Lucy’s long life was entirely dedicated to making Fatima known. She had been chosen to be the principal witness of Our Lady before the whole world, and for this purpose she received specific virtues from Our Lady. It is important to analyze these special qualities of Lucy and consider how her life became a living revelation of the message of Fatima. As Lucy was to live almost a century as a religious and messenger of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to the world, her life was entirely different from that of her cousins. Let us first recall some facts and testimonies, and afterwards see how they are a part of the “spirituality of Fatima” which we have to live if we want to be faithful to the Immaculate Heart.
From the time of the apparitions, Lucy was the one who suffered the most. One would expect that the privilege of such an intimacy with Our Lady would make the life of the seer a constant joy and thrilling happiness. For Lucy it was the contrary: the apparitions became a source of constant sorrow and humiliation inflicted on her by those whom she loved most: her own family and former friends who mostly followed the negative outlook of the parish priest. Such was her life in the years following the apparitions, during which she had to undergo many cross-examinations. The greatest suffering for her was the frequent accusation that she had lied: “While there were some who admired me and considered me a saint, there were always others who heaped abuse on me and called me a hypocrite, a visionary and a sorceress. This was the good Lord’s way of throwing salt into the water to prevent it from going bad. Thanks to this Divine Providence, I went through the fire without being burned, or without becoming acquainted with the little worm of vanity which has the habit of gnawing its way into everything. They are all mistaken. I’m not a saint, as some say, and I’m not a liar either, as others say. Only God knows what I am.” At the end of the first interrogation for the canonical process she was asked a final question: “Are you quite certain that the Blessed Virgin really appeared to you?” She responded with this firm and solemn declaration: “I have the certitude that I saw Her and that I am not mistaken. Even if they were to kill me, nobody could make me say the contrary.”
In June of 1921, Lucy left Fatima definitely, first for college and afterwards to enter religious life. Upon arriving at college, she was introduced to others under a different name, and was obliged “never to say anything to anyone regarding the events at Fatima.” For four years, day after day, she had to carry the very heavy cross of obedience to this command. Although it was easy for her to keep silence regarding herself, it was no doubt a heavy burden to be forbidden to speak of Fatima. It was also a sorrowful trial for Lucy that she knew nothing of what was going on at home in Fatima, for she was now totally separated from her family and heard from them very infrequently.
However, in her letters at that time to her family, we find a simple, courageous, humble, modest and thankful soul. Expressions of thanksgiving for the education she was receiving and the good example of the superiors are frequent. Canon Barthas writes that she was not free of imperfections, but if she realized that she had hurt anyone, she would immediately ask pardon very gently. Her calm bearing and balance was especially striking, and she always kept an even temper. There was nothing of the neurotic about her, or even of the nervous or sentimental. One of her directors declared: “I only saw her weep once, and that was when she thought of her home town.”
In 1923, when Lucy enrolling in the girls association “The Daughters of Mary”, she received an extraordinary grace: “After six years of real trials, it was on this day August 26, 1923, that Our Lady for the first time came back to visit me. This was when I entered the Daughters of Mary. She said that she agreed to be my true Heavenly Mother, since I had left my earthly mother for the love of her. Again She recommended to me prayer and sacrifice for sinners, saying that a great number are damned because they have no one to pray and sacrifice for them.” Although she was completely successful in hiding the fact that she was the seer of Fatima, she could not conceal her tender devotion towards her Heavenly Mother. Her Mother Superior wrote: “On numerous occasions the sisters came to tell me that she had something extraordinary with Our Lady, because when she spoke of her, she was always different from other people, and people noticed that she had an extraordinary love for the Most Holy Virgin.”
In October of 1925, she entered the congregation of the Dorothean sisters, where she continued her life of simplicity and perfect obedience. Up until 1929, the majority of her fellow sisters were unaware that she was the seer of Fatima. Her daily duties were simple, and her spirituality was to put into practising the message of Our Lady by living the religious rule perfectly and giving herself entirely to the Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Of the important revelations she had during this time, she faithfully and patiently “made them known” to her superiors and spiritual directors. What made her suffer the most was the general refusal to accept and to realize the requests of Our Lady, and what filled her with joy and thanksgiving was the adherence and zeal of those who propagated the devotion to the Immaculate Heart and afterwards made efforts to have Russia consecrated.
All the apparitions and revelations presented in the following chapters touched Sr. Lucy’s inner being. She wrote letter after letter and received visits from high members of the hierarchy and many priests. But even when she experienced a lack of trust or refusal, in the midst of these immense sufferings she always maintained her role, faithfully and constantly passing on heaven’s requests and messages to the ministers of Our Lord, even when those messages consisted of awful threats and announcements of the worst calamities. To pray and sacrifice herself for these intentions was the rule of her whole life!
When Jacinta’s body was transferred to the cemetery of Fatima in 1935, the local bishop ordered Sr. Lucy to write a biography of Jacinta. Her answer reveals the degree of her spiritual life. She firmly declares that she wrote “solely and exclusively for the glory of Jesus and the Blessed Virgin,” and she continues, “I now take up this work, in spite of the repugnance I feel, since I can say almost nothing about Jacinta without speaking either directly or indirectly about my miserable self. I obey, nevertheless, the will of Your Excellency, which, for me, is the expression of the will of God. I begin this task, then, asking the most holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary to deign to bless it, and to make use of this act of obedience to obtain the conversion of poor sinners, for whom Jacinta so generously sacrificed herself.” She made the same declaration for all the other memoirs and public writings; she never wrote anything of her own initiative, but always and only on the express order of the bishop. She always had an extreme reluctance and repugnance to write, especially when it came to writing down the secrets. When she was ordered to write down the Third Secret, she even fell into a mysterious and dangerous illness.
Sr. Lucy was always a humble religious. In 1948, she obtained the papal indult to enter the Carmelite order. The testimony of the nuns was unanimous all her life long: “She was very cheerful and very simple. Her conduct was always dignified and reserved in responding to the affability with which she was received everywhere,” testified the Mother Superior of Tuy. The numerous priests who knew her well were equally unanimous that there was nothing extraordinary in her appearance, words, or expression. She was always moderate and well balanced. “She does not like to speak about the apparitions. When she is obliged to do so, she does it with naturalness, with modesty, but with assurance.…She is endowed with a very faithful, rapid, extraordinary memory. …She shows great docility to the orders of her superiors, in which she always recognized the divine authority.” (Canon Galamba)
In all her trials, humiliations and constant sufferings her refuge was always the Immaculate Heart: “The Immaculate Heart of Mary is my refuge, especially in the most difficult hours. There I am always secure. It is the heart of the best of mothers; it is always attentive and it watches over the least of her children. How this certainty encourages and strengthens me! In her I find strength and consolation. This Immaculate Heart is the channel by which God makes the multitude of His graces pour into my soul. Help me to be grateful to her and to correspond to such great mercies. …Our Lord told me a few days ago: “I desire very ardently the propagation of the cult and the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, because this Heart is the magnet which draws souls to Me, the fire which makes the rays of My light and My love shine over the earth, and the inexhaustible well causing the living water of My mercy to pour over the earth.”
“…Do not think I am sad, that I cannot go there. I offer this sacrifice with pleasure, because with this we save souls, and I always remember the great promise which fills me with joy: ‘I will never leave you alone. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way which will lead you to God.’” I believe that this promise is not for me alone, but for all souls who wish to take refuge in the Heart of their Heavenly Mother, and let themselves be led along the paths traced out by her. …It seems to me that such are the intentions of the Immaculate Heart of Mary: to make this ray of light shine before souls once more, to show them once more this harbor of salvation, always ready to welcome all the shipwrecked of this world.” One can say that her life was an explanation of the GREAT MEANS of SALVATION in the latter times: MARY’S IMMACULATE HEART!
The life of Sr. Lucy in Carmel was one of self-immolation and continuous spiritual suffering. From 1950 onwards, one can find such statements in her letters as “I am pained that the consecration of Russia has not been done as Our Lady requested it.” In 1955, Sr. Lucy was reduced to silence, and without the express permission of the Holy See, no one could meet and speak with her. As long as she was able, she had spoken and written about the trials to come. Although she was not allowed to reveal the third part of the secret, Sr. Lucy now realized that the prophecies announced in it were to be fulfilled before her eyes. Even if the disastrous realities of the Second Vatican Council and its reforms were directly concealed from her, through the visits of her relatives (amongst whom were also priests) she could sense the “diabolic wave which overflows the whole world,” and many times she spoke about “the last and final battle between the devil and Our Lady,” about the strategy of the devil “to overcome souls consecrated to God.” Knowing that the hierarchy of the Church had turned away from the requests of Our Lady, she said: “We should not wait for an appeal to the world to come from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for the call to penance to come from our bishops, nor from the religious congregations.” She not only foretold chastisements but also gave important means to overcome the forthcoming calamities: “That is why now, it is necessary for each one of us to begin to reform himself spiritually. Each person must not only save his own soul but also all the souls that God has placed on our path.” Before being reduced to absolute silence in 1974, Sister Lucy still had permission to write a certain number of letters. All of these letters address the crisis in the Church and a diabolical disorientation. She exhorts her correspondents to fidelity and vigilance against the diabolical powers at work in the world, destined to cause many people to lose the faith. In order to remain faithful, it is necessary to remember the requests of Our Lady at Fatima: to pray and make sacrifices for the conversion of poor sinners, to faithfully continue the daily recitation of the Rosary, to persevere in devotion to the Immaculate Heart, and to accomplish acts of penance. This would be the hidden life and immolation of Sr. Lucy until her death.
COMMENTARY
After having recalled briefly the life of Sr. Lucy, we now want to comment on the most important elements and how to apply this important part of the “spirituality of Fatima” to our life.
The life of the seers of Fatima was like a living reflection in which we can see the desires of the Immaculate Heart. She formed and guided all three of them to be an illustration of what Our Lady names “the devotion to her Immaculate Heart”. Therefore, in the measure that we follow the example of their virtues, we will sanctify ourselves, and the wonderful promises of Our Lady will be realized in our own souls. From Francisco, we learned perfect love of God in the prayer of consolation; from Jacinta, we learned perfect love of neighbour by praying for the conversion of sinners. From Lucy, we will learn how to live constantly in the light of the Immaculate Heart, how we can please her, how to offer our trials and sufferings, and how best to fulfill our duties of state.
1. The Immaculate Heart —always our refuge
Lucy’s spirituality could be put into one sentence: all things always, everywhere, and totally in and with the Immaculate Heart of Mary! All her thoughts, words and actions were literally submerged in the depths of Our Lady’s Heart. There was no occasion, no event in her life, which could be an exception to that law. Sr. Lucy was compelled to give all to her. It is easy to see at what point this realization entered into her life. When Our Lady appeared for the first time and asked the children: “Will you…?” The answer was immediate: “Yes, we want to.” It was like the echo of Mary’s own “Fiat” before the angel. Even though Mary was then so young, she never retracted this willingness throughout Her life, but rather, with every day it became more firm, more generous.
Let us consider first of all Sr. Lucy’s prayer life. We can distinguish two major preoccupations in her spiritual life: ardent devotion to the Sacred Heart hidden in the tabernacle and frequent meditation of the mysteries of the Holy Rosary. What is peculiar to Sr. Lucy is the fact that she bound her entire prayer life to the Immaculate Heart of Mary: “This Immaculate Heart is the channel by which God makes the multitude of His graces pour into my soul. Help me to be grateful to Her and to correspond to such great mercies.” Through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Sr. Lucy discovered the treasures and infinite love of the Sacred Heart; in the light of the loving flame of the Immaculate Heart, she meditated on the mysteries of the Rosary. On the other hand, meditation on the Sacred Heart and the mysteries of the Rosary helped her discover the unlimited depths of the Immaculate Heart. Meditation on these two most holy Hearts was like a circulation of love: hidden in the Immaculate Heart, she grew in love towards the Heart of Jesus; and in the Heart of Jesus she grew in love towards Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart. Perhaps the most perfect expression of her entire spiritual life can be found in the words of Our Lord Himself when He said to her: “I desire very ardently the propagation of the cult and the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, because this Heart is the magnet which draws the souls to Me, the fire which makes the rays of My light and My love shine out over the earth, and the inexhaustible well causing the living water of My mercy to pour over the earth.”
Besides hours of daily prayer, Sr. Lucy had to fulfill many other duties of state, first as a student and then as a religious sister. Here again, many ejaculatory prayers to the Immaculate Heart were a source of strength for her to accomplish faithfully and conscientiously what God willed of her through her superiors. Whether these duties were sublime or banal, she accomplished them with the same devotion; if possible, she would have laid aside the “noble duties” to choose the humble ones instead. In this spirit, she wrote the memoirs which were to become so famous, as they were later made into a book entitled “Sister Lucy speaks about Fatima”. It is very interesting to note how she accomplished this noble task of writing: “Having no free time at my disposal, I must make the most of the hours when we work in silence, to recall and jot down, with the aid of paper and pencil which I keep hidden under my sewing, all that the most holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary want me to remember.” The fulfillment of her duties of state absorbed her so much that her superiors did not cease to praise her diligent application in all she did. She was convinced that in this way she could best please the Immaculate Heart of Mary and also efficaciously work for the conversion of sinners.
This supernatural Marian spirit was also visible in her relationship with others, and in the first place with her superiors, spiritual directors, priests and even bishops. There is nothing of vanity or self-flattery in anything she said, wrote, or did, but her frank speech was always marked with a deep respect for the holy office of her superiors. There was never any unmeasured or inappropriate word or gesture towards them during her entire life. On the contrary, she expressly stated many times that she saw in them the authority and love of Our Lord Himself. This attitude never changed, even during moments of trial and humiliation from the hierarchy.
Sr. Lucy shows us what “consecration to the Immaculate Heart” really means: not just a few pious prayers, but an entire way of life. Our Lady of Fatima invites us to lead a similar life in and with Her Immaculate Heart through the example of Sr. Lucy. If we did so, everything in our ordinary daily life would change for the better: our prayers, our contacts with our neighbour, our sacrifices, and our understanding of our role and our duties of state. All components of our lives would find harmony if they were accomplished in union with Her Heart; they would become more fruitful for our salvation and the salvation of other souls, and Our Lady would find much consolation in our lives.
2. Patience in suffering and trials
From the first apparition on May 13, 1917, Lucy, the eldest of the seers, had to undergo the brunt of the trials, sufferings, and humiliations that followed the event. Those trials were made heavier for her because they largely came from those whom she loved and respected most: her own mother and sisters, and from civil and spiritual authorities. Our Lady teaches us through Lucy that our daily life might be one of contradiction and humiliation. Our Lady foresaw terrible times in the near future when faithful Catholics would be routinely despised, ridiculed, and humiliated not only by enemies of the Church but also from within the family of the Church. Confronted by such heavy blows, how should a Catholic behave? Sr. Lucy shows us the example.
There is nothing of resentment in Sr. Lucy’s behavior. Even when her mother was very harsh to her and for a long time would not believe in the apparitions, and was even unjust towards her, responding to her with bitterness instead of a mother’s love, Lucy never turned away from her, never had an angry word of reproach for her. On the contrary, when she was in the convent, she longed for her mother, prayed for her and always showed the love of a child towards her. And when Lucy was kidnapped together with Francisco and Jacinta by the local authority, a tinsmith from the nearby town of Ourem, and put in prison among criminals, she never despised anyone. She only had one thought for her worst enemies, that of pity for their misery and a prayer for their conversion. When one disappointment after another came from the disbelief of the Church’s hierarchy and their refusal to accomplish Our Lady’s requests, and Lucy was so saddened and even heartbroken, still she never manifested anger or any negative emotions in her behavior. On the contrary, the more she realized that someone was under the influence of the evil spirits, the more she prayed for that person.
One of her great sufferings was loneliness, not only physically, as when she had to leave her home forever, but also spiritually, when she felt that nobody understood her and everyone was against her. Through every difficult trial, she never showed despair or discouragement. When things went wrong, she immediately had recourse to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and confided to her all her worries and trials: “The Immaculate Heart of Mary is my refuge, especially in the most difficult hours. There I am always secure. It is the heart of the best of mothers; it is always attentive and it watches over the least of its children. How this certainty encourages and strengthens me! In her I find strength and consolation.”
3. “Even if they kill me, I cannot lie”
Another quality of Sr. Lucy was her determination to be honest always. She herself relates that her mother instructed her never to tell a lie! And in this light, her mother’s severe behavior after the first apparition is understandable, because Lucy’s mother was convinced that Lucy had lied. This hatred of dishonesty, together with an excellent and faithful memory, were necessary qualities for Lucy to be an eyewitness of the apparitions and messenger of Our Lady. Throughout the many interrogations during her life, the slightest contradiction was never found, though sometimes there were insignificant mistakes in certain dates or circumstantial evidence. These mistakes never affected her faithful presentation of the words and intentions of Our Lady. Such objectivity can be considered as a miracle itself, because generally one will forget even important details of the past after a lapse of many years.
Sr. Lucy knew from the beginning that being absolutely true and faithful to her task would be a dangerous and exhausting undertaking. The first danger that comes from being chosen in such an extraordinary manner is the temptation to take advantage of the situation for oneself, giving way to human inclinations towards pride, feeling oneself better or more important than others. A second danger is that one could use the privilege in an inordinate manner or abuse the privileged position of a world famous seer. As a visionary at Fatima, Lucy had great moral authority among those who approached her; she could easily have used her position to direct other people’s lives, intruding in their affairs and trying to manage them. She could have attracted people to herself to receive their admiration or to feel their dependence on her. A third danger was the possibility of coloring the facts and events linked to the apparitions in a way to make herself look good; it would have been easy to emphasize her own role at Fatima and add subjective ideas or personal interpretations to the simple facts. The final danger was of a different kind. It was that she become pusillanimous under the opposition and attacks directed against the apparition and its message, yielding to the all too human tendency to discouragement, being weighed down by the heavy consequences of her truthfulness.
Lucy overcame these four sizable dangers in an admirable way. She understood the privilege that was extended to her as an extraordinary grace to which she had to be unflinchingly faithful and for which she was absolutely unworthy. Frequently, she asked for prayers to correspond to this grace and never to neglect or betray it. She also understood the limits of her competence and duties: her mission was to be a witness, a messenger of Our Lady’s message. To Fr. Fuentes, she said: “My mission is to indicate to everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity if we remain obstinate in our sins.” With great simplicity and without considering earthly influences, good or bad, she was witness to the words and requests of Our Lady at all costs, even under the threat of death. In this way, she fulfilled literally Our Lord’s words to the Apostles: “You will be my witnesses, even to the end of the world”.
Here we have another example of the “spirituality of Fatima,” the behavior and quality of those who really want to live the devotion to the Immaculate Heart. We have to concentrate and be entirely occupied with what heaven asks from us and fulfill it faithfully, even at great personal cost. We must firstly be faithful to the greatest treasure we have received — our Catholic faith — no matter what it costs. Concretely, Our Lady also wants us to be HER witnesses and messengers in the world in which we live. If we claim to be “traditional,” does this not mean that we must transmit faithfully (traditio) what we ourselves have received? This is our true mission, and the worst betrayal would be to lose our focus on the truth, to change or colour the message we have received, to make use of the grace we have received merely for our own profit, for our vanity, or for dominating others. In other words, there is nothing more opposed to the reality of the Immaculate Heart of Mary than to speak half-truths. They are the worst kind of lies, leading us to put our own interests before the objective message which we must deliver to others.
The other lesson we can learn from Our Lady, through Sr. Lucy, is to keep within the limits of our competence and duties, not to be occupied with examining and judging what others are doing. When Lucy saw that others did evil, she responded with prayer and sacrifices for them, but she never judged their intentions, never assumed an authority for herself for which she did not have the grace of state. We should likewise be so eager to do what Divine Providence has given us to do that we simply have no time or interest to judge other people. The vocation of the steadfast Catholic of our times is to “be faithful until the end, and you will earn the crown of glory.” We cannot deny or reject the truth we have received, but when others do not honor God and thus imperil their own salvation, we must still do our duty!
4. Simple, humble, obedient — a copy of the Immaculate Heart
How can we best live through such difficult lives in the modern world? Sr. Lucy provides a living example of behaviour for a devoted child of the Heavenly Mother, a slave of the Queen and Knight of the Immaculate Heart.
Lucy’s example, like that of Jacinta, speaks more to us than her words by providing us a living replication of the qualities of Our Lady Herself. No one can please Mary if he does not imitate Her virtues. No one can say that he practices devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary if he neglects to conform his heart to her Heart, his life to her life.
What was Lucy’s predominant virtue? Her superiors unanimously declared: “Her most striking virtue was the simplicity with which she practiced all the virtues.” She was an echo of Our Lord’s words: “If your eye is simple, your whole body is lightsome”, meaning no duplicity, no “politics”, no diplomacy or calculation. Lucy’s simplicity was a participation in the simplicity of Our Lady herself. There was nothing complicated about Lucy’s personality: it only mattered for her to say what pleased God, and to say it in a way that would please God. Her interior thoughts and desires were also simple; she would never complicate matters, nor was she influenced by concerns about what others would think of her. The only thing that mattered was the truth, spoken with delicacy and reverence, and with simplicity.
Our own love for unchanging truth and our desire that others also know the truth — the traditional doctrine of the Church — would have much greater effect if we would be simple in our words and actions, following the example of Sr. Lucy. But one cannot be simple without being humble. Sr. Lucy was fully aware of her unworthiness. In many of her letters, in every memoir, she emphasizes her limitations and asks for prayers that no proud or subjective attitude would interfere with the mission she had received. She never used the Fatima apparitions as a means to exalt herself. When contradicted, she always kept her place; she never counted on herself, but only on Our Lady. This humility was especially visible when she experienced the reluctance of bishops and priests whom she asked to propagate devotion to the Immaculate Heart; she would complain delicately, but she never accused or manifested impatience with them, surrendering the matter instead into the hands of Our Lady.
Concerning the virtue of obedience, Canon Galamba wrote: “She shows great docility to the orders of her superiors, in which she always recognizes the divine authority. She is no less respectful to her spiritual directors as to the venerable Bishop of Leiria.” It was always about seeing the will of Our Lady in the authority of her superiors, even when she did not understand them. This unquestioning obedience of Lucy could be misunderstood, if we were to forget the role assigned to her from the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Up to her death, Sr. Lucy would not reveal the great secret to the world, because Our Lady did not want it manifested in that way. Sr. Lucy did not discuss nor take the initiative; she would only do what was within the framework of obedience.
Here, however, we might raise an important objection: why did Sister Lucy not resist and refuse the Novus Ordo which was introduced in her convent in the early 1970’s? Why did she not speak of Vatican II, Modernism, and the Novus Ordo? Could her behavior not be understood as implicit advice for Catholics to obey the modernist hierarchy and to collaborate in the “auto-destruction of the Church” and therefore the eternal damnation of souls?
In our opinion, the contrary is the case! After a thorough analysis of the message of Fatima and especially of Sr. Lucy’s example, we have a key to understanding true obedience and an example to follow in this worst of all crises. This true obedience, far from requiring cooperation with the superiors who tear down the Church, demands prudent opposition to them.
But first, we must understand in what obedience consists. One must be obedient to those who are the lawful voices of God’s will. But should a superior require one to do or say something against God’s will, then he is not an instrument of God’s will in that particular instance. This is the teaching of the Church, notably that of Saint Bernard and Saint Thomas Aquinas.
What was Lucy’s own situation? In 1917, her superiors were her own parents and parish priest. However, she was materially “disobedient” to them when they required her to retract her account of the visions and she refused. When civil and ecclesiastical superiors put pressure on her to act against what she knew to be God’s will (e.g., to reveal the third secret before its time or to reveal it to people other than the Pope and the bishop of Leiria, to whom she had been told to reveal it), she never acquiesced. In every other situation, she obeyed perfectly. The apparitions of Our Lady, and in particular the great secret of July 13th, gave her deep supernatural light to understand the upcoming attack on the Church. However, in her modest and simple life as a Carmelite sister, she had no opportunity or means to know the modernist errors in detail, errors such as ecumenism, religious liberty, and the Novus Ordo Mass. This is quite understandable because of her life’s circumstances: she was a cloistered nun. In a Carmel convent, there was no contact with the world and its events. The Novus Ordo was introduced in a very conservative way at the convent. Although she certainly suffered a lot seeing signs of the diminishment in faith, Marian devotion, and spiritual life, still in all these things she had not received clarity, and since no superior directly asked her to do anything evil, her subjective perception was that nothing harmful for faith and morals was being asked from her. Therefore she continued to obey.
The principle of obedience, then, is the following: if you clearly see the will of God contradicted by His ministers, you must choose the will of God, even if they would kill you! If you were to recognize a wish or order as sinful or a clear contradiction to God’s will, you must refuse, or better, you must “obey God rather than men.” But if, by invincible ignorance, you do not have full knowledge of the evil— if the orders of the superiors do not seem to be in contradiction to faith and morals — then you must obey.
To receive a clear understanding of the present crisis is a special grace and privilege. It is even a coalescence of many graces, found by contact with wise people, faithful, priests, literature, films, and other means which help one to discover Catholic tradition. To receive the motivation to seek out the truth and to have the courage to be informed and to find the traditional Mass is itself a great work of grace, comparable in some ways with the graces and privileges the children of Fatima received.
Does this mean that those who have not received the grace and illumination to find this “hidden pearl” will be rejected? Most traditional Catholics needed a long time to correspond to this grace, and an equally long time to understand the evil fruits of Vatican II and the Novus Ordo. It is at the moment of receiving such a grace that one must respond to the call of God, and be responsible for cooperating with that grace, or refusing it.
Returning to Sr. Lucy, she had received from Our Lady an order to transmit faithfully to the world Our Lady’s message of salvation, her requests to save us and convert sinners, even in our apocalyptic times. This Lucy did, and she did it so clearly that even ecclesiastical superiors were afraid of her. When they reduced her to silence, she never changed her attitude; her last correspondence with her friends and family members shows clearly that she had accomplished her mission faithfully. But to explain is not to govern! She had to explain; others had to execute. And when she saw that they would not follow through with the wishes of Our Lady, she prayed!
We are living in a world faced with the publicly bitter fruits of the Second Vatican Council in its devastating reforms and consequent insults to the honor of God and His Holy Mother. We have received a certain objective knowledge of the truth, and just as Lucy during and after the apparitions refused to obey the orders of her superiors on certain matters, so we have to refuse to “obey” when authority would lead us to abandon or change the truth.
But again, like Lucy herself, we have not received from God the special mission to lead the churchmen or guide the people of the entire world, nor have we received from God the responsibility to judge evildoers. We have not received from God the grace to resolve this crisis. But we have received the grace to be witnesses and messengers of the truth, even until the end of the world!
5. The Immaculate Heart — consolation during crisis
The Immaculate Heart was Sr. Lucy’s refuge and great consolation, enabling her to never despair, never give up. She received from Our Lady a deep and special understanding of the difficult times to come: the message of the great secret made her understand profoundly the final attack of the devil against the Church and souls. When writing down the Third Secret, Lucy was in agony; she was deeply affected seeing the future triumph of evil in the world and in the Church, the desertion of the good, the abandonment of the faith, and the dangers of eternal damnation for so many.
Lucy’s example teaches us that we have to understand the present situation in the Church in the light of the Immaculate Heart. The agony of the Holy Mother Church is to be compared with the agony of Our Lord Himself. And what did Mary do when confronted by all the mortal enemies of her Divine Son? She did not judge them; we do not find in her any trace of anger or pessimism. As Co-Redemptrix, she prayed for them and offered her Son’s sacrifice for their conversion. Similarly, Sr. Lucy always called for penance and prayer when she spoke about the crisis and especially about the defection of priests. She did not respond to bad example with words, but with good example. The more desperate the situation, the more she had recourse to the Immaculate Heart, asking for the conversion of sinners and for the fulfillment of her requests for the sake of the Church, the world, and souls. She never sought any consolation from people, but only from the promise of Our Lady: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
We should also meditate more often on this clear and categorical statement, as though Mary would say to us: “Whether you decide to be with me or against me, I will triumph! But I invite you to share my triumph with me, and therefore you should trust me blindly! Faithfully fulfill my will and be entirely focused on pleasing me. Then I will guide you through every dark night, trial and temptation. My Heart will then be your refuge and the way which leads you certainly to God, to holiness!”
