Saturday 13 May 2017

FATIMA CENTENARY - 100 YEARS - 13 May 1917 to 13 May 2017

Let us rejoice...

...at the centenary of the apparition of our Lady at Fatima
13 May 1917 to 13 May 2017
as the Pope canonises the visionary shepherd children
St Jacinta
and
 St Francisco




St Jacinta, Sister Lucia, St Francisco...
Thank God for the  beautiful innocence of these simple but saintly children...

 The story of Fatima...

The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, appeared six times to three shepherd children ("the Three Seers") near the town of Fatima, Portugal between 13 May and 13 October 1917.

Appearing to the children, the Blessed Virgin told them that She had been sent by God with a message for every man, woman and child living in our century. Coming at a time when civilization was torn asunder by war and bloody violence, She promised that Heaven would grant peace to all the world if Her requests for prayer, reparation and consecration were heard and obeyed. Our Lady said:

"If my requests are granted ... there will be peace"

Our Lady of Fatima explained to the children that war is a punishment for sin and warned that God would further castigate the world for its disobedience to His will by means of war, hunger and the persecution of the Church, the Holy Father and the Catholic Faithful. God's Mother prophesied that Russia would be God's chosen "instrument of chastisement," spreading the "errors" of atheism and materialism across the earth, fomenting wars, annihilating nations and persecuting the Faithful everywhere. Our Lady said:

"If y requests are not granted, Russia will spread its errors throughout the world, raising up wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will be martryed, the Holy Father will suffer much and various nations will be annihilated."

In all Her appearances at Fatima, the Blessed Mother repeatedly emphasized the necessity of praying the Rosary daily, of wearing the Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel and of performing acts of reparation and sacrifice.

To prevent the terrible chastisement at the hands of Russia and to convert "that poor nation", our Lady requested the solemn public Consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart by the Pope and all the Catholic bishops of the world. She also asked that the Faithful practice a new devotion of reparation on the first Saturday of five consecutive months ("The Five First Saturdays").

The heart of our Lady's Message to the world is contained in what has come to be called the "Secret" which she confided to the Three Seers in July 1917.

The Secret actually consists of three parts, the first two of which have been publicly revealed.

The first part of the Secret was a horrifying Vision of hell "where the souls of poor sinners go" and contained an urgent plea from Our Lady for acts of prayer and sacrifice to save souls.

The second part of the Secret specifically prophesied the outbreak of World War II and contained the Mother of God's solemn request for the Consecration of Russia as a condition for world peace. It also predicted the inevitable triumph of Her Immaculate Heart following Russia's consecration and the conversion "of that poor nation" to the Catholic Faith. 

The last part of the Secret (often called the "Third Secret") has not yet been made public, but was written down by Lucia Dos Santos, the last living Fatima seer, in 1944 and has been in the possession of the Holy See since 1957.

Most informed sources speculate that this portion of the Secret concerns chaos in the Catholic Church, predicting widespread apostasy and a loss of faith beginning in the seventh decade of the 20th Century.

Can anyone now doubt that such is exactly what has happened to the Catholic Church in our time....an unprecedented crisis of faith and authority. 


From the film On the 13th Day...


Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
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Thursday 4 May 2017

INVENTIO CRUCIS - 3rd May - the Feast of the Invention (finding) of the True Cross by Empress St Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine the Great


INVENTIO CRUCIS

3rd May

the Feast of the Invention (finding) of the True Cross by Empress St Helena, 
mother of the Emperor Constantine the Great...




Here is the Roman Empress St Helena pictured with the True Cross.

The Feast of the Invention (Finding) of the True Cross is another great feast that was done away with by the wrecker Bugnini.

St. Helena, mother of Constantine the great, is often depicted holding a cross because according to the tradition she found the true cross in Jerusalem.

The Roman Emperor Constantine was elected Emperor by the Roman Army at Eboracum (York in Britain) in 312, and in the following year, legalized Christianity with the Edict of Milan.

About this time, Constantine’s mother, St. Helena, converted to Christianity.

With the authority of her son, St. Helena went to Palestine in search of the Holy Cross about the year 324.

St Helena built churches marking the place of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and the site of the Ascension.

Three crosses were found in a rock-cistern as well as the titulus (the wood plaque inscribed with the words Jesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum in Hebrew, Greek and Latin - "Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews"). The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built over the site.


TITULUS CRUCIS
a sacred relic in the Church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, displayed in reverse so that the words can be better seen and an ancient reconstruction placed over the top of the reliquary showing what is written on the now very old wood of the titulus proclaiming our Lord King of the Jews in the 3 sacred languages.


A woman, dying from a terminal disease, was brought to the spot. She touched the crosses, one by one. After she touched the third cross, she was cured, thereby identifying the true cross.

St Ambrose preached that when St. Helena found the true cross:

"she worshipped not the wood, but the King, Him who hung on the wood. She burned with an earnest desire of touching the guarantee of immortality."


St Cyril of Jerusalem, in his letter to the Emperor Constantius (Constantine’s son and successor), stated "The saving wood of the cross was found at Jerusalem in the time of Constantine."

In his fourth Catechetical Lecture, he wrote:

"He was truly crucified for our sins. For if you would deny it, the place refutes you visibly, this blessed Golgotha, in which we are now assembled for the sake of Him who was here crucified; and the whole world has since been filled with pieces of the wood of the Cross."

Many of the older depictions of the crucifixion show a skull with two crossed bones at the foot of the cross. The tradition is that Adam was buried at Calvary. When our Lord died, His Precious Blood flowed down, through cracks in the earth, onto Adam's skull.

In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem one finds the Chapel of Adam underneath the Chapel of Golgotha.

The Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, which comes much later on 14 September, is the feast marking the day when the Emperor Heraclius re-captured the True Cross from the Persians who had stolen it from Jerusalem.

It was on that great feast day that our Holy Father, Pope Benedict gloriously reigning, ordered the freeing of the traditional Roman rites which, he declared, had never been abrogated (numquam abrogatam).

A truly glorious victory of the Holy Cross indeed!

On these great feasts, let us remember the words of St. Francis of Assisi:


"We adore Thee, O Christ, and we praise Thee, because by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world."

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