Day 3 - 7 May / 7 October
In Fatima… The third and final appearance of the Angel of Peace took place one autumn day in 1916, when the children were at prayer in the Loca do Cabeco - the place where the Angel had first appeared to them. Suddenly an intense light covered them and, looking up, they saw the angel. This time, as Lucia later wrote, “he was holding a chalice in his hands, with a host above it from which some drops of blood were falling into the sacred vessel. Leaving the chalice and the host suspended in the air, the Angel prostrated on the ground and repeated this prayer three times:
“Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore You profoundly, and I offer You the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference with which He Himself is offended. And, through the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of You the conversion of poor sinners.”
Lucia continued, “Then, rising, he once more took the chalice and the host in his hands. He gave the host to me, and to Jacinta and Francisco he gave the contents of the chalice to drink, saying as he did so: “Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Repair their crimes and console your God.” Once again, he prostrated on the ground and repeated with us three times more the same prayer “Most Holy Trinity…” and then disappeared.”
The children were profoundly affected by these three encounters with the Angel. This is how Lucia later described their experience: “The force of the presence of God was so intense that it absorbed us and almost completely annihilated us. It seemed to deprive us even of the use of our bodily senses for a considerable length of time… The peace and happiness which we felt were great, but wholly interior, for our souls were completely immersed in God. The physical exhaustion that came over us was also great.” The Angel has nowcompleted his mission of preparing the children for the encounters with Our Lady.
Reflection… We naturally think of the apparitions at Fatima as focusing on Our Lady’s message for the children, but a closer look reveals that this message has at its heart a profound emphasis on the Eucharist. Indeed, it could be said that out of all the apparitions, this experience of receiving and adoring Christ in the Eucharist was the one which had the deepest effect on Francisco, who would develop a particular love for Christ in the Eucharist and for adoration. We need also to remember that neither Francisco nor Jacinta had yet celebrated their First Holy Communion when the Angel gave them the Precious Blood of Jesus and so this would have been a particularly extraordinary moment for them.
Following their supernatural experiences, both with the Angel and Our Lady, the children’s inner life reached great depths of spiritual awakening. Each child developed their own particular set of charisms. Francisco preferred to pray alone “to console Jesus for the sins of the world.” He experienced very deeply in himself the life-giving power of the Eucharist, while also understanding that this great outpouring of God’s love was often met with human indifference and ingratitude. He therefore felt a special calling to adore the “Hidden Jesus” in the Blessed Sacrament, and so to comfort Him for this rejection.
The Eucharist is at the heart of our Catholic faith. Since the very beginnings of the Church it is the Eucharist which, as Christ Himself desired, has brought us together as a community, so as to be nourished by God’s living Word, fed by the Real Presence of Christ in His Body and Blood, and renewed and strengthened by the Holy Spirit in the gifts of our baptism as a people gathered together to be a living cell in the Body of Christ.
The Mass, whether it be celebrated in a magnificent Cathedral or a simple chapel, is an awesome celebration of communion between the angels and saints of the Church in heavenly glory, the pilgrim Church here on earth and the Holy Souls in Purgatory. It is indeed “the source and summit” of our worship. In the Mass Christ hungers and thirsts to feed the deepest hunger and thirst of His people.
The Angel of Peace reveals to the children the great suffering of Christ at the “outrages, sacrileges and indifference” shown towards him in the Eucharist. Does this include me? Have I in some ways allowed the Eucharist to become a “post-it note” in my life rather than its deepest moment? On this third day of our novena, let us bring to the Lord our gratitude and our longing for the Eucharist as well as our sincere contrition for our own indifference and ingratitude towards Christ in the Eucharist.
