“Many souls go to Hell because they have no one to pray for them and make sacrifices for them” ...Our Lady of Fatima

Key Doctrines Reinforced

Also, in the Message of Fatima, we see the key dogmas of our Faith reinforced.

When Our Lady came to Fatima:

• She spoke of the doctrine of Heaven,



• She spoke of the doctrine of Hell,



• She spoke of the doctrine of Purgatory,



• She spoke of the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist,



• She spoke of the doctrine of the Sacrament of Penance.

And, indirectly, She spoke of the doctrine of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ — and reinforced the traditional papal teaching that there is only one true Church, outside of which there is no salvation, and that States and governments must recognize this Church as such, and must recognize the indirect power of the Church over the State and civil society. This is all implicit in Our Lady’s request that the Pope consecrate Russia to Her Immaculate Heart.

First, Heaven.

On May 13, 1917, when Lucy asked Our Lady “Where is Your Grace from?” She answered “I am of Heaven.”

Our Lady is in Heaven, body and soul. Heaven is a place, a real place, not just a state of mind. And according to the Message, it is a place that we will only attain if we live the sacramental life of sanctifying grace through membership in the Mystical Body of Christ, the Catholic Church.

Our Lady also reminded us of the doctrine of Hell. That Hell exists. That it is a place; and that human souls go there, have gone there, and are there now. Our Lady was certainly not a follower of the progressive theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, who speculated that “Hell exists, but it is empty.”

No. Our Lord said, “the truth shall set you free”. And Our Lady’s reinforcement of the doctrine of Hell frees us from all the errors of von Balthasar and his followers, no matter who they may be.

Even more dramatic, Our Lady did not just tell these small children about the reality of Hell. On July 13, 1917, Our Lady of Fatima gave the three children a terrifying vision of Hell.

This is an account from Sister Lucy’s own memoirs:

“...Our Lady opened Her hands once more as She had done the two previous months, the rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth. And we saw as it were a sea of fire; plunged in this fire we saw the demons and the souls of the damned. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened, burnished, bronzed, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair which horrified us and made us tremble with fright. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out as people say they heard me.) The demons were distinguished from the souls of the damned by their terrifying and repellent likeness to unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. The vision only lasted for a moment, thanks to Our good heavenly Mother who, at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think, we would have died of fear.”

Our Lady then said to them:

“You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart.”

This was a terrifying vision that was given to the children. Sister Lucy said very clearly that “The demons were distinguished from the souls of the damned.” Hence, this demonstrates that the von Balthasar theory [that Hell exists, but it is empty — or another slant, that ‘we know there are demons in Hell, but we really don’t know if there are any human beings in Hell’] is completely false. There are demons in Hell, and there are human souls in Hell. This vision gave the children the grace and the courage to perform heroic sacrifices for the salvation of souls.

Our Lady also reinforced the teaching on Purgatory.

On May 13, 1917, Lucy asked Our Lady about two friends of hers that had died recently.

Lucy asked “Is Maria das Neves already in Heaven?” (this girl had died at about age 16).

Our Lady replied “Yes, she is.”

Then Lucy asked about her other friend who had died at about age 18 or 20: “And Amelia?”

Our Lady answered, “she will be in Purgatory until the end of the world.”

This statement of Our Lady also flies in the face of the false Protestant creeds which reject Purgatory. Just by that one statement, “she will be in Purgatory until the end of the world”, Our Lady is telling Protestants that “your Protestant doctrine which rejects Purgatory is false.”

Our Lady reinforced the teaching on the Sacrament of Confession. She established sacramental confession as a necessary condition in order for souls to fulfill the requirements for the Five First Saturdays.

And once again, by this, Our Lady is telling our Protestant friends, “your Protestant doctrine which rejects the sacrament of Confession is false.”

Next, the Holy Eucharist.

The apparitions at Fatima not only reinforce the doctrine of the Eucharist, but also reinforce man’s duty of reverence towards the Holy Eucharist as the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ.

In 1916, a year before Our Lady came to Fatima, Jacinta, Francisco and Lucy of Fatima were favored with three separate apparitions of an angel — precursor to Our Lady’s visitations. The third and last of the angelic appearances occurred in autumn, 1916, with the “Angel of the Eucharist.”

At this time, when the angel came to administer the Holy Eucharist to the children, the angel did not appear with an ear-to-ear grin saying to them: “O children, I am here to tell you that the purpose of this Eucharist is to instill in you a sense of community and solidarity, fostering dialogue and personal relationships, and celebrating the inherent dignity of the human person through unity in diversity.”

That was not the scene at all.

Lucy tells us that it was mid-day, and the children were prostrate, reciting the prayers of reparation taught to them by the “Angel of Peace” that preceding spring.

Lucy writes:

“I do not know how many times we repeated that prayer when we saw shining above us an unknown light. We got up ... and we saw the angel again, who had in his left hand a Chalice above which was suspended a Host from which some drops of Blood fell into the Chalice.

“Leaving the Chalice and the Host suspended in the air, he came near us and prostrated himself down to the earth and repeated three times this prayer:

“ '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 the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference by which He Himself is offended. And by the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners’.”

Lucy writes that the angel arose, took again into his hands the Chalice and the Host and administered Communion to the three children, placing the Sacred Host on Lucy’s tongue and he shared the Blood of the Chalice between Francisco and Jacinta, saying at the same time:

“Eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Make reparation for their crimes and console your God.”

After this, Lucy relates that the angel “prostrated himself again down to the ground and repeated with us three times the same prayer: ‘Most Holy Trinity, etc.’ Then he disappeared.”

Is it possible for Heaven to send mankind a more forceful instruction on how the Holy Eucharist should be reverenced and venerated? By his actions, the angel not only instructed the three Fatima children, but also the entire 20th Century and all nations until the end of time.

Again, the angel’s mannerism towards the Eucharist was in perfect conformity with the traditional teaching and practice of the Church:

• The angel was on his knees, prostrate with his face to the ground. By doing so, he was acknowledging the Sovereign Majesty and Divinity of Jesus Christ truly present in the Eucharist. This is reminding us of the great reverence that we owe to the Blessed Sacrament.



• The angel recited prayers of reparation for blasphemy and sacrileges against the Blessed Sacrament, as if foretelling the countless outrages that will occur against the Blessed Sacrament, especially after 1960.



• The angel prayed, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the conversion of poor sinners, especially, we may infer from the context, for those who sin against the Holy Eucharist.

The angel did not give Lucy Communion in the hand.

The three children of Fatima knew that the angel was sent for their instruction, that his example was to be followed.

Lucy writes:

“Impelled by the force of the supernatural which enveloped us, we had imitated the angel in everything, that is, we prostrated ourselves like him, and we had repeated the prayers which he said ... We stayed in the same attitude, always repeating the same words.”

So, likewise, it would seem that the angel was God’s messenger from Heaven giving us the example of the profound reverence that we owe to the Blessed Sacrament. And, once again, the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist is something that is rejected by Protestants, by Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists. Heaven is telling all these man-made religions that their doctrine is wrong, their creeds are false.