Description

Votive Candle – Our Lady of Fatima

Our Votive candles are beautiful.

The colours are bright and stand out.

This votive candle will burn for over 10 hours.

50 x 100mm pillar.

The Picture of Our Lady of Fatima may vary.

Three Secrets of Fátima

First two secrets

Lúcia Santos

(

left

) with her cousins

Jacinta and Francisco Marto

, 1917

The first secret was a vision of hell, which Lúcia describes in her Third Memoir, as follows:

“Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.”


^[20]

The second secret included Mary’s instructions on how to save souls from hell and convert the world to the Christian faith, also revealed by Lúcia in her Third Memoir:

“I have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of

Pius XI

. When you see a night illuminated by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the

Church

and of the

Holy Father

. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of

Russia

to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the

First Saturdays

. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.”


^[21]

Fate of the three children

Statue depicting the

Immaculate Heart of Mary

as described by

Sister Lúcia of Fátima

.

Sister Lúcia

reported seeing the Virgin Mary again in 1925 at the Dorothean convent at

Pontevedra

,

Galicia (Spain)

. This time she said she was asked to convey the message of the

First Saturday Devotions

. By her account a subsequent vision of Christ as a child reiterated this request.

Sister Lúcia was transferred to another convent in

Tui

or Tuy,

Galicia

in 1928. In 1929, Sister Lúcia reported that Mary returned and repeated her request for the

Consecration of Russia

to her

Immaculate Heart

.

Sister Lúcia reportedly saw Mary in private visions periodically throughout her life. Most significant was the apparition in

Rianxo

,

Galicia

, in 1931, in which she said that Jesus visited her, taught her two prayers and delivered a message to give to the church’s hierarchy.

In 1947, Sister Lúcia left the Dorothean order and joined the

Discalced Carmelite

order in a monastery in

Coimbra

, Portugal. Lúcia died on February 13, 2005, at the age of 97. After her death, the

Vatican

, specifically

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

(at that time, still head of the

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

), ordered her cell sealed off. It is believed this was because Sister Lúcia had continued to receive more revelations and the evidence needed to be examined in the course of proceedings for her possible

canonization

.


^[22]

Sister Lúcia’s cousins, the siblings

Francisco

(1908–1919) and

Jacinta Marto

(1910–1920), were both victims of the Great

Spanish Flu

Epidemic of 1918-20. Francisco and Jacinta were declared

venerable

by Pope John Paul II in a public ceremony at Fátima on May 13, 1989. He returned there on May 13, 2000 to declare them

‘blessed’

(a title of veneration below that of sainthood; see

Canonization

). Jacinta is the youngest non-martyred child ever to be beatified.

In 1936 and again in 1941, Sister Lúcia claimed that the Virgin Mary had predicted the deaths of two of the children during the second apparition on June 13, 1917. Besides Lúcia’s account, the testimony of Olímpia Marto (mother of the two younger children) and several others state that her children did not keep this information secret and ecstatically predicted their own deaths many times to her and to curious pilgrims.


^[23]


In fact, it was the first thing Jacinta told her mother when she spoke to her after the initial apparition.


^[24]


According to the 1941 account, on 13 June, Lúcia asked the Virgin if the three children would go to heaven when they died. She said that she heard Mary reply, “Yes, I shall take Francisco and Jacinta soon, but you will remain a little longer, since Jesus wishes you to make me known and loved on Earth. He wishes also for you to establish devotion in the world to my Immaculate Heart.”


^[25]

Exhumed in 1935 and again in 1951, Jacinta’s face was found

incorrupt

or immune to decay. Francisco’s body, however, had decomposed.


^[26]

Consecration of Russia

Statue of

Pope Pius XII

in Fátima, Portugal.

Just as a few years ago We consecrated the entire human race to the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, so today We consecrate and in a most special manner We entrust all the peoples of Russia to this Immaculate Heart…

According to Sister Lúcia, the Virgin Mary promised that the

Consecration of Russia

would lead to Russia’s conversion and an era of peace.


^[3]

Pope Pius XII

, in his Apostolic Letter


Sacro Vergente


of 7 July 1952, consecrated Russia to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pius XII wrote,

Just as a few years ago We consecrated the entire human race to the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, so today We consecrate and in a most special manner We entrust all the peoples of Russia to this Immaculate Heart…



^[27]

In 1952 the Pope said to the

Russian people

and the

Stalinist regime

that the

Virgin Mary

was always victorious. “The

gates of hell

will never prevail, where she offers her protection. She is the good mother, the mother of all, and it has never been heard, that those who seek her protection, will not receive it. With this certainty, the Pope dedicates all people of Russia to the immaculate heart of the Virgin. She will help! Error and

atheism

will be overcome with her assistance and divine grace.”


^[28]

Popes Pius XII and

John Paul II

both had special relations to Our Lady of Fátima.

Pope Benedict XV

began Pacelli’s church career, elevating him to

archbishop

in the

Sistine Chapel

on May 13, 1917, the date of the first reported apparition. Pius XII was laid to rest in the crypt of Saint Peter’s Basilica on October 13, 1958, the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima.

Pope John Paul II again consecrated the entire world to the Virgin Mary in 1984, without explicitly mentioning Russia. Some believe that

Sister Lúcia

verified that this ceremony fulfilled the requests of the Virgin Mary.


^[29]


However, in the

Blue Army’s

Spanish magazine,

Sol de Fátima

, in the September 1985 issue, Sister Lúcia said that the ceremony did not fulfill the Virgin Mary’s request, as there was no specific mention of Russia, and “many bishops attached no importance to it.” In 2001, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone issued a statement, claiming that he had met with Sister Lúcia, who reportedly told him, “I have already said that the consecration desired by Our Lady was made in 1984, and has been accepted in Heaven.” Sister Lúcia died on February 13, 2005, without making any public statement of her own to settle the issue.

Some maintain that, according to Lúcia and Fátima advocates such as Abbe Georges de Nantes, Fr. Paul Kramer and

Nicholas Gruner

, Russia has never been specifically consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by any Pope simultaneously with all the world’s bishops, which is what Lúcia in the 1985 interview had said Mary had asked for.


<sup>[30]




[31]




[32]</sup>

However, by letters of August 29, 1989 and July 3, 1990, she stated that the consecration had been completed; indeed in the 1990 letter in response to a question by

Rev. Father Robert J. Fox

, she confirmed:

I come to answer your question, “If the consecration made by Pope John Paul II on March 25, 1984 in union with all the bishops of the world, accomplished the conditions for the consecration of Russia according to the request of Our Lady in Tuy on June 13 of 1929?” Yes, it was accomplished, and since then I have said that it was made. And I say that no other person responds for me, it is I who receive and open all letters and respond to them.


^[33]

In the meantime, the conception of

Theotokos Derzhavnaya

Orthodox Christian venerated icon points out that Virgin Mary is considered actual

Tsarina

of Russia by the religious appeal of

Nicholas II

thus Consecration of Russia may refer to return of Russian

monarchy

.

Third Secret

The third secret, a vision of the death of the Pope and other religious figures, was transcribed by the

Bishop of Leiria

and reads:

“After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’ And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, Religious men and women going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, Religious men and women, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal

aspersorium

in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.”


^[34]

Controversy around the Third Secret

The

Vatican

withheld the Third Secret until 26 June 2000, despite Lúcia’s declaration that it could be released to the public after 1960. Some sources, including Canon Barthas and

Cardinal Ottaviani

, said that Lúcia insisted to them it must be released by 1960, saying that, “by that time, it will be more clearly understood”, and, “because the Blessed Virgin wishes it so.”


<sup>[35]




[36]</sup>


When 1960 arrived, rather than releasing the Third Secret, the Vatican published an official press release stating that it was “most probable the Secret would remain, forever, under absolute seal.”


^[37]


After this announcement, immense speculation over the content of the secret materialized. According to the

New York Times

, speculation over the content of the secret ranged from “worldwide nuclear annihilation to deep rifts in the Roman Catholic Church that lead to rival papacies.”


^[38]

Some sources claim that the four-page, handwritten text


^[2]


of the Third Secret released by the Vatican in the year 2000 is not the real secret, or at least not the full secret.


<sup>[39]




[40]




[41]




[42]</sup>


In particular, it is alleged that Cardinals

Bertone

,

Ratzinger

and

Sodano

engaged in a systematic deception to cover-up the existence of a one-page document containing the so-called words of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which some believe contains information about the Apocalypse and a great apostasy. These sources contend that the Third Secret actually comprises two texts, where one of these texts is the published four-page vision, and the other is a single-page letter allegedly containing the words of the Virgin Mary which has been concealed.


<sup>[39]




[40]




[41]</sup>

The Vatican has maintained its position that the full text of the Third Secret was published in June 2000. According to a December 2001 Vatican

press release

(subsequently published in


L’Osservatore Romano


), Lúcia told then Archbishop