St. Jude hosts Pilgrim of Fatima on U.S. tour
Hundreds of Catholics attended recent ceremonies honoring the International Pilgrim of Fatima during an 18-hour stay at St. Jude the Apostle Church.
The Lewes church hosted a stop April 2 and April 3 on the Our Lady of Fatima U.S. Tour for Peace. The International Pilgrim of Fatima – sculpted in 1947 – is on a two-year journey to more than 125 dioceses in every state to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Fatima in Portugal. Events included an all-night vigil prior to the statue's departure early on April 3.
Making an extraordinary milestone in the church's history even more memorable is that a parishioner’s father witnessed one of six apparitions in Portugal associated with the event.
The U.S tour continues a worldwide tour that began in 1950 with visits to more than 100 countries. Pope Pius XII blessed the statue in 1952.
The goal of the tour is to allow Our Lady of Fatima to claim dominion over the country and to spread the message of Fatima – the Peace Plan for our times – to a world in need, said Patrick Sabat, principal statue custodian.
“The welcome here was so amazing,” he said. “Everywhere we go it's like that.”
Sabat is member of a three-man team traveling in an RV during the tour. He said about 20 states remain, including a summer trip to Alaska.
The Fatima experience
On the 13th day of the months May through October, 1917, the Blessed Mother appeared to three shepherd children, Lucia dos Santos, and Jacinta and Francisco Marto, in Fatima, Portugal. Her message has become known to Catholics as the Peace Plan from Heaven. Prior to that, the children received three apparitions from the Angel of Portugal.
According to church doctrine, Mary appeared to the children six times to warn about the coming moral evils that largely unfolded throughout the 20th century, if people did not cease offending God. But she also offered a Peace Plan from Heaven that could avoid those evils and bring peace to the world.
During the appearances, Mary offered a frightening vision of hell, a prediction of World War II and a warning Russia would cause harm to humanity by abandoning Christianity and embracing communism.
The Plan for Peace
• Go to confession
• Receive Communion
• Recite the 5-decade Rosary
• Meditate for 15 minutes on the Mysteries of the Rosary.
Parishioner’s father witnessed Miracle of Sun
For 50 years, St. Jude parishioner Alice Reis Israel had been searching for an old newspaper clipping that told her father’s story of witnessing the Miracle of the Sun associated with the Fatima experience. Just two weeks before the statue arrived, she found the clipping. “To me, that was a miracle,” she said.
She had not told her father’s story to St. Jude parishioners until she located the clipping. “Now, the story has started to blossom,” she said.
Her father, Dominic, was 17, living in Portugal and was at Fatima with his parents when the final apparition occurred on Oct. 13. His birthday was May 13, the date of the first apparition.
Reis Israel, who moved to Lewes four years ago, said she heard her father describe the experience many times. She said he told her following a terrible rain storm, the sun came out and started to roll and change colors. “Suddenly, the sun was coming toward the three children,” she said. “Everyone was screaming out of fear.”
She said many of the tens of thousands of people assembled thought the end of the world was at hand.
She said her father told her the sun went into the tree with the three children. One of the children, Lucia, turned to the people and told them everything would be all right. “Pray the rosary every day for sinners around the world. God was too much offended,” she said. “Within minutes, the sun went back the way it came in.”
Her father’s left hand was injured by a soldier’s bayonet as he tried to protect his father from soldiers rushing toward the crowd. Her father got within 75 to 100 feet from the children who were kneeling in front of a Holm oak tree.
Not long after the apparitions, Reis Israel’s father immigrated with his family to the United States and devoted the rest of his life to spreading the message of Our Lady of Fatima, and telling his story as a witness to a miracle. He built a replica of the Fatima scene on the grounds of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish in Holyoke, Mass., where his family lived.
Reis Israel is now helping to spread the message as a member of the World Apostle of Fatima, known as Our Lady’s Blue Army, the only Fatima organization that speaks for the church.
“St. John Paul II said the message of Fatima is so steeped in the Gospel message and the whole tradition, that it imposes a commitment on the part of the church to spread it,” Reis Israel said.
Go to fatimatourforpeace.com for more information.
