Order. Discipline. Brotherhood. Greatness.

The Spiritual Combat and Fatima: Fourth Week of Lent

Fourth
Week of Lent: The New Adam

“And going out, He went, according to His custom, to the mount of Olives. And His disciples also followed Him. And when He was come to the place, He said to them: Pray, lest ye enter into temptation. And He was withdrawn away from them a stone’s cast; and kneeling down, He prayed, saying: Father, if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from Me: but yet not My will, but Thine be done. And there appeared to Him an angel from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in an agony, He prayed the longer. And His sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground. And when He rose up from prayer, and was come to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow. And He said to them: Why sleep you? Arise, pray, lest you enter into temptation.” Luke 22:39-46

Commentary on Sacred Scripture

At the Third Council of Constantinople (A.D. 680-681), the Church defined that Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, has two wills: divine and human. Leading up to this sixth ecumenical council, St. Maximus the Confessor (d. 662) meditated on the words of Christ during His Agony in the Garden: “… not My will, but Thine be done.” He concluded that this was the moment when Jesus brought His human will into a complete union with the divine will. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) cited the Third Council of Constantinople, which declared that the two wills of Christ were “not in opposition.” Of the Agony in the Garden, St. Thomas can be seen to conclude that Our Lord’s “human will, while fully submitting to His divine will, fully experienced the natural aversion to death.”

By fully conforming His
human will to the divine will in the Garden of Gethsemani (or Gethsemane),
while foreseeing His Passion, Jesus Christ in effect said ‘YES’ to God the
Father and established Himself as the ‘NEW ADAM.’ The old Adam said ‘NO’ to God
in the Garden of Eden, thus bringing sin and death into the world.  The New Adam said ‘YES’ to God the Father in
the Garden of Gethsemani and as such would go on to Calvary to conquer sin and
death.

In Sacred Scripture, St. Paul the Apostle (d. A.D. 67) declared that Adam foreshadowed the coming of the Son of God, thus establishing the Apostolic Tradition of interpreting the first man as a prefiguration (‘type’) of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The Fathers of the Church and others have expounded upon St. Paul’s typology between the first Adam from the Garden of Eden and the New Adam Whose Garden of Gethsemani led to Calvary.

The visionary, Ven. Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), saw Adam after his expulsion from the Garden of Eden weeping at the Mount of Olives, where Jesus would have His ‘Agony in the Garden.’ She also had a vision in which she received insight into why Calvary (Latin for ‘skull’) also known as Golgotha (Aramaic for ‘skull’) was known as the ‘Place of the Skull.’ She saw the tomb of Adam and Eve at an immense depth below the rock which constitutes Mount Calvary. She beheld the Cross of Christ placed vertically over the skull of Adam. In addition to St. Paul and the Church Fathers, the typology of the old and New Adam is attested to by this acclaimed mystic of the Church.

In keeping with Biblical teaching and Catholic Tradition, we are visually instructed by traditional artwork depicting Jesus Christ as the New Adam. Such artwork includes depictions of Eve, the bride of the old Adam, being taken from his side as he slept; juxtaposed with the Bride of Christ, the Church, illustrated as being taken from the New Adam’s Side as He slept the sleep of death on the Cross. Such venerable religious art, depicting Christ as the New Adam, also substantiates the Catholic Church’s tradition that the Church was born on Good Friday, not on Pentecost.

The first Adam’s ‘NO’ to God in the Garden of Eden
is reversed by the New Adam’s ‘YES’ to God the Father in the Garden of Gethsemani. The old Adam
was expelled from the Garden when he sinned; the New Adam entered into the
Garden of His own free will and took upon Himself the sins of the world. The
old Adam was kept out of the Garden by an Angel; Jesus would be consoled in the
Garden by an Angel. Likewise, by a tree, satan led the old Adam to sin and
death; and by dying on the tree of the Cross, in accord with the Father’s will,
and rising on the third day, the New Adam, Jesus Christ, conquered sin and
death. Jesus Christ, the New Adam, reverses the deeds and ill effects of the
old Adam.

The Tree of Life from the Garden of Eden can be
seen as a type (prefiguration) of the Cross of Christ. In addition, the
fruit of the Tree of Life can be seen as a type of the Eucharist, the Body of
Christ as it hung from the tree of the Cross. It is written in the Book of
Genesis that he who eats from the Tree of Life would “live for ever” (Gen.
3:22). Jesus said: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven.  If any man eat of this bread, he shall live
for ever; and the bread that I will give is My Flesh, for the life of the
world” (John 6:51-52).

Accordingly, as we partake of the Eucharist — the
Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ — at the Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass, we are on the road to the heavenly paradise prefigured by the Garden of
Eden. This was made possible by the New Adam’s ‘YES’ in the Garden of Gethsemani. And this will
be given unto us if we say ‘YES’ to God’s will in our lives.

Scupoli’s Spiritual Combat

In his classic book from 1589, The Spiritual Combat, Dom Lorenzo Scupoli (d. 1610) advises a prayer for us similar in some ways to Our Lord’s ‘Divine Fiat’: “Lord, I am firmly convinced that this petition is Thy will, and for Thy greater honor, I ask this petition. Accomplish, therefore, Thy Divine will in me” (chapter 45).

Based upon the
Spiritual Combat’s foundation of ‘distrust of self’ and ‘confidence in God,’ Scupoli
says that “our motive for prayer must be the will of God rather than the will
of self.” He continues: “We must apply ourselves to this divinely appointed
duty because He has commanded it, and we must wish no more than that which is
in utter conformity to God’s plan. Thus, our intention will not be to make the
Divine will subservient to our own, but rather to transform the human will so
that it is in complete harmony with the Divine” (chapter 44).

“Proceed then to make
acts of hope, considering that this great God on the Cross had no other plan
than to extirpate sin from the world, to free you from the devil, to expiate
your crimes, to reconcile you to His Father, and to provide a resource for you
in all your necessities” (chapter 51).

“If you would have a
lively sorrow for your sins, let your meditation convince you that if Jesus Christ
suffered so much, it was to inspire you with wholesome self-contempt, and a hatred
of your disorderly passions, particularly your greatest faults” (chapter 51).

“Great are the
advantages to be derived from meditating on the Cross, the first of which is,
not only a detestation of past sins, but also the firm resolution to fight
against our ever present disorderly appetites, which crucified our Savior”
(chapter 52).

Scupoli asks us to
meditate upon Jesus in His agony, as Our Lord says to us: “Behold the horrible
pains I endure, with no other purpose than to teach thee a lesson of patience. And
let me persuade thee, by all these sufferings, to accept with resignation this
cross I here present, and those which I shall send in the future” (chapter 52).

To grow in the virtues,
Fr. Scupoli advises: “If it be patience, you must strive to bear with eager
courage those evils which befall you. If it is humility, you must recall in all
your sufferings that they are far less than you deserve. If it be obedience,
you must resign your will to the will of God Who justly punishes you” (chapter
39).

When afflicted in any
way, gain strength for the combat meditating on the Passion of Christ, as
Scupoli writes: “Behold, then, your Master, covered with blood, desiring
nothing more earnestly than your patient acceptance of affliction; and be
assured that He implores for you the assistance of the Heavenly Father that you
may bear with resignation, not only the cross of the moment, but the crosses to
come” (chapter 46).  Scupoli says in
another place: “And thus we advert again to the patient acceptance of the
crosses of life, which like a thread must be woven into the fabric of our
spiritual lives” (chapter 31).

Eucharistic Heart of Jesus Statue from Fatima

The Message of Fatima

The Message of Fatima
sheds light on Our Lord’s Passion and Death. It also teaches us about the Real
Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, in relation to the Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass.

In the third appearance of the Guardian Angel of Portugal in 1916, at the hill of the Cabeco (which means ‘head’ in Portuguese) near Fatima, he taught the three shepherd children the following prayer, as he knelt prostrate with them before a Sacred Host suspended in the air with drops of the Precious Blood falling into a chalice:

“Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly, and I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the Tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference with which He Himself is offended. And, through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.”[1]

On May 13, the first of the 1917 apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima to the three shepherd children at the Cova da Iria, Sister Lucia described the following:

“… Our Lady opened Her hands for the first time, communicating to us a light so intense that, as it streamed from Her hands, its rays penetrated our hearts and the innermost depths of our souls, making us see ourselves in God, Who was that light, more clearly than we see ourselves in the best of mirrors. Then, moved by an interior impulse that was also communicated to us, we fell on our knees, repeating in our hearts: ‘O Most Holy Trinity, I adore Thee.  My God, my God, I love Thee in the Most Blessed Sacrament.’”[2]

These two prayers were
laying a foundation for the spectacular vision of the Most Holy Trinity, which
took place on June 13, 1929 at Sister Lucia’s convent in Tuy, Spain. The vision
occurred over the altar and was a powerful mystical presentation of the
spiritual realities surrounding Christ’s Death on Calvary. In Sister Lucia’s
account of the Tuy Crucifixion vision, she said that she prayed the prayers of
the Angel just prior to the apparition.

Artwork by Anne Simoneau (c. 2016)

The Vision of Tuy

The Vision of Tuy can refer to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, especially in that the apparition appeared over the altar in Sister Lucia’s convent and was a powerful other-worldly depiction of Calvary. I now quote from Sister Lucia’s memoirs, as she paints this Crucifixion vision in words:

“I had sought and obtained permission from my superiors and confessor to make a Holy Hour from eleven o’clock until midnight, every Thursday to Friday night.  Being alone one night, I knelt near the altar rails in the middle of the chapel and, prostrate, I prayed the prayers of the Angel. Feeling tired, I then stood up and continued to say the prayers with my arms in the form of a cross. The only light was that of the Sanctuary lamp.

Suddenly the whole chapel was illumined by a supernatural light, and above the altar appeared a cross of light, reaching to the ceiling. In a brighter light on the upper part of the cross, could be seen the face of a man and His body as far as the waist; upon His breast was a dove of light; nailed to the cross was the body of another man. A little below the waist, I could see a chalice and a large host suspended in the air, on to which drops of blood were falling from the face of Jesus Crucified and from the wound in His side. These drops ran down on to the Host and fell into the chalice.

Beneath the right arm of the cross was Our Lady and in Her hand was Her Immaculate Heart. (It was Our Lady of Fatima, with Her Immaculate Heart in Her left hand, without sword or roses, but with a crown of thorns and flames). Under the left arm of the cross, large letters, as if of crystal clear water which ran down upon the altar, formed these words: ‘Grace and Mercy.’

I understood that it was the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity which was shown to me, and I received lights about this Mystery which I am not permitted to reveal.”[3]

The Vision of Tuy is a clear affirmation of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the sacrificial nature of the Mass. It is a resounding blow to Modernists who deny that Jesus is really present — Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity — in the Most Blessed Sacrament. We have here a confirmation of the clear teaching of the Council of Trent, which presents the dogma that the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are both present in either the Sacred Host or in the Precious Blood. Therefore, it is not necessary for the faithful to have ‘Communion under both species’ in order to receive the Precious Blood, since Christ is entirely present in the Sacred Host alone.

Father Cizik blessing his statue of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus at the Capelinha in Fatima

Eucharistic Heart of Jesus

When
pilgrims to Fatima visit Sister Lucia’s cloistered Carmelite convent in
Coimbra, Portugal, one of the most inspiring sacred images that they will ever
behold is that of the ‘Eucharistic Heart of Jesus.’ This awesome sculpture, in
the Chapel of the Sisters, was carved out of wood by an artist under the direction
of Sister Lucia. It depicts a large standing figure of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus holding forth in His right Hand a consecrated Host. In his left Hand, Our
Divine Lord holds a Chalice into which is flowing His Most Precious Blood
directly from His Most Sacred Heart.

This
statue of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus reinforces the Fatima Message of the Real
Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the relationship between the Sacred
Heart and the Precious Blood of Christ. The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus statue
represents these traditional teachings, which are often subject to denial or
indifference by Modernists.  Images of the
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus serve to help us preserve the dogma of the Faith
through the Message of Fatima.

Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano

Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano

Lanciano, Italy is the home of the world-renowned and Church-approved “Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano”. This miracle is literally the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus.

Heaven responded to an
eighth-century priest who had doubts about the Real Presence of Christ in the
Eucharist when, at the words of Consecration, the appearance of bread changed
to Flesh and the sight of Blood replaced the appearance of wine. In recent times,
a scientific investigation of the Eucharistic Miracle revealed that the Host is
a thin cross-section of a human heart, consisting of living cardiac tissue.

The blood type of this
Sacred Heart of Christ matches the blood type of the Precious Blood (AB) which
has the chemical composition of living blood. Not only is this a Miracle of the
Sacred Host, it is a miracle of the Precious Blood of Christ and the Sacred
Heart of Jesus, that can still be seen and venerated today in Lanciano, Italy
at the Church of San Francesco in Piazza Plebiscito. It is a heavenly sign that
the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus is living and present to us in the Most Blessed
Sacrament.

Baltimore
Catechism

The traditional 1891 Baltimore Catechism (#3), instructs us on the basics of our One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith. “Lesson 7, On the Incarnation and Redemption” teaches:

Q. 340. Was Jesus Christ always man?

A. Jesus Christ was not always man, but became man at the time of His Incarnation.

Q. 341. What do you mean by the Incarnation?

A. By the Incarnation I mean that the Son of God was made man.

Q. 342. How was the Son of God made man?

A. The Son of God was conceived and made man by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Q. 348. When was the Redeemer promised to mankind?

A. The Redeemer was first promised to mankind in the Garden of Paradise, and often afterward through Abraham and his descendants, the patriarchs, and through numerous prophets.

Q. 351. Have all these prophecies concerning the Redeemer been fulfilled?

A. All the prophecies concerning the Redeemer have been fulfilled in every point by the circumstances of Christ’s birth, life, death, resurrection and glory; and He is, therefore, the Redeemer promised to mankind from the time of Adam.

Q. 355. On what day was the Son of God conceived and made man?

A. The Son of God was conceived and made man on Annunciation Day — the day on which the Angel Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she was to be the Mother of God.

Q. 356. On what day was Christ born?

A. Christ was born on Christmas Day, in a stable at Bethlehem, over nineteen hundred years ago.

Q. 367. How long did Christ live on earth?

A. Christ lived on earth about thirty-three years, and led a most holy life in poverty and suffering.

Q. 368. Why did Christ live so long on earth?

A. Christ lived so long on earth to show us the way to heaven by His teachings and example.

Lesson 8, On Our Lord’s Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension” teaches:

Q. 369. What do we mean by Our Lord’s Passion?

A. By Our Lord’s Passion we mean His dreadful sufferings from His agony in the garden till the moment of His death.

Q. 375. What caused Our Lord’s agony in the garden?

A. It is believed that Our Lord’s agony in the garden was caused:

By His clear knowledge of all He was soon to endure;

By the sight of the many offenses committed against His Father by the sins of the whole world;

By His knowledge of men’s ingratitude for the blessings of redemption.

Q. 378. Could Christ, if He pleased, have escaped the tortures of His Passion?

A. Christ could, if He pleased, have escaped the tortures of His Passion, because He foresaw them and had it in His power to overcome His enemies.

Q. 379. Was it necessary for Christ to suffer so much in order to redeem us?

A. It was not necessary for Christ to suffer so much in order to redeem us, for the least of His sufferings was more than sufficient to atone for all the sins of mankind.  By suffering so much He showed His great love for us.

Q. 398. Why did Christ suffer and die?

A. Christ suffered and died for our sins.

Lesson 22, On the Holy Eucharist teaches:

Q. 870. What is the Holy Eucharist?

A. The Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament which contains the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ under the appearances of bread and wine.

Q. 872. When is the Holy Eucharist a Sacrament, and when is it a Sacrifice?

A. The Holy Eucharist is a Sacrament when we receive it in Holy Communion and when it remains in the Tabernacle of the Altar.  It is a Sacrifice when it is offered up at Mass by the separate Consecration of the bread and wine, which signifies the separation of the Lord’s Blood from His Body when He died on the Cross.

Q. 883. Is Jesus Christ present whole and entire in the smallest portion of the Holy Eucharist, under the form of either bread or wine?

A. Jesus Christ is present whole and entire in the smallest portion of the Holy Eucharist under the form of either bread or wine; for His Body in the Eucharist is in a glorified state, and it partakes of the character of a spiritual substance, it requires no definite size or shape.

Lesson 24, On the Sacrifice of the Mass” teaches:

Q. 917. What is the Mass?

A. The Mass is the unbloody Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ.

Q. 920. Is the Mass the same Sacrifice as that of the Cross?

A. The Mass is the same Sacrifice as that of the Cross.

[Author’s Note: The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is an unbloody re-presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s, salvific Death on the Cross at Calvary.  The one Sacrifice on Calvary on Good Friday is thus made present throughout time and around the world at each Holy Mass. It is as if we are at Calvary each time we attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.]

Q. 947. What is the best manner of hearing Mass?

A. The best manner of hearing Mass is to offer it to God with the priest for the same purpose for which it is said, to meditate on Christ’s sufferings and death, and to go to Holy Communion.

The
Spiritual Combat in Our Time

The Angel at Fatima
directed that we do reparation for the “outrages, sacrileges and indifference”
with which our Eucharistic Lord, Jesus Christ, is offended.

On one of the first of my many pilgrimages to Fatima, I had the honor of meeting a deeply spiritual Portuguese shopkeeper. We spoke of many aspects of the Fatima Message. At one point she became very serious, wagged her finger, and said: “Father, in America the followers of Fatima misinterpret one of Our Lady’s most important messages!” She continued, “When Our Lady says that ‘Certain fashions will be introduced which will offend Our Divine Lord very much,’ She is NOT talking about clothing or modesty in dress.” The devout woman explained that, in the Portuguese language, the word for “fashions” is more in the line of “trends” or “fads.” She said that this Message of Our Lady dealt with changes that have taken place within the Church, such as changes in the Divine Liturgy.

Here, then, is the complete statement of Our Lady to Jacinta in 1920:

“Certain fashions will be introduced which will offend Our Divine Lord very much. Those who serve God ought not to follow these fashions. The Church has no fashions. Our Lord is always the same.”

The last three
sentences support my holy friend’s interpretation. “Fashions” seem to have more
to do with ecclesiastical trends or fads rather than clothing or modesty. It
has everything to do with changes within the Church which are offensive to
Almighty God.  Changes that seemed like
trends or fashions swept through the Liturgy following Vatican Council II,
which seemed to have brought about a decrease in belief in the Real Presence of
Christ in the Eucharist and a failure to recognize the Mass as a Holy
Sacrifice. These trends or fashions are indeed a collection of “outrages, sacrileges and indifference.”

It is no longer ‘in
fashion’ to refer the sacrificial nature of the Mass. Instead, emphasis is
placed on the Mass being a communal ‘meal.’ The Altar of Sacrifice has been
replaced by a table. Recipes have been concocted for communion bread, which in
some cases rendered the bread (‘matter’) invalid, or at the very least,
‘illicit.’ Ceramic ‘plates’ and ‘cups’ replaced the traditional chalice and
ciborium. Large flasks of wine were brought onto the Altar to accommodate
‘Communion under both kinds’ to better promote the aspect of a meal.

The focus on the Mass
is more now on ‘the community’ instead of on God. The modern Mass is said ‘facing
the people’ with the priest looking across the ‘table’ at the people, as at a
meal. This is opposed to the traditional ad
orientem
position where the priest and people both faced Almighty God, with
the priest leading his flock in prayer. Modern church architecture often
designs churches ‘in the round’ so that people can better see one another.

The sins of Lucifer, as
well as that of Adam and Eve, are recalled as man can be seen as placing
himself as equal with God. In the Traditional Latin Mass, man is clearly seen
as being subservient to God by kneeling for Holy Communion and receiving Holy
Communion on the tongue. In addition, genuflections before the Real Presence of
Christ in the Tabernacle or toward the Tabernacle when getting into one’s pew
have all but disappeared. ‘Kneelers’ have been removed from numerous churches.

A very large percentage
of Catholics no longer seem to believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the
Eucharist. The Church teaches that even the smallest portion of the Sacred Host
is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Certain trends in the
last fifty years have not helped to bolster this doctrine. The advent of
‘Communion in the hand’ and elimination of patens under the chin both contribute
to the danger of particles of the Blessed Sacrament falling to the floor to be sacrilegiously
trampled underfoot.

The Crucifix has been
removed from many Catholic churches and replaced with a Risen Christ. This
outrage has contributed to a decrease in the belief in the sacrificial nature
of the Mass and replacing it with the notion of a ‘glad celebration’ complete
with joyful pandemonium breaking out at the ‘sign of peace.’

The sacrificing priest
acting ‘in the Person of Christ’ (in persona Christi) has been replaced by a ‘presider’
who often times acts as a comedian. The presider sits on his ‘presidential
chair,’ which in many cases replaced the Tabernacle at the center of the
sanctuary. He, and not God, has become the center of attention.

With Mass attendance at
an all-time low in the modern Church with the new Mass, it would seem time to ‘go
back to the future’ and return to the Traditional Latin Mass.  The “outrages, sacrileges and indifference”
which offend Our Eucharistic Lord, and so many of the faithful remnant, are not
present in the Immemorial Tridentine Mass. There is no shadow of doubt for the
congregation attending a Traditional Latin Mass that it is an unbloody
re-presentation of Christ’s Sacrifice on Calvary.

All of the “outrages, sacrileges, and indifference” committed against the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus can be traced to Modernism within the Church. In the Spiritual Combat always remember my Three R’s of Modernism: Recognize it; Refute it; and Return to Tradition. By doing this, you will engage the infernal enemy and his minions in battle!

As distressing as the current times are, we will
not surrender. We will never give up. We will “fight the good fight.” We will
“keep the Faith.” We will “finish the course.” We will “fight with the vigor of a man
struggling for his very life.” We will remember that Our Lady “is an
inexhaustible source of blessings, bestowing her favors in proportion to the
confidence placed in her.” May the “patient acceptance of the crosses of life
be like a thread … woven into the fabric of our spiritual lives.”

With confidence in God and Our Lady, while
distrusting ourselves, we will follow the advice of Padre Pio who said: “Pray,
hope, and don’t worry.” We will turn to St. Michael the Archangel to “defend us
in battle,” in our Spiritual Combat, using all of the spiritual weapons at our
disposal.

This Week’s Spiritual Weapon: The Stations of
the Cross

As we began this article on the Mount of Olives, we will end with Fatima’s version of that Garden. One of the highlights of a Fatima pilgrimage is to walk Our Lady of Fatima’s unique ‘Way of the Cross,’ while meditating upon Our Lord’s Passion. The monumental Stations of the Cross at Fatima wind through the olive and cork trees of the Fatima countryside in an area once frequented by Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta and their flock. Here is a short video from these Fatima Stations with my Traditional Latin Mass pilgrimage group from the Jubilee Year 2017.

The Stations at Fatima (Via Sacra) begin at the
Roundabout of St. Teresa of Ourem (aka: Rotunda
Sul
), located where there was a pond of dirty water in 1917. It
was at this pond, used to water their sheep, that the three shepherds
themselves drank from, in a spirit of reparation for sins. Along this Via Dolorosa, there are
signs pointing to nearby points of interest, including Valinhos, Aljustrel, and
the Loca do Cabeco.

Easily overlooked by
most Fatima pilgrims are the small plaques in a seldom seen foreign language
affixed to the base of each Station. Inscribed thereon are the names and
places of the donor for each Station. These donors represent Hungarians of
the “free-world” who, between 1959 and 1962, erected this impressive display as
an expression of prayer for the fall of atheistic Communism in Hungary.

To add a deeper level of appreciation for these ‘Hungarian Stations of the Cross’ at Fatima, there is an article with the details and reflections for the plaques mounted to each Station. Few have ever pondered these markers written in Hungarian since few would even attempt to translate this difficult language while meditating on Our Divine Lord Jesus Christ’s Passion and Death.  But this information helps us to better understand the evils of Communism and the ‘errors of Russia’ spoken of by Our Lady of Fatima.

The ‘Traditional Fatima Stations of the Cross’ prayer booklet (available here) incorporates meditations from Sacred Scripture (Douay-Rheims), the Traditional Latin Mass, the traditional ‘Stabat Mater’ stanzas, the Message of Fatima, as well as pictures of each of the outdoor Fatima Stations of the Cross. In addition to this online booklet, any traditional, God-centered Stations of the Cross booklet will serve well in the Spiritual Combat. Note that one can obtain a plenary indulgence for using the Stations of the Cross as a spiritual weapon.

As we gird ourselves for the Spiritual Combat, we conclude with this meditation from the Stabat Mater, as we strive to do God’s Holy Will in our lives:

“Let me share with Thee His pain; Who for all our sins was slain; Who for me in torments died.”


[1] Sister Lucia, Fatima in Lucia’s Own Words (Fatima, 1976), p. 157.

[2] Ibid., p. 161.

[3] Ibid., p. 198.

The post The Spiritual Combat and Fatima: Fourth Week of Lent appeared first on Catholic Family News.

Share:

More Posts