Three peasant children in Portugal claimed to have had six apparitions of the Madonna on the 13th of every month from May to October 1917. On July 13, Our Lady had told them that she would perform a miracle in October.
Eyewitnesses to the amazing miracle reported that the sun danced in the sky, that the colour of the whole landscape changed successively, and that the sun seemed to come down towards them, terrifying many into thinking it was the end of the world. The heat of the sun dried their clothes and the earth that had been soaked through by torrential rain.
The Miracle of the Sun was witnessed by over 70,000 people. Quite a number of them were atheists and sceptics eager to see the children make a fool of themselves and their faith proved wrong. Yet, if we ignore this momentous event and the message of Fatima, it is we who are the fools.
A hundred years later, we seem to have learnt nothing.
In 2008, the late Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, on being appointed head the Pontifical Institute for the Studies on Marriage and the Family, had written to Fatima visionary, Sr Lucia, asking for her prayers. To his surprise, a few days later he received a lengthy response from Sr Lucia. It included the highly disturbing statement that the final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family.
The agenda of the anti-Christian government moves ahead like a juggernaut
The assault on the institution of marriage has a long gestation. It is the culmination of a revolution launched many decades ago, long before we were born. Communism and secular liberalism share the same aim. While we associate Marxism with its economic and political revolutionary ideology, we overlook its anti-family objectives.
Destroying the family is the key of the atheistic agenda that wants to abolish the institution that nourishes and imparts the faith to future generations. This agenda has now been adopted by the intellectual elites of the secular liberal establishment who are poisoning the West and the EU in particular.
It bears realising that the impact of this ideology on Russian society was catastrophic, and Russia is now desperately trying to reverse the culture of easy divorce, contraception and abortion which have so severely weakened the State.
Here in Malta, we have also succumbed to the trend that is gutting marriage of its significance and undermining the family. The agenda of the anti-Christian government moves ahead like a juggernaut unhindered by a supine Opposition that has abandoned its principles and capitulated its responsibility towards the people of Malta, who are disgracefully unaware of what is at stake.
One needs only to see the combined assault on the family and our Christian identity to realise what is afoot. Recent examples include the withdrawal of the €70,000 annual support that Church-run Cana Movement used to receive despite the government boasting of a financial surplus, and the removal of the word ‘God’ from the logo of the University of Malta, founded by the Jesuits over 400 years ago.
Commenting on the message of Fatima, Fr Shenan Bouquet of Human Life International said: “Right now the Church’s and our mission is to defend Christ’s crystal-clear teaching about the nature of and indissolubility of marriage, not as an oppressive imposition on our freedom, but rather as the only route to true freedom: the only path towards creating a true culture of love!”
We neglect the message of Fatima at our peril.
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