mission.

Our Lady of Fatima gives the same illumination to those who belong to the MMP: "From my Heart flows the fountain of my light, with which I wish to envelop and illumine this world filled with darkness." (15/8/80). And on the last public Message of Dec.31/97, Our Mother said: "In order to give the suffering and crucified Church of your time my motherly
help and a safe refuge, I have brought the Marian Movement of Priests into being and have spread it throughout every part of the world by means of my book, which traces out for you the road along which you must journey in order to spread my light."

Conclusion

Before their sin, Adam and Eve were continuously illuminated by the presence of God, which helped them to do his will perfectly. But after their sin, the Bible tells us that they hid themselves, because they heard his steps. In other words, they did not want his company any more. They preferred to be independent. They did not want to be loved and guided by God.

The birth of Mary was like going back to the Garden of Eden before the first sin, where God could finally enjoy His First Beloved Daughter. We read in our book: Over my crib, with immense love of predilection, bend down the Father, as He contemplates his masterpiece of creation; the Word, in the expectation of placing himself in my virginal and motherly womb; the Holy Spirit, who is already communicating Himself to my soul with the fullness of love. (8/9/86).

God is still waiting impatiently for all humanity to return, to become once again His beloved daughter. Maybe one day He will do it in a somehow drastic way, with a different illumination. We read in our book: A new fire will come down from heaven and will purify all humanity, which has again become pagan. I will be like a judgment in miniature, and each one will see himself in the light of the very truth of God. Thus sinners will come back to grace and holiness; the straying, to the road of righteousness; those far away to the house of the Father; the sick, to complete healing; and proud, the impure, the wicked collaborators with Satan will be defeated and condemned for ever. (22/5/94)

It is interesting to notice that even then, God will be a merciful Father toward the sinner who desires to be converted.
However, the ones who are consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and follow her messages, don’t need to wait for that prophecy to be fulfilled. In fact Our Blessed Mother says: You are entering into times when the divine action of the Holy Spirit will become stronger and stronger. In these times, the Holy Spirit has the task of bringing you to the realization of the plan of the Heavenly Father, in the perfect and universal glorification of his Son, Jesus Christ. (3/6/90).

With our Consecration we enter into this plan. We too, like the children of Fatima, begin to experience the joy of God’s presence. We feel we are loved and protected by Him, because now we experience him as a loving Father, who wants to illumine us with his Heavenly presence, like the three children of Fatima. All this comes true in our Cenacles, and most of all when Our Blessed Mother leads us to Her Son Jesus present in the Eucharist: "The Eucharist will be the source from which will burst forth all his divine power, and it will become the new sun, which will shed its bright rays in hearts and souls, and then in the life of individuals, families and nations, making of all one single flock, docile and meek, whose sole shepherd will be Jesus."(21/11/93).