Chapter One
TERRIBLY SERIOUS
As billions of people entered the new millennium, the still-living visionary of Fatima, Sister Lucia, had just said (on October 11, 1993) something of startling importance--something vital to every living man, woman, and child.
And only a few knew it.
In the got-to-the-moon century in which history somersaulted at the destruction of Hiroshima, she had seen the Mother of God.
What she saw and heard was confirmed by one of the most amazing miracles in history. It was justly called "the greatest event since Pentecost." It was God's intervention to prepare for the moment when, as Pope John Paul II expressed it, man had arrived at the alternative of self-destruction.
To understand the importance of what she said on October 11, 1993, one must see it in the perspective of that frightening alternative.
The atomic destruction of Hiroshima became what Jean Guitton calls "the hinge of history," and the event of Fatima is the spiritual side of that hinge.
Now, at the end of the got-to-the moon century, God's messenger to the atomic age had just made a haunting statement for the people of the new millennium.
Not Changed by the Years
I saw Sister Lucia at some length in the intimacy of the parlor of her convent in Coimbra, Portugal, on May 31, 1999. I was pleased to see her smile because she had not had too much to smile about in previous years. She had received six terrible prophecies from the Blessed Virgin Mary, beginning May 13, 1917. She had seen five of those prophecies, one by one, come true. And she had sorrowed that the world had not listened.
The first time I had seen her, in an interview which lasted over three hours, she had never smiled. She was explaining what was necessary to prevent atomic war and to bring about the era of peace promised by Our Lady of Fatima. It was terribly serious.
The next time I saw her (1952), there was at least a glimmer of a smile. The message was becoming known.
When I saw her on May 31, 1999, she was smiling from the time she came into the room almost until she left. It was the fiftieth anniversary of her profession as a Carmelite nun. She could smile not just because of the joy of a family visit for her golden jubilee but because recent word from Rome indicated that the Church and the world would have fresh confirmation that the Fatima message was indeed from Heaven: The Pope had decided to beatify the two children who had shared the Fatima event with her.
"An Ongoing Process"
As the world was entering the new millennium on the tidal wave of a century of wars and evil unprecedented in history, in an interview with Cardinal Vidal on October 11, 1993, she said: "People expect things to happen immediately within their own time frame. But Fatima is still in its third day. The triumph is an ongoing process."
Then, repeating herself, she said: "Fatima is still in its third day. We are now in the post consecration period. The first day was the apparition period. The second was the post apparition, pre-consecration period. The Fatima week has not yet ended."
"I may not get to see the whole week..." Then she repeated: "The Fatima week has just begun. How can one expect it to be over immediately?"
St. Margaret Mary certainly did not get to see the whole week of response to the messages she received from the Sacred Heart. Perhaps the following dates will help the reader understand.
| 1st Day | 2nd Day | 3rd Day | |
| Sacred Heart | 1673-1689 | 1689-1899 | 1899-1917 |
| Immaculate Heart | 1916-1929 | 1929-1984 | 1984- |
In Sister Lucia's imagery, the first day is the apparition period; the second day is the post apparition, pre-consecration period; the third day is from the consecration onwards.
The third day of the final appeal of the Sacred Heart came to a climax in 1917 with the atheist revolution in Russia and two world wars, culminating in the use of the atomic bomb.
How will the third day of the "Fatima week" end?
The Rest of the Week?
Given at the dawn of the new millennium, this message from Sister Lucia had an importance deeper and more urgent than at first perceived. She herself seems to have felt this. She had carefully prepared what she was going to say and had waited up for hours on the night of October 11, 1993 for the arrival of a Cardinal of the Church who would make it known.
Under the auspices of this same Cardinal during the previous three years, I had been editing the magazine Voice of the Sacred Hearts to promote the message now emphasized in this book.
The Cardinal discussed this with her. He asked if it fulfilled Our Lady's requests. Her answer made clear that the third day of Fatima concerns the will of Our Lord that devotion to the Immaculate Heart of His Mother be related to devotion to His Own Sacred Heart.
Particularly haunting is what she did not say. Although she described the first three days, what are the other days which remain?
This and other books by John M. Haffert
God's
Final Effort | Too Late? | The Day I Didn't Die