Bishop Raul’s Marian Talk on the Fatima Apparitions

As part of the CTK celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima, Bishop Raul Martirez gave a Marian Talk last May 20 on the apparitions.

Bishop Raul began with a brief geography and history lesson to set the time and place context of the apparitions. He noted that in all the events where the Virgin Mary has manifested herself, it is almost always to the poor, young, illiterate village people, e.g., Juan Diego in Guadalupe, Bernadette in Lourdes, Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco in Fatima.

Bishop Raul then went through the three secrets given by Our Lady of Fatima to the Children. With the early death of Jacinta and Francisco, only Lucia lived to write them down in her memoirs. The first had to do with the vision of hell. The second had to do with the end of World War I, the start of World War II, and the conversion of Russia. The third secret the Fatima children’s vision of Christ on the cross with dead nuns and priests around him and a figure in white being killed as he tried to climb the hill . The interpretation was that the figure was that of St. John Paul II when he was wounded by Mehmet Ali Agca while St. John Paul II was doing his Vatican Square rounds on his Popemobile on May 13, 1981 – note that it was a Fatima anniversary date. In his meeting with Mehmet where the would-be assassin asked for forgiveness, John Paul II would famously say, ‘Your hand fired the shot. But the Virgin Mary’s hand guided the bullet.’

Bishop Raul ended his talk with the acronym SPAR, which is what Our Lady of Fatima asks of everyone – S for sacrifice, P for prayers, A for atonement, and R for reparation. The talk was then followed by the Holy Mass at 11 am.