Commentary about the Sixth Apparition (by Fr. Stehlin)
Importance of the message
Considering the apparitions of Our Lady in the Cova da Iria, generally, the essential event and the important point of the last apparition is the great miracle Our Lady promised to accomplish three months ago. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that the message in itself is very brief in comparison to the three first ones, and it seems to be only a repetition of what already had been spoken of several times. It is true, that this last apparition is certainly a solemn summary of the whole message of Fatima, as if Our Lady would resume Her great message in some short sentences easy to memorize. The message appears to be similar to the question and answer method in our catechisms. In this way, even a simple soul will be able to keep in mind what the Heavenly Mother said.
However, the message is much more important than it seems at first sight, and this is because of the very declaration of Our Lady on this day: “who I am and what I want”. In reality, She had already expressed many times what She wants, and She will make more precisions about Her wishes even after 1917 through the apparitions in Pontevedra and Tuy.
If now, on the 13 October, She announces solemnly “what She wants”, She Herself makes it clear that the message of this day must have a very special, outstanding, and exceptional meaning. To emphasize this importance, She announced to the children twice, in August and September, the visions they would be privileged to contemplate. As a rule, we can consider that if Our Lady announces something beforehand (and not only once), it will be exceptionally important. We also should not forget that it will be the last great apparition, like a culmination of the previous ones, and that this apparition is immediately linked with the great miracle of the sun: the announced three visions of the children take place at the same moment the people contemplate the great miracle, also three-times foretold.
Let us now meditate on the different parts of the message, not in their chronological order, but to understand in the deepest possible manner who She is and what She wants.
And what does Our Lady want?
Let us begin with the request of Our Lady which made the greatest impression on the children.
Lucy writes: “Of all the words spoken at this apparition, the words most deeply engraved upon my heart are those of the request made by Our Heavenly Mother: ‘Do not offend Our Lord and God any more, for He is already so much offended’. How loving a complaint, how tender a request. Who will grant me to make it echo through the whole world, so that all the children of Our Mother in Heaven may hear the sound of Her voice! ”
1/ do not offend god any more, because he is already too much offended.
It has been said many times already how much sin offends God, and how important it is that we do not remain in our sin, but convert ourselves. Fatima is a solemn warning to all sinners about the disastrous consequences of sin. Especially in our times when people offend God and (even Catholics) consider it a “normal thing”, when almost nobody knows how much it hurts God’s heart, this warning is of highest actuality: “Stop it now, it is really too much!”
However, in this apparition and only in it, Our Lady emphasizes the strong words “too much!” What do they mean? We know that each sin, even the slightest one, is already “too much”, and that it is an impossibility if we consider God’s infinite majesty and mercy, and the fact that sin is somehow the negation of God and the effort to eliminate and annihilate Him. From the very first sin of Adam and Eve, and throughout all times, God is too much offended.
But today, the “woman clothed in the sun” working an incredible miracle so that each one may believe, approaches “each one” of Her children with indescribable delicacy: Her eyes are bright like the sun, She is all burning with love like the sun, She stands for me in Her majesty and Her heart is speaking more than Her lips: “my child, my beloved child! Please do not offend God anymore, because you have already offended Him TOO much! Innumerable times your thoughts, desires, words, and actions have deserved eternal punishment. How long will you continue to provoke God’s infinite Holiness? I, your Heavenly Mother, come now to say to you, to tell you what I want: To save you, my children, at any price, from the fires of hell. Hell exists, and as you have already offended God too much, you are one meter before the eternal abyss. I, your loving Mother, can’t stand this anymore! I weep and agonize for you! Please stop continuing this way; otherwise it will be too late. For so many who wouldn’t stop sinning it became effectively too late!”
But this is not all. We have to grasp more deeply the sense of this anxious call: a noble heart can never say “enough” in his love, it wants to love more and more without limit. On the contrary, the slightest harm, the smallest offense towards the beloved is always “too much”, the loving heart cannot bear whatsoever hurts the beloved. And here Our Lady again laments: “Don’t you see my Son’s infinite love, all His blood shared for you, He Himself annihilated in the little host for you to be close to Him in the Most Blessed Sacrament? He Who is almost always forgotten, abandoned, and neglected by you neither forgets nor abandons you! And also: don’t you see my motherly love is greater than that of all mothers in the world put together?” In this way, She brings me before the intimacy of Her Immaculate Heart to wake up my heart, to put fire in it, and to enkindle in it the love towards God. However, the first and fundamental act of love is to avoid all that makes the beloved weep and sad; and whatever would hurt Him is always “TOO MUCH!”
Let us enter another step deeper into the Heart of Our Mother and ask Her about this “too much!” Surely She opens Her Heart to me so that I may look into it for my salvation. We looked into this in the consideration above. But beyond Her infinite love towards us, Her lost children, She loves us yet in another way: Let us never forget that the Immaculata in Heaven incessantly contemplates the very essence of God. More than any other creature, and more than all other creatures (souls and angels together) She knows and loves HIM. She understands that all creation, including Herself, is strictly nothing before God, less than what a little drop is in comparison to an infinite ocean. But She does not only understand His infinite MAJESTY, She understands HIS VERY ESSENCE OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY: “GOD IS LOVE!” Her only love is a faithful copy of the love of the eternal Son to the Father, of the love of the Father to the Son, and of the love of both in itself: THE HOLY GHOST. As the Immaculate Spouse of the Holy Ghost, She received HIS LOVE totally and fully in Her Heart: the flames of Her heart are the presence of the GOD-LOVE amongst creatures.
Now this love is “light, no darkness in Him!” This means that God’s love cannot tolerate any darkness. In Fatima, SHE comes into the sinful darkness of this world, and this day, as a conclusion of Her requests, She tells us what She really wants. In the light of God’s majesty and boundless love, hear the cry and outburst of Her Heart that IS LOVE: “Do not offend God any more because He is too much offended! I beg you, let yourself be invaded by this bright, infinite ocean. He desires it with an unlimited desire! Come to my Immaculate Heart to learn from me how to recover
It is not difficult to discover in this sentence the first essential themes of the message of Fatima: “conversion and reparation”. “Do not offend Him any more,” means conversion. The reaction to the fact that God is “too much offended” calls for reparation. This is also the comment of Sr. Lucy: “I consider then, that God willed only to make use of me to remind the world that it is necessary to avoid sin, and to make reparation to an offended God, by prayer and penance”.
2/ Recite the Rosary every day:
Nothing in Fatima has been repeated so much by Our Lady than this request. If ceasing to offend God, and henceforth to please Him, and so to save our souls are to be considered the goals of the apparition of Fatima, I present the Holy Rosary as the universal means to reach this goal.
Therefore, we can consider this 13 October apparition as a solemn conclusion of what Our Lady began to reveal already in the XII century to Saint Dominic, when She gave him the Rosary as a means of conversion of the heretics. Two centuries later, Blessed Alan de Rupe received the famous 15 special graces promised to those who pray the Holy Rosary with devotion. Again, two centuries later, the first Rosary Crusade, initiated by Saint Pius V, provoked the miraculous victory of the small Catholic army against the overwhelming majority of the Islamic Turks in Lepanto (1571), followed by similar miraculous victories in Manila (1646), Vienna (1683), Peterwardein (1716) etc. Again, two centuries later, Our Lady Herself shows the world the importance of the Holy Rosary when She appears in France. Lourdes is a grandiose manifestation of the overwhelming power of the Holy Rosary. But nowhere did Our Lady ask for its recitation with so much insistence than in Fatima!
Before 1917, the Holy Rosary was prayed during the month of October and at some major occasions. Only since Our Heavenly Mother insisted six times to say it daily was this custom established all over the world. We realize the extreme importance of the Rosary when we consider its innumerable fruits and effects. But the most astonishing witness about its importance is Our Lady Herself, when, on this day, She reveals who She is: “I am Our Lady of the Rosary”. We will meditate about this title below, and also give a brief answer to why the Rosary is so unique, so absolutely great. After the Holy Mass and the Divine Liturgy, it is the most important prayer in the Church.
In Fatima, Our Lady also shows some of the most important effects or fruits of the Rosary:
First of all, on 13 May, She declares to Francisco that he would go to Heaven, but he would have to say many rosaries. Now this intimation certainly does not touch only Francisco, but everybody. In other words, our salvation and particularly our holiness is intimately linked with the devotion to the Holy Rosary.
Secondly, when Lucy asked for the healing of sick people, or to help in other difficulties, Our Lady repeated so often that “they must recite the Rosary daily to receive these graces”.
Thirdly, Sr. Lucy explained to Fr. Fuentes that now (for the latter times) God gives us two last means of salvation: the devotion to the Rosary and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And if She said that they would be the last, no others will be given. This shows us the very special importance of the Rosary in our apocalyptic times, so much so, that only these two devotions guarantee our fidelity and perseverance during the final battles.
Finally, on this 13 October, Our Lady reveals another great effect of the Rosary: it obtains the end of the war. Let us consider this last point thoroughly:
We are in the year 1917; the First World War enters in its most horrible and deadly phase. There was almost no family in Europe who had not had to send their sons into that war, and everyone was preoccupied with this issue. In this light, we can understand why Our Lady alludes several times to this World War and promises its end.
However, the message of Our Lady does not touch only the children or the people living in 1917, but through them touches all people of all ages. Similarly, we see in the Gospel that Our Lord Himself announces prophetically the destruction of Jerusalem (which will happen in the year 70), but He also interlaces this historical event with the end of the world. We can apply this prophetic language to Our Lady in Fatima: directly and immediately, She speaks about the end of the first World War and the return home of the soldiers. But these same words have also to be understood for all people of all ages. Everybody who comes to Fatima receives the promise of Our Lady: The war will end and the soldiers will return home! How have we to understand this? We must ask ourselves, what does “war” and particularly “end of the war” mean to us?
Firstly, this means that we are members of the Militant Church and our life is a Christian Warfare. The public wars of people and nations against one another is only an expression and a symbol of the war between good and evil, between grace and sin, between Our Lady and the devil, between Heaven and hell.
In a war we need good weapons, but not only that. The soldiers must be skilled and well trained to use these weapons. The weapon “par excellence” given by Our Lady is the Holy Rosary. And if you use this weapon according to the wish of our “commander in chief”, She announces solemnly that this war will end and the soldiers can come home, that they will finally reach their eternal home.
Secondly, this means that there must be one who wins and one who looses the battles; there must be a defeat and a victory: the victory, all true victory in this world is obtained by HER, and through Her by all of them who faithfully meditate upon the mysteries of the Rosary. This is confirmed by the Church, who declares the feast of Our Lady of Victories as also the feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary.
Thirdly, the end of the war and the result of the victory is PEACE. There is no victory or peace without Her- She demonstrated this already through the miraculous victories from the XVI century onwards; this will also be Her message in Tuy. In Fatima, Our Lady came to reveal that She is the only dispensary of the gift of peace, and She wills that we obtain this peace through the Rosary (see also the apparitions in 13 May, 13 July, 13 September).
In other words, the Rosary is the great peacemaker in our life. The peace of weapons cannot be but an external condition of true peace which Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas define as the “tranquility of order”. Now we know that our heart is a battlefield and “the devil turns incessantly around us like a roaring lion trying to devour us”. It is difficult to get peace into our souls and very often we are troubled, restless, and agitated. The smallest events make us lose the peace of our heart. How precious therefore is the promise of Our Lady, that the Rosary gives us the atmosphere of order and harmony. The highest and truest peace, however, is only a life in God's friendship, a life in sanctifying grace. And this grace is also granted and conserved thanks to the Holy Rosary. Furthermore, we can extend this promise to all situations and institutions which absolutely need the atmosphere of peace if they want to survive: the families, the schools, the parishes, convents, villages, etc.
Effectively, on the 13th of October Our Lady told us what She wants. In a surprising and original way, She reminded Her children about the goal of their life and the necessity of a radical turning away (= conversion) from all that offends God, and also the importance of consoling the infinite love which is “already too much offended” by making acts of reparation for sins. But She is not only a teacher who reminds us and teaches us about the unique necessity of the great truth of our life. As the best of all mothers, She gives us the necessary means to win the battle against the devil and sin. And here appears the third great theme of Fatima: consecration. Certainly this day She does not speak directly about the act of consecration, but explains the inner sense and the life of consecration, without which the most solemn acts and prayers would not have any meaning. The Rosary is the devotion which, in a very practical and simple manner, consecrates our daily life to God through Mary.
3/ I am Our Lady of the Rosary
After having considered what Our Lady wants, we will now learn, who She is. Just as in Lourdes, although Her confidants had recognized Her right away, She did not wish to reveal Her name just yet. Why this delay, why this mystery, if not to draw our attention still more to a name which is the concrete expression of the very mystery of the person?
In Lourdes, Our Lady had not revealed Her name until March 25: “I am the Immaculate Conception”; and Bernadette observed, “These are the last words She spoke to me”.
At Fatima as well, She did not reveal Her name until the last of her apparitions in the Cova da Iria: “I am Our Lady of the Rosary”. To our knowledge this is the first time that Our Lady pronounced such words; and it is of utmost importance to explore them thoroughly, as the Heavenly Mother (similarly in Lourdes) allows us to enter into the very essence of Her being, of Her ineffable mystery.
“I am...”
Strictly speaking, no creature can state such a thing: “I am!” because from ourselves we are nothing! Each creature should answer the question “who are you” with the words of Saint John the Baptist: “I am not!” We have received what we are and what we have; this means we receive our being, our qualities, and our talents as a limited participation of the being and the perfections of God. We can never say: “I am wisdom” but only “I have received a part of God's wisdom”; or “I am the life”, but I have only received my life as a limited participation in God's life. Only God can say: “I am!” And He did precisely this when He revealed to Moses for the first time in history His very name: “I am Who am!” Afterwards, Our Lord Jesus Christ will also apply to Himself this divine prerogative when He says: “I am the Life! I am the Truth! I am the Resurrection! Before Abraham was, I am!”
However, both in Lourdes and Fatima Our Lady says clearly “I am” to define Her very essence and to reveal Her deepest name. Is that not a blasphemy to arrogate for Herself what only God can say? This objection was made in Lourdes at the canonical process during which the authenticity of the apparition was decided.
Saint Maximilian gives a marvelous explication. He explains that the Holy Ghost in fact is the ever holy, ever “immaculate” conception of Father and Son, the bond of Father and Son, their mutual Love. He alone could say strictly and properly: “I am the eternal purest, holiest, Immaculate Conception!” Our Lady was created as the Spouse of the Holy Ghost: “If among creatures the wife takes the name of her husband because she belongs to him, unites herself with him, becomes his equal and becomes, in union with him, the instrument through which new life is created, how much more true this is in the case of the Holy Ghost's name. Immaculate Conception is the name of the Woman in whom He lives in that Love which is fruitful for the whole supernatural order”.
Henceforth, Our Lady as the only creature can say “I am!” because She is so totally united to the Most Holy Trinity, but very specially to the Holy Ghost. Saint Maximilian cannot find equivalent words to express how much the Holy Ghost and the Immaculata are one: She is the very presence of Him in this world; He is so much united with Her that one can speak about a quasi-incarnation: “What kind of union is this? It is above all interior: it is the union of Her very being with the being of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost dwells in Her, lives in Her from the first instant of Her existence, and He will do so always throughout eternity”.
“I am … Nossa Senhora:”
The English version “I am Our Lady...” is not the exact translation of “Nossa Senhora” which is the female word for “Senhor” (lord, master), so strictly speaking, it means “Lordess”, “Mistress”. One could almost translate the whole sentence: I am the Queen of the Holy Rosary.” The term “Senhora” means authority, reign, and government. In fact, Fatima is an extraordinary manifestation of the royal power of the Mother of God, of the OMNIPOTENTIA SUPPLEX (pleading almightiness).
This sentence, however, is a problem. It would be grammatically correct to say: “I am your Queen, I am the Queen”, etc. But She says: I am … Our Lady!
Maybe She accepts the common expression “Our Lady” of all people as a whole. She loves this invocation so much the She wants it applied to Herself. “I am really that which you name me:
By this uncommon expression She wants to explain that She is really “Senhora”, the Queen who received from Her divine Son the full royal dignity and executive authority. But this authority and power is “ours”, it belongs to us. Mary is “Our Lady”, part of ourselves: in other words – Her authority and power is just for our good, for our sake, and for our happiness.
“I am Our Lady of the Rosary”:
Her royal authority is specified by the word “Rosary”. That means that the Rosary is the place and the atmosphere in which She exercises Her being Queen, Lady, and “Lordess”.
What is the Holy Rosary?
“Rosarium” is the bouquet of the most beautiful roses of virtue, love, and holiness offered to the Most High for our salvation. It is the chain which joins Heaven with earth, the anchor which links the ship of the soul with the eternal harbor. It is a crown of the most beautiful jewels, the most precious gift made to the eternal King. “I am Our Lady of the Rosary” means: “I am myself the link between Heaven and earth, the ladder on which God descends to this world and on which we return to God. I am the “Senhora”, the authority to govern and to command all “roses”, all good works, and intentions of my children to be offered to God. I take all the jewels of my children and unite them with my virtues and my immense love and so make a worthy, immaculate crown to put on the head of my divine Son as a supreme act of homage, adoration, and submission.
Once more: What is the Holy Rosary? It is the life, death, and resurrection of Our Lord revived, meditated on in our Heart with and in Mary! “I am Our Lady of the Rosary,” means that She is the ‘Senhora’ of the life, death, and resurrection of Our Lord recalled and revived in our hearts and present on the altar for our salvation. But does it mean that the spiritual revival of the 33 years of life of Our Lord is in us? It means simply that Jesus Christ Himself enters our souls with His Precious Blood to cleanse us from our sins, to purify us from the spiritual leprosy, to free us from the chains of the devil, and to convert us from the way which leads to the eternal abyss. After having purified us, Our Lord fills our soul with the life of God, with His eternal light and goodness, and finally with His everlasting glory.
Now Our Lady is the Mother and Queen of this spiritual revival in Jesus Christ: She makes Him come again and again into the souls of Her children with all the graces of conversion, purification, sanctification, and glorification.
But then the title “I am Our Lady of the Rosary” means: I am the Mediatrix of All Graces!
Her Mediation is perfectly described in the Holy Rosary as we have already seen: She is the link, the bond from God towards us (theology names this the descending mediation — mediatio descendens), but also the bond from us towards God (theology names this the ascending mediation – mediatio ascendens). The Rosary is first the illustration of God's infinite mercy, and He comes from His eternal fullness and light into our darkness and nothingness; Our Lady is the channel through which the infinite light, grace, and mercy descend into our hearts. Saint Maximilian Kolbe says: “Gesta Dei per Immaculatam” - all the “gestures” of God towards us through the Immaculata. Secondly, the Rosary is the illustration of our answer towards God, of our return to God – again through Her according to the old sentence of the Fathers: Per Mariam ad Jesum, or according to Her proper words: “My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way which leads you to God”.
Her universal mediation - Our Lady explains this more concretely through the three visions the children could see while the pilgrims contemplated the miracle of the sun.
“We first had the vision of the Holy Family: St. Joseph and the Child Jesus blessing the world, and on the left, Our Lady, such as She appeared on the holm oak.”
“I am Our Lady of the Rosary, and first, of its joyful mysteries.” As Mediatrix She brings these mysteries into our heart and thus brings us to know Our Lord in His divine-human personality! Through Her He came into the world; through Her He was born in Bethlehem; through Her Saint John was sanctified; and She brings Him into our souls (mediatio descendens).
But also through the meditation of the Rosary She brings us spiritually to Nazareth, to Bethlehem, to Egypt, and again to Nazareth so that we may imitate the hidden life of Our Lord and copy in our family life the life of the Holy Family (mediatio ascendens). In the measure which we join the Holy Family and imitate their life we receive “the blessings of Saint Joseph and the Child Jesus”.
scientifically
“Then the light changed and suddenly the Virgin appeared as Our Lady of Sorrows. Our Lord, Who blessed the multitude, replaced St. Joseph. Our Lord appeared in His adulthood, and He was dressed in red no doubt to remind us of the purple mantle in which He was dressed in the praetorium, during the scene of the outrages and the crowning with thorns.”
Our Lady is the 'Senhora' of the sorrowful mysteries: when She stood beneath the Cross Our Lord gave Her all the fruits and graces coming from His thousands of wounds and His pierced heart. She collected in Her heart all the fruits of the work of redemption, of His holy Passion and His death on the cross, where Our Lord declared that She become our Mother, to give all His graces to Her beloved children (mediatio descendens). But through the meditation of these mysteries, She invites us to stand and kneel beside Her on the footsteps of the Cross where Our Lord “will attract to Himself and to His heavenly Father” all those who faithfully persevere in His Faith and grace, protected and guided by His Mother, the Mother of Sorrows (mediatio ascendens).
“This apparition also vanished, and I saw our Lady once more, this time resembling Our Lady of Carmel.”
She is finally the ‘Senhora’ of the glorious mysteries: She brings us the triumph over the devil, sin, and damnation; She brings us life everlasting; She brings all the glories of the Triumphant Church into our soul. She gives us the scapular as a symbol of the motherly care and protection (mediatio descendens). We want to wear the scapular faithfully and devoutly; we want to recognize and proclaim that we are Her children and She, “Our Lady — Our Queen,” and so we prepare ourselves for a holy death (see promises of the Brown Scapular). This is the most beautiful issue of the mediatio ascendens – a spiritual ascension in Her and with Her until the eternal resurrection and life in Heaven.
What is the great message of Fatima? Who is SHE who comes to rescue us in the darkest hours of this world?
“I AM OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY,” She says.
And that means: “I AM THE MEDIATRIX OF ALL GRACES”.
But where is the seat of all graces? Where is the very center of my inmost being (“I am!”)?
IT IS MY IMMACULATE HEART!
We come to the conclusion that in truth, Our Lady, through Her short words during the last apparition in the Cova da Iria, delivered to us in its substance the whole mystery of Fatima; and it is exactly this mystery that everybody has to accept and believe. It is not just an option for a certain group of devotees to Our Lady. It is for all men living in this world: for the unbelievers, that they may convert; for the indifferent, that they may become zealous; for the sinners, that they may return to the state of grace; for the zealous, that they may become saints; for “all who are sitting in darkness and the shadows of death”, that they may find eternal life and everlasting peace. And we find all these categories of people present on this day in Fatima to become witnesses of one of the greatest miracles ever seen in history.
