Church of God News

Fatima Statue and ‘the Lady’ the Children Saw in Fatima

COGwriter

The rector of Fatima announced that the statue in the Fatima chapel in Portugal is to be brought to Syria in an effort to bring peace to that nation:

August 17, 2015

The pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima will make its way to Damascus, Syria during the month of September.

The announcement of the statue’s visit was announced…by the rector of the Shrine of Fatima, Father Carlos Cabecinhas. The purpose of the pilgrimage is “to implore the maternal intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the peace and well-being of the Christian communities of the country who are suffering the destruction of war.”

During a press conference, Fr. Cabecinhas stated that the visit of the statue was in response to a petition made by His Beatitude Gregory III Laham, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, and Alexandria and Jerusalem.

“The message of Fatima is a message of peace,” Fr. Cabecinhas said. He also called on the faithful to accompany the pilgrimage with their prayers “so that the Lord may grant peace to Syria and strengthen the Christians who live there.

The rector of the Shrine of Fatima also stated in a recent editorial in the Arab edition of the Shrine’s bulletin that an offering of three bullets and a handkerchief were offered by three nuns to the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, in honor of three Christians who were martyred in 2013. These, like so many others, Fr. Cabecinhas said, are related to the third secret of Fatima which prophesied the martyrdom of Christians.

In this aspect, he concluded, the “third secret, while anguishing in the beginning, ends with an image of hope.” (J.A.E.)  http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/fatima-statue-to-visit-syria-in-september

There are several points about the above to consider.

First, is the idea of praying to a statue is wrong.

Second, is the idea of praying to Jesus’ mother Mary to intercede is wrong.  The Bible is clear that there is only one mediator and that this can only be Jesus.  Notice a Protestant and a Catholic translation that shows this:

For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5, NKJV).

For there is one God, one also mediator of God and men, man Christ JESUS (1 Timothy 2:5, Rheims New Testament).

Thus any others who claim to be a mediator clearly contradict the Bible (from both the Catholic and Protestant translations) and CANNOT BE OF GOD.

Third, is the reality that this is not the first time that intercession to ‘Mary’ for Syria has happened.  After it was reported that Syria had used chemical weapons, the USA considered military intervention.  Pope Francis then proposed a vigil for ‘Mary’ to appeal for peace:

To this end, brothers and sisters, I have decided to proclaim for the whole Church on 7 September next, the vigil of the birth of Mary, Queen of Peace, a day of fasting and prayer for peace in Syria, the Middle East, and throughout the world, and I also invite each person, including our fellow Christians, followers of other religions and all men of good will, to participate, in whatever way they can, in this initiative.

On 7 September, in Saint Peter’s Square, here, from 19:00 until 24:00, we will gather in prayer and in a spirit of penance, invoking God’s great gift of peace upon the beloved nation of Syria and upon each situation of conflict and violence around the world. Humanity needs to see these gestures of peace and to hear words of hope and peace! I ask all the local churches, in addition to fasting, that they gather to pray for this intention.

Let us ask Mary to help us to respond to violence, to conflict and to war, with the power of dialogue, reconciliation and love. She is our mother: may She help us to find peace; all of us are Her children! Help us, Mary, to overcome this most difficult moment and to dedicate ourselves each day to building in every situation an authentic culture of encounter and peace. Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for us! (Francis, Pope. September 1, 2013, as reported 09/03/13 by The Fatima Center)

The headline I posted on September 4, 2013 related to this was: Pope Francis’ ‘solution’ to Syrian crisis will not work.

The Pope went through with his vigil with a statue claimed to be Mary:

September 7, 2015

The four-hour service in the Vatican included the praying of the rosary, and silent time of Eucharistic adoration. The crowd was estimated at more than 100,000.

Francis offered a reflection, in which he exhorted us to ask ourselves the question, “Am I really my brother’s keeper?”

“Yes, you are your brother’s keeper! To be human means to care for one another,” he exclaimed in response.

The Holy Father said that “we bring about the rebirth of Cain in every act of violence and in every war. All of us! And even today we continue this history of conflict between brothers, even today we raise our hands against our brother. Even today, we let ourselves be guided by idols, by selfishness, by our own interests, and this attitude persists. We have perfected our weapons, our conscience has fallen asleep, and we have sharpened our ideas to justify ourselves. As if it were normal, we continue to sow destruction, pain, death! Violence and war lead only to death, they speak of death! Violence and war are the language of death!”

Spiral

Francis then asked if it is possible to break this chain of violence, to “get out of this spiral of sorrow and death? Can we learn once again to walk and live in the ways of peace?”

He responded that invoking God’s help and Mary’s intercession, “I say: Yes, it is possible for everyone! From every corner of the world tonight, I would like to hear us cry out: Yes, it is possible for everyone! Or even better, I would like for each one of us, from the least to the greatest, including those called to govern nations, to respond: Yes, we want it!”

“My Christian faith urges me to look to the Cross,” he continued. “How I wish that all men and women of good will would look to the Cross if only for a moment! There, we can see God’s reply: violence is not answered with violence, death is not answered with the language of death. In the silence of the Cross, the uproar of weapons ceases and the language of reconciliation, forgiveness, dialogue, and peace is spoken.”

Stay your hand

Francis said he prayed that all people would cry out, “violence and war are never the way to peace!”

He asked that everyone would look into their consciences, overcome indifference, conquer “deadly reasoning” and be open to dialogue and reconciliation.

“Look upon your brother’s sorrow – I think of the children: look upon these… look at the sorrow of your brother, stay your hand and do not add to it, rebuild the harmony that has been shattered; and all this achieved not by conflict but by encounter,” he pleaded. “May the noise of weapons cease! War always marks the failure of peace, it is always a defeat for humanity. Let the words of Pope Paul VI resound again: ‘No more one against the other, no more, never! … war never again, never again war!'”

From the heart

This is how the vigil proceeded:

7 pm — Vigil began

– The pope greeted the crowd

– The ancient hymn “Veni Creator” was sung, followed by Marian prayer to Our Lady Queen of Peace

– The Marian icon “Salus Populi Romani” (health of the Roman people) was carried by four Swiss Guards from the obelisk in the center of the square while two girls carried bouquets of flowers.

– The rosary was prayed with readings from the poetry of St. Therese of the Child Jesus.  The Pope has a special devotion to this young, Carmelite Saint beloved around the world.  She is also known as “The Little Flower.”

– Pope Francis gave his reflection

– Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament

– Office of Readings. John 20:19-29  (25 minutes of prayerful silence, music)

– Eucharistic benediction

The event concluded at 11:00 p.m.  http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/100-000-gather-with-pope-to-plea-for-peace

Although the Bible does not teach that we are to pray to or fast to Mary, Pope Francis claimed that a dead Catholic ‘saint’ responded the next day:

09/26/13

On Sunday 8 September, the day after the long prayer vigil for peace in Syria – when some passages from texts written by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux were read out – Pope Francis received a white rose as a surprise. Francis considers the flower to be a “sign” linked to the devotion of the saint. The Archbishop of Ancona and Osimo, Edoardo Menichelli broke the news, with Francis authorisation…

“The Pope told me he received the freshly-picked white rose out of the blue from a gardener as he was taking a stroll in the Vatican Gardens on Sunday 8 September,” Mgr. Menichelli said. “The Pope sees this flower as a “sign”, a “message” from Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, whom he had turned to in a moment of worry the day before.”…

Bergoglio mentions it in “El Jesuita” (“The Jesuit”), a book interview written by Sergio Rubin and Francesca Ambrogetti when he was still a cardinal. In a description the two journalists give of Bergoglio’s library in Buenos Aires, they write: “We pause before a vase full of white roses standing on a shelf in the library. In front of it is a photograph of Saint Thérèse. “Whenever I have a problem,” Bergoglio explained to the journalists, “I ask the saint not to solve it, but to take it into her hands and to help me accept it and I almost always receive a white rose as a sign.” Pope Francis’ devotion for the Carmelite mystic who died at the young age of 24 in 1897, was canonized by Pius XI  and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by John Paul II in 1997, is common knowledge.  http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/28151/

Now, September 9, 2013, something happened: Russia, Syria, and Kerry suggest relinquishment of Syrian chemical weapons.  The USA seemingly decided against military intervention in Syria.

Did this bring peace?

No.

Basically what happened was that much of the opposition to Syria’s President Assad concluded that the USA could not be counted on to assist militarily as it has supposedly indicated it would.  This distanced more of the opposition from the USA and greatly aided in the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.  It has since taken over significant portions of Iraq ans Syria militarily.  It has also reigned terror there and other places.  In less than a year from the vigil, a caliphate was declared, and it now calls itself the Islamic State. Peace was NOT the result of Pope Francis’ vigil before a statue of ‘Mary,’ increased death was.  The Islamic State has killed thousands, enslaved hundreds, and terrorized millions.

Bringing the Fatima statue to Syria next month will NOT bring real peace to the Middle East–although some time a temporal peace will come for several years per Daniel 9:27 (see also The ‘Peace Deal’ of Daniel 9:27).  Many wonder what might happen next month (see The ‘Harbinger’ and September 2015).

Fourth, it is interesting that the ‘third secret’ of Fatima was mentioned in the announcement.  Official Roman Catholic sources often have tended to downplay that portion of Fatima, despite public interest in it.  I heard a rumor Friday when I was in Michigan from a Catholic who thought Pope Francis was going to possibly read a ‘missing piece’ of the secret.  We will see.  But the message of Fatima is really NOT peace.

Now the last point to make is one related to the photo and illustration shown at the beginning of this post.

Notice the statue behind glass.  That is the Fatima statue that is to go to Syria.  But that statue does not even resemble the ‘Lady’ that was claimed to appear in Fatima, Portugal in 1917.  According to the three eye witnesses (who were three children), the ‘Lady of Fatima’ appeared wearing a short skirt.  While many consider that to be an appropriate type of female apparel in the 21st century, it was NOT culturally appropriate in 1917 Portugal.  There is NO POSSIBLE WAY THAT JESUS’ MOTHER MARY APPEARED IN FATIMA IN 1917–THERE IS NO WAY THAT MARY WOULD APPEAR TO BE DRESSED IN A CULTURALLY IMMODEST WAY. And even though the church officials at Fatima know this (they are the ones that released the records from the priests from 1917 where the short skirt information was recorded), they still want the general public to believe that the apparition looked like the statue shown above behind the glass (my wife Joyce took that photograph when we visited Fatima a few years ago when we were researching my book Fatima Shock! What the Vatican Does Not Want You to Know About Fatima, Dogmas of Mary, and Future Apparitions).

I have been warning for years that Fatima and other false images/apparitions claimed to be Jesus’ mother Mary would be used in the end times, and we are seeing more of this since Francis became pontiff.

Anyway, let me make this perfectly clear, the Bible teaches that Syria’s capital Damascus will be destroyed in Isaiah 17:1 (watch also Damascus and Syria in Prophecy).  Damascus will one day be destroyed and no amount of prayers to statues or false versions of Mary will be able to change that.

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 17th, 2015 at 7:00 am and is filed under Prophecy, Religious News.

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