Fatima at the heart of the Church: God's vision of history and oblative spirituality
“We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete.” With these words, spoken by Pope Benedict XVI at Fatima on 13th May 2010, this great Marian prophecy came back to the centre of the Church. The third part of the Secret was to be read not only in reference to the martyrs of the twentieth century, but as a vision of the world and of the Church at Her very core. Can that “Portugal” – where the dogma of faith would be preserved – be also every nation and every person who, welcoming Our Lady’s requests to consecrate oneself to Her Immaculate Heart and practise the devotion of the Five First Saturdays, would escape material and spiritual ruin? The city situated on the hill, in fact, was half in ruin. The true Faith is beset and fading. But a great hope shines: the Immaculate Heart of Mary, that pure place where God abides.