[00:00] When we study salvation history, and particularly the history of the Catholic Church of Christianity, they say that God raises up certain people, His saints, for the times that are taking place, saints to match the evil that's in the world. But in the worst of times, our

[00:39] Lord sends our mother, His mother, to us. And we see that throughout history. When Our Lady was sent to the Aztec nation to help the Franciscan priest there to convert a nation. You see that in many of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that she was sent in order to give a message, not just warnings, but a message of hope, that if we do right,

[01:16] then God will be with us, that He will bless us. And at the time of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, whom we celebrate today, in 1917, it was one of those times, one of the worst of times, it was during the peak of the First World War, when countries were losing half their population of young men to war. Our Lady appeared to three little

[01:50] children, three shepherd children, not to great kings, not to the Pope, not to bishops, not to priests. She appeared to three little children, Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta. She appeared to them to relay a message to the whole world. And sometimes we think, why does Our Lady always choose these obscure little ones? It's because she participated in the

[02:31] mission of our Lord, yet she remained obscure, because it is in the obscurity and the humility of the instrument that the Creator is made known, that His greatness is made known to the world. So Our Lady chose these young, humble servants of hers to spread this message at a time when there was war, the threat of communism running rampant in Europe, and throughout the

[03:05] rest of the world was a very strong reality. The Church was being suppressed, religious houses were closing down. There were many evils in the world at that time. So it wasn't just a peaceful area that Our Lady came to. It was one of crazy times, really, because the Church was being persecuted. And in a way, this Cova da Iria, where Our Lady appeared to these three children, was a little safe haven. It was

[03:44] the place where they were shepherding the sheep. So Our Lady appeared to them from in 1917, May 13th and the 13th of every month through till October 13th. And her message was one of repentance, of conversion. She showed them many things. She even told them of purgatory. She told them that they must pray

[04:15] the rosary to prevent another war, which we know happened. There was a Second World War. She asked them to pray for sinners, for the conversion of sinners. She showed them a vision of hell. We try to prevent, or we try to keep kids from seeing even, say, the Passion of Christ, because it's too explicit for them. But Our Lady showed three children under the age of 10, a vision of hell. When they

[04:52] came out of this vision, their faces were distorted, and they fell on their knees. And from that moment forward, Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia did whatever was necessary in order to what they called console our Lord. Little Jacinta, she would say she would do so many penances, and same with Francisco, many, many sacrifices and penances for the conversions of sinners, because they said they saw souls going to hell like

[05:25] snowflakes falling to the ground. You can imagine when you see the snow coming down in the wintertime, what it must have been like for them to make that comparison. But it was a message of hope, because Our Lady was promising that if people heeded her message, then there would be widespread conversion, and she would come and help her children. Jacinta was a great example of someone who's transformed by grace. She sacrificed so many things and

[06:02] offered freely to God, even little things in her lunch she wouldn't eat, even though they lived poorly anyways, but she would do every type of penance, to the point of, imagine this, St. John of the Cross, one time prayed that he would die dejected, alone, and thought ill of by others. And that's actually what happened to him. Little Jacinta, being nine years old,

[06:34] she prayed, she was fearful that when she went to the hospital during the pandemic of the plague at that time, her and her brother Francisco succumbed to the plague, and she was in the hospital. And they had to travel to go see her, but a lot of times she was alone. And she was afraid that she would die alone, without anybody around her, without her mother, without any of

[07:05] her family. And then at one point, she, true to her word of consoling our Lord on the cross, prayed and came to the peace that she wanted to die alone. She wanted to offer that up to Our Lady and to our Lord. And you think of the grace, the strength that a little girl at nine years old would have to be able to be at peace with the thought of sacrificing that for God, to be left alone, knowing that

[07:43] she was going to die. So we take to heart the message of Our Lady. She asked us in Fatima to pray for the conversion of sinners, to pray the rosary, to have devotion to her Immaculate Heart. And what does devotion to her Immaculate Heart mean? Our Lady was immaculate. She was all pure. We cannot imitate her in her Immaculate Conception, but we can imitate her in overcoming sin in our lives. We can offer sacrifices, as

[08:18] Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia did. We can do our part. We can console our Lord on the cross. Every sin, every stain that we allow to enter into our lives is not just something that ruins us, that, I guess you could say, distorts the image of God in our souls, but it's also one more strike, one more

[08:50] blow against our Lord. And these little children understood that. So we can become more immaculate by repenting, by converting every single day and realizing this life is so short and heaven is eternal. Well, I guess you could say even hell is eternal. That's the image that Our Lady gave to the children of Fatima. It's unbelievable that they would be given that image, but it's something that was also for us to understand the two realities that we face in life.

[09:31] What are we willing to do in order to become saints? What are we willing to do to imitate Our Lady, not in her Immaculate Conception, but in becoming more immaculate like her? The Immaculate Heart. What does the heart have to do with Our Lady's being immaculate? Well, the heart expresses your desires. The heart expresses your love, because love really is a desire.

[10:03] It's a desire of union with someone, not a something, but a someone. It's a desire, ultimately, for union. As St. Augustine said, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in God." Our Lady's heart always rested with God. First of all, she offered everything to God in a desire to be in union with Him. And then she also, this love, great love, was expressed in her love for her children, love for those that she encountered every single day. So, we imitate Our Lady in becoming more pure, more immaculate in our own lives, but we also imitate

[10:55] her and her willingness to sacrifice first to God and then to our neighbor, to love God with our whole heart, our whole mind, and our whole soul, and to love our neighbor as He has loved us. The two great loves that fulfill the commandments of God, love of Him and love of our neighbor, which is shown in our generosity as it was shown in the generosity of the three children of Fatima.

[11:25] They were subject of many persecutions, these little children. Here's another thing to think of. We think of St. John of the Cross when he died alone and he prayed for that. But then we also think of how horrible it would have been for St. John the Apostle to be faced with boiling oil and to be dipped in boiling oil. Fast forward to the time, 1917, with these three little children when they were taken from their town and brought to prison.

[12:10] And they were, in a way, tortured psychologically. They were kept separate and they were told each in their turn to say that what they saw or what they were telling the story was all a lie. And then they were told that they would be put in boiling oil if they kept on telling a lie. And they would bring them out one by one. So they actually thought, at a certain point, that that's what was happening because they refused to say that it was a lie.

[12:52] They kept the same story and one by one they thought they were going to their death. They thought they were dying a martyr's death. They're only little children. So besides doing all the penances and praying the rosary, they were willing to die for the truth. So we have to think of how great God is that He gave them that courage and that grace. And all He is asking us to do is to accept our day-to-day trials and, you know, the little things we go through.

[13:27] Like St. Thérèse said, little things with great love. Imitating Our Lady in overcoming sin, but also imitating Our Lady in love for God and love for neighbor. And we do this by being faithful to commandments, but we also do this by a prayer, conversation with God, and then going to her whom we know God has given us as a great means of our salvation, which is the Blessed Virgin Mary.

[14:00] And we do this in order to, you know, as these little children did, console our Lord. Prevent, at least on our part, from adding to the suffering of our Lord on the cross. So let us take to heart the words and the messages of Fatima. One more thing I wanted to mention, though, is that obviously we all know the story on October 13th, the last day they had the vision of Our Lady, the apparition of Our Lady, but also the great miracle of Fatima,

[14:36] which at that time Our Lady was warning obviously of communism. Communism, basically we can just say it was militant atheism. Well, some say that on October 13th, atheism died. And the reason why is because those who hold to that, to atheism, that error, who believe that there is no God, have no explanation for miracles. They have no explanation for things that go beyond the physical laws of

[15:06] nature. And with over 30,000 people gathered for that last day, which Our Lady would appear to the children, people of all walks of life, professionals, and even all the newspapers, and those who were reporting on these messages were all there. And this great miracle happened. The sun was spinning

[15:38] and dancing in the sky. Things that nobody, and people so easily forget this. You know, we always think about, well, this person's an atheist. They say, bring out science and everything. It doesn't matter. Bring up the Shroud of Turin. Study the Shroud of Turin a little bit. Bring up Padre Pio and the Stigmata. Bring up the incorruptible saints. Bring up the apparitions of Our Lady, especially Our Lady of Fatima, where thousands and thousands of people witnessed the miracle. And it happens all the time.

[16:09] They have nothing for that. And that is scientific, because science is about observation, and miracles are something that are right in our face. There's nothing illogical about accepting the miracles that we see. So Our Lady was wanting to warn the world, but also give a message of hope. A warning that if people did not listen to her message,

[16:40] there would be another world war, and that's exactly what happened. She was giving a message of hope that any time that we go to her, then we have her help, individually and collectively as well. So let us examine our own lives. Let us start with the individual, and then after begin with Our Lady's help to convert sinners with our prayers and our sacrifices and our good example in imitation of her, and in imitation of the saints, especially these three little children,

[17:17] Jacinta, who was willing to die alone and offer that as her last sacrifice to our Lord, to console our Lord on the cross. If we listen to her and pray the rosary, and are devoted to her, and use the means that our Lord has given to us, then we have no fear, and we have that hope which was expressed in the message of Our Lady, that in the end, her Immaculate Heart will triumph.