He will return with his immense heart, with his heart of fire, his poor man's soul
and his smile. He will return! And the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph!

THE LIGHT IN THE NIGHT (9)

« AND THE SECOND IS LIKE TO IT »

Fr. Hubert Jongen, a Dutch Montfort father who conducted an investigation in order to refute Fr. Dhanis’ criticisms, met with Sister Lucy several times at Tuy in 1946: « What distinguishes her, he wrote, is a fervent cult for truth. » Her chapter dedicated to the second commandment reflects this passion for the truth and passes it on to attentive readers.

DO NOT INVOKE THE NAME OF GOD IN SUPPORT OF LIES

(Ch. 25, p. 217-221)

« “You shall not take the Name of Yahweh your God in vain: for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes His Name in vain.” (Dt 5.11)

« This commandment obliges us to live in the truth with God, with our neighbour and with ourselves. God abhors lies, because God is truth. In the Gospel of St. John we read: “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” (Jn 1.14)

« And in another place in the same Gospel, Jesus Christ says of Himself. “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but by Me.” (Jn 14.6)

« If, as Jesus says, we cannot go to the Father except by Him, and He is the Truth, this shows that we cannot go to God except by the way of truth »

« We cannot deceive God, because He sees right into everything, just like the crystalline water which flows out of the clearest spring. God always has before Him our works, our intentions, and our desires.

« We do not speak the truth to God when we are unfaithful to our promises, our vows, and our oaths. In Sacred Scripture we read: “When you make a vow to Yahweh your God, you shall not be slack to pay it; for Yahweh your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin in you. But if you refrain from vowing, it shall be no sin in you. You shall be careful to perform what has passed your lips, for you have voluntarily vowed to Yahweh your God what you have promised with your mouth.” (Dt 23.21-23)

« When we do not keep our promises, we lie to God. Our vows, our oaths and our promises have invoked God in vain. Besides, as the sacred text says, nobody obliged us to promise; we made this offering to God of our own free will. Hence, once it is made, we are obliged to keep it. »

Sister Lucy has acted according to what she says by observing her vow of obedience in a heroic manner.

« It is worthy of note that after the 1950’s, she no longer mentioned the reparatory devotion of the five First Saturdays of the month in her correspondence. Since this surprised us, Sister Marie-Abigaïl, from our Maison Sainte-Marie, asked her the following question in a letter that she handed to the extern of the Carmel of Coimbra: “Why do you not recommend the practice of the communion of reparation to your correspondents?” Fifteen days later, on 11 March 1995, our sister received an answer from the seer, a brief but authentic reply, typed on a small card, on which could be read a printed opening sentence that is a form addressed to all her correspondents:

« “Sister Mary-Lucy of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart has received your letter, and prays for your intentions.

« “Regarding your question: Why has she not previously inculcated the devotion of the First Saturdays? Because it was necessary to await ecclesiastical authorisation.” »

« Even concerning the Rosary, the holy Carmelite sister did not have permission to refer publicly to Our Lady’s message. » (The Whole Truth about Fatima, Vol. 4, p. 445)

She was so obedient that she even said yes, « the consecration of Russia has been done » by John Paul II, on 25 March 1984, after having repeated until 1989 that it had not been done. But then, it is John Paul II who has violated the second commandment by ordering Fatima authorities, Sister Lucy and several priests to “importune” him no longer with the consecration of Russia, forcing everyone to say and to think: « The consecration has been made. The Pope has done all that he was able to do and Heaven deigned to accept his gesture. » (ibid., p. 447 ff.)

Is this not what « invoking the name of God in vain in support of a lie » is? How can such machinations escape God’s judgement?

« In the same way, we cannot deceive our neighbour, and still less call on God to witness our false, deceitful and guileful statements. God takes as done to Himself the good or evil done to our neighbour. Jesus Christ teaches us this in the Gospel: “Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” (Mt 25.40) And God takes it into account in order to punish or reward. That is what we see in the scene of the Last Judgement:

« “When the Son of man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and He will place the sheep at His right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at His right hand:

« Come, O blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed Me, I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me, in prison and you came to see Me.

“Then the righteous will answer Him:

“Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger and welcome You, or naked and clothe You? And when did we see You sick or in prison and visit You?

“And the King will answer them:

“Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of My brethren, you did it to Me.

“Then He will say to those at His left hand:

“Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave Me no food I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome Me, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.

“Then they also will answer:

“Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?

“Then he will answer them:

“Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to Me.

“And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Mt 25.31-46)

« Here, God reveals Himself as a Father who considers as done to Himself whatever good or evil is done to His children. If God speaks to us like this about the good which we have neglected to do to others, what will He say to us about the evil we have caused them? What will He say to us if, through craft, trickery or cunning, we have deceived our neighbour? And we do this whenever we take advantage of someone’s ingenuousness or the confidence that he or she had in us, and then we excuse ourselves, saying: “If they had not been so stupid, if they had not let themselves be deceived!” But, what will God’s answer be to all lies of this kind, of which, unfortunately, the world is full? »

How can we be surprised that the world is full of lies when the example comes from the highest authorities?

During our annual pilgrimage to Fatima last 18 February, Brother Francis was able to observe that Sister Lucy’s book, which Fr. Jesus Castellano Cervera, of the Discalced Carmelite Order, a consultor of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had presented as « dated on 25 March 1997 », had been completed since 1974, four years before the death of Paul VI!

« At Rome, they changed the date of the manuscript explained Fr. Kondor. Sister Lucy wrote this book long ago. It was during Paul VI’s pontificate, and she wrote it at Paul VI’s request. Sister Lucy received too many demands and questions, and since she could not reply to each of them, the Pope ordered her to write a book. »

Mgr Serafim de Sousa Ferreira e Silva wrote in the book’s preface that it was Sister Lucy who « had asked permission of the Holy See ». And he insisted: « I wish to assure readers of this book that it was her idea and was written by her. »

Who is lying? The bishop or Fr. Kondor?

In any case, the rector of the shrine, Fr. Guerra, wanted to wait until Lucy’s death before publishing it; in fact, the Carmelite Father presents the book as being the seer’s « spiritual testament ».

Before, and without the Third Secret? to which this book makes no allusion since it was still a secret when it was finished in 1974! In any event, it is not Sister Lucy who wrote the one quotation from Pope John Paul II (p. 274), since her manuscript is dated 25 March 1974, and since John Paul II did not become Pope until 16 October 1978.

« Any deceit, any hypocrisy, any pretence is a lie. Its gravity is measured by the degree of harm done to the glory of God or the good of others. We see, in the Gospel, how God condemns this sin. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the Law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others (...). Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to Gehenna?” (Mt 23: 23; 32-33)

« Jesus rebuked the doctors of the law, saying: “Woe to you lawyers also! for you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.” (Lk 11.46) And He was to conclude this discourse with the following recommendation to His disciples: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known (...). Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has power to cast into Gehenna, yes, I tell you, fear him. » (Lk 12.1-5)

The Jews of Jerusalem kept a fire continually burning in the valley of Hinnon, in Hebrew gé-hinnom, to consume the refuse of the holy City, an allusive figure of eternal Hell revealed by these words of Jesus.

At Fatima, Lucy, Francisco and Jacinta saw it with their very own eyes on 13 July 1917 like « an ocean of fire »:

« Plunged in this fire we saw demons and souls [of the damned]. The latter were like transparent burning embers, black or bronzed, having human form. They were floating in this fire, lifted up by the flames that issued from within themselves, along with clouds of smoke. They fell back on all sides, like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid cries and groans of pain and despair that were horrifying to hear and made us tremble with fright. (It must have been this sight that caused me to let out a great shriek of pain, as heard by the people around me). The demons could be distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their horrible and repellent likeness to frightening and unknown animals, but they were transparent like burning black coals.

« This vision lasted but an instant, thanks to our good Mother in Heaven who, during the first apparition, had promised to take us to Heaven. Were it not for this, I believe we would have died of fear and terror. » (IV^th Memoir)

« This language on the part of Jesus Christ may strike us as harsh, but its severity is directed against such behaviour on our part towards others. For His part, God is simply the Father defending His children and the judge who, to an equal degree, rewards good and punishes evil. »

At Fatima He proved His paternal solicitude by sending the Blessed Virgin to ask for the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart and the First Saturday Communion of reparation in order to snatch souls from Hell.

« If we look at the world, considering how people lived in the time of Jesus and, unfortunately, how they live today, the picture we see is frightening! »

How many times, in studying the origin of Christianity with all the resources of modern science, have we drawn an impressive parallel between the apostasy of the last times of the Old Testament and that of our modern times, which are the last times of the New Testament! We see that Sister Lucy knows everything about the « breakaway people » of the first century of our era (cf. “Salvation comes from the Jews”, CCR 315, p. 2), and the Church « half in ruins » of the post-conciliar era!

« And yet, it is reality, in so far as it refers to the word of God and what it tells us about human life. Taking advantage of other people’s ignorance, their weakness, their need, their confidence, all this is lying, a sin against justice, against the law of charity and against the truth. Thinking about these abuses the Lord says: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves (...). Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Mt 7.15 et 19)

Like the Second Vatican Council’s prophets of joy, who announced “Gaudium et spes”, conveying, with their eyes fixed on a chimera, the war, famine and Aids which now devour the planet.

« Often we lie to ourselves, and thus deceive ourselves. Carried away by blind passion, we promise ourselves happiness where it is not to be found.

« God created us free, able to think, desire and decide. We are beings who think and know, as far as the power of understanding in our own intelligence allows us. It is in virtue of our own power of thought and our own intelligence that we are responsible for everything we do of our own free will. »

Contrary to the “religious freedom” proclaimed by the Second Vatican Council, what proceeds from this is the pressing need of choosing good and avoiding evil:

« We deceive ourselves when we exchange good for evil, following what is attractive to our evil inclinations, without thinking of the grave consequences which ensue. Jesus Christ, speaking to the Jews, said:

“In all truth, I tell you: whoever commits sin is a slave (...). You are from your father, the Devil, and you prefer to do what your father wants. He was a murderer from the beginning, and was never grounded in the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he speaks lies, he is speaking true to his nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies.” (Jn 8.34; 44). The Devil, prompted by pride, caused his own downfall and that of those he dragged after him; he deceived himself and deceived those who followed him. Wanting to raise himself above God, he fell into the depths of the abyss; wanting to climb higher, he sank even lower! »

By this terrifying declaration, Jesus reveals the homicidal folly that had seized the entire syndicate of His enemies, composed of all these leading citizens, rulers of Jerusalem, members of the Sanhedrin and Pharisees: they want to kill Him because they have no other way of silencing Him. They hatched this plot under the sway of the Power of impiety and absolute rebellion, whom the Jews know by the name of the Devil.

Their father according to the flesh is Abraham. But the flesh is of no avail, and the spirit that indwells them and prompts them is the Devil’s hatred for Jesus. It is a merciless hatred that goes back to the origins of the human race: by dragging Eve – and then Adam – into his rebellion, the Devil made them slaves, dooming them to death which is the punishment of sin. Now, it is through lying that he reached this end: “You will not die” (Gn 3.4), “you will be like gods” (Gn 3.5) Liar! Father of Lies! And the one who introduced evil into God’s work.

« The same thing happens to us, if we let ourselves be carried away by the temptations of the Devil, the world and the flesh. This is how the sacred text describes one of the temptations prepared by the Devil for Jesus Christ:

“Then the Devil took Him to the holy city, and set Him on the pinnacle of the Temple, and said to Him:

“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written: He will give His angels charge of you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

“Jesus said to him:

“Again it is written: You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” (Mt 4.5-7)

« It is the temptation to pride, which often seduces us, and we do not know how to resist it as Christ did. Throw yourself down, you will come to no harm! The Angels will come and bear you up on their hands; you will not be injured by the stones on which you fall. And you will be a spectacle to the world which will stand and admire you.

« The temptation to pride is a lie! Throw yourself over the precipice of vice; no harm will come to you! Go down! Why do we not rather set ourselves to climb upwards instead of descending? Mount, climb higher! Be pure, chaste, and just, be faithful to God and to your neighbour, be restrained in your conduct. Go higher and God will embrace you in His fatherly arms. Why does temptation not urge us to go upwards instead of going down? Because to go up is truth, and to go down is falsehood; and, like the Devil, vice, passion and the world are false, they cannot recommend truth to us. Thus, very often, we allow ourselves to be deceived, and it is only when we find ourselves lost that we realise the fact.

« In order to overcome the temptations which surround us, we have to struggle against falsehood because that is what all temptations are. In the Apocalypse, St. John describes the struggle between the good Angels who remained faithful to God and the bad Angels who rebelled:

“Now war arose in Heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in Heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world – he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him» (Ap 12.7-9)

« See what Sacred Scripture calls the Devil: the deceiver of the whole world. Temptation is always seductive, whether it comes from ourselves, from the world or from the Devil; it is always deceitful: it promises us what it cannot give. »

Since Sister Lucy cannot forget for a single moment the extraordinary vision of the Third Secret, here is yet another invitation to us to « make our way to God » through truth:

« True happiness is found only in God: the further we draw away from God, the more we sink down, and the more unhappy we become; the nearer we make our way towards God, the happier we are and the greater we become as persons, because only in God are true justice, true love and true greatness to be found. Therefore, God forbids us to take His Name in vain in support of lies.

« Ave Maria! »

REMEMBER TO KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH DAY

(Ch. 26, p. 222-227)

« Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God, in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your man servants, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.” (Ex 20.9-I1)

« The sacred text tells us that God prescribed rest on the seventh day of the week so that it would be a holy day, consecrated to the Lord in memory of, and in thanksgiving for, the work of creation. We know that, in the Old Testament, the day of the week reserved for rest and consecrated to the Lord was Saturday. The Church, authorised by God – “I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever your loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven” (Mt 16.19) – substituted Sunday for Saturday, in order to commemorate, along with the work of creation, the work of redemption brought about by Christ, our Saviour, who rose from the dead on a Sunday. »

This is something that the fifteen hundred members of the community of the Beatitudes, who celebrate the Shabbat seem to have forgotten (cf. our editorial, supra, p. 2).

« Now that we understand this much, let us fix our attention on the words which God uses when laying down this commandment: “Six days you may labour (...), but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, your God.” Thus, Sunday is not only a day of physical rest, with abstention from servile work, but it is also, and above all, a day to be “consecrated to the Lord”, a day of prayer in which we encounter God, to thank Him for all His benefits to us, to sing His praises, to remember His infinite gifts in which He has made us sharers, and to ask His help in all our needs. »

This is one concern that our bishops completely lost sight of when they established the vigil Mass on Saturday evening. Our Lady of Fatima, by Sister Lucy’s pen, compensates for a failing hierarchy:

« In order to fulfil all these duties to God, the Church has commanded us to hear an entire Mass on Sundays and Holy Days. And we must not limit ourselves to simply being present at Mass; we must take part in it. Indeed, it is not only the priest who celebrates Mass: he presides, and consecrates, in the name of Christ, but all the faithful gathered around the altar, live and celebrate the one Sacrifice of Christ. Hence, we must be prepared, so that, giving the responses, praying with the priest, we may, with the priest, draw near to the altar to receive Holy Communion, the Body of Jesus Christ. »

Very often the Dorothean sisters that we have met at Tuy and Pontevedra during our pilgrimages, have told us that as a catechist Sister Lucy is second to none. The following lines are proof of this:

« I say that it is important to be prepared, because, in order to receive the Body of Christ, it is necessary that our conscience does not accuse us of grave sin. If we are in a state of grave sin, we must first receive absolution in the Sacrament of Penance, or Confession, before receiving Holy Communion.

« The celebration of the Eucharist is not a mere ceremony at which we are present; it is a real event in which we meet the living God, in the person of His Son, the renewal of whose passion, death and resurrection we celebrate, and we receive His Body and Blood, as He Himself has told us: “This is My Body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me” (Lk 22.19) and “I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Mt 28.20)

« In reference to the consecrated bread and wine, the Lord says to us: “This is My Body.” Hence, if the Lord says that “this is”, then it is, and does not cease to be, because the word of God effects what it signifies. By virtue of this word, under the species of the consecrated bread and wine, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are present, for as long as the species remain. By virtue of the word of God, the phenomenon of transubstantiation has taken place. Here our faith must be firm, because it is nourished and enlightened by the word of God, which, for us, is life and light. We are not walking in darkness, we know where we are going, we follow the road which God has marked out for us, we follow Him who said: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” (Jn 14.6). We follow Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the Word of the Father. »

St. Pierre-Julien Eymard said: « The Incarnation is so linked to the Eucharist in the Divine plan that the words of St. John can be translated in this way: The Word became flesh, Verbum caro, Verbum panis. »

The Abbé de Nantes has expressed the theology of this passionate devotion: « Let us deliberately leave the bread out of our consideration since it returns entirely to its nothingness on the sacrament’s being constituted. What was before is of little importance to us; in its new being, action and fulfilment, this Sacrament is that of the Body and Blood and in no way that of bread and wine. Let Aristotle take offence, but the sacrament, the visible sign is This, which Jesus gives to His Church, and This is His Body. The matter of the Sacrament, therefore, is the Body – not the bread of which there is no further question – and the Blood – and no longer wine.

« The matter has to be visible and must constitute a sign? Well, in faith we have no hesitation in saying that the Body is indeed visible and tangible, there on the paten, likewise with the Blood in the chalice. Furthermore, these signs constitute an invitation to eat and drink, since they are there as bread and wine. It is not that bread and wine are there as the Body and Blood; it is the Lord’s Body and Blood that are really present and presented to us as bread and wine. But as for bread and wine, they are no more. Jesus has said it. » (The Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of the Lord, New Theology of the Eucharist, CCR n^o 96, March 1977, p. 10)

Jesus said this and Sister Lucy saw it at Tuy: « One could see a chalice with a large host onto which were falling a few drops of blood, flowing down from the cheeks of the Crucified and from a wound in the chest. These drops ran down over the Host and fell into the Chalice. »

The practical conclusion:

« In this way, if our observance of Sunday is limited to merely abstaining from work, we cannot say, with an easy conscience, that we are keeping God’s commandment since we have respected the part of it that refers to rest, but failed to observe the part that bids us consecrate the day to the Lord. »

The same thing goes for those who attend the vigil Mass on Saturday evening in order to “consecrate” Sunday to their leisure activities.

« God did not make us just material beings, there is also a part of us which is spiritual, which makes us like God: we can think, know, choose freely and decide; we are the result of God’s thought, created by His Will. Therefore, our physical and corporal rest has to be accompanied, and sanctified, by the spiritual element in us.

« Still less will this commandment be observed by those who use this day only for distractions, pastimes and amusements, especially such as are sinful. In that case, the day, which should be consecrated to the Lord, becomes a day of sin which offends God and corrupts souls. In this respect, Sacred Scripture tells us:

“Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death; whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to Yahweh.” (Ex 31.14-15)

« As we see, the text insists on this day of rest being consecrated to the Lord. And this consecration demands that at least part of the day should be spent in an encounter with God: an encounter where we communicate directly and consciously with the Lord, by means of prayer, individually and with others, assisting at Mass, hearing the word of God which, by the ministry of priests, is addressed to us in the general assembly of the faithful. It was to them that the Lord confided the mission of preaching His word to us and guiding us in the way of salvation. »

Does this mean that they always fulfill this function? Sister Lucy is well aware that this is not the case, but this must not throw us into disarray, for this goes back a long way:

« If we should happen to see some priests who seem to have lost their way and have gone astray, let us not be surprised! They, too, are human, subject to frailty like ourselves. In the course of time, we meet many who have lost their way and been unfaithful to God and to the mission entrusted to them by the Lord. This is a fact about which God Himself complains and which He deplores thus:

“And now, O priests, this command is for you. If you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to My Name says Yahweh Sabaoth, then I will lay a curse on you and I will curse your blessings; indeed I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. Behold, says the Lord of the hosts, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung upon your faces, the dung of your offerings, and I will put you out of My presence. So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that My covenant with the priests, the descendants of Levi may hold, says Yahweh Sabaoth. My covenant with him was a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him, that he might fear; and he feared Me, he stood in awe of My Name. True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of Yahweh Sabaoth.” (Ml 2.1-7) »

This text of Malachi, the last of the “lesser prophets”, which concludes the Old Testament in our Bible, denounces a priesthood little concerned with its duties, which was stingy with sacrifices and only presented to God blind, lame or ill animals. The faith of many was affected, and apostasy spread its ravages. Let us admit that the picture is strikingly topical. Sister Lucy did not choose this text at random! She dots the i’s and crosses the t’s:

« God shows us here the figure of a priest who was unfaithful, and that of another who was faithful to the Lord and the mission entrusted to him. The fact that some priests fall away, must not mean that our respect, our esteem and our veneration for those who persevere should be any less: rather, the weakness of some should heighten the merit of the rest. Therefore, we should always listen with faith to the priest, because he is a light for our path, a guide for our life and a source of strength for our weakness. »

The motive for this veneration that one must conserve in all circumstances for the priestly state is that we share in it, each according to his state, due to our union with Christ:

« Christ is the true and eternal Priest of the New Covenant, and all of us, who remain united to Him, share in His priesthood; each of us in the sphere where we have been placed by God. All of us, united in the same faith, the same hope and the same charity; together we constitute the People of God, described by Sacred Scripture as a priestly people. »

In the vision of the Third Secret, we see this people, « a Bishop dressed in White » at the front, climbing « a steep mountain », in order to die there, to be killed violently and painfully at the foot of « a large Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with its bark ». We have explained that this Bishop dressed in White was firstly Jesus Christ « the Bishop of our souls » (1 Pt 2.25), and then St. Peter himself, who succeeded Him here below. It should not surprise us then that his words come to Sister Lucy’s pen. She goes on:

« St. Peter, in his first Letter, says to us: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of Him who called you out of darkness into the marvellous light. Once you were a non-people but now you are God’s people.” (1 Pt 2.9-10)

« Above, St. Peter says as well: “And like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Pt 2.5). It was in Baptism that we received this priestly dignity, in virtue of which we can offer spiritual sacrifices: all the good works of a Christian, making known the wonders of God, all the prayers of supplication and thanksgiving offered by ourselves and our neighbours, the witness of a holy life, self-sacrifice and the gift of ourselves in the service of others.

« We must realise that we have been made sharers in the priesthood of Christ in order to co-operate in His work of Redemption. The realisation of this will help us to observe worthily the precept concerning Sunday as a day consecrated to the Lord: the day must be used also for our own evangelisation, by the study of the laws and truths of God, so that, in our daily lives, we may know how they apply in each case, how to live them ourselves and transmit them to those around us, above all to those entrusted by Heaven to our responsibility.

« If, on the contrary, we spend our Sunday solely in physical rest and distractions, can we say that we are fulfilling our priestly mission in respect of those whom the Lord has confided to our care? Will we not have failed to give the good example which we should give to those who see us? We must not forget that the apostolate of good example is superior to that of the word, unless this latter is translated coherently into action in our practical life. The Portuguese have a saying, which is very true: “Words move us, but example induces us” In other words, our lives must be in harmony with our words.

« All of us, to a greater or lesser extent, in whatever situation we are placed, have a responsibility for the good of others, and the salvation of their souls. By our attitude towards them, by our words, our actions, and the prayers we should say for them, either in private or in public, with them and for them, we have to help one another to keep on the right road; the road of faith in Christ, the road of hope and love which unites us all in Christ, Head and Leader of His People, the Church. If we do not do this, how in fact do we consecrate our Sunday to the Lord?

« In his Gospel, St. John tells us that, when many of those who had followed Christ heard Him proclaiming the mystery of the Eucharist, they refused to believe, were scandalised and left the Lord. Then Jesus, seeing this, said to them:

“Do you take offence at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where He was before? It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you that do not believe. For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that should betray Him. And He said: This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted him by the Father.

“After this many of His disciples drew back and no longer went about with Him.

“Jesus said to the Twelve, “Will you also go away?” Simon Peter answered Him: Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that You are the Holy One of God. Jesus answered them: “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And one of you is a Devil? He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was to betray Him.” (Jn 6.61-71)

« This Gospel passage shows us how, from the very beginning, in God’s Church there were those who did not believe, were unfaithful or deserted altogether. They left God to succumb to temptations to pride, avarice, sins of the flesh, the Devil and the world. »

Sister Lucy wrote these lines when the Vatican II reform had borne its fruits: eighty thousand priests married after the Council. « You have been more successful than Luther », wrote the Abbé de Nantes to Paul VI in his Liber accusationis , (1973, p. 53).

Shortly after his election, John Paul I insisted that « the criteria used in granting dispensation from the vow of celibacy were to be revised at once, since he considered the number of requests arriving at his desk to be excessive » (The Whole Truth about Fatima, Vol. 4, p. 352)

« They take no notice of what the Lord said: “It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.” Of what use is the flesh when the spirit leaves it? Let us go into a cemetery and look at the graves: they will give us the answer!

« But this answer is still incomplete. A day will come when these bodies, by then reduced to ashes, must rise to eternal life and, united once more to the souls which animated them in life, will go to share in the same destiny ordained for the souls after death, merited by each one according to his or her works. This is why Jesus Christ tells us that the flesh is of no use because it is the spirit which gives life. And the words that He spoke are indeed spirit and life; at any rate for those who believe and follow them. St. Peter answered: “To whom shall we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life.”

« Like the Apostle, we must believe in Christ and remain united to Him, in the person of the Successor of St. Peter, the Pope and Bishop of Rome, and say, with him: “We have come to believe and are convinced that You are the Holy One of God, the Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into the world to save us; and that You only have the words of eternal life!” And when we see that others are falling away, we should stand all the more firmly in our faith, united to Christ, in the person of His representative, the Pope, the one true Head of the one true Church of God, founded by Jesus Christ. He is still present and will be with us until the end of time: “I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Mt 28.20)

In an after-dinner debate, organised on 30 January 1970 at the Lutetia, a clerk of the court of Paris declared to the Abbé de Nantes:

« Since the death of Pius XII I no longer have pastors; Our modern bishops are not worth mentioning.

– Well, Sir, our Father replied, I am sorry to have to tell you that you have lost your Catholic faith! Do you follow? Anyone who truly believes that for the past ten years there have been no Popes and no bishops and that the Church came to an end with the death of Pius XII – who does not go to Mass because, so he says, he wants to keep his Catholic faith intact, has in fact lost it already! This is a sad fact but it is true! Because the Church and her hierarchy are to endure until the end of the world. That is a dogma. And it does not refer to some invisible continuity, through a small band of “faithful” priests and laymen (the rest being “infidels”?) who keep themselves apart and stay at home while the visible Church continues elsewhere. The Church persists in the uninterrupted succession of legitimate Popes and Bishops in communion with them.

« Whether or not we happen to like the Popes and Bishops, whether they are good or bad – annoying or even disastrous though it may be – that remains a secondary consideration. If their perversities offend against faith, or charity, then one does not obey them in those matters. But we cannot just say that the Church does not exist any more on this account. We believe in the Roman Church which is immortal and in her hierarchy carried on by a succession of real and visible men, to whom we submit in all that can honestly be asked of us. » (CCR n^o 2, March 1970, p. 6)

In these crucial years during which Sister Lucy had just finished her “Calls from the Message of Fatima”, and during which the Abbé de Nantes founded the Catholic Counter-Reformation League to keep traditionalists in the bosom of the Church, the conclusion of this chapter of Sister Lucy is truly inspired, in order to enjoin Catholics to continue going to Mass, even said according to the new Ordo of Paul VI: « To say that celebrating Mass according to the new rite or attending this new Mass is a sin is to talk too lightly without knowing what one is talking about, or else it is an act of rebellion or schism. Since the Church has promulgated it, this new Mass is licit. » (CCR n^o 52, July 1974, p. 16-17)

« This is the door of salvation which God has opened for us, and the way by which we will go to Him: Christ and His Church. We are members of Christ’s Church, we are part of the Assembly of Christ and we live united to Christ, so that we may be saved by Christ. And Sunday is the day appointed by God for all the members of the Mystical Body of Christ who form His Church to gather together in assembly.

« Ave Maria! »

Brother Bruno de Jesus