(202) A Beautiful Byzantine Catholic Experience Last Summer and Christmas Too

AMDG

Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church in Homer Glen, IL near Joliet.

Our Byzantine Catholic 29^th Wedding Anniversary

     After enjoying the celebration of the Big 50^th anniversary of my brother John and sister-in-law Kathleen, we just had to go to the Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church’s 10th Annual Prairie Fest was going on that same weekend.  Jaga found out about it via their website (www.byzantinecatholic.com).  So about 9:30 pm we left to attend the fest that had great fellowship and dancing under the big tent plus games, pierogi and other ethnic foods.   It was on the grounds of the beautiful church built on the top of a hill.  Fr. Tom Loya (cousin Martuka’s oldest son) had an army of volunteers, working through the weekend, but that presented a problem…….how to get them to fulfill their Sunday Liturgy obligation.  Simple!  Have Sunday liturgy for the feast of the Transfiguration at midnight for all of the volunteers after all the patrons went home.

       Since Fr. Tom’s guest room was occupied, he arranged

for a motel.  Jaga reacted:  “We’re here on Mr. Tabor and

you want to go to a motel!”  You can sleep in the motel,

but I’m staying here.  So we slept in the front seat of our 

little red wagon (2010 Chevy Cobalt).  It was a 

beautiful peaceful evening under the moon and the 

stars, a romantic way and cheap to celebrate our 29^th 

wedding anniversary on August 13.  We slept well.  At

6 am the rising sun woke us up and we saw this lanky

guy with a beard in shorts picking up the trash with a

nail tipped cane.  Not having my glasses on, I thought that

the guy was some flunky that Fr. Tom hired.  Jaga

said: “That’s Fr. Tom!”  “No way!" I said.  That's 

beautiful humility!  As always, Jaga was right and I'm

out there in the cool of the morning, helping him pick up

the trash and beer cans for recycle.

The interior of Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church in Homer Glen, IL

       We attended the regular 10 am Liturgy.  As always, this Byzantine Catholic divine liturgy was beautiful.  A deacon was there when it was over to give explanations of the beautiful icons that Fr. Tom himself painted.  He did it all, inside and outside.  In fact, he’s still painting icons on the exterior of the church.  Before he discovered a call to the priesthood, Fr. Tom was an artist.  I believe that the icon screen was done by Nick of dear memory and Christine who he married on his deathbed.

       We started the afternoon with an ethnic dinner at one of the stands.  We walked around and enjoyed the atmosphere.  A big highlight was the tour of the prairie of several acres that Fr. Tom himself conducted.  It was originally a swamp, a wasteland on the other side of the hill.  The parish let it grow back into its original habitat with typical Midwest prairie vegetation and flowers as “God intended” according to Fr. Tom.  What a beautiful place for reflection and meditation!   We thought we were on a little Mt. Tabor on the Feast of the Transfiguration.  And guess what the name of the prairie is?  Transfiguration Prairie of course.

Constructing a building to house visitors, Annunciation Church could be a retreat center as well as a parish, similar to the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania which is run by a Polish order of priests and brothers (www.czestochowa.us).  The master plan and more detail is on the website at http://byzantinecatholic.com/nature/overall-vision/.  Everything is environmentally correct and even the runoff rain water is collected in a barrel on the side of the church to water the flowers.  The church and its grounds really follows Pope Francis’ encyclical, “Laudato si - On Care For Our Common Home".  Al Gore would be impressed by it all and Fr. Tom is by no means a liberal.

On the first Saturday of December Transfiguration Prairie briefly wakes up from its winter slumber for a day.  Children learn the real story of St. Nicholas as they walk on the prairie paths.  They even get to meet St. Nick and get a ride on a horse drawn carriage.  There’s frontier era Christmas crafts for children and a homemade Christmas bake sale for the adults.    

Transfiguration Prairie on the grounds of Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church in Homer Glen, IL

I’m sure Fr. Tom would love to have members of his extended family and others to visit when in the Chicago area, especially for the Prairie Fest on the second weekend of August.  It would really be worthwhile to attend a 10 am Sunday liturgy in his beautiful church full of his own art and pray on the prairie, restored to the way it was in pioneer days.  Give him a call at 708-645-0242 or e-mail him at fatherthomasloya@aol.com or stop by at 14610 Will-Cook Road in Homer Glen, IL 60491 near Joliet. 

     What a great weekend!  Since we celebrated our wedding anniversary that Sunday and Fr. Tom married us on August 13, 1988, we asked him to give us a parting blessing.  Years before he blessed our Stephanie in utero (see her now in the photo below).  And we were off to visit Jaga's brother, Joe Gajda & his wife Justina along with his beautiful daughter Kalina and son Miłosz.  Time wise we were half way to Poland and it was time to visit the Polish branch of our extended family.  That will be another adventure.  The next day we were over the Atlantic to arrive in Poland in time to celebrate the great feast of the Assumption.

Christmas 2017

Picture taken on Father’s Day 2016 at the Little Sisters of the Poor Nursing Home in Pittsburgh where Naomi worked.  Left to right are Joseph, Naomi, Stephanie, John-Paul, Paul, and Jaga.

       On the morning of December 17 we had an empty nest.  Suddenly, in late afternoon we had an invasion and a full house.  On their way back from Pittsburgh Naomi and her boyfriend picked up Joseph at Ohio State (Computer Science & Engineering) plus John-Paul (Ave Maria University Math & Economics) and Stephanie (Liberal Arts Thomas Aquinas College) at the airport.  They were on the same flight from Dallas, where both are teachers…..John-Paul teaches Math at Faustina Academy and Stephanie teaches 4^th grade at Great Hearts Elementary, a great books charter school.  Naomi graduated from Franciscan University last May and is a registered nurse at Montefiore Hospital in Pittsburgh.

     She had no desire to date any guy from rural Gallia County.  But guess what?  In Pittsburgh she ran into a medical student, named John Faro, from Gallia County and they’re close friends now.  They stayed for a few days, but Naomi had to return to work and that included Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the second day of Christmas.  Clearly we couldn’t bring Naomi to us for Christmas; so we took us to Naomi.  Since her three roommates went home for Christmas, we had an empty house all to ourselves for a few days.

       After arriving early in the afternoon and moving in, we went to Mass at 4 pm at the combined St. Patrick/St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in the Strip District, a large and beautiful church built at the turn of the 20^th Century.  The pastor, Fr. Harry Nichols gave me a taste of the history.  Once an ethnic Polish church, only traces of its history are left.  It’s amazing how these immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, etc. arrived as unskilled workers with practically nothing.  They worked long hard hours under poor working conditions in the steel mills for low wages.  This made it possible for the tycoons to accumulate capital for reinvestment and expansion, leading to the economic takeoff of the United States and our high standard of living.  We are greatly indebted to them.  These immigrants skimped and sacrificed and saved and were generous with their parish.  Thus they were able to build magnificent churches, schools, and convents.  After Mass we walked around among the many quaint shops, including one selling Peruvian crafts.

       On Sunday while Naomi was working, Stephanie wanted to go to both a Byzantine Liturgy and a Mass in Latin.  Both John-Paul and Stephanie frequently attend St. Basil’s Byzantine Catholic Church in Dallas on Sundays and for daily liturgy.  The pastor, Fr. Joseph Wargacki I believe was a deacon for many years and has several grown children, but opted for the priesthood with the new Vatican ruling for eastern rite Catholic Churches outside of Europe.  For the sake of uniformity, the Vatican had ruled in 1925 that priests of all rites had to be celibate outside of Europe. 

Thus we drove to Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church in McKees Rocks.  That brought back memories of Fr. Romza, pastor in the 1940s and 50s.  I dated his daughter, Rita once.  I had a nice talk with Fr. Frank Firko, the pastor.  Within a block is a Roman Catholic Church and also St. John’s Ukranian Byzantine Catholic Church.  I was impressed in the way they cooperate with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, giving hope for eventual Church unity. 

      Then we drove to St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church, once an ethnic German parish.  It consists of two parishes, Holy Wisdom and St. John XXIII, which has all of its Masses in Latin, drawing from all of Pittsburgh and the suburbs.  I thought I was in a time capsule going back to the Pre-Vatican II Church I grew up with.  The members of St. John XXIII Parish love the solemnity, the tradition, the Latin, and the beauty of the Latin chants.  The priest was ordained in the 1970s, but was no stranger to the traditional Latin Mass because he grew up with it.

      We picked up Naomi from her 12 hour shift at Montefiore Hospital and had our traditional Polish Christmas Eve Vigilia dinner.  Again Jaga was queen of the kitchen.  Then we went off to St. Paul’s Cathedral for midnight Mass.  It was packed.  Bishop David Zubik carried Baby Jesus during the entrance procession.  The Choir was instrumental, probably with members of the Pittsburgh Symphony.  A nationally known singer from the Pittsburgh Opera sang a solo.

         It turned out that Montefiore Hospital did their best to discharge their patients in time for Christmas.  Since they had too many nurses, they asked Naomi, the rookie, to take the day off.  Naomi was with us all of Christmas Day after all!  To boot we woke up to a white Christmas.  So far we had a Roman Catholic Christmas, but we wanted a Byzantine Catholic Christmas too.  Afraid to risk driving on the icy streets, we decided to do the half hour walk past St. Paul’s Cathedral to Holy Spirit Byzantine Catholic Church on Fifth Avenue.  It was icy even to walk, but a good workout on a cold Christmas morning. 

Holy Spirit Byzantine Catholic Church on busy Fifth Ave. in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh.  Christ is in the center, showing the unity between the prophets of the Old Testament (the promise of the Redeemer) on the left and the saints of the New Testament (the fulfillment of the promise) on the right.

It was a beautiful liturgy.  Msgr. Russell Duker proclaimed: “Christ is born” and the people responded, “Let us adore Him” and he repeated the same in Old Slav: “Christos razdajetsja!” with the response, “Slavite Jeho”.  Ms. Revilak, a native of Slovakia, was the cantor.  She has a beautiful voice, leading the people with singing in English and some in Old Slav.  I remember as a kid how powerful were the liturgies sung in the original Old Slav, led by the deep voice of the cantor.  The beautiful liturgy, originally written for Old Slav, seems to lose something when translated into English.  Ms. Revilak’s two sons were altar servers.  The very musical Revilak family does ethnic singing throughout western Pennsylvania and beyond (<revilaks@hotmail.com>). 

         

The magnificent church has icons everywhere, inside and outside too as shown in the photos above and below.  When the Church was built in the 1960s, they had over 200 families and the church was often packed.  Now they’re down to about 60.   Since driving was treacherous on this Christmas morning, not many people attended.  Nevertheless, this shows that many churches are bleeding as many Catholics of all rites are drifting away under the influence of a very secular society.  We have a huge job of re-evangelization.  Everyone can do something big or small……by prayer, example, word, or deed.

Christmas at Holy Spirit Byzantine Catholic Church in Pittsburgh.  We see portrayed the Son of God becoming one of us to begin His great mission of Redemption and in the background His victory over death in redeeming us.

For the first time our family joined the Byzantine Rite in celebrating their three Holy Days of Christmas.  The second day focuses on Mary, the God bearer and the third day on St. Stephen, the first martyr.  

In the Byzantine Rite the liturgy is normally sung acapella, being led by a cantor.  The liturgy emphasizes the majesty of God that inspires awe.  They have a great focus on imploring the mercy of God centuries before St. Faustina and St. John Paul II made it popular in the Latin rite.  Instead of statues the Eastern churches under Greek influence use icons, which are full of symbols.  The focus is on the message of the icons rather than an exact likeness.  The Byzantine Rite is stricter with fasts and the number of holy days.  Through all of Lent, they abstain from all dairy products.  The principal parts of the liturgy are the same in all rites, but each is adapted to a particular culture of the East.  

(201) The Fatima Storm: the Great Unknown Light of January 25, 1938......a Prelude to World War II

AMDG

The great unknown light of January 25, 1938.  In Switzerland one could read a newspaper under the light.  Radio communications were disrupted.

       On July 13, 1917 Mary told the world through the three shepherd children that it must repent of its sins.  “You have seen Hell ---where the souls of poor sinners go.  To save them God wills to establish throughout the world the devotion to my Immaculate Heart.  If people will do what I tell you, many souls will be saved, and there will be peace.  The war is going to end.  But if they do not stop offending God, another and worse war will break out in the reign of Pius XI.  When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that it is the great sign that God gives you, that He is going to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, hunger, persecution of the Church and of the Holy Father.”   

        Sadly, we did not listen and the world suffered the dire consequences.  Surely, the Lord used the tragic war to save souls as many did come back to God.  Since the world today is in much worse shape morally, are we repeating the same mistakes and will face even worse consequences?

        The Great Unknown Light.  On January 25-26, 1938 the night illuminated by an unknown light did come to pass as Mary had prophesized and the world press covered it.  The news clipping below is from the London Times.  The article says that it was visible over the whole of Europe from Budapest to Gibraltar. Other sources say that it was visible as far south as Australia and as far west as California.  People reported that it looked like a big forest fire.  In Switzerland they could read the newspaper under the light. Magnetic storms disrupted radio communications and caused problems with the news wires.    For the New York Times report on it, see 
https://rosariumblogdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/fatima-1-26-1938.pdf.

A news clipping from the London Times regarding the great unknown light. 

        Most scientists believe that it was an unusually strong Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights caused by intense sunspot activity, but other scientists simply cannot explain it because the Fatima Storm does not fit the typical characteristics of an Aurora Borealis.  The Fatima Storm was red; almost always it’s green/blue.  It extended below the 50^th Parallel, which is rare.  An Aurora Borealis never covers such a wide area.  It included most of the areas of conflict in World War II.  See the appendix for some fascinating analysis.

The great unknown light, often called the Fatima Storm, looked something like the photos above, resembling a gigantic forest fire.  Some startled people called the fire department.  

 

An Aurora Borealis

      Interesting is the fact that the great unknown light occurred on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul and Mary’s apparitions at Fatima were all about conversion.

       Mary said that the second world war would start during the reign of Pius XI (1922 – 10 February 1939), but the official start of the war is September 1, 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland during the reign of Pius XII (2 March 1939 - 1958).  Is this really a contradiction?  Not at all.  During the very night of the great unknown light (January 25, 1938) Communist leaders were meeting in Moscow over a sinister plan to propose to Nazi Germany to divide up Poland.  This had historical precedent in that Germany, Russia, and Austria each annexed a third of Poland which ceased to exist as a country from 1795 – 1918 under the Third Partition.  They correctly reasoned that the West would blame Hitler and attack Germany.  This was in essence the start of World War II.  

        Furthermore, on March 12, 1938 Hitler invaded Austria which was annexed by Germany the next day.  In October 1938 at a meeting in Munich the European powers appeased Nazi Germany by allowing it to take over the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia.  

     According to the sinister plan mentioned above, on August 23, 1939 the foreign ministers of Germany and the Soviet Union met and publicly agreed to a non-aggression pact while secretly agreeing to a partition of Poland.  On September 1 Germany invaded Poland from the west and the allies declared war on Germany, but they were of no help except for an attempt to send equipment via Romania.  

        Not having an easy time, the Germans urged the Soviets to invade according to the agreement.  The Soviet Union waited for the disintegration of Polish forces and finally invaded from the east on September 17.  The Soviets had reason to be cautious.  On August 15, 1920 when the Bolsheviks were poised to overrun a weak Europe exhausted from the war, Poland with a great mobilization of prayer defeated them in the Battle of Warsaw, commonly called the Miracle on the Vistula or Cud nad Visła.  

        The Polish army, one of the larger and better armies in Europe in 1939, was able to valiantly resist the onslaught from two huge armies, one from the east and another from the west until October 6, 1939.  However, Poland had a strong underground resistance for the rest of the war while much of its air force escaped and continued to fight very honorably in the Battle of Britain.
      

      By June 4, 1940 over 338,000 allied troops, mostly British, evacuated Dunkirk, France, which virtually surrendered in an unfavorable armistice on June 22, six weeks after being invaded on May 10.  Germany had already taken over Belgium in 18 days; Holland, Denmark, and Norway in a matter of a day or two.  Poland had fought both Germany and the Soviet Union for five weeks.   Portugal, Spain, and Sweden remained neutral.  On June 10, Italy entered the war against the allies.  A year later on June 22, 1941 Germany broke the non-aggression pact and invaded the Soviet Union.  See https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/german-invasion-europe-fall-of-france-1940/.  

      After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States entered the war in Europe and the Far East.  Two days later Britain declared war on Japan and much of the world was on fire.  . 

The flames brought on 77 million military and civilian deaths or 3.35% of the world’s population of 2.3 billion people, including 15-20 million in the Holocaust inside and outside of concentration camps.  In that number are 6 million Jews, one million Poles, 70,000 handicapped, and many Christians. Among them were two great Polish saints, St. Maximillian Kolbe and St. Edith Stein, both killed in Auschwitz.  Millions more were maimed and wounded.  The rest is tragic history.  Detailed figures can be found in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties.   

      A Friend’s Rosary in the Normandy Invasion.  I know personally how the rosary saved the life of a friend of mine……bless his soul.  Stanley Belback was part of the third wave of the Normandy Invasion, charging up a steep slope with German bunkers at the top spewing out heavy machine gun fire.  Soldiers were being mowed down all around him.  Finally, Belback was hit in the chest, but he was wearing a rosary around his neck.  Miraculously the bullet glazed off of a rosary bead instead of going right through it.  He lived to tell about it.  Stanley showed me the broken rosary.  Of course, his mother and young wife constantly prayed the rosary for him.
     

       The Fatima Message saved the Franciscans from the atomic bomb in Nagasaki, Japan.  In the 1930s Polish Franciscans had a mission in Japan.  Among them was St. Maximilian Kolbe.  He founded a Japanese version of the Knight of the Immaculata Magazine, which reached a circulation of 65,000 in 1936 or 800,000 world wide by 1938.  When he founded a new friary in Nagasaki, where most Japanese Catholics live, the future saint inexplicably insisted that it be built on the side of a mountain and not near the center of the city.  His Franciscan brothers did not understand, but went along with it.  See 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/moniqueocampowrites/2015/08/14/the-japanese-legacy-of-st-maximilian-kolbe/. 

Seconds after the detonation of the atomic bomb over Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945.  Imagine the power of a hydrogen bomb, which is hundreds of times more powerful.   Pray the rosary for peace.

      At 11:02 am on August 9, 1945 the United States dropped a five ton atomic bomb on Nagasaki instead of Kokura, the primary target because of cloud cover.  President Truman hoped that the great destruction and loss of lives would force the Japanese to surrender.  Most of the city was leveled; the temperature reached over 7000^oF with 600 miles per hour winds; over 40,000 people died immediately; many were vaporized.  Those who looked at the flash became blind.  Over 70,000 were injured; thousands more suffered from radiation; and many more contracted all kinds of cancers years later.

 

But miraculously the friary was untouched and the monks inexplicably did not suffer any radiation poisoning or aftereffects as thousands of other people did.  The mountain protected them from the force of the blast.  The following video link of the Nagasaki bombing details the bombing of Nagasaki and shows the stark horror of war in general and nuclear war in particular:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncq_Wye43TM.

The smoke didn’t clear yet in a typical scene.  The destruction in Nagasaki and Hiroshima was similar.  Only a few badly damaged buildings were left standing and people were pulverized.  In Hiroshima 70,000 died instantly, over 140,000 total within a year.  Hiroshima and Nagasaki are among the most Catholic cities in Japan.  Only a few walls of the beautiful Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Hiroshima  remained.  This could happen to us.  Pray the rosary for peace.

 

       Eight Jesuit missionaries from Germany occupied the rectory of Our Lady of Assumption Church and School in Hiroshima.   They have a similar story of surviving a nuclear blast unharmed, perhaps even more miraculous since they were only four miles from ground zero although a nearby hill did give some protection.  Everything was destroyed for many blocks around, but the priests survived with only scratches and minimal damage to the home.  Fr Hubert Schiffer believed that “we survived because we were living the message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the rosary daily in that home.”  This is reminiscent of Chapter 3 of the Book of Daniel of the Bible in which  the three young men survived being thrown into Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace. See http://catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/08/09/the-priests-who-survived-the-atomic-bomb/ and the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx2MRo3M3Fs. 

                                                                  

Both the Polish Franciscans and the German Jesuits believed they were spared because they put into practice the Fatima message that Mary herself gave us over 100 years ago in 1917  (see http://www.aurora-service.eu/aurora-school/aurora-borealis/).  Mother Mary asked us to: repent; pray, pray the rosary daily for peace; foster a devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; and Penance - offer daily sacrifices and crosses for sinners because "so many souls are going to hell and nobody is praying for them".  Everyday offer up the daily trials, frustrations, failures, sickness, accident, etc. (crosses) to the Lord through Mary for the conversion of sinners.  In this way each one of us can help to save souls.  That will make you a saint someday and they will thank you in Heaven.

Note: For a beautiful musical composed and produced by a Franciscan University student, Michael Cygan, for the Our Lady of Fatima Centenary, click on Fatima Musical: 2017 (Oficjalne) Przedstawienie na Stulecie Objawień or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y669RdFpF5c.  The website www.fatimathemusical.com.   What a way for a college student to spread the Fatima Message!  Wow!  

 

Sources

https://rosariumblogdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/fatima-1-26-1938.pdf - New York Times Report.

http://www.solarstorms.org/SS1938.html - Solar storms.

http://www.aurora-service.eu/aurora-school/aurora-borealis/ - How the Aurora Borealis works.

http://edutechbook.com/lib/january%2025%201938%20the%20fatima%20storm%20solar%20storms%20space.pdf – more detailed technical analysis of the Fatima Storm.

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/german-invasion-europe-fall-of-france-1940/ - Photos and information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties - Statistics of World War II dead and wounded world-wide.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/moniqueocampowrites/2015/08/14/the-japanese-legacy-of-st-maximilian-kolbe/ - St. Maximilian Kolbe and the bombing of Nagasaki.

http://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-33769566 - Nagasaki bombing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncq_Wye43TM – Fascinating video on the bombing and aftermath.

  

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/.../fire-fury-hiroshima-nagasaki-an - Photos of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

http://catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/08/09/the-priests-who-survived-the-atomic-bomb/ - Eight German Jesuits survive the Hiroshima blast only four miles from Ground.Zero.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5XS2tzVJUg - German Jesuits survive the atom bomb at Hiroshima.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx2MRo3M3Fs - Video of the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_en.html - The message of Fatima and the secrets.

https://www.ewtn.com/fatima/message.asp -  Extensive description, the Fatima Message and the secrets.

https://www.catholiccompany.com/getfed/how-to-live-the-message-of-our-lady-of-fatima/ - How to live the Fatima Message.

http://www.rosary-center.org/fatimams.htm - Excellent concise description of the Fatima Message.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxZBxEJz1v8 – a well done documentary on the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima and her message.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y669RdFpF5c – a beautiful musical on the story of the Fatima apparitions and message done by “Michael Cygan” fatimathemusical@gmail.com a recent graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville.

Other Articles in the Series on Our Lady of Fatima

(186) What Made Jacinta and Francisco New Saints 100 Years After Mary’s Appearances in Fatima, Portugal?

          http://paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com/2017/05/186-what-made-jacinta-and-francisco-new.html

(188) Our Lady of Fatima at 100…...the First Apparition on May 13, 1917 & the Second on June 13, 1917

          http://paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com/2017/06/188-our-lady-of-fatima-at-100may-13-and.html

(190) Our Lady of Fatima at 100…...the July 13, 1917 Apparition…….To Hell and Back

          http://paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com/2017/07/190-our-lady-of-fatima-at-100the.html

(192) OUR LADY OF FATIMA AT 100: The August 13 & 19 Apparitions and Jail

          http://paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com/2017/10/our-lady-of-fatima-centennial-august-13.html

(193) OUR LADY OF FATIMA AT 100……..The September 13, 1917 Apparition

          http://paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com/2017/10/193.html

(195) OUR LADY OF FATIMA AT 100……..The Apparition of October 13, 1917 And the Miracle of the Sun

           http://paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com/2017/10/195our-lady-of-fatima-at-100the.html

(6) Reflections: Our Public Square Prayer Rally in Gallipolis-Ohio

      http://paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com/2011/10/reflections-on-public-square-rosary.html

(95) International Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Fatima Visit; Its History & Message

        http://paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com/2012/10/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html

(96) International Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Fatima Visit (II): Its History & Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart

         http://paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com/2012/10/blog-post.html

(100) A Review of the Public Square Rosary Rally in Gallipolis, Ohio Saturday October 13, 2012            http://paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com/2012/11/100-review-of-public-square-rosary.html

(143) Rosary in the Park: the Public Square Rosary Rally in Gallipolis, Ohio….....You can organize one in your community.   

          http://paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com/2014/10/143-rosary-in-park-public-square-rosary.html  

(177) The Consecration to the Immaculate Heart and the Course of World History

          http://paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com/2016/10/177-consecration-to-immaculate-heart.html

Appendix

The Fatima Storm

                                                                                            

Newsletter N°20 – 30 January 2016

Dear Friends,

On the 13th of July 1917, Our Lady confided to the little shepherds :  « If men do not refrain from offending God, another and more terrible war will begin during the pontificate of Pius XI.  When you see a night that is lit by a strange and unknown light, you will know it is the sign God gives you that He is about to punish the world with war and with hunger, and by the persecution of the Church and the Holy Father. »

Twenty years later, on the night of the 25th to the 26th of January 1938, the sky was aflame with a strange glow.  From 9 o’clock in the evening until 2 o’clock in the morning, the night sky was illuminated with a red light.  This phenomenon was perceived in most of the countries of Europe, from Norway to Gibraltar, from Portugal to Greece, as well as in North Africa and in the United States and Canada.  At the time, everyone believed there was a gigantic fire.  The next morning, all the newspapers were talking about it.  The phenomenon was attributed to an aurora borealis.  The Bulletin de la Société Astronomique de France described it in the following way:

An aurora borealis of magnificent beauty was visible in France and in almost all of the countries of Europe, from Tuesday the 25th of January 1938, in the evening, until Wednesday the 26th, in the morning.  In the Swiss Jura, in England, as in the regions of the west, the south-west and the south-east of France, as far as Provence, and even further south, in Italy and Portugal, in Sicily and in Gibraltar, and even in North Africa, the phenomenon showed an exceptional intensity for these latitudes.  (…)

A bluish green glow, pale and pretty, covered the sky from the north-east to the north-west.  Gradually, the sky above lit up and formed an irregular, red vault.  A sort of crimson cloud formed at the north-east and moved towards the north-west as if pushed by a mysterious breath of wind.  It moved back, undulated, expanded, faded, rekindled, while huge jets, whose color changed from blood-red to orange-red to yellow, soared towards the zenith.

As for Le Nouvelliste de Lyon it reported:

An aurora borealis of exceptional magnitude furrowed the skies of Western Europe yesterday evening.  It caused an upheaval in a number of départements where the first reaction was the belief that it was a gigantic fire. The sky was alight like an enormous open fire in movement, creating a vivid blood-red glow. The edge of the fire was white, as if the sun was going to rise.  Doubtless, it was an aurora borealis, but according to Professor Pers of the Faculty of Science at Grenoble, one of an exceptional magnitude.

To such a phenomenon by the expression ‘aurora borealis’ is, in fact, inappropriate.   Actually, aurorae borealis generally happen at the north pole and the areas immediately surrounding it, but very rarely below the latitude of 50°.  Moreover, they never have this allure of being a gigantic fire with a predominantly red coloring.  While they can come in different colors, the dominant color is green and not red.  Finally, they have never been so widespread.  While they can sometimes stretch over a very long way, they form, for the most part, a ribbon about ten kilometers long.

Sister Lucia never accepted that this phenomenon could be attributed to an aurora borealis.  Here is what she says in her third memoire:

Your Excellency is aware of how, a few years ago, God showed this sign which the astronomers wanted to be known under the name of aurora borealis. I don’t know; but it seems to me, that if they looked at the thing carefully, they would see that this was not, and could not be an ordinary aurora borealis, given the manner in which it presented itself. Whatever it was, God used it to make me understand that His justice was ready to strike at the guilty nations, and because of this, I began to ask for, with insistence, the communion of reparation and the consecration of Russia.

Even today, the astronomers are divided as to the origins of this phenomenon, because nothing similar has ever been seen before or since:  it is a phenomenon unique in history.  Another astonishing point:  the regions where the glow was visible correspond exactly to the zone of Christianity which was going to be set alight by the Second World War!

And even if it was the most exceptional aurora borealis ever seen on this earth, the fact that it had been announced twenty years beforehand, constitutes a truly exceptional prophecy, along with the miracle of the dancing sun on the 13th of October 1917.  These two prophecies announcing extraordinary natural phenomena, and observed by a very great number of witnesses, give to the apparitions at Fatima an authenticity which is also exceptional and which confer on them a place completely apart in the history of apparitions.  No other apparition, either before or since, has been authenticated in such an extraordinary way.

Therefore, if Our Lady has chosen such means to authenticate her message, its importance is equally exceptional.  And so, it is particularly important to know it well, and to make it well known.

In union of prayer in the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Yves de Lassus
President, Cap Fatima 2017

Some News from the Project

For the next first Saturday of the month, the Notre Dame du Lys chapter has had the good idea to send us the hour of the Mass celebrated in the spirit of the devotion of reparation as asked for by Our Lady.  You will find the details on the page accessible by the new button ‘1st Saturday of the month’ situated at the top of the website.  Henceforth, we will list all the places and times of Masses for the First Saturdays of the Month which we receive.

A number of people have confided prayer intentions to us.  It seemed to us pertinent to propose them to everyone by putting them on a special page accessible by the new button ‘Rosaire’ in the menu situated at the top of the website.  Remember what Sister Lucia said to Father Fuentès :  « The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, gave a new impetus to the recitation of the Rosary.  In such a way, there is no problem, no matter how difficult, temporal, or especially spiritual, with reference to the private life of each of us, of our families, families throughout the world, or religious communities, or even the lives of peoples and nations, there is no problem, I say, no matter how difficult, that we cannot resolve by praying the Holy Rosary. »

At this time, almost 1,500 people have consecrated themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on one of the dates proposed since last December.  The actual number is higher because many people have told us that they have consecrated themselves by organizing their own preparation, and so, without registering to receive the daily meditation.  To respond further to Our Lady’s call, spread this devotion around you (see HERE the dates proposed for the consecrations).

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