As I’ve discussed elsewhere, modern technology is a blessing and a curse, and one of those blessings is my friendship with Mr. Maxim Grigorieff, a Russian Catholic of the Byzantine Rite who resides in St. Petersburg (see also his Substack here). (We sell the Fatima Icon and send all the money to his group there to build the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Russia, who is our primary patroness here at OnePeterFive.)
With God’s help, Maxim and I have been working on a book about Russia and Fatima which will expose to the world the “Russian Elements of Fatima” that you’ve never heard of.
For example, did you know that when the Angel taught the Shepherd children the reparation prayer, he did a Russian-style prostration, a liturgical act which takes place at the Eucharistic Consecration only in the Russian liturgy, and not in the Greek?
After this, Lucia’s biography notes how she prayed these prayers of reparation with the Russian-style prostration with her face to the ground. Why are we not doing these prayers like this?
These and many other similar things have been uncovered as we have delved deeper into the subject.
But as I’ve been working on this book with my friend and co-author “across the pond” – while wars and tensions rage between the American and Russian Empires of today – an unexpected grace was given to me by Our Lady the Theotokos, the Softener of Evil Hearts.
This was the grace I now will attempt to describe.
Interestingly, when I was Eastern Orthodox I never heard of Fatima. After I became Catholic and reconciled myself to the Holy Father as an Orthodox Christian, I never heard about Fatima for a few years. Then I started following various Traditionalist voices who were talking a lot about the Third Secret of Fatima, the Consecration of Russia, and all those controversies. I heard more and more about these things, but I never delved deeply into it. I just sort of accepted that Our Lady came down, I proceeded to do my bit, and I completed the First Saturday devotion around that time. I thought that those things – especially the Vatican’s rebellion against Fatima – were the essence of Fatima.
But as I’ve been researching this book, there was an immense grace that has been given to me from her Hands, the Immaculata, the Mediatrix of all Graces. This grace was the opening of my eyes to the need for reparation. It was a softening of my heart to this reality. As I read more from the texts of Fatima and from Sr. Lucia’s biography, I began to believe that reparation is really the essence of Fatima. It’s a certain spirit which is the spirit of the saints, with which the three shepherd children were imbued, causing them to be zealous for reparation.
The Collect for today in the Roman Rite is imbued with this spirit. For me it is profound to consider that after the penitential themes of Ash Wednesday’s liturgy, the Collect for the Thursday says this:
O God, offended by sin, and appeased by penitence, graciously hear the prayers of Your people as they entreat You to turn away from us the scourges of anger that we have deserved because of our sins.
This is profound. This is the spirit of penance and reparation. It accords well with what I read in the Russian classic The Arena once. Here St. Ignatii Brianchaninov says that when we encounter suffering we must pray the prayer of St. Dismas, the good thief:
I am receiving what I deserve for my sins. Remember me, O Lord, in Thy Kingdom.
Truly these prayers conquer every suffering. They are not easy – our hearts are hardened against the cross every time – but by God’s grace we can embark upon the way of the Cross with greater and greater fervour, as we tread the narrow way of the Three Ages of the Interior Life.
And what does the Angel of Portugal say to the Three Fatima children when he appears in 1916?
With all your power offer a sacrifice as an act of reparation for the sinners by whom He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners. Thus draw peace upon your country. I am its Guardian Angel, the Angel of Portugal. Above all accept and endure with submission the suffering which the Lord will send you.
Lucia’s biography tells of how the three children zealously took up sacrifices and penances and Our Lady, on her first apparition, sparks their zeal for this sacrifice with this question:
Do you wish to offer yourselves to God, to endure all the suffering that He may please to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and to ask for the conversion of sinners?”
“Yes, we are willing.”
“Then you will have much to suffer. But the grace of God will be your comfort.”
This is the spirit of Christ. And the Fatima revelation is really just saying the same thing as the Collect for today’s Lenten Feria.
Since I had never really studied Fatima until now, I always thought Fatima’s primary message was 1.) the First Saturdays, 2.) the Consecration of Russia and 3.) the “Third Secret.” It seemed to me that the latter two were the primary concern of Trads for years (until Pope Francis’s Consecration, after which the Fatima chatter seems to have died away).
Then I was introduced to this heart of Fatima in this reparation spirit – first, in the Crusade of Eucharistic Reparation inspired by Fatima, and now with this book research. But reading Lucia’s biography has begun to affect my spiritual life. It talks about these aforementioned messages, how zealously the Fatima children took on the penances, and then how much more zealously they did penance for sinners after they had the vision of hell. Lucia’s biography then tells of all Lucia’s sufferings and how she always came back to her resolution to suffer for sinners from that initial May apparition where Our Lady asked them to suffer in reparation.
And one of the greatest sufferings she endured was being left alone, while Ss. Jacinta and Francisco were taken to heaven, as Mary said.
Their feast day is tomorrow. I’ve been praying a Novena to them asking their help to write this book and gain this spirit of penance, which has deeply moved me and shown me how little I am worthy of the name “Christian.”
As we begin Lent, I ask these great child saints of our time to help us gain a spirit of reparation for our sins and the sins of evil men.
Ss. Jacinta and Francisco, pray for us!
Sr. Lucia, pray for us!
T. S. Flanders
Editor
Thursday after Ash Wednesday