excerpts from Fatima in Lucia's Own Words by Sister Mary Lucia Santos, published by Postulation Centre, Fatima, Portugal; distributed by Ravengate Press, Cambridge, MA. Imprimatur: 1976. Edited by Fr. Louis Kondor, SVD. Translated by Dominican Nuns of Perpetual Rosary.
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[p.59]
A Mysterious Presage in 1915
Around midday, we ate our lunch. After this I invited my companions [--Jacinta and Francisco--] to pray the Rosary with me, to which they eagerly agreed. We had hardly begun when, there before our eyes we saw a figure poised in the air above the trees; it looked like a statue made of snow, rendered almost transparent by the rays of the sun.
"What is that?", asked my companions, quite frightened.
"I don't know!"
We went on praying, with our eyes fixed on the figure before us, and as we finished our prayer, the figure disappeared.
. . .
Apparitions of the Angel in 1916
. . .
[p.62-65]
. . . a strong wind began to shake the trees. We looked up, startled to see what was happening, for the day was unusually calm. Then we saw coming towards us, above the olive trees, the figure I have already spoken about. Jacinta and Francisco had never seen it before, nor had I ever mentioned it to them. As it drew closer, we were able to distinguish its features. It was a young man, about fourteen or fifteen years old, whiter than snow, transparent as crystal when the sun shines through it, and of great beauty. On reaching us, he said:
"Do not be afraid I am the Angel of Peace. Pray with me."
Kneeling on the ground, he bowed down until his forehead touched the ground, and made us repeat these words three times:
"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."
Then rising, he said: "Pray thus. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are attentive to the voice of your supplications."
His words engraved themselves so deeply on our minds that we could never forget them. From then on, we used to spend long periods of time, prostrate like the Angel, repeating his words, until sometimes we fell, exhausted. . . .
Some time passed, and summer came, when we had to go home for siesta. One day, we were playing on the stone slabs of the well down at the bottom of the garden belonging to my parents . . . Suddenly, we saw beside us the same figure, or rather Angel, as it seemed to me.
"What are you doing?", he asked. "Pray, pray very much! The most holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy on you. 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. You will thus draw down peace upon your country. I am its Angel Guardian, the Angel of Portugal. Above all, accept and bear with submission, the suffering which the Lord will send you."
A considerable amount of time elapsed, when one day we went to pasture our sheep on a property belonging to my parents, . . . . After our lunch, we decided to go and pray in the hollow among the rocks . . . .
As soon as we arrived there, we knelt down, with our foreheads touching the ground, and began to repeat the prayer of the Angel:
"My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love You..." I don't know how many times we had repeated this prayer, when an extraordinary light shone upon us. We sprang up to see what was happening, and beheld the Angel. He was holding a chalice in his left hand, with the Host suspended above it, from which some drops of blood fell into the chalice. Leaving the chalice suspended in the air, the Angel knelt down beside us and made us repeat three times:
"Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 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 took the chalice and the Host in his hands. He gave the Sacred Host to me, and shared the Blood from the chalice between Jacinta and Francisco, saying as he did so:
"Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men! Make reparation for 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.
We remained a long time in this position, repeating the same words over and over again. When at last we stood up, we noticed that it was already dark, and therefore time to return home.
. . .
[p.67- ]
Apparitions of Our Lady [1917]
I will not delay now describing the Apparition of May 13th [1917]. . . . Our Lady spoke to us that day. After having promised to take us to heaven, she asked:
"Are you willing to offer yourselves to God to 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?"
"Yes, we are willing", was our reply.
"Then, you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort."
The 13th of June, feast of St. Anthony, . . .
. . .
[p.108-109]
The Vision of Hell
. . .
Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.
We then looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindly and so sadly:
"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. The war [World War I] is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI 8. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign 9 given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.
"To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world."
. . . .
8. Lucia has again explicitly confirmed the name of Pope Pius XI. To the objection that the Second World War, 1939-1944, actually started during the Pontificate of Pius XII, she replied that in fact the war began with the occupation of Austria in 1938.
9. Lucia presumed that the "extraordinary" aurora borealis during the night of 25th to 26th of January, 1938, was the sign given by God to announce the imminence of war.
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