May 8, 1992
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
How will it all end? Here in the U.S.A. the rioting in Los Angeles of one week ago resulting in 58 deaths (and the death toll is still rising) has reminded us of the question — how will it all end? In honour and love of Our Lady for her month of May, let me devote a whole letter to a prophecy coming, I believe, from her, which I will argue fits this situation of the world like a key fits a lock.
Now—this particular prophecy, or the framework-of apparitions supposedly of Our Lady within which it was made, has not yet received the official approval of the Church as being worthy of belief by Catholics, and to this extent we are on unsure ground. However, Our Lady appeared at Fatima in 1917 in apparitions whose worldwide importance will surely be questioned by no reader of this letter, yet only in 1930 were they officially approved by the Church. Between 1917 and 1930 was nobody to pay any attention? Had everyone shunned them from 1917 as being unapproved, would they have finally been approved in 1930? The message of Fatima had been neglected enough as it is — how much more would it have been neglected had there been no approval in 1930?
Of course the prime responsibility of approving or disapproving an intervention of Heaven lies with the official Church which is Heaven's appointed representative on earth. Nevertheless if Heaven does intervene, it provides evidence which is designed to suffice to persuade us that the intervention was from Heaven, and much of this evidence is made accessible not only to officials of the Church. How would Fatima have ever been approved if everyone had denied themselves access to the evidence so long as it was not approved? And had Fatima not been approved, where would we be now?
Truth to tell, some critics will scorn even Fatima on the grounds that to save our souls we strictly need to believe no truths outside the Deposit of Faith, all of which truths belong to what is called "public Revelation", closed a little after 100 A.D. with the death of the last Apostle, and anything else is "private revelation" which does not matter, including Fatima.
But each thing in its place. Take a comparison: marriage is good, the religious life is better. Marriage being good no more makes it equal to the vocation than the vocation's being better makes marriage bad. Similarly belief in public Revelation's being absolutely necessary to salvation no more makes private revelation useless than does private revelation's being useful make it — for any Catholic with any common sense — anywhere near as important as public Revelation. Each thing in its place.
Down the ages Mother Church has officially approved of numberless private revelations as being believably from Heaven. Shall Heaven be accused of having wasted its time? Obviously not! Obviously such "private revelations" have frequently given souls access precisely to public Revelation. For instance, how many hundreds of thousands of souls suffocating in modern materialism have not reinvigorated or rediscovered their Catholic Faith at or through Lourdes, a "private revelation" of our Lady in 1858? Authentic "private revelation" is the invaluable servant of public Revelation. Public Revelation may well be the one and only launching-pad for Heaven, still it would not be reached by many souls without the stepping-stones leading to it of "private revelations". Can these be reasonably dismissed as unimportant when without them many souls could, but would not, have been saved? Each thing in its place.
For precisely by its closedness, the Deposit of Faith, or public Revelation, can no longer change, whereas the Devil is constantly laying all around it fresh snares and diversions. Then it is to be wondered at that the Mother of God should in all ages obtain from her divine Son permission to lay down fresh stepping-stones? Not that we should open our arms to every new craziness passing itself off as apparitions of Our Lady, but that in St. Paul's words we should "Despise not prophecies. But prove all things; hold fast that which is good" (I Thess V, 20,21). If none of Our Lady's apparitions were true, what would the Devil have to imitate, and how could he get his forgeries into circulation?
Of stepping-stones to public Revelation, or to the Gospel, Fatima is a classic example. Just as Satan prepared in late 1917 to launch from Russia upon the whole world the unprecedented plague of Communism to blast or tear men away from the Gospel, so the Mother of God preceded him from May to October of the same year, providing men through her apparitions in Portugal with all they-would need by way of special antidote, if only they would use it. Alas, the Consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart has still not been done, and because her "private revelation" has been insufficiently heeded, the world is in the trouble it is in today.
Her last gift to mankind at Fatima was the famous "Third Secret", containing surely the antidote for today's even worse plague within the Church of neo-modernism. The Secret was due by her own instructions to be revealed in 1960 at the latest, that is, two years in advance of the opening of the devastating Second Vatican Council. Churchmen, alas, thought they knew better than the Mother of God, and her antidote was locked up in a papal drawer where it has remained ever since. Now is it not reasonable that the Mother of God would at this point, changing not her message but maybe her tactics, try again? And if she tried again, is it not reasonable that the same churchmen would do all they could to smother her voice once more?
This is the background of the officially still unapproved apparitions of Our Lady to four young girls from 1961 to 1965 in the little mountain village of Garabandal in northern central Spain. Let me not here go into the mass of external evidence, accompanying the apparitions, apparently to authenticate them, and upon which the Church will finally pronounce. Let me here merely make a case for the internal reasonableness of Garabandal's double message and triple prophecy, because it is my personal opinion that it is highly unlikely that Garabandal is false, and if it is true, I would like to avoid having people ask at some point in the future – “Did you know about this and not tell us?" With each day that passes more and more people are in agony over the question, "How will it all end?" With each day that passes the answer of Garabandal makes more and more tranquillizing sense. I believe Garabandal is true, but I am not here arguing it is true, still less imposing it on any readers, I am merely proposing that it makes sense of what might seem an otherwise senseless situation of world and Church.
Whether authentic or not, the two solemn Messages of Garabandal of October 1961 and June 1965 picked up where the Third Secret of Fatima, locked away in 1960, surely left off, namely with the crisis in the Church. In 1961, notice one year before the opening of Vatican Two, the lady of Garabandal said, "We must do much penance and make many sacrifices. We must often visit the Blessed Sacrament. But above all, we must be very good for, if we are not, we will be punished. The cup is already filling, and if we do not amend our lives there will come a great chastisement."
In her second longer Message, given a few months before the closing of Vatican Two, she was more insistent, saying amongst other things, “…Previously, the cup was being filled. Now it is overflowing. Many cardinals, Bishops and priests are on the road to perdition and are taking many souls with them…” So much for Vatican Two! Small wonder if the cardinals, bishops and priests were not in a hurry to approve of the lady of Garabandal!
Her triple prophecy made in the course of the same four years was of three great coming events: a Warning, a Miracle and, if mankind is not converted by these, a Chastisement to which the first two events point. Let us then begin with the Chastisement, spoken of in both Messages.
What it will consist in, the girls were not allowed to say, but they were shown it: on two successive nights they had of it a vision so horrifying that they let out such cries of horror that all the villagers within earshot went at the first opportunity to Confession. Said one of the girls, "It will be a result of the direct intervention of God, which makes it more terrible and fearful than anything we can imagine".
We look at the sins of the turn of the century, chastised by World War One. We look at the greater sins of the 1920's and 1930's, proportionately chastised by World War Two. We look at the far greater sins of the 1960's to 1990's — is it not reasonable that a merely human World War Three would not be enough by way of chastisement for mankind in its present state? Of course mankind can convert, but does that look likely? God exists, He cares, He is not powerless to intervene, He is just, so how could He not chastise? But he is also merciful, which is why it is reasonable — not obligatory on His part — that He provide beforehand a proportionately great Warning.
For indeed people today are so confused, all over the world, that like the inhabitants of Niniveh in Scripture, they cannot tell their left hand from their right (Jonah IV,11). Now for this stupidity men have nobody to blame but themselves, but how far can for instance the youngsters today be blamed when they are fed synchronized lies by their schools, politicians, universities, media, even churches and parents, in brief by everyone meant to know what life is about? Stop for a moment and think how deep the confusion is in people's minds and lives around us. Could not many of them almost go before God's judgement seat and plead ignorance? And where today is His true Church to guarantee them His existence, His love and His law? In which case does not the Warning as told of by the lady of Garabandal to the four girls fit, like a key fits a lock? —
"The Warning will come directly from God, like a fire from heaven visible to the whole world and from any place where anyone may happen to be. Immediately it will be transmitted into the interior of our souls where by its light everyone, believer and unbeliever alike, irrespective of whatever religion he may belong to, will see the state of his soul with complete clearness. He will experience what it is to lose God; he will feel the purifying action of the cleansing flame. Briefly it will be like having the Particular Judgement in one's very soul while still alive. It will last for a very little time, but it will seem a very long time because of its effect within us."
Does not such a warning fit? For a few (long) moments absolutely everybody without exception will see the complete truth about their soul and its state before God. Within a few hours, days, months, the enemies of God will no doubt be doing everything with their media to bend people's minds all out of shape once more, but everyone will have had a clear chance to know the truth and to choose it. What a grace! However, the lady of Garabandal told of God's mercy reaching still further.
At Fatima, the Second Secret had consisted of a great warning of what Russia would do (by 1992, has largely done) to the world, if the instructions of Our Lady were not carried out, and this warning, originally given in July of 1917, was solemnly ratified and confirmed by the miraculous dance of the sun which took place three months later before an awe-struck crowd of 70,000 people.
However, the sins and incredulity of this end of the 20th century far surpass those of its beginning. If then a miracle is provided to overcome disbelief in a warning, might one not expect from Garabandal, if it is true, a Miracle far surpassing even the dance of the sun at Fatima? That is exactly what the girls were told of by the Lady of Garabandal: —
"Within one year of the Great Warning, on a Thursday evening at 8:30 p.m., on a feast of a Saint devoted to the Holy Eucharist, lasting for about a quarter of an hour and coinciding with a great event in the Church, will take place a Great Miracle visible to everyone in the village of Garabandal and in the surrounding mountain arena. It will be the greatest miracle that Jesus has ever worked for the world. There will not remain the slightest doubt that it canes from God and is for the good of mankind. It will take place at the site of the clump of pine trees overlooking the village, where it will leave a permanent sign that will remain until the end of time. This sign it will be possible to film or televise, but not to touch. All unbelievers present at the Miracle will be converted, and all invalids will be cured."
Now if one visits Fatima today, one finds of course no trace of the miraculous dance of the sun which did so much to help people believe in Fatima. The miracle came and went. But given the vastly greater disbelief of our own day, is it not, once more, entirely reasonable that, if Garabandal be true, greater help should be given to overcome disbelief in it? Modern men believe in their television? They will go nowhere without their video-camera? What could be more reasonable than to provide televisual man with a permanent televisible sign? “I will not believe until I can photograph it with my own video-camera!" — catch an aeroplane and go ahead!
There are various objections to the authenticity of the apparitions of Our Lady at Garabandal which I will not go into now, although I am sure they can all be answered without great difficulty. The official Church has made no final pronunciation upon Garabandal, as it has made upon Fatima to approve or upon Medjugorje to disapprove. The Society of St. Pius X has no official position either. For myself, I believe in it. All I have tried to do above is to make the case that if anyone has difficulty in fitting together in his head the insane facts of the modern world and the sane truth of his Catholic Faith, the lady of Garabandal provides an admirable solution. And if one day she were proved beyond doubt not to have been Our Lady, our Faith in public Revelation would not be shaken one bit, we should merely have to renounce one set of stepping-stones towards it. Meanwhile may Our Lady accept as homage offered to her this presentation of the triple prophecy of Garabandal. Our only intention has been to serve her and help her save souls. For more information, write to P.O. Box 606, Lindenhurst, NY 11757, U.S.A.
Make note in your calendars of the coming tour of Society Chapels in the U.S. Midwest and East by Fr. Fernando Rifan from the Diocese of Campos, Brazil. He will be giving a slide lecture on the heroic rescue of Catholic Tradition within the diocese, firstly at the Seminary here on the evening of the Ordinations, Saturday June 20th; then at each location in the evening, June 21 Chicago; June 22 Detroit; June 23 Pittsburgh; June 24 Philadelphia; June 25 Farmingville, Long Island. Dr. David White's book on Campos is on its way to the printers. He is likely to be accompanying Fr. Rifan.
We look forward to seeing you at the Ordinations. The ceremony begins at 9 a.m.
God bless you, and may Our Lady keep you in her care.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
