Sister M. Milada of the Savior of the World, OCD
This year, the entire Catholic Church commemorates the centenary of the apparition of the Virgin Mary in Fatima, which for us can be an opportunity to reflect more deeply on the significance of this event for the Church and the whole world. However, we should not merely aim to "remember past events" – I would like to ponder, together with you, the messages and challenges that Fatima may bring for our present spiritual life, as well as to find connections that exist between the Fatima apparition and Carmelite spirituality.
The Course of the Fatima Apparitions
First, let us briefly recall the sequence of the Fatima events: they began in 1916 with three apparitions of an angel to the Marto siblings – eight-year-old Francisco and six-year-old Jacinta – and their cousin, nine-year-old Lucia Santos. After this spiritual preparation, the children received apparitions of the Virgin Mary each month from May 13 to October 13, 1917. This cycle of six apparitions culminated in a solar miracle witnessed by seventy thousand people.
The Virgin Mary urgently asked the children to pray, especially the rosary, and to make sacrifices for the salvation of sinners. She revealed three secrets to them: the first was a vision of hell, the second contained instructions from the Virgin Mary concerning the salvation of people and the whole world, and the third, which was unveiled in 2000 at the encouragement of St. John Paul II, called for repentance and prophetically depicted the history of the Church, especially the 20th century.
The Marian apparitions in Fatima were recognized by the Church as authentic after thorough theological investigation on October 13, 1930. The siblings Francisco (1908-1919) and Jacinta (1910-1920) fell victim to the Spanish flu epidemic; they were beatified in Fatima by Pope John Paul II on May 13, 2000, and canonized by Pope Francis in Fatima on the same day this year. Their cousin Lucia (1907-2005) became a nun and, as a discalced Carmelita, took the name Sister Lucia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart. Her beatification process is currently underway.
The History of Marian Apparitions
At least briefly, we can sketch the role of private Marian apparitions in the life of the Church.1 It is interesting that this phenomenon has strongly increased over the centuries.
In the first millennium, these apparitions were very rare, historically, no more than five per century. They were mostly associated with the establishment of some Marian shrine (e.g., in Zaragoza and Rome) or served to honor some popular saint (St. Martin, St. Ambrose).
From the 10th to the 18th century, dozens of private Marian apparitions were recorded in each century and are often connected to the beginnings of religious orders (St. Dominic, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Simon Stock) or major mystical figures of the Middle Ages (e.g., St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Gertrude of Helfta, St. Bridget of Sweden, St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort). The apparitions during this time served particularly (besides the personal benefit for those who received them) to gradually define the Marian dogmas (the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption).
In the 19th century, there were already 106 recognized apparitions, and in the 20th century, this number reached 426. Thus, a sharp rise in their numbers is evident, which certainly has a number of causes – including a lack of preserved records in the first millennium, the rise of Marian devotion in the Middle Ages, and in the 20th century, the possibility of extensive media coverage.
Nevertheless, we can observe a certain break or shift in them: from the year 1830, when the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Catherine Labouré and entrusted her with her miraculous medal, a great series of Marian apparitions in the 19th and 20th centuries began (notably those that took place in the following locations: La Salette, Lourdes, Fatima, Banneux, Amsterdam, and Kibeho), which we can call "apparitions of the modern age." These apparitions also have – like the previous ones – their mystical aspect; secrets are disclosed to visionaries for their spiritual life; however, their charismatic significance comes to the forefront – they serve the good of the Church, and their vast social reach – through the media, news about them spreads quickly, and thus their message impacts the whole world.
These apparitions thus become one of the significant elements of spirituality in our time and are the subject of cult throughout the world (statues of Our Lady of Lourdes can be found in many churches; the Fatima apostolate is being established, etc.).
The Role of the Virgin Mary
We can rightly ask why the vast majority of these supernatural apparitions concern the Mother of God. We can seek the answer in her mission, which her Son entrusted to her at the foot of the cross – it is a concrete expression of Mary's maternal care for the Church.
Mary's maternal service did not cease during Christ's earthly life but continues throughout the history of His mystical body. In the apparitions, Mary appears in a manner similar to that in Scripture – as the one who brings Christ to the people and who gives birth to Him again in human souls. Just as the incarnate God entered this world through Mary, so through Mary God again intervenes in the events of the Church through His word.
Thus, Mary performs her function as Mother in the apparitions. She embodies the mission of the Church – which through its teaching and spiritual guidance must also be a mother and teacher for individual believers.
The Effects of the Apparitions in the Life of the Church
All this can help us correctly understand the role and significance of Marian apparitions: God does not give them to us because we need to hear something new for our salvation. Rather, we can receive them as a kind of "update" of what we already know from Scripture and what Jesus told us.
This is already taught to us by St. John of the Cross:
“What God spoke to our fathers long ago in many ways through the prophets, He has now finally spoken to us all at once in His Son. By this, He gives us to understand that God has remained as if silent and has nothing more to say, for what He formerly said in parts to the prophets, He has already said as a whole to us when He gave us Everything, which is His Son. Therefore, whoever wishes to ask God anything now, or desires any vision or revelation, not only does foolishness, but does God an injustice by not keeping their eyes fixed entirely on Christ. Therefore, God might respond by saying: ‘If I have already told you everything in My Word, which is My Son, I have nothing else to say or reveal to you. Focus your eyes solely on Him, for in Him I have told you and revealed everything, and in Him, you will find even more than you ask for and desire. Listen to Him, for I have nothing more to reveal to you about faith, nor further things to disclose.’” (Heb 2:4-5)2
Thus, it is not that it is necessary to reveal something new – rather, in the specific, currently experienced reality of the Church and the world, a particular element of Christian spirituality is renewed and "illuminated." In this way, we can also understand Marian apparitions as a remedy against the various ailments of today's age.
Through the apparitions, we can more vividly experience that God is in our midst – not only theoretically but personally and concretely. For believers, Mary brings encouragement and strength on the journey of faith and rekindles hope. She presents herself as the Woman who brought us the Giver of Living Water (through the healing water at Lourdes; John 4:10-14) and as the Woman clothed with the sun (due to the solar miracle at Fatima; Rev 12:1-7). She is presented as the “Virgin of the Poor” (Banneux), “Lady of All Nations” (Amsterdam), and “Mother of the Word” (Kibeho). It is clear that all authentic Marian apparitions are meant to lead us to a more intense life with Christ and to bear fruit for the Church.
What specific messages, then, can the Fatima apparitions bring to deepen our spiritual life amidst the Carmelite family?
The Vision of Hell and God's Mercy
The first parallel between Fatima and Carmel that came to my mind regarding the first secret. In it, the children had a vision of hell, during which the Virgin Mary addressed these words to them: “You have seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners fall. To save them, God wants to establish in the world respect for My Immaculate Heart. If people do what I tell you, many souls will be saved and peace will be returned to them.” This may seem, particularly after experiencing the Holy Year of Divine Mercy, very unsettling. We may ask how these two messages (the presentation of God as Merciful Love towards us and the vision of hell) can be reconciled. However, when we read the secret attentively, we find that it is not a statement of a condition but a conditional expression. It is a plea that this vision not come to fulfill: “So that people might be saved...”
A similar experience was had by St. Teresa of Avila during the time when, after years of ambiguity, she was experiencing her conversion and full return to Christ:
“One day, while I was in prayer, it seemed to me that I found myself in hell in an instant, without knowing how. I understood that the Lord wanted me to see the place that the demons had prepared for me and that I myself had deserved for my sins. It was only for a brief moment; and even if I were to live many more years, it seems impossible that I could forget it. I clearly understood that it was a great grace and that the Lord wanted me to see with my own eyes from what He had freed me with His mercy. From that moment on, everything seemed easy to me compared to that single moment I suffered there. I also experienced great pain for the many souls that are going to perdition, and a great desire to assist souls, for it seems to me that I would bear many deaths for the release of even one of them from such heavy torments. I thought about what I could do for God. And it came to my mind that the first thing is to follow the call to religious life that His Majesty gave me and to observe my Rule with the greatest perfection I could.” (L 32,1-8)
Teresa experienced this vision as a great grace, though certainly dramatic. This experience led her (similarly to the Fatima children) to a full conversion, a focus on Christ, and also to great apostolic zeal in praying for the salvation of souls. It is not, therefore, that we should fear God and see Him as a severe Judge threatening us with hell. Rather, it is a supreme expression of God's mercy. Divine judgment is a manifestation of His love. In His love that longs for us, He wishes to remind us where our self-righteousness and pride can lead – when in our selfishness we live only for ourselves, we remain in the hell of our solitude.
How can all this assist us on our journey towards the Lord? By allowing us to accept the right "interpretative key" for all our trials. Although we have not experienced the reality of hell, we still must go through various difficulties in our life, sometimes very demanding. St. John of the Cross, in his Dark Night, compares all internal purification of a person to purgatory. In these moments, we may experience doubts about God, about His goodness and care, about His love for us. However, God is but one, He does not contradict Himself, He is simple Being. “God is Love” (1 John 4:16). All our crosses speak much more about us and our sinful situation than about God. Because of our impurity and need for conversion, we experience darkness and trials. God acts towards us as “a zealously loving” (Ex 20:5), wanting to burn away all our impurity in the fire of His love so that we may “grow into His likeness” (cf. Gen 1:26), being conformed to Him. He is “a consuming fire” (Deut 4:24), and according to St. John of the Cross, we are “wood” that is thrown into the fire to become – like God – a flame that ignites others with its love.
Intercessory Prayer and Repentance
Another very significant element of the Fatima message, common to Carmelite spirituality, is its focus on the life of prayer and vicarious repentance. The angel, who introduced himself to the children as the "Angel of Peace," had already encouraged them a year before the apparition of the Virgin Mary to pray this beautiful prayer often: “My God, I believe in You, I adore You, I hope in You and I love You. I ask You for forgiveness for those who do not believe in You, do not adore You, do not hope in You, and do not love You.” Later, from the Mother of God, the shepherds received many calls to pray and do penance:
“Do you want to offer yourselves to God and endure all the suffering that He may send you as reparation for the sins by which He is offended and as a plea for the conversion of sinners?” “Pray the rosary every day that you may obtain peace for the world and the end of the war.”
“Repeat after each decade: ‘Jesus, forgive us our sins, preserve us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are most in need of Your mercy.’”
“Offer yourself for sinners and say often, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘Jesus, I do this for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’”
Here again, we may question the purpose and reach of our actions. Isn't God omnipotent? Does He need our deeds, prayers, and sacrifices for anything? Although it remains a mystery that we are unable to fully comprehend and explore, thanks to the Gospel, we can truly say: yes, our God has freely chosen to be dependent on our actions. In everything, He subjected Himself to the principle of the Incarnation: just as He was completely dependent on His parents as a Child, and later, as an adult, was influenced and affected by the actions of individuals and the entire Israeli nation, so He now acts in a way that is dependent on our decisions. He wishes us to bring Him our “five loaves and two fish” (John 6:9), to ask the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into His harvest (Luke 10:2), to “give Him a drink” (cf. John 4:7). Our God is humble; He does not come uninvited like a thief to seize (cf. John 10:1.10), He is humble, knocking at the door of our heart and waiting to see if we will let Him in (cf. Rev 3:20). He expects our deed and our decision.
However, through our actions, we not only allow God to act, but we also influence one another. As a Church and humanity, we are part of one mystical body. Therefore, St. Paul can declare that “I fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.” (Col 1:24).
This is also the mystery of Carmel's fruitfulness. Part of the vow formula by which the discalced Carmelites consecrate themselves to God is the sentence: “With the grace of the Holy Spirit and with the help of the Mother of God, I want to attain perfect love through constant prayer and self-denial in the spirit of the Gospel in the service of the holy Mother Church and glorify the Most Holy Trinity forever.” Many holy Carmelites and Carmelites have lived this call and fulfilled it with their lives. Thus, St. Thérèse understood: “In the heart of my Mother Church, I will be love; thus, I will be everything,” (Ms B 3v) and St. John of the Cross confessed that “one act of pure love is more useful to the Church than all works together” (DP 29,2). This is why Teresa of Avila founded her reform. She desired that her sisters pray and offer themselves for the Church and for the conversion of others. Thus, St. Thérèse at the end of her life “sat at the table of sinners” and experienced the disbelief of atheists.
For this reason, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross offered herself during the Second World War as a victim of reconciliation. Especially this woman is a living embodiment of what the Fatima message called for to avert the scourge of war. One Benedictine remarked about her: “When I first met her at the entrance gate of the Beuron Abbey, her appearance struck me so much that I can compare it only to the impression created by early Christian art in the catacombs when depicting the Church praying (ecclesia orans). Although she did not have raised arms, everything in her appearance reminded of this early Christian type. She was closely united with Christ, living the words of our Lord: ‘For their sakes, I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth’ (John 17:19).” And she herself proclaimed during her self-oblation: “I trust in the fact that the Lord took my life for the benefit of all Jews. I must increasingly think of Queen Esther, who was taken from her own people to represent them before the king.” “From now on, I accept the death that God has determined for me, with joy and complete submission to His will. I ask the Lord to accept my pain, my death, and my honor and glory for all the needs of the holy Church.”
Just as poverty is the center of life for Franciscans, liturgical prayer for Benedictines, and preaching the Gospel for Dominicans, so prayer and the offering of life is the central value in Carmel. The Fatima challenges can thus re-inspire us to fidelity to the charism of Carmel that we have received.
Devotion and Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
A strong unifying point between Carmel and Fatima is also the devotion and consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Because Carmel has been associated with contemplative prayer from the beginning, purity has become the priority and promise in Carmel, which has been most understood as the purity of heart: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt 5:8). For this reason, the Carmelites have early honored Mary's virginity and the Immaculate Conception, even when it was rejected by other orders.
In the Most Pure Mother, every Carmelite sees the fulfillment of his inner life with God, preparing to experience such intimacy with Jesus as His Mother experienced with Him. Mary is pure because she is completely open to God. Her heart is undivided and entirely dedicated to God. Through receiving the scapular and through the act of consecration, therefore, every Carmelite desires to "clothe himself in Mary" and to adopt her virtues.
Beautiful texts on this topic come from St. Teresa of Los Andes:
“The goal of the Carmelite captivates me: to pray for sinners, to offer one's entire life without seeing the fruit of one's prayers and sacrifices. To unite with God, so that the blood of redemption may flow in Him, and to supply the Church and its members to be sanctified. Isn't this precisely what the Most Holy Virgin did, our most perfect model? Did she not constantly live in uninterrupted prayer, in silence, in forgetting about earthly things? How does she save souls? Through prayer, petition, and sacrifice. (Dp 40)
“Our Lord told me to meditate on the purity of the Virgin Mary. And she began to speak to me without saying anything. She told me to record what she said about purity: 1) To be pure in thought so that I may live in constant presence of God. 2) To be pure in my desires, so that I may desire to belong more to God each day. 3) To be pure in actions; to perform them as best as possible for God, not for others to see me. In other words, that my whole spirit may be so immersed in God that I completely forget about myself. She lived like this... (Diary 51).
The Fatima message comes with an urgent call to establish respect for the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the world and to consecrate ourselves and entire nations to our Mother. Despite all the evil experienced in the 20th century, Mary proclaims: “My Immaculate Heart will triumph.” And to Lucia, who remains “in the world,” she encourages: “My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.” During the last apparition on October 13, 1917, Mary appeared to the shepherds as Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
Why does God show us this means that has, according to Him, “the inner strength” to turn us away from hell, evil, and wars that threaten us? In Mary's Heart, there was a constant "yes" to God and His decrees. The enemy of our salvation had no power over her. We can say that of all the people who have ever lived in the world, after Christ, Mary's humanity is the most filled with God. She was entirely transparent for the action of the Holy Spirit in her soul. She is the beginning of the Church and its perfect model.
Through the consecration to her Immaculate Heart, we allow Jesus to fully come into our hearts. Here again, God respects the principle of the Incarnation: as at the fullness of time He came into this world through Mary, so He desires to incarnate and live in us again through His Mother. Thus, we can understand the consecration to her Heart as a certain fulfillment of our baptism.
Prophetic Mission
The Fatima message is very strongly connected to the gift of prophecy – the Virgin Mary requested the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart, pointed to the beginning of another war if people do not convert and do penance, and predicted the persecution of the Church and the Holy Father. In the third secret, the history of the entire twentieth century was mysteriously foreshadowed.
Through our baptism, we all received participation in the priestly, royal, and prophetic mission of Christ. Thanks to the prophet Elijah, our “spiritual father,” the prophetic mission of its members is even part of our charism in Carmel. Due to all the great Carmelite figures, Hans Urs von Balthasar declared that “lately, it seems there is no religious order that has been more honored than Carmel with special graces characterized as ‘mission’.”3
The renewal of our order was initiated by St. Teresa because she was able to read prophetically the “signs of her times” in the 16th century – the rupture of Church unity and the creation of a vast mission field through the discovery of America. Thanks to her merit, religious unrest did not spread to her homeland. She called her sisters: “Always fix your gaze upon the lineage from which we come, upon those holy prophets: how many saints do we already have in heaven who wore our habit! Let us have that holy boldness, so that with God's help we may be like them” (F 29,33).
Other Carmelite sisters also continued in the prophetic mission: St. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi and St. Miriam of the Crucified exercised their prophetic gifts influencing the Church's events, St. Thérèse of Lisieux prophetically anticipated the spread of atheism, and through her teaching was a precursor of the Second Vatican Council, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity restored in the Church the forgotten teaching about God's dwelling in the soul of a justified (baptized) person, and St. Teresa Benedicta prophetically anticipated the consequences of Hitler's rise to power and, as early as the 1930s, wrote a letter asking the Pope to issue an encyclical concerning fascism.
Being a “prophet” does not only mean to foresee the future, but above all to understand the present deeply, to recognize the "signs of the times" and interpret them in the light of the Gospel. This mission concerns all of us. However, this mission cannot be fulfilled without becoming people of prayer and deep knowledge of Scripture. As St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross said, “It is necessary that we listen to God’s word for many hours and allow it to act in us. Only then will it lead us to the moment when we will bear fruit in the offering of praise and in the offering of deeds.” “When those dedicated to God speak quietly with their Lord, significant events of church history are prepared.”
The Lives of the Visionaries
Parallels between Carmel and Fatima can also be found in the lives of all three shepherds. The Marto siblings, Francisco and Jacinta, died as children. Their response to the Virgin Mary's call was radical. In a very short time, less than three years, they achieved holiness. Thus, God's word was fulfilled in them: “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 18:3). According to their process vice-postulator, Father Kondor, their spirituality is characterized by three main points: the need to fill everyday life with prayer, a special love for the Church and the Holy Father, and finally, not seeking extraordinary penances and austerities but accepting everything that life brings in the spirit of sacrifice. Their life thus offers a form of spirituality that we could call “the way of everyday life.” And this cannot help but remind us in Carmel of the spiritual message of the youngest Doctor of the Church, St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, and her “little way.”
Lucia's path, the last of the shepherds, was different. From the beginning, she was their "spokesperson"; as the only one, she could also speak with the Virgin Mary. She was asked by her to learn to read and write.
In 1925, Lucia entered the postulancy of the Sisters of St. Dorothy in Tuy, Spain, and in 1934 she made her vows in this congregation. Later, however, at the age of 41 (in 1948), with permission from the Holy Father, she transitioned to Carmel in Coimbra. There, she spent the rest of her life. The exact reasons for her transition will remain a mystery for us; she was certainly attracted by the solitude and separation of Carmel and also recognized that the spirituality she received and lived through the messages corresponds most with the spirituality of Carmel. She died just short of her 98th birthday.
It is a well-known fact that throughout her life Sister Lucia received further apparitions of the Virgin Mary. In 1925, the Virgin Mary entrusted to her the devotion of the first Saturdays, which is very similar in content to the promises associated with wearing the Carmelite scapular. In addition to a large number of letters, Sister Lucia wrote six Memoirs of the Fatima apparitions.
According to some authors, she also experienced the "mystical adoption" by the Virgin Mary, during which the Virgin Mary accepted her as her daughter. Lucia likely experienced what we call in the history of spirituality a mystical union with the Virgin Mary. In Carmel, this very intimate relationship with Jesus' Mother was particularly experienced by Maria of St. Teresa (Marie Petyt; lived 1623-1677) and her spiritual director Michael of St. Augustine (surname: van Ballaert; lived 1621-1684).
Cardinal Suenens described this experience as the experience of a special inner presence of Mary in the soul, where a person loves Christ with Mary’s Heart and Mary with Christ’s heart. Mary, in a way, appropriates the soul's activity, and as a result, the soul gradually begins to resemble the Virgin Mary in its thinking, acting, and loving. Everything is done for her and through her.
Maria of St. Teresa described this experience with the words:
“Sometimes I am shown and given spiritual life in Mary, rest, joy, connection, and union in her. This happens this way: while the mind is in simplicity, detachment, and peace focused on God – without images, in adherence and contemplation, experiencing the possession of God in an absolutely simple way – it happens that the soul experiences at the same time adherence, contemplation, and possession of Mary.”
This peak of spiritual life, which has been given to some of our brothers and sisters, we can, in faith and simplicity, experience as well among ourselves, who all belong to the Carmel family. According to many statements, every Carmelite and Carmelite attached to Carmel should become “Mary,” that is: together with her and through her to love God and humanity.
Once, I read a beautiful expression that Carmel has been entrusted with the mission in the Church to fulfill the role that Mary performed in the early Church. May it be so in our lives. Amen.
