Pilgrimage Experience: Fr. Ghebreyesus

The WAF-E&W AGM will be held at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Chessington from Thursday, October 23rd, to Saturday, October 25th. All are welcome to attend! For further details, please see the poster above.

The Jubilee of Marian Spirituality is a special event within the larger 2025 Jubilee Year, focusing on deepening devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It will take place in Rome from October 11-12, 2025, with events centered around major basilicas and culminating in a Mass presided over by the Holy Father. The Jubilee aims to inspire reflection, prayer, and celebration of Mary's role in the faith, inviting clergy, religious, and laity to participate. View more here

World Apostolate of Fatima England and Wales

The Promoter on-line formation is proving a great success and many thanks to all involved. Please note the next on-line TEAMS formation sessions will be held on 20th October and 15th December respectfully. Details will be made available nearer the time. New volunteers are always welcome to join us - find out more

September is the month traditionally dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, and the feast day for this falls on 15 September, the day after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Clearly, it is very appropriate that these two feasts, representing the sorrows of Christ and Our Lady, should be celebrated so close together, given that the Blessed Virgin was the one who stood so steadfastly at the foot of the Cross on Calvary during the awful sufferings of her Son. As Fr Jason indicated, there are also some other notable Marian feast days in September, including the feast of the Nativity of of the Blessed Virgin on 8 September, and the feast of the Holy name of Mary on 12 September. And there is also the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham on 24 September. These feast days are all part of a rich historical tradition. The celebration of the Nativity of Our Lady in the Eastern Church goes back to the seventh century, and it was likewise celebrated during the time of Pope Sergius I (687-701) in Rome, from whence it found it way to other European countries. There is no scriptural record of the birth of Mary, but it is mentioned in the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James , which dates from the second century. The Feast of the Holy Name of Mary expresses the idea that after the name of Jesus, her name represents the highest expression of holiness in the light of her extraordinary sanctity and her role as Mother of God. This feast day was celebrated in Spain originally but was extended to the whole Church by Pope Innocent XI after the defeat of the Ottoman army at Vienna by the forces of the Polish King Sobieski on 12 September 1683. Sobieski attributed the victory to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. Traditionally, the seven sorrows comprised the following incidents from the life of Our Lady: the prophecy of Simeon that a sword should pierce her soul the flight into Egypt, when the Holy Family had to escape the wrath of Herod the loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem, an incident which was a cause of such anguish to both Mary and Joseph Our Lady meeting Jesus on the way of the Cross the bloody Crucifixion of Jesus on Mount Calvary the piercing of his side by the soldier after his death and the descent of his body from the Cross and finally, his burial in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea nearby. These seven sorrows show how closely linked the lives of Jesus and Mary were, and that she was present at all those crucial moments of pain and distress, and so shared as fully as possible in his sufferings. And this is relevant to our own time and lives, too, since the theme of suffering is prominent in what Our Lady said to the children at Fatima. During the very first apparition, on 13 May 1917, after telling them that they would go to heaven, she said: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners?” Lucia replied, “Yes, we are willing,” to which the response was, “Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.” During the August apparition, the sadness and suffering of Our Lady at the plight of mankind in its opposition to God was also apparent. Sr Lucia tells us that at the end of this apparition, “looking very sad” she said, “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and to pray for them.” And she also records that this same sadness during the final apparition on 13 October 1917, once again saying that the Blessed Virgin was “looking very sad” as she said, “Do not offend the Lord our God any more, because He is already so much offended.” So during this month dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, we can certainly think about the historical sorrows of her life, which came about because she was the Mother of Christ, the Man of Sorrows, but it would also be good to remember her continuing sufferings as the Mother of the mystical Body of Christ, of all Christians, and do what we can to alleviate those sufferings through our prayers and sacrifices.

Join us for a brief video sneak preview featuring a group of our Fatima Pilgrims as they embark on the extraordinary experience of travelling together to Fatima, Portugal.

Our young people are showing a great enthusiasm for the message of Fatima. View a recent interview conducted by EWTN Great Britain about what Fatima means to them.

Have you recently participated in a WAF Five First Saturday Fatima Visitation? We would greatly appreciate your feedback on the experience. Please share your thoughts with us.

Some Unique Aspects of Fatima by Timothy Tindal-Robertson, © August 2025 The message revealed by the Blessed Virgin at Fatima is distinct from all other Marian apparitions by virtue of the following unique aspects which it alone possesses. 1). Continuing Association with the Papacy The most important feature of the apparitions is that Our Lady came to Fatima in direct response to an urgent appeal to heaven from Pope Benedict XV. Thereby, as I have shown in my CTS booklet, Message of Fatima in the Life of the Church and Teaching of the Popes, 1917-1997 , her intervention began an association with the papacy which has steadily increased in the reigns of succeeding popes. But the most significant advances of all in the papal acceptance of Our Lady’s message have taken place in the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, culminating in the Holy Year 2000, when Fatima attained its highest ever papal recognition through three unprecedented initiatives of the Holy Father, as I have recounted in detail in my CTS booklet, Fatima in the Third Millennium , issued in 2001. Firstly, on 13 th May 2000 Pope John Paul II travelled to Fatima to beatify two of the three little shepherds chosen to receive Our Lady’s message, Francisco and Jacinta; secondly, at his direction the text of the third part of the secret was released by Cardinal Ratzinger, together with his Theological Commentary, on 26 th June; and finally, on 8 th October John Paul II made his unprecedented Act of Entrustment of the Third Millennium to Mary Most Holy, during the Jubilee Mass of the Bishops, attended by around 1500 Bishops, and in the presence of the well known statue of Our Lady, which at his request had been specially brought to St Peter’s from the Sanctuary of Fatima. Has the Mother of God ever made such a touching intervention, in direct response to an urgent plea from the Chief Shepherd of all the faithful, at a dire moment in 1917 when the raging inferno of the First World War had descended to new depths of horror, with the prolonged rain and the introduction of deadly gas weapons ? Having been rebuffed in all his attempts to negotiate peace, Pope Benedict XV sent out a pastoral letter to the whole Catholic world, dated 5 th May 1917, in which he urged all to pray fervently to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for peace, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, “Mother of mercy and omnipotent by grace”. At the same time the Pope directed that the invocation “Queen of Peace, pray for us” should be added to the Litany of Loreto. Eight days later, the Blessed Virgin appeared to the three shepherd children at Fatima, and the last words in her first apparition constitute a direct response to the urgent plea of Benedict XV: “Pray the Rosary every day, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war”. Providentially, at the very moment the Blessed Virgin was appearing at Fatima, the future Pope Pius XII was being consecrated Bishop. He became known as “the Pope of Fatima” because he was the first pope to consecrate the whole human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on 31 st October 1942. The unique nature of the papal association with Fatima is commemorated in the painting which hangs above the high altar in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary at Fatima, in which are depicted the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome, and Popes Pius XII, John XXIII and Paul VI. 2). Fatima mentioned three times in the Second Vatican Council As a private revelation which one is not obliged to believe, but which is highly commended, Fatima is unique in being mentioned three times by Pope Paul VI in the Second Vatican Council. The Pope addressed the Council Fathers on 21 November 1964, at the end of the third session, when the Council approved the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, whose final chapter 8 is entitled “The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, in the mystery of Christ and the Church”. In his address, Paul VI considered it “particularly opportune” to recall Pius XII’s consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; bearing that in mind, he announced that he was sending a special mission to carry the Golden Rose to Fatima; and he ended by proclaiming, “to your Immaculate Heart, O Mary, we finally commend the entire human race” (cf. Message of Fatima , p. 59). 3). Fatima the richest ever supernatural manifestation of Our Lady In a message to all the world’s priests on 13 May 1963, Cardinal Larraona, speaking as Pope John XXIII’s legate at Fatima, declared that Our Lady’s message contains “inexhaustible treasures and spiritual riches … Fatima is a living realisation of the Gospel ... indeed, never has there been a supernatural manifestation of Our Lady of such rich spiritual content as that of Fatima, nor has any recognised apparition given us a message so clear, so maternal, so profound”. Pope John Paul II said that the Church has accepted the message of Fatima because it contains the “truth and call of the Gospel itself: ‘repent and believe in the Gospel’ (Mk 1:15) ... The appeal of the Lady of the message of Fatima is so deeply rooted in the Gospel and the whole of Tradition that the Church feels that the message imposes a commitment on her” (Homily at Fatima, 13 May 1982). It is “the true Gospel of Christ, presented anew to our generation” (General Audience, 17 May 2000). 4). Parallel papal consecrations, to the Sacred Heart (1899,) and the Immaculate Heart (1984) The Blessed Virgin’s request for the Pope to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart, in a certain way parallels Our Lord’s request in June 1897, to Sister Mary of the Divine Heart (the Countess Droste zu Vischering), in which Jesus asked the Pope to consecrate the world to His Sacred Heart. Pope Leo XIII said this act, which he carried out on 11 June 1899, was “the greatest act of my pontificate”. John Paul II fulfilled Our Lady’s request, when he consecrated the world including Russia to her Immaculate Heart at St. Peter’s, Rome on 25 th March 1984, in the presence of the venerated statue from Fatima. On 17 November 2001, Sister Lucia confirmed to Archbishop Bertone that this act “was accepted in heaven”. As a result of Our Lady’s intervention, the dire persecution ceased which the Church had suffered from Marxist atheist persecution in Central and Eastern Europe (see my book Fatima, Russia & John Paul II ), and those countries have experienced the resurrection of the Church. 5). Fatima a unique prophetic warning of and spiritual remedy for current evils The message of Fatima is unique in containing a prophecy which constituted a warning of as well as a specific spiritual remedy for the most grave evils to have afflicted the 20 th century, namely: the two World Wars, and the spirit of the rejection and denial of God (the “errors of Russia”). These errors continue to threaten the Church, especially in the once-Christian West, through secularism, materialism, and the increasingly grave violations of the sanctity of human life and the family. The extent of the problem is such that “today as never before, humanity stands at a crossroads”, the Pope stated, in his Act of Entrustment of October 2000, and European culture “gives the impression of silent apostasy” in which people have everything and “live as if God does not exist” ( Ecclesia in Europa , 9). It is “because its message announces many of the later events and conditions them on the response to its appeals” that Fatima “is certainly one of the greatest .. signs of the times”, the Pope wrote to the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima on 1 October 1997. “Private revelations approved by the Church … help us understand the signs of the times and to respond to them rightly in faith”, Cardinal Ratzinger explained in his Theological Commentary issued on 26 th June 2000. By his teaching and acts, John Paul II has lived Our Lady’s message. Heaven is now awaiting the response of all people of good to follow the Pope’s example, and evangelise themselves and their communities through prayer, penance, offering up the sacrifices encountered in fulfilling one’s daily duties, amendment of life, daily recitation of the Rosary (according to the sublime teaching in John Paul II’s Rosarium Virginis Mariae of 16 Oct. 2002), and the Five First Saturdays Eucharistic communion of reparation for sin. The Blessed Virgin promised that “in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph … and a of peace will be granted to the world … if my requests are heeded”. As the Pope said, on returning to Rome after beatifying Francisco and Jacinta at Fatima on 13 May 2000, “let us receive the light that comes from Fatima, let us be guided by Mary. May her Immaculate Heart be our refuge and the way that leads us to Christ”. Francisco and Jacinta, two young shepherd children who were chosen by heaven to receive, live and convey the message of Fatima to the Church, responded to Our Lady’s requests with such fidelity and commitment that John Paul II declared them Blessed in heaven. They were canonised by Pope Francis at Fatima on 13 May 2017. May Mary’s Immaculate Heart obtain for us the grace to respond, “Yes, we are willing”, just as they did. 6). Francisco and Jacinta as youngest non-martyr Saints Finally, Francisco and Jacinta are the first children in the history of the Church who became saints in the normal course of their family life, and not through martyrdom. And that Pope John Paul II said they became saints through their heroic fidelity and commitment in fulfilling the requests of Our Lady, and not because of the exceptional supernatural manifestations that they experienced. Their lives are a demonstration that the message of Fatima is meant for the family, and that to live it will bring about sanctification for all.