To honor the majestic Source of Honor, Christ Jesus, tortured to death for us, all of us, you and I included, we must not be against flesh and blood with some kind of desire for vengeance wrought by ourselves in this world as if we ourselves were free from sin and did not ourselves deserve vengeance from others.
While we are in this world we must accept our Lord drawing us to Himself on Calvary as an action concomitant with our assisting others to know Jesus, who is the living unmanipulatable Truth, the many, then, rejoicing to receive the Lord’s forgiveness by way of sanctifying grace that turns to glory in heaven.
But that’s not to be unrealistic about how bad and evil things are:
- Matthew 7:15-20 — “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”
Being cut down and thrown into the fire is vengeance and is just, but it is for the Lord and His angels in the Lord’s own perfect timing. And as for us, who are we, really? The passage continues directly:
- Matthew 7:21-23 — “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord! Lord! Did we not prophesy in your name and drive out demons in your name and perform many miracles in your name?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you evil doers!'”
We can fool ourselves. We are not against Satan and his minions merely because we do nice stuff, you know, so as to congratulate ourselves, our Lord Himself giving us the most extreme example of those who congratulate themselves as being with the Lord because they drive out demons in His Holy Name. The demons will gladly run away from a self-righteous exorcist who has demonically fooled himself precisely by working exorcisms. That exorcist is the one, the only one, not Jesus! In such a case the demon isn’t fleeing because of the exorcism, but so as to confirm the exorcist in his arrogant pride, cutting off that exorcist all the more from the Lord: “Oh holy exorcist! You’re so holy!” And the exorcist believes the devil, the father of lies and murderer from the beginning, not the Lord, you know, because he’s conducting an exorcism. Sigh… What a crock.
Saint Paul in Ephesians 6:12 writes:
- Quoniam non est nobis colluctatio adversus carnem et sanguinem, sed adversus principes, et potestates, adversus mundi rectores tenebrarum harum, contra spiritualia nequitiæ, in cælestibus.
- “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
Saint Paul makes it clear that, contrasted with mere flesh and blood, we do battle instead with various demons fallen away from the various choirs of angels (who may be possessing individuals in this world).
In putting our Lord’s words and those of Saint Paul together, we conclude that while doing nice stuff is good as far as it goes, all this must be wrought in the will of God, which is never exemplified by congratulating ourselves, but is always accompanied by humility, penitence, in joyful thanksgiving to God. “Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).
THEREFORE, ABOUT POPE FRANCIS: We pray that he may – as Saint Paul invites all of us – we pray that he may die to himself to live for Christ Jesus. Right now he is bearing bad fruit. He may be possessed by Satan. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter concerning our prayer. We are against Satan. We are not against the person of the Pope. Jesus redeemed Pope Francis. To honor Jesus, we must desire that Pope Francis assent to being saved. All are redeemed, but only the many are saved. I, who am bad and evil on my own, want to die to myself and lived for Jesus, and be saved.
So, how is it that we are to find ourselves in a place where we can pray for Pope Francis, that he dies to himself so as to live for Christ Jesus? Well, well. To do that we ourselves are to die to ourselves to live for Christ Jesus. We are to sacramentally confess regularly and we are to thank the Lord humbly for His gifts of grace, of forgiveness. We are to pray, live in penitence, rejoicing that God is good. In doing this we are doing the will of God, one with Jesus. The will of God is the only way. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, the Life. Jesus is the One, the only One.
- “But Father George! Father George! You don’t understand! Let me repeat so you can get it through your thick skull! Pope Francis worships idols, smashes down the world and the Church with Hegelian dialectic of synodality, exchanging Sacred Revelation for idiot fallen human democratic opinion! He encourages blessings of same-sex sex with his blessings of same-sex couples! He scandalizes the Church and whole world! Hundreds of millions of souls are at eternal risk!”
Yes. I understand. You know how I know I understand? Because I’m the worst sinner. I’ve crucified the Son of the Living God with my sins. And, by the way, so have you. And without Jesus, and without bringing other souls to Jesus, we’re all going straight to hell. So, let’s pray. Let’s pray the Rosary, every day. We gotta make it to heaven. We gotta bring others with us. I’m gonna try to bring Pope Francis. It may be too late for the good of the world and the Church should he, in fact, convert, though such a conversion may bring others to convert. That’s what we want.
But there is this from the Apostle John; what a fright…
- 1 John 5:16-17 — “If anyone sees his brother sinning, if the sin is not deadly, he should pray to God and He will give him life. This is only for those whose sin is not deadly. There is such a thing as deadly sin, about which I do not say that you should pray. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly.”
There are two ways to interpret this:
One is that the deadly sin to which John refers is sin against the Holy Spirit, such as not wanting to be forgiven. One cannot be forgiven for that because one doesn’t want forgiveness.
The second is that we’re not in a position to be able to judge whether someone is just that lost, so we can pray for them, but John is warning us. Scandalizing the entire world and the Church, it seems to me, objectively speaking, is deadly sin. Does John, the Holy Spirit inspiring John, forbid us to pray for such a brother? No. It’s just an aorist subjunctive. We may pray for such a brother, but we have been given fair warning in the Holy Spirit that if we do that, there may well be consequences for us. We are allowed to pray for such brethren, but we ourselves may well be attacked by the evil one because of this. Prayer and penance go together. If we do the prayer and offer little penance, our angels may well assist us not only with prayer but also with penance. In my experience, it’s like clockwork, lockstep. Our Lady of Akita bids us pray for the Pope (of whatever time), the bishops, (of whatever time) the priests (of whatever time). I’m good with that.
- “But Father George! Father George! This one? He’s not even the Pope!”
I wasn’t there to see what went on, say, with what can only be described as electioneering. And recall that Pope Francis himself has mentioned repeatedly his pre-conclave conversations with Cardinals, how he promised to do what they were telling him to do should he get elected. Such conversations might well invalidate the election. But here’s the deal: the next time he speaks about this he may well give more details, such as the Cardinals with whom he was speaking in such manner are all Cardinals over the age of 80 at the time and not eligible to vote in the Conclave. In that case, no electioneering took place. I don’t know if Pope Francis is Pope or not. But he seems to be Pope, n’est-ce pas?
Which brings us to the third secret of Fatima. We might not have the explanation of the apocalyptic vision that Cardinal Bertone had published on the Vatican website. We might not have the entire apocalyptic vision. But for the point of this post, there is this:
- “At the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’ And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in white; ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father.’ Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross, he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.”
Many have commented that the phrase “we had the impression that it was the Holy Father” means that it was not the Holy Father they were seeing. Let’s take the worst case scenario for the sake of argument: it’s not the Holy Father, but a usurper, an anti-pope. Well, well. In this case, he has seen the great sign of the Son of Man in an immense light in the skies, and he is moving toward it, actually praying for the souls of the corpses he met, and is then martyred. And this good example is followed by others who are also martyred with him.
I ask you: is that not precisely the reason why the angel is there to bid us to do penance, penance, penance? I think it is. The Church bids us to pray for the Pope. All good. But you’ve been given fair warning. Hail Mary… Let’s throw Tucho in there as well: Hail Mary…
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 
“‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’”
That this is said, must mean that how it was seen was important to the seers understanding and, by extension, a future reader’s understanding. But how to understand this phrase?
I stood in front of a mirror and looked at myself to see the difference, and thought. “this is NOT what others see when they look at me,” but I am used to seeing this image. So I then held up a tube of toothpaste which made plain the truth that, “yes, this is not what another would see if I held up the same tube of toothpaste in their presence because they would be able to read the words on the tube.”
But what if I were around a corner of a wall and the mirror was used to show me to them? Then they would see what I would see, and be unable to read the words on the tube – they would understand immediately that what they saw was not real, but in a mirror.
Either the phrase “something similar” refers to what another would see, or it refers to what they would see if, like Perseus, they could only see the horror by mirror. But this is a Pagan understanding, a gnostic understanding, yes?
Since what is shown, is shown by the light of God, it must be the truth. So let us imagine a movie with which we are unfamiliar, then let us see that movie projected on a cloud, not from behind us on Earth, but from Heaven- through the cloud – so that it appears to be seen as in a mirror. We would know this as soon as familiar things, such as signs, would reveal the words on them to be “backwards.” Something analogous, but not “the future?”
Just some thoughts from a poor sinner, being foolish.
I find your thoughts interesting, 007, not foolish, and would like to think on your preceding paragraph some more.
The children of Fatima would not have experienced modern technology that was only then beginning. The closest thing in their experience to describe what they saw in the vision suggested a mirror of sorts with people passing in front of it. If they lived today they would be conversant with film and might have conjectured as you have that
what they saw was something similar to how people appear in a movie, “projected on a cloud” or, perhaps, projected on just the air itself.
Re “Something analogous, but not ‘the future?’”
Various vocations are represented by the procession of people passing in front of the “mirror” / in the “projection” – pope, bishops, priests, religious, and laity “of different ranks and positions”. Might these also be people of different times? That is, might what is seen be a representation of the Church past, present and future condensed in a single projected image? The “bullets and arrows” fired at the pope might also be intended to suggest different time periods.
The city is not identified – it could be Rome – but it might also have a broader meaning: Satan’s war come down to earth (Apocalypse 12) and his destruction (Gen 3:15), the “big city half in ruins” representing and contrasting Augustine’s City of God (scripture’s 2nd generation of the heavens and the earth?) and the City of man (scripture’s 1st generation of the heavens and the earth?).
Additionally, the two Angels beneath the Cross “each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God”, is what has been happening throughout history and will continue until its end. As Father Byers noted: “when Christ takes the initiative to reach out His heel to crush the power of Satan, He carries us into battle and lays down our lives with His own, and that of the Immaculate Conception in an entirely singular manner. He crushes and is crushed, but this includes those of the Mystical Body who are in solidarity with Jesus and Mary” (Comments, 27 Dec 2023).
Our Lady and the Angel with the flaming sword appear to be outside what was “mirrored”/”projected”. Our Lady and the Angel (St Michael?) are outside time, that they entered into time (1917) had to be for an urgent reason. That Angel called the people of the world to penance, as did the Angel who appeared to Sister Sasagawa in 2019 on the day the Amazon Synod opened in Rome (Oct 6th). On that day, the pagan Pachamama idol was paraded in St Peter’s Basilica and from there taken in procession to the Synod Hall, having already been worshipped in the Vatican Gardens and there blessed by Pope Francis two days previous. Akita is said to be a continuation of Fatima and one can certainly see why.
Fatima, it seems to me, is an urgent reminder from Heaven centred upon Gen 3:15 and Apoc 12. Father Robert J Fox, if I have remembered correctly, referred to Our Lady as a catechist at Fatima. She was at Rue de Bac and Lourdes as well when she respectively commissioned the Miraculous Medal (1830) and told Bernadette that she is the Immaculate Conception (1858). What the Miraculous Medal of the Immaculate Conception depicts appears to be yet another representation of Gen 3:15 and Apoc 12.
A 17th century priest, the Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser, predicted our period in Church history beginning during the reign of Pope Leo X (1513-1521 coinciding with the Protestant Reformation launched by Luther in 1517) as a time of affliction and purgation. That certainly seems the case.