The Request for the Consecration of Russia

by Father Nicholas Gruner, S.T.L., S.T.D. (Cand.)

This is an edited transcript of a talk given before the bishops, priests and lay people assembled at the Last Chance for World Peace conference in Tuy, Spain on October 6, 2006, by noted Fatima expert Father Nicholas Gruner. In this talk Father Gruner explains Our Lady’s request for the Consecration of Russia, the importance of this Consecration, the controversy surrounding the requirements for doing it in exact accordance with Our Lady’s request (the distinction between a consecration of the world and the Consecration of Russia), and the obligation of the Church to obey this command from Heaven and for all of us to do our part as well. Father Gruner also explains that we will know when the Consecration of Russia is properly done by the resulting conversion of Russia to the Catholic Faith.

There has been much confusion of ideas about the Consecration of Russia. This confusion goes back, actually, to the 1940s. Sister Lucy’s confessor (she had more than one confessor, one of whom was the Archbishop of Gurza who later became the Archbishop of Valladolid in Spain) had been trying from 1929 until 1940 — that’s eleven years — to get the Pope to do the Consecration of Russia. I have been at this now for twenty-nine years, so I have a sense of how it feels after a while when you say the same thing over and over. Our Lady’s request for the Consecration is quite plain. What else can you explain? And still it seems not to be understood. So I understand that the Archbishop of Gurza was a little discouraged.

In the city of Porto there was a mystic by the name of Alexandrina. Now Alexandrina was a young woman when she was attacked, and to preserve her virtue she jumped out of a window and subsequently broke her back. She was then an invalid from that time until her death.

Alexandrina received many messages from Our Lord asking for the consecration of the world. There was nothing wrong with this, of course; it is a holy thing to consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but it is not the Fatima Message.

The Bishop of Gurza — since he was getting nowhere with the Pope for the Consecration of Russia — asked Lucy to write a letter, in 1940, for the consecration of the world. Now Lucy was very confused and upset by this request; she didn’t know what to do because she saw her confessor as a representative of God, and yet she knew it was not what Our Lady of Fatima asked for. And so she wrote a letter to Pope Pius XII — which was significantly edited by the Bishop of Leiria before finally being sent to the Pope in December of 1940 — in which she asked for the consecration of the world.¹

But you need to know several things about that letter which will make it very clear to you that it is not the request of Our Lady of Fatima.

The first thing is that Lucy, when the bishop told her on the Feast of St. Raphael, October 24, 1940 to write the letter, went in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and asked Our Lord what she should do about this order from her confessor. Our Lord spoke to her and said that for that consecration — that is the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart — He would shorten the days of the present distress, referring to the Second World War, but that world peace would not come from that act of consecration.

So Our Lord Himself distinguishes between the consecration of the world and the Consecration of Russia, and that there are two different promises attached to two different requests. The request given through Alexandrina and confirmed by Our Lord was that He would shorten the days of the Second World War for that act of consecration of the world. He also said that He would not bring world peace through that act of the Pope, but that world peace would come only through the Consecration of Russia. And so in 1942, two years after this letter from Sister Lucy, Pope Pius XII consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in a radio address to the Portuguese nation on the last day of October. And he repeated this act of consecration again on December 8, 1942.

Our Lord then spoke to Sister Lucy on Ash Wednesday, I believe it was, in 1943, again confirming that this act was accepted, and that this act would bring about the shortening of the days of the Second World War, but that world peace would not come from it.

The Aim to Falsify
the Message of Fatima

Now for those who have read the documents and have studied Fatima at all, it is quite obvious and accepted. Unfortunately, that does not fit in with the propaganda, or shall we say the goals, of certain people who (as Father Kramer spoke about in an article² in The Fatima Crusader in 1986 — that is, the Blue Army leadership) are falsifying the Fatima Message in order to placate those who promote the Vatican-Moscow Agreement. It is an article that finally put to rest this question, which had been plaguing the Church for many days.

In fact, when Father Kramer wrote his first article, I must confess that I didn’t do him a justice. I didn’t change the meaning of his article, but I thought I should be charitable and not embarrass anybody; so I deleted every reference to the Blue Army and every reference to the Soul magazine, and just said “that organization” or “that magazine”. But when I saw that there was no intent on their part to reform or change in 1986, I said to Father Kramer, “write your article, answer the questions, I will not touch it.” And so he published two more articles³ in The Fatima Crusader in 1987 and that basically, at least in North America, settled the question until new propaganda tricks arose.

I bring these things up because although I have been saying this — for some twenty years — I realize new people come, new people get interested, and so pardon me for repeating things you may have heard already. On the other hand, some of this may be new to some of you.
 

Sister Lucy’s Own Words

This question about the consecration of the world versus the Consecration of Russia is not simply for the people of this room; in fact, Lucy was asked about this issue again and again and again over the past sixty years. I will read to you, for example, what Professor William Thomas Walsh wrote — now he may not be known in other parts of the world but in North America he was a very well-known Catholic writer and his book Our Lady of Fatima ran into more than a million copies. It is the most popular book published in North America, in English, on Fatima.

His last interview with Sister Lucy was on July 15, 1946, in which Sister Lucy was asked by Professor Walsh about the consecration. In response she said, “Our Lady of Fatima did not ask for the consecration of the world. She only asked for the Consecration of Russia.” Here is what Professor Walsh writes in his first edition on page 226, in 1947. “Lucy made it plain that Our Lady did not, did not ask for the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart. What She demanded specifically was the Consecration of Russia.”

Then there is a book written in 1949, by Father Thomas McGlynn. He was an American sculptor and a Dominican priest, and he had the opportunity to meet Sister Lucy. The statue over the facade of the Fatima Basilica was sculpted by Father McGlynn. And while sculpting a statue of Our Lady of Fatima he had, many times, the opportunity to speak with Sister Lucy, and he wrote a book about his visits with her. On page 80 of Vision of Fatima Father McGlynn reports that Sister Lucy was emphatic, correcting the consecration of world to read the Consecration of Russia. “No,” Sister Lucy said, “not the world, Russia, Russia.”

In the book Il Pellegrinaggio della Meraviglia, published in 1960 under the auspices of the Italian Episcopal Conference, is a reference on page 440 to a little known revelation of Our Lady of Fatima. Sister Lucy has recounted that the Virgin Mary appeared to Lucy in May of 1952. There She said, “Make it known to the Holy Father that I am always awaiting the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart. Without the Consecration, Russia will not be able to convert nor will the world have peace.”

There is also Father Umberto Pasquale, who had known Sister Lucy since 1939. He was a Salesian Father. He had visited her many times and had received up until 1982, 157 letters from her. On May 12, 1982, Father Pasquale wrote in the L’Ossservatore Romano (the Pope’s own newspaper), the day before Pope John Paul II’s first visit to Fatima, that “Our Lady of Fatima never asked for the consecration of the world but only of Russia”. Now in that article, you will find that on August 5, 1978, Father Pasquale asked Sister Lucy in person, “Has Our Lady ever spoken to you about the consecration of the world to Her Immaculate Heart?” And Sister Lucy replied, “No, Father Umberto! Never! At the Cova da Iria in 1917 Our Lady had promised, ‘I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia…’”

He wanted something in writing, not just his own auditory testimony; so he asked her, in writing, and she wrote back to him on April 13, 1980. Sister Lucy wrote, “In replying to your questions I will clarify: Our Lady of Fatima, in Her request, referred only to the Consecration of Russia…” (A copy of the pertinent section of Sister Lucy’s handwritten note is photographically reproduced below.)

In addition, there is Father Rocha, the translator for William Thomas Walsh during his interview with Sister Lucy in 1946. Father Rocha is a native of Portugal, and he spoke both English and Portuguese. Professor Walsh did not report in his book his follow-up questions to Sister Lucy concerning the Consecration of Russia, but Father Rocca reports them in an interview published in 1986. Walsh’s further questions on this critical point were published in a book called The Wonders She Performs by Louis Kaczmarek, who was then the guardian of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima of the Blue Army; therefore, his testimony is very interesting.

Louis Kaczmarek comes from the Blue Army, and he reports what Father Rocha himself said to him about Professor Walsh’s July 15, 1946 interview with Sister Lucy.

Let us recall Professor Walsh’s testimony. “But she — that is Sister Lucy — said more than once and with deliberate emphasis, what Our Lady wants is that the Pope and all the bishops of the world shall consecrate Russia to Her Immaculate Heart on one special day. If this is done, She will convert Russia and there will be peace. If it is not done, the errors of Russia will spread throughout every country of the world.”

Professor Walsh: “Does that mean, in your opinion, that every country without exception will be overcome by Communism?”

Sister Lucy: “Yes.”

Now in Mr. Kaczmarek’s book, Father Rocha testified that Professor Walsh wanted to be positive about the answer and had Father Rocha repeat the question, and told him to also ask Sister Lucy, “and does that mean the United States of America too?” Sister Lucy again answered, “Yes.” That you will find in the book The Wonders She Performs, published in 1986, on page 160. Remember, this is July of 1946, when only the United States had the atom bomb; the Cold War was not declared, I think, until September of 1946. Sister Lucy, without batting an eye, replied, “Yes, including the United States.”

A Triumph of
the Immaculate Heart of Mary

And so Our Lord Himself, as I said, explained why He wanted the Consecration of Russia. Lucy explained it somewhere else; she said, “Russia is a very well defined country; we know its borders.”

The word “consecration”, by the way, means to set aside, to separate from. For example, you take a chalice and the bishop consecrates it, blesses it, and sets it aside for a holy purpose. We can’t put beer in that chalice and use it for profane purposes. Once it has been consecrated, it is meant only for sacred purposes. It is consecrated, it is set aside.

In Scripture we read that the Holy Ghost, speaking to St. Paul and Barnabas and the other Christians present there, in prayer, says, “I want Paul and Barnabas consecrated.” The word used in the English translations is “set aside”. They are distinguished from the rest of the people in the room. They are consecrated, they are set aside.

Russia is to be set aside for the service of a holy purpose; that is, the service of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And so when Russia itself — specifically Russia and only Russia — is consecrated, and that is seen by the world and then the resulting miracle of its conversion is also seen, people will be able to relate the conversion of Russia to the Consecration of Russia by the Pope and the bishops.

And Our Lord was asked by Lucy why He would not convert Russia except through the specific Consecration of Russia. He replied, “Because I want My whole Church to recognize that Consecration as a triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary so that later on, My Church will extend the devotion to the Immaculate Heart and place this devotion beside the devotion to My Sacred Heart.” So, although the words used in the Message of Fatima are very brief, their meaning is very specific and as such have not yet been fulfilled.

The Message of Fatima vs.
The Vatican Apparatus

So now there are some people who would hold that the Consecration of Russia or even the Message of Fatima is simply a private revelation. To put it in other terms, they think that you can ignore the Message of Fatima and that there is no culpability, that there is no fault on your part for ignoring Fatima. This is a very dangerous theory. It is stated by very high officials as well as very low officials in the Church.

But the truth of the matter is, as Cardinal Ratzinger said, when he was Cardinal, that the truth is not a matter of a majority vote, the truth is the truth. And the truth is, that Scripture itself tells us that we must not extinguish the spirit, we must not despise prophecy, and we must test all things and hold fast to that which is good. (1 Thess. 5:19-22.)

The Church has tested Fatima, has found it to be good, and so we are bound to hold onto it. So to put it very clearly and bluntly, that means that you and I, and Cardinals, and even the Pope must obey Our Lady of Fatima. Now, someone may say, “Well, are you trying to tell me that Sister Lucy is more important than the Pope, that the Pope must obey Lucy?” And the answer to that question is “No.” Lucy is the transmitter of the Message, the Message has been found to come from God, it has been found to come from the Blessed Virgin, and the Pope is bound to obey God and the Blessed Virgin, like the rest of us.

Therefore, it is the duty of the hierarchy to determine that, in fact, this Message comes from God. As St. Paul says, “Test all things.” Not everyone who claims to have a message from God, in fact, has it from God. They may be sincere, they may be well-meaning, but it doesn’t mean that what they say is necessarily from God. But in the case of Fatima, the Message has been tested by the Church and found to be true and therefore we are bound to hold fast to it.

And so those are some of the points that have been raised, and I think that, no doubt, they may be something new for some of you. I have written at length on this subject; I can give you articles and you can refer to our website as well. Additionally, there are many passages in Scripture, not just one.

For example, Father Joseph Ste. Marie points out that in his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul writes that the Church is founded upon Christ as the chief cornerstone, and built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And his understanding of that passage is that the prophets referred to are the prophets of the New Testament; that the Church has always been directed by the Holy Spirit through its prophets, not just through the hierarchy. He also points out that the role of the hierarchy is to determine that the prophet indeed comes from God — not only the prophet but the message as well. That is why St. Paul himself was consecrated bishop by the Church at Antioch (Acts 13:1-3), because of the voice of prophecy. No doubt the Bishop who consecrated him first of all determined that, in fact, this prophetic message truly was from God.

And so we have the relationship between Fatima and the hierarchy. We need to know the Blessed Virgin is Mother of the Church, the Queen of all Creation and Queen of the Apostles and their successors. That is why Pope John Paul II himself said, “The Message of Fatima imposes an obligation on the Church.” He stated this quite publicly in his discourse on the 13th of May, 1982.

Our Lady’s Request at Tuy

I need to give you now the context of the apparition at Tuy.⁴ Our Lady appeared in Fatima on the 13th of May, the 13th of June, and then the 13th of July. On the 13th of July is when She said, after showing the children the vision of hell: “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wills to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart.” Then She said: “The war [that is, the First World War] is going to [soon] end; but if people do not cease offending God,” then God will “punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.  To prevent this [these chastisements], I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.”⁵

Tomorrow we will go to Pontevedra, where Lucy was living when Our Lady came with the Child Jesus to request the Five First Saturdays. Today is the first Friday of the month, tomorrow is the First Saturday. And it was in Pontevedra that there was the request for the Five First Saturdays. We will talk about that tomorrow.⁶

When you have Mass, before Communion remember to offer that Communion in reparation for sins committed against the Immaculate Heart. Our Lady made a great promise for those who do the Five First Saturdays. She said:

“… announce in My name that I promise to assist at the moment of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep Me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, [doing these things] with the intention of making reparation to Me.”⁷

The second request Our Lady said She would come back for, would be to ask for the Consecration of Russia — which is what took place here in this city of Tuy, and which we explained somewhat in the chapel already.

Our Lady, of course, could bring about the Triumph of Her Immaculate Heart all by Herself, without anyone else doing anything — but God’s Providence does not usually work that way. In God’s normal course of Providence — and we can’t restrict God to any particular course of providence, but we can only assume that God would follow His normal course of providence unless we have some reason to believe otherwise — God uses secondary means to bring about His purpose. In other words, He wants to use you and I, and others, to bring about this triumph. So, we have to do our part; we can’t refuse to do our part, expecting Our Lady to do it all Herself.

Now if God wants to work a miracle without us, that is great; that would make life a lot easier. However, we can’t assume or expect God to do that. We have to use whatever it is that God puts at our disposal, to do our part to bring about the Triumph of Her Immaculate Heart. And it is Our Lord and Our Lady working through us that will achieve Their purposes.

The Conversion of Mexico

 Now I would like to tell the story of the conversion of Mexico, since it is very illustrative of the conversion of Russia.

In 1521, the Spanish Conquistadores conquered Mexico. A princess of the ruling people of the time had a dream that there would be people coming from a distant part of the world and they would have a cross — she didn’t call it a cross, but she described it as one — on their religious habits and that they would bring with them the true religion. And so when the Spanish and the Catholic missionaries came, those more enlightened and more devoted among the Aztec people recognized that this was a prophecy unfolding that would bring them the true religion.

Thus, the resistance that Cortez ran into was very little, and in 1521 the Spanish stopped human sacrifice — that was one of the first things they did. It is one thing to impose, shall we say, some sense of order by military might, but the Spanish missionaries for ten years were not very successful in converting any of the natives to the Catholic Faith, try as they did — and I am sure there were many holy priests among them. So for ten years, Our Lady let them struggle without much success.

Then in 1531, Our Lady appeared at Guadalupe, on the hill of Tepayac (it is now part of Mexico City, but it was outside the capital at the time). She appeared to Juan Diego and asked for a temple or a church to be built there, in Her honor. The bishop asked for a sign, so Juan Diego went back to ask Our Lady for a sign. She said, “You can pick the roses over there on that hill.” And She helped him pick them and put them in his cape which he held around him. And he thought this was a sign. Now, certainly it was a sign because roses did not grow at that time of year (in December) on that hill.

Juan Diego brought the roses to the bishop and he let his cape down — or his tilma (as it is called) — and the roses fell from his tilma onto the ground. The bishop, I’m sure, noticed the roses, but he wasn’t really paying attention to them because what else he saw was much more striking. On the back of Juan Diego’s tilma, on the back of his cape, was a picture of Our Lady as She appeared to him.

Now the bishop understood that he had asked for a sign and had been given one. So he did his part; he had a little chapel built where the apparition took place and he took the cape of Juan Diego and placed it in a frame and put it on the wall. Now the most extraordinary thing of this is not the miraculous picture which, by the way, still exists to this day, but that the cape — which is made of some sort of hemp, or palm, and naturally should fall apart by the force of nature within twenty-five years — still exists today, after more than 470 years (1531-2006).

The picture itself cannot be imitated by any human hand. It is the only self-portrait of Our Lady that we know to be in existence. But what really happened after that you might say is a moral miracle, and St. Augustine would say it is a greater miracle. Because the people came and they would look at this picture; whether it was curiosity or something else, they were drawn to it, and they would look at this picture on the wall and immediately they would want to be baptized. And, of course, the missionaries wanted to be sure that they really were sincere, and that they really knew what they were asking for, before they baptized them. This went on for ten years. And so over this ten year period, nine million Mexicans were converted simply by coming on pilgrimage, looking at the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the tilma, and asking for baptism.

And so the Spanish missionaries, all they could do all day long was basically say their Mass and then baptize from morning till night, and go to bed and get up the next day and do the same thing, for ten years — so that nine million natives were converted during that ten year period.

The conversions were instantaneous; that is, when the natives went there and looked at that picture, they were immediately given the grace of conversion and an understanding of much of the faith already. So it shows what Our Lady can do. Why did She take ten years? It was quite simple: the Spanish missionaries could go no faster. There were only a few of them, so Our Lady only brought just enough natives each day so that the priests wouldn’t be overwhelmed by all the conversions at one time. Thus, Our Lady can convert people instantaneously but in Mexico She took into account, basically, the limitations of human nature and the amount of time, in a day, for baptisms.

The Conversion of Russia
to the Catholic Faith

Similarly, the conversion of Russia will also be instantaneous; that is, the grace will be instantaneous. Just exactly how this will be realized will somewhat depend on how well the Church can get priests there to do the baptisms and the instruction of converts. Of course, in our day it is much easier to get to Russia than it was for the Spanish missionaries to get to Mexico back in 1531.

And so we see something else which lays to rest the story that said, “Well, the consecration was done in 1984 but it takes time.” In 1984 we had the same number of Catholics in Russia that we have today. Maybe 50,000 were converted — maybe, if that. And I believe that there were more Catholics in Russia in 1917, when Our Lady said that Russia would be converted, than there are today.

The consecration of the world in 1984 did not fulfil Our Lady’s requests, as Our Lord Himself explained on more than one occasion that the consecration of the world is a different kind of consecration. The consecration of the world is not the Consecration of Russia. For the consecration of the world, we have the shortening of the Second World War, but we don’t have the conversion of Russia and the resulting world peace. Furthermore, Pope John Paul II also publicly acknowledged twice — once, before 250,000 people, immediately after doing the consecration of the world on March 25, 1984, and again three hours later in St. Peter’s Basilica, before 10,000 people — that this act of consecration did not fulfil Our Lady’s request.⁸

On December 8th, 1983, Pope John Paul II wrote to all the bishops of the world, asking them to join in with him on March 25, 1984, in consecrating the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He included with his letter his prepared text of consecration. On March 25, 1984, the Pope, making the consecration before the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, departed from his prepared text to add the words highlighted above and translated below. As you can see they were reported in L'Osservatore Romano. The words he added at this point indicate clearly, that the Pope knew then that the consecration of the world done that day did not fulfill the requests of Our Lady of Fatima. After performing the consecration of the world proper, a few paragraphs above, the Pope added the highlighted words which translate: “Enlighten especially the peoples of which You Yourself are awaiting our consecration and confiding.” This clearly shows he knows Our Lady is awaiting the Pope and bishops to consecrate certain peoples to Her, that is the peoples of Russia.

Reproduction of the March 26, 1984 issue of L'Osservatore Romano, with translation, enlarged, of Pope John Paul II's words. Opponents of the Consecration of Russia have, conveniently, from 1984 until this day, omitted to report that the Pope actually said, in effect, that he had not done the Consecration of Russia as requested by Our Lady of Fatima.

And when people say that conversion (e.g. the conversion of Russia) does not mean to the Catholic faith, they do not understand that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation — and that is a dogma of the Faith which has been defined three times by the Church (even though once would have been enough).

First, there’s the statement of Pope Eugene IV in the Bull Cantate domino (1442 A.D.), which states: “The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her …” It is very plain. You can find this definition quoted in some of the books that we have here. They give you the Denzinger reference for it as well as quoting directly in translation from the Latin original what the Church has solemnly defined in this matter.

The doctrine that “outside the [Catholic] Church there is no salvation” is taught also, among other places, by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) as well as the Bull Unam Sanctam (1302) by Pope Boniface VIII.⁹ So when Our Lady comes to bring people to Heaven — that is Her purpose in coming — She brings them to Heaven by the way that God has commanded, which is through the Catholic Faith and the fervent practice of the Catholic religion.  

If Christ came to promote many different and conflicting beliefs, then why did He bother preaching? He came, as He said Himself to Pilate, as a witness to the truth. The first principle of the truth is that it cannot contradict itself. So He founded one Church, “Upon this rock I will build My Church.” The word “Church” here is in the singular. It is one Church and Christ founded this Church for the salvation of souls. And belonging to the Church is necessary for salvation. That is why we will see that the conversion of Russia means the conversion to the Catholic Faith.

The Message of Fatima
Cannot be Denied

The greatest scholar on Fatima, Father Alonso, was a Claretian Father (of the order dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, founded by St. Anthony Mary Claret). He was a scholar in his own right, and he was commissioned by the Bishop of Fatima in 1966 to do research to counter the modernist arguments against Fatima.

If Fatima cannot be combated directly, it is combated indirectly in various ways. One of the ways is to change its meaning. For example, when Our Lord asked the Pharisees, “The baptism of John, did that come from Heaven or did that come from man?” In other words, did John invent this baptism of repentance or did God inspire him to promote this baptism of repentance? And the Pharisees understood that if they said, “It came from man,” their followers, who respected John the Baptist, would no longer follow them. And they also understood that if they said, “It came from God,” then Our Lord would ask them why they didn’t get themselves baptized by John the Baptist. So they answered, “We do not know.” They refused to answer the question honestly.

And so that is the same problem that people in the Church who continue to fight against Fatima have — they cannot directly oppose it because the faithful believe it too much. So when they are confronted, they respond in the same manner as the Pharisees did to Our Lord. As an Archbishop told me in 1980, he said: “I was just minding my business; I didn’t ask their opinion. But three bishops called me from different parts of Canada; each one of them said, ‘Don’t help Father Gruner.’” Now he went directly to the heart of the matter. He asked each of them, “Do you believe in Fatima?” And not one of them would answer. He said to me, “I received the same answer from all three — silence.” Again, they refused to answer the question, like the Pharisees noted above.

That is what we will find in too many of the clergy still, unfortunately — that there are people who do not believe in Fatima but they dare not say that directly because they will lose followers, the faithful who do believe in Fatima.

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart

We know from Scripture itself that in the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, Simeon says to Our Lady that “A sword shall pierce Your Heart, so that the thoughts of many will be revealed.” To me that is a litmus test, so to speak, of how people relate to the Blessed Virgin. If they are devoted to Our Lady — truly devoted, not just in words but also willing to obey what She asks — then you have a sign that they are who they say they are.

On the other hand, if they protest all their love of Our Lord and all their devotedness, and everything else, but have an aversion towards Our Lady, then the thoughts of their hearts have been revealed. And that is the sword that pierces Our Lady’s Heart. And so it is that the Blessed Virgin Mary is sad because no one pays attention to Her message.

Let us, ourselves, do our part to not have Her so sad. None of us, by ourselves, can do all that is needed. But each of us, with the means that God gives us, can do our little bit; and together, by doing our little bit, we can make a difference to bring about not only devotion to Our Lady, but also to the Rosary.

As Our Lady said on July 13th, “Only Our Lady of the Rosary can help you.” And Sister Lucy, explaining, says, “God has given such power to the Rosary that there is no problem in the world, either national or international, neither physical nor moral, nor problems in our homes, in our communities, and events of the world, that can not be solved by the Rosary.” So we should have a Crusade of the Rosary — whether it is for pro-life or another problem — but not just for one day, but continuously.

When Portugal was taken over by the Communists in 1975, a group of lay people started a Rosary campaign, and when they got over several million Rosaries, the Communist rulers were overthrown. It is important then that we realize that victory is achieved through Our Lady and through Her Rosary. But, ultimately, the final victory will not come except through the Consecration of Russia, because God wants the whole world and the Church to recognize that we have been delivered by Our Lady when Russia is consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart.

It is through Her merits and intercession that the Blessed Virgin Mary will have Russia consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart. That is, Russia will be set aside, declared publicly by the apostolic authority of the Pope and bishops that Russia belongs to the Immaculate Heart. Then Our Lady will take possession of Her property and convert Russia to the service of Her Son, and convert it to the Catholic Faith. Thereby, saving not only the souls of millions of Russians, but — by that example and by the missionary activity of Holy Mother Russia — also spreading the Catholic Faith and devotion to Our Lady around the world.

Russia, Instrument of Chastisement

I said earlier today that the errors of Russia have been imported into Russia, for the most part, from outside. Holy Mother Russia has been desecrated by these errors. Just as you might have a cathedral which is desecrated by someone from outside it entering it to commit a crime therein. This happened in New York City a few years ago when St. Patrick’s Cathedral was desecrated by a murder being committed in it. The local Cardinal — I think it was Cardinal Cooke or his successor — rededicated, re-consecrated St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York to the service of God.

A great crime has been committed in Russia by Satanists and enemies of God bringing in Communism and using the people and the resources of Russia to fight God around the world. This is a great crime and God has laid down His conditions for an act of reparation, which is to rededicate, re-consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And as St. Alphonsus has told us, as well as St. Bernard, if you want your gift to be accepted by God, make sure that you offer it to God through the hands of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And so, all of this is contained in a few words of Our Lady of Fatima.

Implementation of the Message
is the Key to Understanding

I am reminded of Our Lord’s own reply when the first apostles came to Him. They asked Him, “Where do You live?” He said, “Come and see” instead of giving a long discourse. He taught them little by little, until their minds could grasp what He was saying.

And I think the same way. Let us promote the Message of Fatima — that part that people can understand and lead them little by little. We have the lesson from the Gospel, of the disciples on the way to Emmaus on Easter Sunday morning. Here these disciples had lived with Our Lord for three years and yet, on that first Easter Sunday, they thought everything was lost, that the crucifixion of Our Lord brought the whole hope they had for Israel all to an end.

And so Our Lord disguised Himself so that they did not recognize Him.  He disguised Himself to the extent that His disguise was the level of their understanding of Him. And so He walked with them and He said, “Why are you so sad?” They said, “Are you the only pilgrim in Jerusalem who has not heard about this great man of God who worked these miracles?” And they described to Him what had happened.

He then explained to them what was in the Sacred Scripture — that Christ should die on the Cross for the redemption of mankind. And even though they understood then the concept, they still didn’t understand with their hearts. And Scripture tells us that when they got to their destination, they insisted with Him that He stay with them. It was when they started to practice greater charity — that is, to show their hospitality to the stranger — that their eyes were opened.

And so there is much in the Message of Fatima that is very simple, it is very straightforward, as is Sacred Scripture. But much of it we will only understand as we start to implement it ourselves. As I do that, I continue to learn more and more, and I am sure that you will have a similar experience if you implement promoting the Message of Fatima. I still remember the experience that I had when preparing for a television show in Los Angeles in 1984, on the 13th of January.

I was reading a sentence of Our Lady of Fatima over again for the fiftieth time, and I had thought I always understood the words; but actually, I read into Her words a meaning different than what She really said. On January 13, 1984 it became as plain as day. The sentence was “God will punish the world by means of war, famine, persecution of the Church, and persecution of the Holy Father.” Now the words are simple enough, you can understand them; but I had not previously understood them correctly, what they literally said. I understood that God will punish the Church by the persecution of the Church, but Our Lady didn’t say that. God will punish the world by the persecution of the Church.

What is the difference? Well the difference is that it is because the Church is persecuted that it has not yet obeyed the request for the Consecration of Russia. And the persecution of the Church is a punishment of the world because the grace that only the Church can give to the world — that is, the grace of world peace — has not yet been given because the Church is persecuted. We need to understand how this persecution of the Church is being carried out — even today. It is being persecuted internally — unseen by most superficial observers today.

Offer Sacrifices for Sinners

And so we have to certainly do our part to make the Message of Fatima known and obeyed, but also realize it is somewhat at the mercy of people living a good life. Now, I have heard it said that God gives enough graces for the conversion of the whole world if every Catholic lives according to the graces he has received. If all the religious and priests were as good as God intends them to be, they would gain by their own merits and prayers enough graces for the conversion of the whole world.

The devil told the Curé of Ars that the devil’s kingdom would be destroyed if there were three priests like him in the world, at the same time. Our Lady, Herself, said, “Many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray for them and make sacrifices for them.”

What is the justice, you might say of that — why is it that person X goes to hell because I didn’t live according to all the graces I received?” The answer is very simple, that the person goes to hell for his own sins. But if we lived according to the life of grace that God intends for us to live, then God will give them the grace to convert. We have the idea that, somehow or other, their conversion is totally their own work. It is a little bit, but mostly it is God’s work.

St. Augustine tells us that for God to convert a sinner there is a greater miracle than the creation of the world. That sounds like an exaggeration perhaps, to all of us, but he gives his reason and you can’t really argue with him when you finish hearing it. He says that when God created the world, He created it out of nothing. And “nothing” did not resist God. But when a sinner is converted, before he is converted, the sinner resists God. Therefore, for God to convert the sinner there is a greater miracle than the creation of the world out of nothing.

And so the greatest miracle, or greatest sign of all, is a greater moral miracle, such as the conversion of the Aztecs and the other natives in Mexico. It is more certain — not to take anything away from the miracles of physical cures, as well as the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe or even the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. The sun certainly spun at Fatima as people could see, and they were all drenched, and the ground they knelt on was all drenched, and yet instantaneously that ground dried and their clothes were dried in an instant.

I understand that the amount of energy needed to dry that muddy ground, that had been soaked from the rain from the night before, and the clothes in such a rapid manner would have been enough to kill everybody present; yet no one was hurt but many were cured.  However, despite these miracles — and they are great miracles, worked before 70,000 people — the conversion of souls that took place as a result of this phenomenon is even greater still.  The conversion of a sinner from a false religion to the true religion — the Catholic religion — is a greater miracle than even the Miracle of the Sun or a miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on a piece of cloth — great as those miracles were!

And so we have this outburst of the supernatural at Fatima — occurring in order that we will pay attention to Our Lady’s message and that we will bring this message to others, and live it more fully and more fervently ourselves.  And I find it providential — of course, everything about Fatima is providential — that although God gave the message at Fatima in Portugal, the request for the Consecration of Russia was made here in Spain. 

And last year the bishops of Spain renewed the Consecration of their country to Our Lady. The bishops of Spain had consecrated their country in 1954 to the Blessed Virgin Mary during the Marian Year — and in the year 2005, they renewed that act of Consecration. I believe that that is a sign that the bishops of Spain in some ways are a bit more amiable to the requests of Our Lady of Fatima. I further believe that is why Our Lady chose to come to Spain — to Tuy — to actually make the request for the Consecration of Russia, although the original intention to come back was announced at Fatima. 

Thus, we see the importance of obeying Our Lady’s request for the Consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart for the conversion of Russia — and, eventually, the whole world — to the Catholic Faith, which will then result in an unprecedented era of peace being granted for all mankind.¹⁰  God Bless you. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Notes

1. Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité, The Whole Truth About Fatima, Vol. II, The Secret and the Church (Buffalo, New York: Immaculate Heart Publications, 1990), pp. 735-743.



2. See Father Paul Leonard Kramer, “The Plot to Silence Our Lady” (Part I and Part II), The Fatima Crusader, Issue #20, June-July 1986, pp. 9ff and 13ff; on the web at http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr20/cr20pg09.asp and http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr20/cr20pg13.asp



3. See Father Paul Leonard Kramer, “Up to Now The Vatican-Moscow Agreement Has Silenced Our Lady” and “The Blue Army Leadership Has Followed a Deliberate Policy of Falsifying the Fatima Message”, The Fatima Crusader, Issue #22, April-May 1987, pp. 12ff and 26ff; on the web at http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr22/cr22pg12.asp and http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr22/cr22pg26.asp, respectively.



4. For an account of this apparition, see Mark Fellows, Sister Lucia: Apostle of Mary’s Immaculate Heart (Buffalo, New York: Immaculate Heart Publications, 2007), Chapter 25, “The Great Tuy Apparition (1929)”, pp. 119-123.



5. See Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité, The Whole Truth About Fatima, Vol. I, Science and the Facts (Buffalo, New York: Immaculate Heart Publications, 1989), p. 182; also quoted in Father Paul Kramer, editor, The Devil’s Final Battle (Terryville, Connecticut: The Missionary Association, 2002), p. 6; on the web at http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/ch1.htm



6. Listen to or read Father Gruner’s talk on the reparatary devotion of the Five First Saturdays with its magnificent promise, on the web at http://www.fatimaradio.org/media/lcwp/FG3.htm



7. See “Section II: Pontevedra: The Apparitions and the Message”, The Magnificent Promise for the Five First Saturdays (The Fatima Crusader, Issue 49, Summer 1995), p. 4; on the web at http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr49/cr49b.asp



8. See Sister Lucia: Apostle of Mary’s Immaculate Heart, pp. 182, 268; see also The Devil’s Final Battle, pp. 273-274 (on the web at http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/appendix.htm).



9. For the actual wording of the three solemn, infallible definitions of the dogma that “outside the Church there is no salvation” (extra ecclesia nulla salus), see The Devil’s Final Battle, p. 69; on the web at “The Church No Longer Seeks the Conversion and Return of Heretics and Schismatics”, http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/ch6.htm



10. See the second part of the Great Secret of Fatima, The Whole Truth About Fatima, Vol. I, p. 182; quoted in The Devil’s Final Battle, p. 6; on the web at http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/ch1.htm; see also “The Secret in Three Parts: The Second Part”, on the web at http://fatima.org/essentials/message/tspart2.asp