Apocalyptic messages in Marian Apparitions

[scolairebocht]

Marian apparitions, obviously visions of Our Lady, which of course have occurred all around the world at all times but, it is thought, have increased in frequency since Lourdes of the mid 19th century, generally follow a predictable pattern. To cut a long story short, they generally reflect what is known in Medjugorje, obviously a very well known modern site, as the five stones, the core message if you like, which is a call to:
a) pray the Rosary;
b) fasting, if possible twice a week;
c) frequent confession, at least once a month;
d) respect and reverence for the Eucharist, and receiving every Sunday;
e) Biblical reading, if possible to some extent every day.
So thats what these visitations are all about, a call to prayer etc.

However in modern times, they seem to have an apocalyptic component, sometimes a little controversially. Meaning, again in simple terms, that God the Father is getting exasperated with mankind on earth, who need reminding of what happened when the world became addicted to vice, just before the events of Noah and the Flood, and also with respect to the fate of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. In otherwords She seems to be telling us that might happen again if Her call to repentance and prayer falls on deaf ears.

Probably the most famous of these seemingly apocalyptic messages became known as the Third Secret of Fatima, which boils down to a sealed letter (pictured) containing a prophecy by Lucia, one of the Fatima seers, that Bishop Silva of Leiria sent to the Vatican to be opened in 1960.


Critics of this ‘doom and gloom’ approach

But actually you will also find many critics of this, considered overly gloomy approach to the future, many at high ranks in the Church. For example I wonder could this passage in Pope St John XXIII’s address to the Second Vatican Council in 1962, be a reference to the Third Secret, which he presumably opened and read only a few months before:

“In the daily exercise of our pastoral office, we sometimes have to listen, much to our regret, to voices of persons who, though burning with zeal, are not endowed with too much sense of discretion or measure. In these modern times they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin. They say that our era, in comparison with past eras, is getting worse, and they behave as though they had learned nothing from history, which is, none the less, the teacher of life. They behave as though at the time of former Councils everything was a full triumph for the Christian idea and life and for proper religious liberty.

We feel we must disagree with those prophets of gloom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand.”
(https://vatican2voice.org/91docs/opening_speech.htm .)

And you will in fact read and hear many such comments over the years.


Example Apparitions

Mount Melleray
But nonetheless these apocalyptic type warnings seem to persist at Marian Apparitions. Even in the Apparitions that may have occurred in Ireland in 1985 there might be a hint of this, particularly at Mount Melleray, the monastery in Waterford, as mentioned here by Peter Bannister for example:

“The most obvious explanatory hypothesis on the basis of the content of the Mount Melleray alleged messages would seem to be that the mysterious happenings in Ireland in 1985 were intended as a call to repentance in the light of the seriousness of the world situation...and the impending threat of catastrophic consequences should modern civilization continue on its current trajectory. The implications of the boys’ vision of Noah’s flood is surely self-evident.”
(Brian Nugent, Marian Apparitions in Ireland, and related phenomenon (Corstown, 2015), p.34.)

Garabandal
But the most elaborate and well known of these apocalyptic messages were those given to four girls during the Marian Apparitions in the Cantabrian mountains of Northern Spain, at Garabandal, in 1961-5. Again in simple terms, they amount to this prophecy:
a) That Our Lord will appear in some sense to all humanity and give us a warning (‘Aviso’) of the state of our souls, similar to what normally happens after we die.
b) A permanent sign will be visible at the ‘Pines’, in Garabandal, and all who witness this event, which will happen on a set day, announced by Conchita one of the seers soon after the ‘warning’, will be cured of illnesses.
c) If despite these great supernatural warnings and assistance, mankind still will not repent and return to adhering to God’s law, then a great ‘chastisement’, similar in extent to Noah’s flood, will engulf the world.
You can see something of this overall message encapsulated in this message given to Conchita in Garabandal in 1965:

“As my Message of the 18th of October has not been complied with, and as it has not been made known to the world, I am telling you that this is the last one. Previously, the Cup was filling; now, it is brimming over. Many Cardinals, Bishops and priests are following the road to perdition, and with them they are taking many more souls. Ever less importance is being given to the Holy Eucharist. We should turn the wrath of God away from us by our own efforts. If you ask His forgiveness with a sincere heart. He will pardon you. I, your Mother, through the intercession of St. Michael the Archangel, wish to tell you that you should make amends. You are now being given the last warnings. I love you very much, and I do not want your condemnation. Ask Us sincerely and We shall grant your plea...Reflect on the Passion of Jesus.”

Medjugorje
Something similar seems to be happening in the aforementioned Medjugorje in Bosnia Herzegovina, with the original apparitions there dating to when it was in Yugoslavia, in 1981. There they talk about various ‘secrets’ that are held by the various seers and which it seems will be revealed in sequence.

What makes this whole story very topical and interesting, and maybe a little scary!, is that it seems relevant to this very week as this article is been written. In a completely unprecedented step in Medjugorje Our Lady has apparently, through the seer Marija, called for a novena, a number of days of reciting the Rosary and certain other prayers each evening at a set time from the 16th to the 24th of June, and it seems, according to gossip from there (which, like Garabandal, has a very great Irish presence) might be necessary to avert or curtail the extent of, a world war.

Food for thought maybe, and I will leave you with a high quality video of Garabandal made recently by Robert Nugent, who when visiting there found it very popular among Irish people.

by Brian Nugent

 

[scolairebocht]

Here is some original footage of Garabandal:

 

[PlunkettsGhost]

Fr Malachai Martin claimed to have read the 3rd secret of Fatima. Back in the 90s he said Kiev would play a pivotal role in future apocalyptical events

 

[scolairebocht]

Yes thats right Malachy Martin, who was Irish, he was a brother of the Irish historian F. X. Martin, talked a lot about the Third Secret which you can now hear on youtube.

Malachy came to prominence originally during the Second Vatican Council where he was sometimes described as an expert at, and where he certainly said that he had many high level contacts. Specially he often mentioned Cardinal Bea as one such contact, who was indeed high up in the Church at that time.

But curiously there is one survivor of that Council now in Ireland, Bishop Emeritus of Meath Michael Smith, who says Malachy Martin was a kind of fraud at that time. That he was in no sense connected to the Council, nor did he have contacts there, despite his own assertions. His Grace wrote a book about the Council and you can read it there.

So who knows where that leaves us on the Third Secret. Anyway I think there is pretty much a consensus that the text of the Third Secret revealed by the Vatican in 2000 was not the full Secret.

 

[Myles O'Reilly]

Who's that strange looking guy at the top of the OP Bocht? Was he a former Pope?

 

[scolairebocht]

That's the Bishop with the letter that starts the whole controversy about the Third Secret of Fatima. He had persuaded the Fatima seer to write down what she received in a vision from Our Lady in that letter, which was revealed at a press conference but was not to be opened until 1960 by the Pope.

 

[scolairebocht]

This is a picture of what it appears like in Medjugorje every night for this unique Novena:

 

[Myles O'Reilly]

Those numbers seem manageable. In Saudi Arabia its reported that 1,300 pilgrims have died due to excessive heat.

 

[scolairebocht]

I haven't heard of people dying of heat in Medjugorje but I am told it actually is very hot out there now and they certainly have the crowds! This is from yesterday I believe:

 

[Declan]

The flag that looks russian is the flag of Serbia.

I would like to visit there