Pilgrimage Experience: Fr. Ghebreyesus

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By Rev Fr Ghebreyesus Woldekidan, the Parish Priest of St Augustine of Canterbury, Harehills, Leeds.

 


Some people consider Fatima and Lourdes only as historic sites. They are not. They are daily places of devotion and conversion. Millions of people from different nations and denominations visit these Holy places as pilgrims. They receive many graces and return to their homes healed.

 


This is in brief what I received in Fatima last July.

 

My Parishioners have invited me three times since I joined the parish. Each time I declined or made a poor excuse. However, during Easter 2024 a devoted anonymous family brought a Statue of Our Lady of Fatima to my presbytery and gave it to me and said, "Father G this is for you."

 

It is a big statue, maybe 70-80 inches high. When I saw this Holy Statue I cried, saying, “My Heavenly Mother instead of visiting you in Portugal you have visited me in Leeds.” 

 

I brought the statue of Our Lady of Fatima into every room of the presbytery and into our Church St. Augustine of Canterbury and bowed and asked for her blessing and protection. In brief, this statue pushed me to come to Fatima in Portugal as a pilgrim in July 2024.

 

On the night of the 9th of July when we were due to leave, my group asked me to be ready for 5 am as we needed to arrive at 6 am at Manchester Airport.


That night was a nightmare as I did not sleep and was feeling quite unwell. I was feeling down and I had thoughts of cancelling my pilgrimage. God is GOOD and wanted me to have this new experience and blessing.

 




๏ปฟIt was God’s will that my pain went and that I was restored with new energy and strength. I felt fit and ready by the time it came to leave the presbytery.

 

The pilgrims that I travelled with to Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal were prepared and organised by the World Apostolate of Fatima England and Wales.

All in all, there were 41 pilgrims. We all came from different backgrounds, and we were so blessed as we had Fr Jason as our chaplain for the pilgrimage. There were 4 clergy in all, two from London, Fr Richard Nesbitt and Fr John McKenna, myself and Fr Jason from Wales. 

 

When we arrived at Lisbon Airport, the weather as you can imagine, was very hot. We waited for all the pilgrims to assemble from their different flights, and then we started our pilgrimage with joy and enthusiasm.

 

When I arrived, I personally found Fatima to be a very spiritual place built on Holy Ground, and obviously highly respected and popular, with a well-organised programme.

 

Every Morning I went walking or jogging before everyone woke up. On my return, I passed by Our Lady’s Apparition Site and drank from the miraculous Holy Water of Fatima which is incredible and I believe helped with my health situation.


The Fatima Sanctuary is wonderfully prepared to support each and every pilgrim to grow spiritually and benefit from the graces of Fatima. The Basilica of the Holy Rosary, the Chapel of the Apparitions, where every night we had a Rosary procession, the Holy Trinity church; the underground chapel of Silent Adoration, the confessionals, the Rosary Museum – these are just a few of the many places we visited. For me they were all very uplifting and places of grace and blessing. 

 

The International Mass, which is held in front of the Basilica on Sundays and on the feast days of Our Lady of Fatima, gave me a special opportunity to read the Bible in English. On that day, I did not announce to the other 41 pilgrims of our group that I was going to read the Gospel. The Sanctuary area is big and open; I did not really know where my group were; I just knew that I was reading officially in English the Gospel of the day. 

 

The microphone had an incredibly high volume. I started to read, and one member of our group told me later; “I was tired during the prayers and hymns in Portuguese which were a bit difficult to understand, and I felt like sleeping … When I heard your voice, I thought, oh this is Fr G!” 

 

So she roused herself and joyfully listened to the Gospel of the day praising God as we had a priest from our group reading in a language, she could understand. 

 

The other incredible situation I experienced was through a family from the Philippines. I do not remember his name now exactly as I am terrible at remembering names. I think his nickname was Totto. Incredibly he invited us for lunch almost every day. He is retired and lives in Fatima. He wishes to spend the rest of his life near to our Lady. What an amazing and devoted decision. It is a beautiful thing to come from another part of the world and buy a house and live there for the rest of your life in Fatima. A wonderful decision. 

 

All in all, for me it was a great blessing to be in Fatima. It touched my whole life. Her, Yes, her Fiat, is the call for everyone, particularly for us clergy; she was given to us on the cross through St John. The Pilgrimage increased my personal devotion and makes me want to be nearer to Our Lady for the rest of my life. Let us follow in the footsteps of Our Lady. Her Yes, her humbleness, her faithfulness, and devotion to her immaculate Heart to inspire us every moment of every day.

 

My advice to each member of the clergy is, talk to God frankly, as Mary did. Do not be afraid. It is okay to tell him your fears and concerns. It's okay to admit doubts and confusion. Let him relieve your anxieties about the impossible. Give him the chance to dispel any unbelief in his power—and his desire—to take care of you. Make time for him to grant you wisdom and understanding for the difficult situations. You just may be surprised by what happens!

 

Then, like Mary, humbly place yourself at God’s disposal. Do it especially when you have nothing available for the situation. Give God room to be God, the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving Father of—you!

 

St. Leo the Great once wrote: "Majesty humbled itself, power became weak, and eternity mortal."

 

A man, Jesus, died because he was a man, but was free of death because he is God. The incomprehensible became comprehended; the eternal became finite; the Lord of the universe became servant to all creation. 

 

If God could manage that, he can handle the stuff in our lives!

 

In brief, two words sum up Fatima for me. It is a place of PEACE, and HEALING for our souls. May God Bless you all with the intercession of Mary the Mother of God, Our Saviour bless us all.

 

Our Lady of Fatima: Pray for Us

Saints Jacinta and Francisco: Pray for us

Blessed Lucia: Pray for us.



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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. 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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.
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