Heaven's Peace Plan in
Simple Terms

The “enlightened” minds of the “modern world” scoff at the notion that a simple public ceremony consecrating Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary could produce the conversion of that nation bringing with it enormous benefits to the whole world, including peace among all nations. However, the “modern world” scoffs at miracles in general, and indeed at the divine claims of the Church whose saints have performed miracles in such abundance.

But a consecration of Russia is precisely what God had ordained in the very Message He authenticated with the solar miracle of October 13, 1917. We recall that in the Message of July 13, 1917, Our Lady had promised Lucy that “I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the first Saturdays.” True to Her word, the Virgin appeared again to Lucy on June 13, 1929 in Tuy, Spain, where Lucy — by then Sister Lucia dos Santos, a Dorothean nun (she would not be come a Carmelite until 1948) — was in prayer in the convent chapel during the Holy Hour of Adoration and Reparation. Even among the annals of recognized heavenly appartions to the saints of the Catholic Church, this one was extra-ordinary.

We will let Sister Lucy recount the aparition in her own simple but quite dramatic words — and remember that here also we are dealing with an apparition that the Church and the Popes, including Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, have pronounced worthy of belief.

The Vision of Tuy

“I had requested and obtained permission from my superiors and confessor to make the Holy Hour from 11:00 p.m. until midnight from Thursday to Friday. Being alone one night, I knelt down before the Comunion rail in the middle of the chapel to say the prayers of the Angel, lying prostrate. Feeling tired, I got up and knelt, and continued to say them with my arms in the form of a cross. The only light came from the sanctuary lamp.

“Suddenly a supernatural light illumined the whole chapel and on the altar appeared a cross of light which reached to the ceiling. In a brighter part could be seen, on the upper part of the Cross, the face of a Man and His body to the waist. On His breast was an equally luminous dove, and nailed to the Cross, the body of another Man.

“A little below the waist, suspended in midair, was to be seen a Chalice and a large Host onto Which fell some drops of Blood from the face of the Crucified and from a wound in His breast. These drops ran down over the Host and fell into the Chalice. Under the right arm of the Cross was Our Lady (Our Lady of Fatima with Her Immaculate Heart in Her hand) ... Under the left arm (of the Cross), some big letters, as it were of crystalclear water running down over the altar, formed these words: ‘Grace and Mercy’.

“I understood that it was the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity that was shown to me ...”⁴²

FrPre Michel has rightly called this apparition “the Trinitarian The ophany.” (See an art ist’s rendition on next page.) While the God head cannot, of course, in a literal sense be seen by human eyes as Christ in the flesh can be, this “The ophany” was granted by God as a visual representation of His Trinitarian nature. As with the Miracle of the Sun, there is no phenomenon like it ever recorded in the history of the world. Thus did God Himself signify the singular importance of what Our Lady of Fatima was about to tell Sister Lucy in the presence of the Most Holy Trinity. She said:

“The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father to make, in union with all the bishops of the world, the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means.”⁴³

God Himself requests this. Sister Lucy received this request from the lips of the Mother of God Herself, speaking in God’s Name, in the presence of the very God head, the Most Holy Trinity. Sister Lucy immediately conveyed the divine request to her confessor, Father Gonçalves, as reflected in her published correspondence with him.⁴⁴

For the next seventy-five years Sister Lucy — the same Lucy who would not deny the truth of Fatima even though she was imprisoned and threatened with a horrible death by the Masonic Mayor of Ourem — gave the same testimony: Our Lady, as God’s messenger, had requested the solemn public Consecration of Russia in a ceremony to be conducted jointly by the Pope and all the world’s bishops.

A Foretaste of What the World Would Enjoy

As if to demonstrate the efficacy of the Consecration the Virgin had requested, God saw fit to allow a demonstration, as it were, in Portugal. On the anniversary of the first apparition at Fatima, May 13, 1931, and in the presence of 300,000 faithful who had come to Fatima for the event, the bishops of Portugal solemnly consecrated their nation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These good bishops placed Portugal under the protection of Our Lady to preserve that nation from the Communist contagion that was sweeping through Europe, and especially Spain. Indeed, the Virgin’s prophecy of the spread of Russia’s errors throughout the world was already being fulfilled with relentless exactitude. Who, in July of 1917, could have foreseen the emergence of world communism emanating from Russia — months before the Bolshevik revolution and Lenin’s ascent to power? Only Heaven could have fore seen it; only the Mother of God, informed by Her Divine Son.

A Threefold Miracle

As a result of this (1931) Consecration Portugal experienced a three fold miracle. Here, we will give only the barest details.

Catholic Renaissance

There was, first of all, a magnificent Catholic Renaissance, a great rebirth of Catholic life so striking that those who lived through it attributed it unquestionably to the work of God. During this period, Portugal enjoyed a drastic upsurge in priestly vocations. The number of religious almost quadrupled in 10 years. Religious communities rose likewise. There was a vast renewal of Christian life, which manifested itself in many areas, including the development of a Catholic press, Catholic radio, pilgrimages, spiritual retreats, and a robust movement of Catholic Action that was in tegrated into the frame work of diocesan and parish life.

This Catholic Renaissance was of such magnitude that in 1942 the bishops of Portugal declared in a Collective Pastoral Letter: “Anybody who would have closed his eyes twenty-five years ago and opened them now would no longer recognize Portugal, so vast is the transformation worked by the modest and invisible factor of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin at Fatima. Really, Our Lady wishes to save Portugal.”⁴⁵

Political and Social Reform

There was also a miracle of political and social reform, in accordance with Catholic social principles. Shortly after the 1931 Consecration, a Catholic leader in Portugal ascended to power, Antonio Salazar, who in augurated a Catholic, counter-revolutionary program. He strove to create, as much as possible, a Catholic social order wherein the laws of government and social institutions be harmonized with the law of Christ, His Gospel and His Church.⁴⁶ A fierce adversary of socialism and liberalism, he was opposed to “everything which diminishes or dissolves the family.”⁴⁷

Miracle of Peace

In addition to these astonishing religious and political changes, there was a twofold miracle of peace. Portugal was preserved from the Communist terror, especially from the Spanish Civil War which raged (1936-39) next door, and Portugal was also spared from the devastation of World War II.

With regards to the Spanish Civil War, the Portuguese bishops had vowed in 1936 that if Our Lady protected Portugal, they would express their gratitude by renewing the National Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. True to their word, on May 13, 1938, they renewed the Consecration of Portugal to the Immaculate Heart in thanksgiving for Our Lady’s protection. Cardinal Cerejeira acknowledged publicly: “Since Our Lady of Fatima appeared in 1917 ... A special blessing of God has descended upon the land of Portugal ... especially if we review the two years which have gone since our vow, one cannot fail to recognize that the invisible hand of God has protected Portugal, sparing it the scourge of war and the leprosy of atheistic communism.”

Even Pope Pius XII expressed astonishment that Portugal was spared the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and the Communist menace. In an address to the Portuguese people, the Pope spoke of  “the Red Peril, so menacing and so close to you, and yet avoided in such an unexpected manner.”⁴⁸

The Portuguese passed this first danger unscathed, but immediately there was a second staring them in the face. World War II was about to break out. In yet an other fulfillment of the Virgin’s prophecy of July 13, 1917, the war would begin “in the reign of Pius XI,” following “a night illumined by an unknown light ...” (Jan. 25-26, 1938)

On February 6, 1939, seven 27 months before the declaration of war, Sister Lucy wrote to her bishop, Msgr. daSilva. She told him that war was imminent, but then spoke of a miraculous promise. She said “in this horrible war,

Portugal would be spared because of the national consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary made by the bishops.”⁴⁹

And Portugal was spared the horrors of war, the details of which are too numerous to recount here.⁵⁰ Even more remarkable, Sister Lucy wrote to Pope Pius XII on December 2, 1940, to tell him that Portugal was receiving special protection during the war that other nations would have received if the bishops would have con secrated their nations to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She wrote: “Most Holy Father, Our Lord promises a special protection to our country in this war, due to the consecration of the nation, by the Portuguese prelates, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; as proof of the graces that would have been granted to other nations, had they also consecrated themselves to Her.”⁵¹

Likewise, Portugal’s Cardinal Cerejeira did not hesitate to attribute to Our Lady of Fatima the great graces that She had obtained for Portugal during this time. On May 13, 1942 he said: “To express what has been going on here for twenty-five years, the Portuguese vocabulary has but one word: miracle. Yes, we are convinced that we owe the wonderful transformation of Portugal to the protection of the Most Holy Virgin.”⁵²

Cardinal Cerejeira maintained what we maintain here: that the miraculous blessings Our Lady obtained for Portugal as a heavenly reward for the 1931 consecration of that nation were only a foretaste of what She will do for the entire world, once Russia is also properly consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart.⁵³ As the Cardinal said: “What has taken place in Portugal proclaims the miracle. And it foreshadows what the Immaculate Heart of Mary has prepared for the world.⁵⁴