John Martin  (1789–1854)

"As Our Lady spoke these last words, she opened her hands once more, as she had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. 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 huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me).

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.

The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals.

Terrified and as if to plead for succour, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly: You 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." Source:  Sister Lucia, July 13th, 1917

"Those people burning in hell, don't they ever die? And don't they turn into ashes? And if people pray very much for sinners, won't Our Lord get them out of there? And if they make sacrifices as well? Poor sinners! We have to pray and make sacrifices for them!" Source: Jacinta. Fatima in Lucia's own words 1976

"And so we come to the final question: What is the meaning of the «secret»‌ of Fatima as a whole (in its three parts)? What does it say to us? First of all we must affirm with Cardinal Sodano: «... the events to which the third part of the 'secret' of Fatima refers now seem part of the past»‌. Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed. Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way, just as Christian faith in general cannot be reduced to an object of mere curiosity. What remains was already evident when we began our reflections on the text of the «secret»‌: the exhortation to prayer as the path of «salvation for souls»‌ and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.   

I would like finally to mention another key expression of the «secret»‌ which has become justly famous: «my Immaculate Heart will triumph»‌. What does this mean? The Heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the history of the world, because it brought the Saviour into the world - because, thanks to her Yes, God could become man in our world and remains so for all time. The Evil One has power in this world, as we see and experience continually; he has power because our freedom continually lets itself be led away from God. But since God himself took a human heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word. From that time forth, the word that prevails is this: «In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world»‌ (Jn 16:33). The message of Fatima invites us to trust in this promise. "

Source: Joseph Card. Ratzinger Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

  

 

"George Goyau, when giving notice of the forthcoming publication of a book entitled Lettres de Prêtres aux Armées ( Priests' Letters to the Armies), calls the Holy Mass "the greatest event in the history of humanity," and he adds:

"Daily, the priest brings the effective operation of our Divine Redeemer to bear upon the destinies of the human family. By a supreme act he interweaves the weft of our daily sins with the Divine Ransom; above the chaos of both open and hidden faults he raises the Victim. Our human history is continually being permeated with this Divine sacrifice, a sacrifice both multiple and one. To many this sacred rite is a mere commonplace thing. Nevertheless, through the agency of the priest, they are present at the recurrence of the decisive moment when our guilty world, so justly disinherited, was suddenly put on the way to the plenitude of the supernatural life by the two Mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption. God has chosen the priest to perpetuate these two Mysteries, and no human catastrophe can draw him away from this duty, which from the day of his ordination is one, for eternity, with the very life of his soul."

    We could not express more briefly the grandeur and the responsibility of the priesthood. What is the priest? One who carries Christ on through the ages. But Jesus Christ came upon earth to give, to His Eternal Father, a Pontiff, a priest who could adequately make Reparation and Expiation. The priest, therefore, who is charged to prolong, as it were, the role of Christ, ought to imitate Him by offering himself with Christ as an evidence of adoration and expiation. The priest who consecrates will therefore be a victim with Jesus. He does not understand his whole ministry if he confines it to the distribution of the Body of Christ, of the word of God, of the forgiveness of Christ, and does not at the same time accept the role of the victim like his Master, of whom he takes the place and perpetuates the work.

   All the years Jesus spent upon earth He was a victim, but He was not satisfied with this, for He had determined to prolong His Sacrifice by the agency of His priests. This He accomplished at the Last Supper, on the eve of His death; hence the Mass sets forth, without the shedding of blood, the immolation of Christ bleeding upon the Cross. Uplifted on Golgotha, Christ between Heaven and earth will be a shield interposed between God's justice and man's sin.

   Jesus' mediation will be accepted by God, because of His wounds and His precious blood poured forth. But Jesus is is likewise the shield between Heaven and earth, between God's justice and our sins in every Mass. Each "elevation" compensates for our manifold scandals; each uplifting of the Hose atones for some decadence of ours, for our falls into sin, because the virtue of His blood and wounds lasts on. There are not two sacrifices, but this is the same as that of the Cross, though set forth differently. This is the formal teaching of the Council of Trent.

  How many of the faithful, who hear Mass, do not seem to have any knowledge of this adorable Mystery! How many use prayers which have no reference whatever to the Mass, though perhaps appropriate for other occasions! How many know the term "Holy Sacrifice," without any conception of the exact truth and stupendous reality with which it corresponds!"

 Source: The Ideal of Reparation by Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J. 1852

O Holy Spirit, Creator, be propitious to the Catholic Church; and by Thy heavenly power make it strong and secure against the attacks of its enemies; and renew in charity and grace the spirit of Thy servants, whom Thou has anointed, that they may glorify Thee and the Father and His Only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. amen.
 Manual of prayers to the Holy Ghost by Very Rev. Fr. Felix of Jesus 1941