The Worthy Shepherd, the Great Schism and the Millennium

As we have already noted, there is an amazing correlation between the prophecy of Bl. Elizabeth Canori-Mora and the lightning strikes which hit St. Peter's Basilica just hours after Pope Benedict XVI announced his abdication. First, we must take into account that during his inaugural address, the Holy Father had used his now famous statement "Pray for me, that I do not flee for fear of the wolves". Last year, I had suggested that this directly alluded to the prophecies of Bl. Elizabeth, who saw a pope:

"surrounded by wolves who plotted to betray him… I saw the Sanhedrin of wolves which surrounded the Pope, and two angels weeping… when I asked them why they were sad and lamenting, looking upon Rome with eyes full of compassion they responded, ‘Wretched city, ungrateful people, the justice of God will chastise you.’”

This situation already sounds like the recent revelations of divisions in the Church, highlighted by last years Vatileaks scandals, where it had emerged that there were several factions in the Church hierarchy who appeared to be attempting to undermine the Holy Father. Divisions which Pope Benedict referred to during his last Homily as the Supreme Pontiff:

Finally, the prophet considers the prayer of the priests, who turn to God with tears, saying: "Do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’" (v. 17). This prayer makes us think of the importance of the witness of Christian faith and life given by each of us and our communities for showing the face of the Church, and how that face is sometimes disfigured. I think in particular of sins against the unity of the Church, and divisions within the body of the Church. To experience Lent in a more intense and manifest ecclesial communion, overcoming individualism and rivalry, is a humble and valuable sign for those who are distant from the faith or indifferent.

(Homily of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Ash Wednesday, Feb 13th, 2013. See full text here)

The next part of Bl. Elizabeth's prophecy also appears to have been alluded to by Pope Benedict:

“many ecclesiastics who persecute Jesus Crucified and His holy Gospel under the guise of doing good… Like furious wolves they scheme to pull the Church leader down from his throne.”

The Holy Father echoed this exact sentiment during his Angelus prayer on 17th Feb:

“The Temptor is devious: he does not push us towards evil directly, but towards a false good, making us believe that the real things that matter are power and whatever satisfies our primary needs,”
Pope Benedict XVI

What "good" are these wolves surrounding the Holy Father pushing for? Are these words being directed at a progressive element within the Church hierarchy that is pushing for a more liberal papacy? A progressive element that has pushed Pope Benedict XVI from the chair of St. Peter? While I believe that the Holy Father has left the papacy of his own accord, and that he has done so in a profound act of humility; I can't help but to wonder how many behind the scenes were there behind him manipulating, convincing him of his need to step down. And that the motivations behind such actions, while perceived to be "for the good" by those who are committing them, are arousing a great anger in God.

Next Bl. Elizabeth was shown a vision of the anger that these wolves aroused in God, which resulted in the falling of blazing lightning bolts of Divine Justice to announce the chastisement which is to take place:

Then she was allowed to see the terrible indignation these wolves aroused in God. “In terror I saw the blazing lightening bolts of Divine Justice fall about me. I saw buildings collapsing in ruins. Cities, regions and the whole world fell into chaos. One heard nothing but countless weak voices calling out for mercy. Countless people will be killed. [I saw that God was] extremely angry with those who persecute Him. His omnipotent hands were holding bolts of lightening, His face was resplendent with indignation and His gaze alone was enough to incinerate the whole world.”


Bl. Elizabeth then turns from her vision of God casting lightning bolts after the wolves try to pull the pope from his throne, to a vision of the chastisement which is to take place after, with the collapse of buildings and the whole world turning to chaos. But she then looks beyond this vision of chastisement, and sees the coming of the Angelic Pope - who will restore the Church from its state of decay:


On the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, June 29, 1820, she saw Saint Peter descending from heaven, robed in papal vestments and surrounded by a legion of angels. With his crosier he drew a great cross over the face of the earth, separating it into four quadrants. In each of these quadrants, he then brought forth a tree, sprouting with new life. Each tree was in the shape of a cross and enveloped in magnificent light.
However, all will not end in this death and destruction. After these purifying punishments, she saw Saint Peter return on a majestic papal throne together with Saint Paul, who went through the world shackling the devils and bringing them before Saint Peter, who cast them back into the dark caverns from where they had come. “Then a beautiful splendor came over the earth, to announce the reconciliation of God with mankind.”
The small flock of faithful Catholics who had taken refuge under the trees will be brought before Saint Peter, who will “choose a new pope. All the Church will be reordered according to the true dictates of the holy Gospel. The religious orders will be reestablished and the homes of Christians will become homes imbued with religion.
“So great will be the fervor and zeal for the glory of God that everything will promote love of God and neighbor. The triumph, glory and honor of the Catholic Church will be established in an instant. She will be acclaimed, venerated and esteemed by all. All will resolve to follow Her, recognizing the Vicar of Christ as the Supreme Pontiff.”


Rather amazingly, another lightning strike on St. Peter's Basilica has occurred in recent times - on the Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul, June 29th, 1995 - the exact feast day mentioned by Bl. Elizabeth Canori Mora concerning her vision of St. Peter descending from heaven!
What's even more astonishing is the fact that the lightning strike took place during a meeting between Pope John Paul II and the Greek Othrodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople. In his homily for the feast of Ss. Peter and Paul, titled "We cannot remain separated", Pope John Paul II concluded with the following words:

Christ is sending us out together, so that we may jointly bear witness to him. Thus we cannot remain separated! We must walk together, because this is Our Lord's will. The world must recover its faith at the end of the second millennium and at the start of the third!
(See here)

This meeting was recorded by the journal Orthodox Life (Vol. 45, 1995), published by the Holy Trinity Monastery of the Orthodox Church:

John Paul II, head of the Roman Catholic Church, and Patriarch Bartholomew, symbolic head of Orthodox Christians, together, on Thursday, June 29, from the balcony of the basilica of St. Peter, blessed their faithful all over the world. They addressed a common appeal for the reunification of the Christian churches, separated for 1,000 years. The two religious leaders came to participate at a mass in the Vatican, where they undertook to redouble their ecumenical efforts...

In an atmosphere charged with intensity... ambassadors credited to the Holy See, members of the Sacred College, and numerous high officials of the Vatican, the Pope, and the Patriarch each in their turn spoke... to express their intention to 'dispel' the misunderstandings which have separated Christians… since the 11th century...

The Patriarch underlined "that today, happily... we have arrived at a maturity." The Pope, in turn, suggested that papal authority would have to be supreme in a unified Church because Christ had given Saint Peter, the first pope, free power to rule the flock on earth.

Patriarch Bartholomew then asked Christians to pray and fast to oppose the power of the Devil and to drive out demons. At that exact moment, all the faithful were startled by a lightning bolt which struck the basilica, followed by a violent summer storm.


This of course echoes the words of Jesus in the Gospels:

The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.
(Luke 10:17-19)

As I suggest in my book Unveiling the Apocalypse: Prophecy in Catholic Tradition, the true nature of the "millennium" described in the Book of Revelation appears to be primarily related to the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches in 1054, which ended Christian unity a thousand years after the Apostolic Council at Jerusalem had first achieved unity around the year 50AD by settling a dispute that had threatened to split the Early Church (see Acts 15). As Christ himself had explicitly stated concerning the casting out and binding of Satan, if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand:

And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.
(Mark 3:23-27)

Christ uses this statement directly in relation to the binding of Satan - the strong man who is the "god of this world", and who blinds the minds of the unbelievers:

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
(2 Cor 4:4)

Christ entered the "strong man's house" through his Incarnation in the womb of the Virgin Mary - the Theotokos or "God-bearer", and bound him through His sacrificial death on the Cross, from where he descended into hell to free the captives before his glorious Resurrection from the dead.
We are told in the Book of Revelation that Satan would be bound for "a thousand years", after which he would be released once again to deceive the inhabitants of the earth:

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.
(Rev 20:1-3)

So while the "thousand years" refers to the age of the Church, beginning from Christ's ministry to the release of Satan for "a little while" towards the end of the age; we can also find a literal one thousand year period in which the East and West were united in harmony. During the Great Schism, the Filioque controversy resulted in the Eastern Churches questioning the extent of Papal Primacy, causing a complete rift among the two churches which has remained for almost a thousand years. As I noted in last year's post The Great Sign in Catholic Prophecy, one of the few, and indeed best known, historically verifiable supernovae SN1054, took place in the year 1054AD, the exact year of the East-West schism that saw the division of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, ending a thousand years of Christian unity. And supernovae have the almost unique capacity to produce a very bright cross-shaped star formation in the sky - as was recorded by Josephus in the events leading up to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70AD:

Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them. Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews' rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, [Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it...
(Josephus, Jewish Wars VI:5:3 See full text here)
So the supernovae seen in the night skies during the Great Schism would similarly have appeared as a "sword shaped" star. Which sounds remarkably similar to the events described by Bl. Elizabeth Canori Mora:

On the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, June 29, 1820, she saw Saint Peter descending from heaven, robed in papal vestments and surrounded by a legion of angels. With his crosier he drew a great cross over the face of the earth, separating it into four quadrants. In each of these quadrants, he then brought forth a tree, sprouting with new life. Each tree was in the shape of a cross and enveloped in magnificent light.

Rather profoundly, the Filioque controversy concerns whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son (the Roman Catholic position), or whether from the Father alone (the Eastern Orthodox position). A debate it seems will only be settled during the final Outpouring of the Holy Spirit during the eschatological age, when Jesus will send forth the Paraclete (who also proceeds from the Father) to guide all to the truth:

“And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit.
“And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls.
(Joel 2:28-32)

"But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me."
(John 15:26)

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."
(John 16:12-15)

Following the Great Schism, the Church as the kingdom of Christ on earth was divided itself, allowing Satan to gain a foothold in the world once again. This would gradually facilitate the spread of Islam, the Protestant Reformation, the separation of Church and State, and the emergence of occult secret societies which have spearheaded the secularising forces causing the Great Apostasy we are enduring today.
Although Christ reigns eternally as King in Heaven, where His Kingdom has no end, Jesus' teaching on the Kingdom of God was that it was both "now, and not yet" - what theologians refer to as "inaugurated eschatology". Whilst Christ taught that the Kingdom of God was now present in His own ministry, He also taught that it is something that will only be fully achieved in the future during the eschatological age.
As the Catechism states:

"Though already present in his Church, Christ's reign is nevertheless yet to be fulfilled "with power and great glory" by the King's return to earth. This reign is still under attack by the evil powers, even though they have been defeated definitively by Christ's Passover. Until everything is subject to him, "until there be realized new heavens and a new earth in which justice dwells, the pilgrim Church, in her sacraments and institutions, which belong to this present age, carries the mark of this world which will pass, and she herself takes her place among the creatures which groan and travail yet and await the revelation of the sons of God." That is why Christians pray, above all in the Eucharist, to hasten Christ's return by saying to him: Marana tha! "Our Lord, come!"
(CCC 671)

In the Our Father, we are told to pray for the coming of the Kingdom so that the Divine Will of God will be "done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt 6:10). The Kingdom of God can only be fully emulated on earth through the unity of orthodox Christendom, when East and West once again finally become one, in accordance with Christ's prayer:

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
(John 17:20-23).

It is this unity, brought about by the actions of the Holy Spirit, which will purify the Church, allowing the Bride of Christ to dress itself in fine virginal linen in preparation for the coming of the Groom:

 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
 “Hallelujah!
 For the Lord our God
  the Almighty reigns.
 Let us rejoice and exult
  and give him the glory,
 for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
  and his Bride has made herself ready;
 it was granted her to clothe herself
  with fine linen, bright and pure”—
 for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”
(Rev 19:6-9)


As long as orthodox Christianity is divided against itself, it cannot hope to stand against the steady onslaught of the forces of Satan. But once the Angelic Pope purifies the Church and unites it with its lost brothers, all men will be drawn to Christ:

Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
(John 12:28-32)

It is here that we can begin to see what may have been signified by the lightning strike on St. Peter's Basilica after the Holy Father's announcement of abdication, and its connection to the lightning strike on the feasts of Ss. Peter and Paul on 29th June, 1995 during the meeting of Pope John Paul II and Patriach Bartholmew I. Those with Christ thought that the voice coming from heaven to glorify the name of the Father was thunder, while others thought that it was the voice of an angel. Christ told them that the voice was announcing the judgment of the world, and that the ruler of this world - Satan, would be cast out:

The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.
(Luke 10:17-19)

It seems that the lightning strike on St. Peter's Basilica, hours after Pope Benedict announced his abdication signifies the defeat of Satan. In a profound act of humility which is the complete opposite of Satanic pride, by stepping down as Supreme Pontiff it seems that the Holy Father has hastened the Devil's final defeat by bringing forward the reign of the Angelic Pope. The wolves' plans will be turned on their heads and the Church will be restored to its former glory.
At key points in the Bible, both lightning and falling stars are used to symbolise the fall of Satan - an event which I argue at some length occurred at the turn of the millennium. In the post Tunguska, Pope Leo XIII and the Opening of the Abyss, I argue that the Tunguska event symbolised the angel holding the key to the abyss unlocking the gates of hell at the beginning of the 100 years of Satan's greater power:

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth.
(Rev 9:1-3)

This is to be equated with the "little while" mentioned in Rev 20:3, where we are told that Satan would be unleashed for a period before the end of the world, to gather the nations for war. I also argue that this time period began at the turn of the 20th century, and was marked by Pope Leo XIII's consecration of the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1899, in the same year as a rare planetary alignment that can be interpreted as "the keys to Death and Hades" (see the post The Seven Wandering Stars and the Heads of the Dragon). So just as the 1908 Tunguska event symbolised the angel unlocking the abyss at the start of Satan's "little while", so it seems that this new Russian meteor strike symbolises the fall of Satan and the closing of the abyss, when he is cast from heaven to earth at the end of his period of greater power. This is just over twelve years since the astronomical events at the turn of the millennium symbolised that the 100 years of greater power was over, and that Satan was defeated in Heaven (see the posts The Fall of Satan, Signs in the Sky and The Year of the Dragon).
It is also interesting to note that the Book of Revelation states that the Apocalyptic Locusts wouldn't be able to harm people for "five months". According to Tyconius' Book of Rules (4th century AD) - one of the oldest books dealing with the interpretation of prophecy, days can be equated with weeks, months or years and vice versa in prophetic texts (e.g. Jeremiah's seventy weeks is reinterpreted as seven weeks of years - 7 x 70 - by the prophet Daniel). So the five "months" could mean five years in a prophetic sense. If we count five years from the Tunguska event in 1908, we arrive at the year 1913. Which brings us to just before the outbreak of WWI - when military aircraft were first put to use, and the first deaths by these "locusts" first began. So the locusts weren't allowed to kill people for five "months" (equalling years), but after this time period had elapsed, they were permitted to kill.
So just as the effects of the 100 years of Satan's greater power were not felt until the outbreak of WWI in 1914, so it seems that the effects of the end of Satan's greater power after his defeat in Heaven would not be felt until 100 years after this - which brings us to up to this very moment.

“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’
But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the far reaches of the pit.
(Isa 14:12-15)

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.
(Rev 12:7-10)

As I have argued in my book, and on various posts through this blog, it is only through the defeat of Satan in heaven that will allow the Second Pentecost to take place. The Church has passed through the "trials of Job" during the time of Satan's greater power. But the War in Heaven marks the end of the "little while" of Satan's greater power on earth. And just as Job's fortune was restored to him, with interest  on top, the fortunes of the Church will be restored during the Second Pentecost, bringing our brothers and sisters lost to schism back into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church:

And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house.
(Job 42:10-11)

But how is this Second Pentecost to come about? The Church has been trying to reach out to the modern world with the New Evangelisation for many years now, and for the most part, its efforts have been met in vain. To help us understand how the New Springtime of the Church will come about, we must turn to Christ's prophetic words in the Gospel:

On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.
(Luke 5:1-11)

Seeing two boats out by the lake of Gennesaret, Christ gets into the one belonging to Simon Peter. After asking them to pull out a little from the land, he teaches the people in St. Peter's boat, and after he has finished speaking, he instructs those aboard exactly where to cast their nets. Simon Peter laments that they have toiled all during the night, and have took nothing. But Christ has been speaking to the people in St. Peter's boat since it first departed the shore with the Lord aboard. He who has been been with us "always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). During the night-time of the Great Apostasy, the light of Christ's truth has been obscured by the "god of this world", and the crew of St. Peter's bark are lamenting because they have caught no fish. But Christ, who has been speaking to those on board St. Peter's boat all the while (through various private revelations), will show St. Peter exactly where to cast his nets, and they will enclose a very great number of fish. So many indeed, that the nets (clergy) will not be able to support the sheer weight of them. The crew of St. Peter's will have to signal to our partners in the other boat - the crew of St. Andrew, to come and help us, so that both boats will be filled.

The "Glory of the Olive" and the Year 2012?

Troyes Cathedral (Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul de Troyes) in Champagne, France - the location of the relics of St. Malachy and St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

Another striking coincidence surrounding the coming papal conclave and the significance of the Worthy Shepherd Prophecy can be found in some unique research which calculated the significance of St. Malachy's "Glory of the Olive" as pertaining to the year 2012. As most readers will already know, I discussed in the previous posts here and here, how the prophecy of Bl. Tomasuccio de Foligno (1319-1377) pointed to this exact time period for the election of the Angelic Pope of Catholic prophecy, who is foretold to heal the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. This would thus be the fulfilment of the promise of Our Lady of Fatima, that "In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world":


"One from beyond the mountains shall become the Vicar Of God. Religious and clerics shall take part in this change. Outside the true path, there will be only disreputable men; I shrug my shoulders when the Bark of Peter is in danger and there is no one to lend it help... The schismatic shall fall into the scorn of the Italian faithful... By about twelve years shall the millennium have passed when the resplendent mantle of legitimate power shall emerge from the shadows where it was being kept by the schism. And beyond harm from the one who is blocking the door of salvation, for his deceitful schism shall have come to an end. And the mass of the faithful shall attach itself to the worthy Shepherd, who shall extricate each one from error and restore to the Church its beauty. He shall renew it."

But another interesting fact is that in a book dating back to 1951 called La Mystérieuse prophétie des papes (Namur: Bibliothèque de la Faculté de philosophie et lettres, 1951, Imprimatur: June 28, 1945, Et. Jos. Carton de Wiart), Belgian Jesuit scholar Fr. René Thibaut attempted to demonstrate how the significance of St. Malachy's list of popes actually pointed to a specific year for the significance of the motto "Glory of the Olive" - the year 2012. 
Unfortunately, Fr. Thibaut's work remains unpublished in English. However, writing in 2009, Elena Maria Vidal summarises Fr. Thibaut's work at some considerable length in her blog Tea at St. Trinian's.

Fr. Thibaut’s research reveals that there is a great deal more to the Prophecy than I had ever imagined. It is a penetrating treatise which, because of the author’s vast knowledge of Church history and Sacred Scripture, both informs and inspires. The middle of the book is devoted to charts tracing the date of Easter over the years, and the leap years, as well as various ciphers, anagrams and acrostics with which, as Fr. Thibaut demonstrates, the list of Popes is imbued. Fr. Thibaut’s analysis becomes complex at that point although he explains his conclusions with clarity.

Fr. Thibaut maintains that the Prophecy of the Popes is a genuine prophecy. However, the identity of the actual prophet remains unclear. The author of the Prophecy is probably not St Malachy but someone who wrote under the name of the great Irish saint in order to honor him. (p.7) Fr. Thibaut insists that the Prophecy is not meant to worry or disturb but to reassure the faithful about the Providence of God during even the most difficult of times. It is a sort of litany which celebrates the glory and triumph of the universal Church throughout the ages under the leadership of the Roman pontiffs. (p.24) It was a mistake for people of the past (and present) to use the list of popes in order to predict who the next pope would be, for that was never the intention of the original author. (p.20) Neither is it meant to herald the imminent end of the world, because "of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone." (Matthew 24:36)

According to Fr. Thibaut, the papal legate Nicholas Sanders (1530-1581) may have brought a primitive document containing the Prophecy to Rome during the reign of St. Pius V. Sanders spent a great deal of time in Ireland, which continued to be Catholic in spite of Elizabeth I. Sanders wrote De visibili Monarchia Ecclesiae in which he states that the reigns of the popes are the best “measure of time.” (pp. 23-24) Fr. Thibaut believes that the Prophecy, eventually made public by Wion in 1595, has qualities which indicate an older document of Celtic origin, namely due to the word play and the use of numbers in the various anagrams and acrostics. (p.92) Reading Fr. Thibaut’s explanation of the complex patterns of words and numbers embedded in the list reminds me of the intricacy of the Celtic knot work designs in the Book of Kells and other Irish illuminated manuscripts, albeit the intricacy is in numbers and letters rather than designs.

Of the 111 titles describing all the popes and anti-popes from 1143 to the present, Fr. Thibaut says that while the first 71 titles have been subjected to the tampering of a forger, the last 40, which cover the years 1572 to 2012, are untouched. The year of 2012 is repeatedly emphasized as coinciding with the last Pope on the list, called the “Glory of the Olive.” Fr. Thibaut demonstrates the calculation of the year 2012 on a series of charts. The last 40 popes of the genuine part of the prophecy span four centuries with an average of eleven years per reign, and so he calculates 440 years from 1572. 1572 +440 =2012. (pp. 22-23) Fr. Thibaut shows how the year 2012 keeps appearing in other calculations as well. He also insists that it will only be in the year 2012 that it will become clear whether his interpretation of The Prophecy is correct or not. (p.101)

Fr. Thibaut says that 2012 signifies the end of an era in the history of the Church, recalling how other eras have come and gone. The destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 marked the close of an era, as did the fall of Rome in the fifth century. The fifteenth century saw the end of medieval Christianity with the Reformation. (p.22) The Revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as well as the World Wars of the twentieth century were events which manifested the judgment of God as well as signaling changes for the Church and the world. (pp. 88, 92, 96)Throughout such stages, the Church has been guided by the successors of St. Peter. (p. 22)

Speaking of St. Peter, the list concludes with the following phrase: "In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Peter the Roman, who will feed his flock amid many tribulations, after which the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people.” Fr. Thibaut explains how “Peter the Roman” does not signify a future pope calling himself “Pope Peter II” but rather Petrus Romanus symbolizes all the Roman pontiffs since St. Peter, for the Church has continually undergone persecution of some kind. (p.25) The destruction of Rome will not necessarily follow immediately after the end of the era in 2012, but may come at a later date. (p.21) Nevertheless, Fr. Thibaut surmises that it is not unthinkable that at some point in the future the Popes may change their residence and govern the Church from somewhere other than the city of Rome. (p.22)

The final pope on the list is given the title Gloriae olivae, “The Glory of the Olive.” Fr. Thibaut says that the olive represents the people of God whom His judgment will glorify. (p.97) Once again, Fr. Thibaut insists that the Prophecy is genuine since so often in the last 400 years the titles have accurately described a pope and his reign, too many times for it to be pure chance. This is discussed in great detail and perhaps will be the topic of a future blog post. (To do full justice to such an exhaustive work is beyond the scope of one or two blog articles.) Fr. Thibaut ends by saying: L'année 2012 dira si, oui ou non, le prophête a vu clair. (p.101) That remains to be seen.
(See the full article here, which is continued in some more detail here)

(For those whose French is a bit rusty, "L'année 2012 dira si, oui ou non, le prophête a vu clair" translates as "The year 2012 will tell whether or not the Prophet saw clear")

Also a commentator on the last post, Sr. Lorraine, flagged up a good point which I thought would be worth posting on the main part of the blog:

Sr. Lorraine:

Emmett, thanks for your fascinating commentary. I'm very interested in this. One question is about the time frame. If the next pope is indeed the last pope, and has a short reign (?), it would seem there would not be enough time for all the other things in Catholic prophecy to happen. I read Desmond Birch's book and he has an interesting timeline. This would include the Great Monarch, etc...

Emmett:

Hi Sr. Lorraine,

You're right. I keep meaning to mention this. If the next pope is another elderly pontiff, I think this would rule him out from being the last pope, since a lot still has to happen. The era of peace/Second Pentecost promised by Our Lady of Fatima still has to happen. Once the Faith is rekindled in Europe, then a lot of prophecies (including the Church approved portion of La Salette) suggest that the Angelic Pope will anoint a new Holy Roman Emperor - the Great Monarch. Most of these prophecies point to the monarchy being restored in France, which isn't altogether implausible if the Eldest Daughter of the Church once again embraced the Faith.
Then according to the Church approved version of La Salette again (which was only published in 2002, and thus not available to Birch), there would be another falling away afterwards at the coming of the Antichrist. Maximin Giraud stated that the following events would begin to happen around the year 2000:

"France has corrupted the universe, one day it will be punished. The faith will die out in France: three quarters of France will not practice religion anymore, or almost no more, the other part will practice it without really practicing it. Then, after [that], nations will convert, the faith will be rekindled everywhere. A great country, now Protestant, in the north of Europe, will be converted; by the support of this country all the other nations of the world will be converted.
Before all that arrives, great disorders will arrive, in the Church, and everywhere. Then, after [that], our Holy Father the Pope will be persecuted. His successor will be a pontiff that nobody expects.
Then, after [that], a great peace will come, but it will not last a long time. A monster will come to disturb it."

According to Bl. Elizabeth Canori-Mora, Benedict XVI could be the pope who is "persecuted" - the one surrounded by wolves seeking to drag him from his throne. The next pope then could be the one no one expects. Maximin states that the peace will not last a long time however before the coming of the Antichrist.
Melanie's secret says much the same thing:
"After all these calamities have arrived, many will recognize the hand of God on them. They will convert, and do penance for their sins.
A great king will go up on the throne, and will reign many years. Religion will re-flourish and spread all over the world, and there will be a great abundance. The world, glad to be lacking nothing, will fall again into disorder, will give up God, and will return to its criminal passions.
[Among] God's ministers, and the Spouses of Jesus-Christ, there will be some who will go astray, and that will be the most terrible."

So if we have a young pope (say his late fifties to early sixties), I'd say all this could take place over a 20-30 year period, and he could thus possibly be the last pope. But if we have an elderly pope, all this is a lot less likely to happen in (for talk's sake) another 8 year pontificate. So there would likely be another (indefinite) amount of popes after this, and St. Malachy's list of popes can be ruled out definitively.
It can all be very difficult to get to grips with, but we'll know better in a few weeks when the new pope takes the helm.
Also Birch's work contains many spurious prophecies of untraceable origin, which might mix things up a bit. He bases most of his research on Yves Dupont and Fr. Gerard Cullerton's books, which also don't cite original sources. Many of the Great Monarch prophecies he cites are also contradictory, for example. So it's best to work with private revelations of the highest level of approval, and discard any spurious prophecies that don't add up.
(See the full text of the Church-approved 1851 text of the messages of La Salette here).

Is the "Worthy Shepherd" the Last Pope?

Following the hugely portentous events of the past few days, since Pope Benedict XVI announced his abdication on 11th February, 2013, I would like to add some more commentary as to what I believe is the prophetic significance behind these recent occurrences. As almost everyone on the planet already knows, just hours after the Holy Father announced his abdication, lightning struck St. Peter's Basilica twice.

Whilst the odds of this occurring alone are almost unfathomable, just a few days later, the biggest meteor strike since the 1908 Tunguska event occurred (once again) in Russia, on 15th Feb - the exact same day an entirely unrelated asteroid narrowly missed the earth.

The next day following the 2013 Russian meteor strike, on Feb 16th, a 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit near Rome.

All this is to be considered in the backdrop of the apparent near fulfilment of the "Worthy Shepherd Prophecy", which foretold that a papal election would take place " around twelve year shall the millennium have passed". The Worthy Shepherd prophecy goes on to state that this new pope, who is to be equated with the Angelic Pope of Catholic prophecy, will ultimately result in the healing the Church of the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Also to be taken into consideration is the fact that the prophecies of St. Malachy foretell that this would be the last pope, Petrus Romanus, or Peter the Roman:

In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations, and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people. The End

If we are to accept St. Malachy's list of popes as genuine prophecy, then given the fact that there are no other popes on the list after this point, we would have to equate Petrus Romanus with the Angelic Pope of Catholic prophecy. By the same reasoning, we would also have to connect this new pontiff in St. Malachy's list to the martyr-pope of various private revelations, including the Third Secret of Fatima, which tells that the three shepherd children saw:

...a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.


If the hypothesis I present in my book is correct, then the Angelic Pope is to be equated with one of the Two Witnesses of Rev 11, who will "turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers" (Mal 4:6), before being killed by the "beast who rises up from the bottomless pit" (Rev 11:7).

Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”
 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire. And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth. But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
 The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is soon to come.
(Rev 11:1-14)

So if the Worthy Shepherd Prophecy is authentic and correct (which it so far appears to be), and the Angelic Pope will be elevated to the papacy during the next conclave, there is a very real chance that this will indeed be the last pope. The same pope seen in the vision of the Third Secret of Fatima, which apparently depicts the final persecution of Christians under the Antichrist.

The very first prophecies of the Angelic Pope, cited by Roger Bacon in the 13th century, place the Pastor Angelicus directly before the coming of the Antichrist:

Many wise men have thought about this. Reflecting upon divine wisdom, the knowledge  of the saints, the truths of history, as well as prophecies both sacred and solid (like those of the Sibyls, of Merlin, of Aquila, of Festo, and of many other wise men), they have thought that the days of the Antichrist would come in this period. Therefore it is necessary that evil be stamped out so that God's elect plainly appear. A very holy pope will first come who will remove all the corruptions in education and the Church and all the rest. Then the world will be renewed and the fullness of peoples will enter in; even the remnants of Israel will be converted to the faith.
(Roger Bacon, The Compendium of Study. Trans. Bernard McGinn, cited in Visions of the End pp190-191)

Whilst the possibility that the next Sovereign Pontiff will be the last pope hinges on the equivalence of the Worthy Shepherd/Angelic Pope prophecies with that of St. Malachy's Petrus Romanus, these recent heavenly portents give us pause for thought.

As well as the signs we have already seen around the announcement of the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI, we have to take into consideration the fact that a comet (Pan Starrs) will appear during the papal conclave in March, in the same year that one of the brightest comets in human history - Ison is due to appear. In addition, a heavily symbol-laden planetary conjunction took place on the Feast of the Annunciation (Mar 25th) last year, which apparently pointed to the significance of Christ's twelfth birthday (just four days out from the turn of the Mayan calendar), and thus pointing to the 2000th annversary of the "Finding in the Temple" - which will occur this Lenten season at around the time of the papal conclave, when the new "Sweet Christ on Earth" (as St. Catherine of Viena referred to the Pope) will be found among the Doctors of the Church. What are we to make of all this? It's hard to know where to begin...
The amount of material needed to do justice to all of this is going to be quite vast, so I will have to break it up into several different posts.

To be continued...

Bl. Elizabeth's Prophecy of Pope Benedict and the "Wolves"?

The following is a repost of material I wrote in March 2012, which can be found here. I've only just came across it again and was astonished. I've put it back up since it can now be better understood, in light of the lightning strikes on St. Peter's Basilica just hours after Pope Benedict XVI announced his abdication from the papacy on 11th Feb, 2013. I haven't changed any of the material, but will underline places of interest:


The prophecies of Bl. Elizabeth Canori-Mora (1774-1825) concerning the future persecution of a pope have some interesting affinities with the rather profound words of Pope Benedict XVI at his inaugural address: "Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves". (See the full text of the Holy Father's inaugural address here). These words appear to reference Jesus' prophecy of the persecution of Christians in Matt 10, where Christ depicts the disciples as sheep surrounded by wolves:

"Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved."
(Matt 10:16-22).

But the Holy Father's words also appear to echo the prophecies of Bl. Elizabeth Canori-Mora (you can find some biographical information on Bl. Elizabeth at Catholic Online here), which are strongly reminiscent of those of Fatima. At the request of her confessor, Bl Elizabeth began to record her revelations, which ended up spanning hundreds of notebooks, and are now stored in the archives of the Trinitarian Fathers at San Carlino, Rome.
On 22nd March, 1814, Bl. Elizabeth was praying for Pope Pius VII, when she suddenly had a vision of the Holy Father being persecuted by a pack of "wolves": During this vision, she saw the pope:

"surrounded by wolves who plotted to betray him… I saw the Sanhedrin of wolves which surrounded the Pope, and two angels weeping… when I asked them why they were sad and lamenting, looking upon Rome with eyes full of compassion they responded, ‘Wretched city, ungrateful people, the justice of God will chastise you.’”

The two angels in this vision recall the two angels of the Third Secret of Fatima, who gather the blood of the martyrs during the Great Tribulation:

Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.

In the earlier posts The Two Witnesses and Prophecies of the Martyr-Pope, we discussed how these two angels appear to represent the two cherubim which adorned the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant, and that they also may symbolise the Two Witnesses described in the Book of Revelation.

Bl. Elizabeth continued to receive private revelations concerning the plight of the pope, and on 16th Jan 1815, she stated that angels showed her:

“many ecclesiastics who persecute Jesus Crucified and His holy Gospel under the guise of doing good… Like furious wolves they scheme to pull the Church leader down from his throne.” Then she was allowed to see the terrible indignation these wolves aroused in God. “In terror I saw the blazing lightening bolts of Divine Justice fall about me. I saw buildings collapsing in ruins. Cities, regions and the whole world fell into chaos. One heard nothing but countless weak voices calling out for mercy. Countless people will be killed. [I saw that God was] extremely angry with those who persecute Him. His omnipotent hands were holding bolts of lightening, His face was resplendent with indignation and His gaze alone was enough to incinerate the whole world.”

This part of Bl. Elizabeth's vision, with a vision of lightening bolts and Divine Justice recalls various biblical passages related to the Second Coming of Christ:

For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matt 24:27-28)

Bow your heavens, O LORD, and come down! Touch the mountains so that they smoke! Flash forth the lightning and scatter them; send out your arrows and rout them! Stretch out your hand from on high; rescue me and deliver me from the many waters, from the hand of foreigners, whose mouths speak lies and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
(Psalm 144:5-8)

Note that the imagery in the above passage in Psalm 144 evokes not only imagery of volcanic eruptions "Touch the mountains so that they smoke!", but also that of a flood "deliver me from the many waters". (See the earlier post The Casting Down of Mountains for an overview of the many other passages in the Bible which connect the Second Coming with earthquakes, volcanoes and massive floods).
The above prophecy of Bl. Elizabeth, which describes "buildings collapsing in ruins" leading to worldwide chaos also mirrors the visions of Matous Lasuta during the Apparitions at Turzovka:

there will be terrible floods and other misfortunes through the elements (iii) there will be earthquakes and mountains will move (iv) Churches will collapse, houses will move and be carried away by the floods...


The prophecies of Bl. Elizabeth written on 7th June 1815 continue to describe further upheavals, where she saw:

“fierce wolves in sheep’s clothing, relentless persecutors of Jesus Crucified and His spouse the Holy Church…I saw the whole world convulsed, especially the city of Rome. How can I possibly relate what I saw of the Holy College? Because of contrary doctrines, together with the secular clergy, they were scattered, persecuted and murdered by the impious… The regular clergy had not suffered a total dispersion, but were also decimated. Countless men of all conditions died in the massacre, but not all were condemned, for among them were those of decent customs and others of holy life.”

Then in a vision which rather frighteningly reflects the current anti-Christian policies of various governments throughout the Western world, Bl. Elizabeth saw apostates attempting to wrench the Christ-child from her motherly arms - actions which would cause her to no longer attempt to hold back God's immanent wrath:

On Christmas, 1816 Blessed Elizabeth saw Our Lady, who appeared extremely sad. Upon inquiring why, Our Lady answered, “Behold, my daughter, such great ungodliness.” Blessed Elizabeth then saw “apostates brazenly trying to rip her most holy Son from her arms. Confronted with such an outrage, the Mother of God ceased to ask mercy for the world, and instead requested justice from the Eternal Father. Clothed in His inexorable Justice and full of indignation, he turned to the world.
“At that moment all nature went into convulsions, the world lost its normal order and was filled with the most terrible calamity imaginable. This will be something so deplorable and atrocious that it will reduce the world to the ultimate depths of desolation.” (See here).

This irreversibility of God's impending wrath is also reflected in the words attributed to Pope John Paul II during the 1980 Fulda conference in Germany:

With your and my prayer it is possible to mitigate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only thus can the Church be effectively renewed. How many times has the renewal of the Church sprung from blood! This time, too, it will not be otherwise. We must be strong and prepared, and trust in Christ and His Mother, and be very, very assiduous in praying the Rosary."
(See the earlier post John Paul II - The Third Secret and a Prophecy of a Mega-tsunami?)

It also recalls the words of Our Lady of Akita: "If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them".

Yet Bl. Elizabeth's prophecies also gave a glimpse of mercy to be seen through these horrendous trials, with a vision which recalls the prophecy of the Angelic Pope who it is foretold will restore the Church. Here this Angelic Pope, symbolised by St. Peter (St. Malachy's Peter the Roman?), restores the Church before the onslaught of the chastisement, and a great war:

On the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, June 29, 1820, she saw Saint Peter descending from heaven, robed in papal vestments and surrounded by a legion of angels. With his crosier he drew a great cross over the face of the earth, separating it into four quadrants. In each of these quadrants, he then brought forth a tree, sprouting with new life. Each tree was in the shape of a cross and enveloped in magnificent light. All the good laity and religious fled for protection underneath these trees and were spared from the tremendous chastisement. “Woe! Woe to those unobservant religious who despise their Holy Rules. They will all perish in the terrible chastisement together with all who give themselves to debauchery and follow the false maxims of their deplorable contemporary philosophy!
“The sky took on a morbid blue color which terrified everyone who looked at it. A dark wind blew everywhere. An impassioned and mournful shrieking filled the air, like the terrible roar of a fierce lion, and resounded all over the earth in blood curdling echoes.
“All men and animals brimmed with terror. The entire world convulsed and everyone pitilessly slaughtered one another…
“When this bloody fight will arrive, the vengeful hand of God will weigh upon these fated ones and with His omnipotence He will chastise the proud for their rashness and shameless insolence. God will use the powers of darkness to exterminate these sectarian, iniquitous and criminal men, who plot to eradicate the Catholic Church, our Holy Mother, by tearing Her up by Her deepest roots, and casting Her on the ground.

The reference to those who seek to eradicate the Church can only refer to the secularising forces sponsored by Freemasonry (See the earlier post The Synagogue of Satan).
Her private revelations continue with a vision of the unleashing of demons upon the earth, which corresponds with the prophecy of Pope Leo XIII (See the earlier post Tunguska, Pope Leo XIII, and the Opening of the Abyss):

“God will laugh at their malice, and with a mere wave of His almighty right Hand, He will punish the wicked. The powers of darkness will be allowed to leave Hell and enormous crowds of devils will invade the whole world. They will wreak great destruction and thus execute the orders of Divine Justice, to which they are also subjected. They will chastise man’s goods, families, towns, wretched cities, palaces, houses and everything else that exists on the face of the earth to the exact degree that God decrees…
“God will allow wicked men to be cruelly chastised by fierce demons, because they voluntarily subjected themselves to the devil and joined in his attack of the Holy Catholic Church…
“I saw the horrible prison, Hell. There I saw the devils that would be released on earth to carry their wicked destruction everywhere. They will decimate every place that idolatry was practiced to such an extent, that no trace of them will remain.”

There are some echoes here of Psalm 59:

But you, O LORD, laugh at them; you hold all the nations in derision. O my Strength, I will watch for you, for you, O God, are my fortress. My God in his steadfast love will meet me; God will let me look in triumph on my enemies. Kill them not, lest my people forget; make them totter by your power and bring them down, O Lord, our shield! For the sin of their mouths, the words of their lips,
let them be trapped in their pride. For the cursing and lies that they utter, consume them in wrath;
consume them till they are no more, that they may know that God rules over Jacob to the ends of the earth. Selah (Psalm 59:8-13)

After this part of the visions of Bl. Elizabeth, which are to be equated with Pope Leo XIII's period of the 100 years given to Satan, she again makes reference to the Second Pentecost under Ss. Peter and Paul - who as the two pillars of the Church (Gal 2:9) martyred under Nero (the precursor to the Antichrist), also represent the Two Witnesses of Rev 11 who are killed by the Beast who rises from the sea:

However, all will not end in this death and destruction. After these purifying punishments, she saw Saint Peter return on a majestic papal throne together with Saint Paul, who went through the world shackling the devils and bringing them before Saint Peter, who cast them back into the dark caverns from where they had come. “Then a beautiful splendor came over the earth, to announce the reconciliation of God with mankind.”
The small flock of faithful Catholics who had taken refuge under the trees will be brought before Saint Peter, who will “choose a new pope. All the Church will be reordered according to the true dictates of the holy Gospel. The religious orders will be reestablished and the homes of Christians will become homes imbued with religion.
“So great will be the fervor and zeal for the glory of God that everything will promote love of God and neighbor. The triumph, glory and honor of the Catholic Church will be established in an instant. She will be acclaimed, venerated and esteemed by all. All will resolve to follow Her, recognizing the Vicar of Christ as the Supreme Pontiff.”
Early in 1821 Our Lord said to her, “I will reform my people and my Church. I will send zealous priests to preach my Faith. I will form a new apostolate and send the Holy Ghost to renew the world. I will reform the religious orders by means of new holy and learned reformers. They will all have the spirit of my predilect son Ignatius of Loyola. I will provide my Church with a new pastor, who is learned, holy and full of My Spirit. With holy zeal he will reform My flock.”
“He told me many other things about this renovation. Many sovereigns will support the Catholic Church and be true Catholics, placing their scepters and crowns at the feet of the Holy Father and Vicar of Jesus Christ. Many kingdoms will abandon their errors and return to the bosom of the Catholic Faith. Entire peoples will convert, recognizing the Faith of Jesus Christ as the true religion.”

For those seeking a more in-depth treatment of the life of this inspirational woman, there is an out of copyright book on the life of Bl. Elizabeth Canori Mora availble freely online here.

Is the Worthy Shepherd Prophecy About to be Fulfilled?

Benedict XVI - Pope Emeritus?

Wow. No one saw this one coming... I am deeply saddenned by Pope Benedict XVI's announcement today that he is to abdicate the papacy. He has been a truly good and holy Pope, and is one of the world's greatest living theologians. Benedict has always been a reluctant pontiff, and many parallels are going to be drawn with St. Celestine V - another pope who resigned the Petrine Office. Interestingly, as I note in page 42 of Unveiling the Apocalypse, the various prophecies of the Angelic Pope were directly based on the example of Pope Saint Celestine V - a holy old hermit who was reluctantly elected to the papacy, and subsequently abidicated. Also, according to some variants of the prophecies of the Pastor Angelicus, there would in fact be several "angelic popes" towards the end of the world. But the focus of these prophecies has always been on the coming of a pope who would heal the Church of schism and bring about the Second Pentecost. Rather amazingly, the Worthy Shepherd Prophecy, attributed to Blessed Tomasuccio de Foligno, predicted that the Angelic Pope who heals the Church of schism would be elected by "about twelve years shall the millennium have passed":

"One from beyond the mountains shall become the Vicar Of God. Religious and clerics shall take part in this change. Outside the true path, there will be only disreputable men; I shrug my shoulders when the Bark of Peter is in danger and there is no one to lend it help... The schismatic shall fall into the scorn of the Italian faithful... By about twelve years shall the millennium have passed when the resplendent mantle of legitimate power shall emerge from the shadows where it was being kept by the schism. And beyond harm from the one who is blocking the door of salvation, for his deceitful schism shall have come to an end. And the mass of the faithful shall attach itself to the worthy Shepherd, who shall extricate each one from error and restore to the Church its beauty. He shall renew it."

The Worthy Shepherd Prophecy is cited in a book called Miscellanea Francescana 1, edited by M. Faloci Pulignani, dating to 1886. This book in turn appears to base at least some of its information on a facsimile dating to the late 15th century called Legenda de' Beati del Terzo Ordine Sancto Francisco, (ed L. Temperini, Rome: Editrice Franciscanum, 1996), which contains the Legenda of Bl. Tomasuccio de Foligno - as recorded by his companion and disciple Giusto della Rosa.

The first known prophecy of the Angelic Pope, or pastor angelicus, was cited by the English polymath Roger Bacon in the 13th century:

...Forty years ago it was prophesied, and there have been many visions to the same effect, that there will be a pope in these times who will purify Canon Law and the Church of God from the sophistries and deceits of the jurists so that justice will reign over all without the rumbling of lawsuits. Because of the goodness, truth, and justice of this pope the Greeks will return to the obedience of the Roman Church, the greater part of the Tartars will be converted to the faith, and the Saracens will be destroyed. There will be one flock and one shepherd, as the prophet heard (John 10:16)...
(Taken from Roger Bacon's The Third Work. Trans. by B McGinn Visions of the End (New York, Columbia, 1998) p190)

The Angelic Pope of medieval prophecy was foretold to heal the schism with the Eastern Othrodox Church (which echoes the conversion of Russia prophesied at Fatima). Later, the pastor angelicus prophecies would also be connected to the reunfication of the schismatic Protestant churches with Rome, as well as the future conversion of England - such as foretold in the original 1846 Church-approved version of the secrets of La Salette:

The faith will die out in France: three quarters of France will not practice religion anymore, or almost no more, the other part will practice it without really practicing it. Then, after [that], nations will convert, the faith will be rekindled everywhere. A great country, now Protestant, in the north of Europe, will be converted; by the support of this country all the other nations of the world will be converted.
Before all that arrives, great disorders will arrive, in the Church, and everywhere. Then, after [that], our Holy Father the Pope will be persecuted. His successor will be a pontiff that nobody expects.
Then, after [that], a great peace will come, but it will not last a long time. A monster will come to disturb it.
(See here for the full text)


In a post written in Jan 2013 (which can be found here), I attempted to show how the Worthy Shepherd Prophecy may be connected to the 2000th anniversary of the Finding in the Temple, which will be celebrated this Easter - which we now know will be at around the same time as the election of the new pope.
I'll post the relevant material below:

In addition to the above correlations, it is interesting to note that the year 2013 will mark the 2000th anniversary of the finding of Jesus in the Temple (the fifth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary), after the Holy Family had lost the adolescent Christ (the third sorrow of Mary). If Jesus was one on 25th December 1AD, his twelfth birthday would have been celebrated on 25th December 12AD, making the Passover of 2013 the 2000th anniversary of the Finding in the Temple. Although modern scholarship has suggested that the actual year of Jesus' birth may have been some years earlier, Catholics still use the Anno Domini numbering system to celebrate anniversaries and jubilees connected to the life of Jesus. So the Anno Domini system still retains the primary symbolic value for Christians, given that we have no other uncontested means of celebrating anniversaries surrounding the life of Christ.
Many scholars believe that the boy Jesus had been taken to Jerusalem at this point to mark his Bar Mitzvah. A Bar or Bat Miztvah is a Jewish coming of age ceremony which is today celebrated once a child has turned 13 - a point in life where children are considered responsible for their actions, and thus a "son of the commandments" - which is the meaning of the Hebrew/Aramaic word Bar Mitzvah (Bar and Bat means "son" and "daughter" respectively, while Mitzvah means "commandments"). Once they had reached the age of accountability, adolescent children were expected to live by the commandments given to Moses in the Torah. Some commentators suggest that Jesus would have been among the scholars in the Temple during this pilgrimage in order to receive instruction on how to properly live the commandments of Jewish law. But the teachers were amazed at Jesus' understanding of the Scriptures when he began to expound to them their true meaning:

 

Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but supposing him to be in the group they went a day's journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.
(Luke 2:41-47)

Christ among the Doctors of the Law, Paolo Caliari, (16th century)

The Jewish custom of the Bar Mitzvah, is analogous to the sacrament of confirmation in Catholicism (when we receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit), given that both rituals are conferred around adolescence - the age of reason or accountability. So we can only hope and pray that during the Year of Faith in 2013, the Church will receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit promised during the Second Pentecost, which will usher in the beginning of the age in which the fortunes of the Church will be restored; and like Mary and Joseph, the former world of Christendom will find the Christ who has been lost to it. Maybe upon this renewed discovery of Christ, we too will be "amazed at his understanding and his answers", when the hidden meaning of Scripture is revealed to the doctors of the Church.
This would then tie in rather nicely with the "Worthy Shepherd Prophecy" of Bl. Tomasuccio de Foligno, which also places the Second Pentecost to around this time period - by "about twelve years shall the millennium have passed"...

...I originally thought that this prophecy pointed to the year 2012. But someone has highlighted the fact that the words "about twelve years shall the millennium have passed" would single out the year 2013, rather than 2012, as twelve years would have passed (i.e. reached completion) since the millennium, bringing us up to the end of the year 2012 and into 2013...

We can now see in retrospect that the words by "about twelve years shall the millennium have passed" could mean just over twelve years past the millennium, which amazingly will be the precise date of the next papal election, around Easter 2013 - the 2000th anniversary of the Finding in the Temple. What an extraordinary grace it would be if the doctors of the Church are guided by the presense of the Living Christ to elect the "Worthy Shepherd" this Easter, so that the Church may finally "all be one":

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."
(John 17:20-23)

Our Lady of Fatima and the Jewish Holocaust

In describing Our Lady of Fatima, Sr. Lucia stated that she always wore a yellow star on her tunic

As we have noted previously, when describing the content of the Secrets of Fatima during one of her rare interviews, Sr. Lucia explicitly stated that they concerned chapters 8 to 13 of the Book of Revelation (See De la Sainte Trinite, M. The Whole Truth About Fatima, Volume III p533). So in order to discover the central essence of the secrets of Fatima, we are encouraged to draw comparisons with this portion of Scripture. Doing so is no easy task, given that there are no obvious or immediate parallels to Rev 8-13 given in the secrets. But it is fairly obvious that much of the content of the secrets is directly related to the tumultuous events of the 20th century - with an especial significance attached to the two World Wars. The apparitions at Fatima occurred in the midst of the First World War, at the exact moment of the rise of Soviet Russia - which is a central focus of the secrets. In addition, the Second Secret famously predicted the great Aurora Borealis of 1938, which heralded the dawn of the Second World War. It would thus logically follow that Our Lady of Fatima has communicated to us that chapters 8-13 of the Apocalypse are largely concerned with the events of the wartime period - including the Jewish Holocaust. This was a factor which I took into serious consideration when writing my book Unveiling the Apocalypse: Prophecy in Catholic Tradition, and helped to steer the development of the interpretations given in it. If the secrets concerned both the world wars and Revelation chapters 8-13, then it allows us to concentrate any interpretation of this section of the Apocalypse on these past historical events. And when we do so, the interpretations begin to take a life of their own.
If we look at the relevant portion of the Second Secret of Fatima below, we can see that its primary focus is on the Second World War and its aftermath in the spread of communism throughout the world:

The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.
(The Second Secret of Fatima)

In the book, I attempt to show how chapters 8-13 of the Book of Revelation are indeed related to the events of the two world wars, which are represented by the first two "woes" of the Apocalypse described in Rev 9 (see the posts The Jewish Holocaust in Biblical Prophecy and The Four Beasts and the Four Horsemen for more details on this connection).  So if the secrets of Fatima correspond to the events of the two world wars and Rev 8-13, it stands to reason that they would also concern the single greatest travesty to emerge during this time period, and indeed in all of human history - the mass extermination of one-third of world's total Jewish population in the concentration camps of the Third Reich. The very people chosen by God since the dawn of creation to bring salvation to the world through His Son Jesus Christ, were raged against by a demonic entity bent on their total annihilation - the False Prophet of the Apocalypse and "Little Horn" prophesied in the Book of Daniel. This truly was quite literally, an event of biblical proportions - since it was foretold thousands of years in advance by the words of Holy Scripture:

...Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.”
(Dan 10:13-14)

The prophet Daniel was told that his people (i.e. the Jewish people), or "the saints of the Most High", as he also refers to them, would be attacked and prevailed over by the "Little Horn" - who is to be equated with the False Prophet in the Book of Revelation. But Daniel states that God would intervene to save His chosen people, and the "Little Horn" would be destroyed. The dominion of the "kingdom" possessed by the beast like a leopard would then be given to the "saints of the Most High", and the "kingdoms" represented by the other three beasts would be allowed to continue for a while, minus control over this dominion.

As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.
(Dan 7:21-22)

As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.
(Dan 7:12)


These events were foreshadowed in the persecution of the Jews by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who perpetrated the original "abomination of desolation" by erecting an altar dedicated to Zeus on the Temple Mount. Epiphanes was eventually overthrown by Judas Maccabeus and the Holy Land was restored to the Jewish people circa 165BC. So it is important to keep in mind the relationship between the "abomination of desolation" and the Jewish restoration.

If the Jewish Holocaust was foretold in the Bible (as I argue in my book), could it be possible that it was also predicted in the greatest prophetic event outside of Scripture - in the Secrets of Fatima? This certainly seems to be the opinion of the current Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisco Bertone. It will be worth quoting some material dealing with Sr. Lucia's view of this subject given in Card. Bertone's book The Last Secret of Fatima:


Giuseppe De Carli:

What value can prophecy such as Fatima possibly have if it doesn't mention the Shoah, the extermination of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis? Why is the prophecy so lopsided? But now even the hypercritical are satisfied. A recently published booklet for the use of pilgrims to Fatima contains a sort of spiritual diary written by Sister Lucia at the request of the then general of the Carmelite Order, Anastasio Ballestrero, who went on to become cardinal archbishop of Turin. In this diary, Sister Lucia adds an interesting---sensational?---coda to the second part of the message, which predicts that World War I is about to end and warns that another war may break out during the ponificate of Pius XI.
"The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI." In what sense would it be worse? Sister Lucia asks. "In the sense that it would be an atheistic war that attempted to exterminate Judaism, which gave the world Jesus Christ, Our Lady, the Apostles, who transmitted the Word of God and the gift of faith, hope, and charity. The Jews are God's elect people, whom he chose from  the beginning: 'Salvation is from the Jews.'" This passage is surprising. Lucia wrote these words in 1955. The text was then sent to Rome by order of Paul VI, where it ended up forgotten in the Vatican Archives (where else?). I won't swear to this, but Sister Lucia's words do sound as if they could be a completion of the Secret as a whole...

Card. Bertone:

What you are saying is something of a surprise to me. They certainly do introduce a new aspect of our topic. They also give us a better insight into how interaction with the supernatural worked in Sister Lucia's life. The words referring to the extermination of the Jews are italicized and appear in quotation marks. This means that Sister Lucia considered them to have a prophetic meaning. So they may be part of the interpretation of the Secret, or perhaps they are a further development of it. In 1955, knowledge about the Shoah was still pretty shaky. It would have been even more confused in a place like Coimbra, where Lucia entered Carmel on March 25, 1948. The horrific discovery of what the Nazis had done, and the ensuing debate about the Holocaust that shook the world's conscience, happened only afterward...

(Card. Bertone, The Last Secret of Fatima, pp85-86)

So Card. Bertone - who we must remember is one of foremost experts on this subject, having been the highest level official sent to interrogate Sr. Lucia directly after the publication of the Third Secret, and one of the few people privy to her entire writings - believes that the events of the Holocaust may be either a part of the interpretation of the Secret, or "a further development of it". This insight prompts us explore this suggestion further, in an attempt to discover any other references to the Holocaust in the words and writings of Sr. Lucia concerning the Secrets of Fatima. And we find that one of the most obvious links between the Secrets of Fatima and the Jewish Holocaust is in the appearance of Our Lady herself - who in an apparent act of solidarity with the future plight of her fellow Jews, bore a yellow star on her tunic during her appearances to the shepherd children.
Sister Lucia gave detailed descriptions of Our Lady of Fatima to Fr. Thomas McGlynn, an American sculptor who was commissioned to make the official statue that would be used to decorate the front of the Basilica. This statue, sculpted under the direct supervision of Sr. Lucia herself, is a more accurate representation of Our Lady of Fatima, and is to be differentiated from the more famous pilgrim statue. 
We find a highly detailed account of the Virgin Mary's appearance given in the writings of Fr. Thomas McGlynn, who elaborated how Sr. Lucia would be at pains to mention the yellow star worn of the tunic of the Blessed Mother:


"Her feet rested on the azinheira (a small holm oak tree). The leaves of the azinheira were small, as it was a young tree. The leaves did not bend down." This was a shock to Tom who thought that Our Lady had appeared on a cloud, a form he considered to be appropriately artistic. Lucy added, "She always had a star on her tunic. She always had a cord with a little ball of light,' and she indicated an imaginary pendant around the neck falling down near the waistline."
She explained that there were only two garments visible, a simple tunic and a long veil or mantle. The tunic had no collar and no cuffs. Nor was there a cincture or a sash around the waist, although the tunic was drawn in at the waist. The sleeves were not wide, and the mantle and the tunic were a wave of light. When Tom asked her how one distinguished between the mantle and the tunic, she said, "There were two waves of light, one on top of the other." When Tom asked her if there was a line of gold on the mantle, she explained "It was like a ray of sunlight all around the mantle." She further explained that this ray around the mantle was like a thin thread. The mantle in Tom's sculpture was a long, oval contour, which he treasured. Lucy said, "It seemed to be straighter. It was a thing all made of light and very light, but it fell straight down. The clothing was all white. The cord was a more intense and yellow light.... The light of Our Lady was white and the star was yellow."

It is interesting to note that Fr. McGlynn thought to correct Sr. Lucia on the colour of the star, which to his artistic instincts should be represented as a more appropriate, regal gold-colouring. But Sr. Lucia was quite adamant that the star should be yellow in colour:


Fr. McGlynn asked if she meant gold. "No. Yellow! She was all of light. The light had various tones, yellow and white and various other colours. It was more intense and less intense. It was by the different tones and differences of intensity that one saw what was hand and what was face and what was mantle and what was tunic."

(Vision of Fatima, by Thomas McGlynn, O.P., Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1948)

Fr. Thomas McGlynn, standing next to the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which is now situated in front of the Basilica

 

 

This attention to detail was obviously of great importance to Sr. Lucia, who must have considered every last feature of the apparition to be of deep symbolic importance. And the fact that she insisted that the star was yellow and not gold in colour immediately conjures images of the yellow star that would be forcibly imposed upon the Jewish population of the Third Reich. Every Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe was forced to wear a yellow Star of David with the word Jude (or its equivalents in other countries, e.g. Juif, Jood, etc.), which was intended as a "badge of shame" in order to distinguish them from the rest of the population.

Icon of Jewish Catholic convert St. Edith Stein, bearing the yellow Star of David

In the previous post, we have already noted how after Sr. Lucia's death on the 13th Feb, 2005, a connection was made between the star on the tunic of Our Lady of Fatima and the Star of Esther, in an article titled Hidden Revelations: The Star of Esther and the Secrets of Fatima by Marianna Bartold. It will be worth recapping the main thrust of this argument again here, as the central theme of the biblical story of Esther is her role in rescuing the Jewish people from the threat of total annihilation - which in many ways prefigures the looming threat of a Jewish Holocaust in the 20th century. In her article (linked to above), Bartold connects the star depicted on the tunic of Our Lady of Fatima to the biblical tale of Esther, the famed Jewish Queen who interceded to save her people from destruction on the 13th of the month of Adar - an event which is still remembered by Jews today during the festival of Purim. Bartold notes that the Hebrew month of Adar roughly corresponds to February in the Gregorian calendar, highlighting the significance of this connection in relation to the date of the death of Sr. Lucia on 13th Feb, 2005. Because of a use of a lunar calendar system, the Hebrew months shift back and forward slightly each year, as opposed to the Gregorian calendar which has dates that are firmly fixed. So the 13th February would certainly be the best (and perhaps only) date in the Gregorian calendar that could be used to symbolically point to the 13th Adar.
We have already noted how Queen Esther's name is etymologically linked to the Morning Star - being a variation of the name Ishtar (see here). Additionally, Queen Esther was given the Hebrew name Hadassah at birth - a word meaning "myrtle", which is a small evergreen tree known for having a star-like flower with five petals. So in both her given names, Queen Esther was associated in some way with a star, making this symbol doubly apt in referencing this biblical tale.

The connection between the Star of Esther and Our Lady of Fatima is further bolstered by the fact that the apparitions always occurred on the date of the 13th of each month - which once again recalls Esther interceding to save the Jewish people from destruction on the 13th of Adar.
The Book of Esther is set during the reign of King Ahasuerus of Persia (who has been variously identified with Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I and Artaxerxes II), and focuses on the Jewish diaspora of the post-exilic period. We are told that Esther was orphaned at a young age and raised by her cousin Mordecai, who brought her up at his own daughter. When King Ahasuerus was spurned by his queen Vashti, the ruler sought to replace her with a new queen, and ordered for all the beautiful girls of the land to be presented to him. Keeping her Jewish identity hidden, Esther was taken before Ahasuerus, and the enamoured monarch made her queen in Vashi's stead.
The plot thickens when Ahasuerus appoints a new prime minister - the wicked Haman, who becomes enraged at Mordecai when he refuses to bow down to him. When Haman learns that Mordecai is Jewish, he then plots to annihilate all the Jews of the Achaemenid Empire - which up to this date was the world's largest ever empire. It is here that the parallels with the Jewish Holocaust of the 20th century first begin to emerge:


So, as they had made known to him the people of Mordecai, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.
(Esther 3:6)

Haman convinced King Ahasuerus that the Jews were a seditious people, and persuaded him to issue a royal edict ordering for all the Jews of the land to be slain and their goods plundered. So still unaware of the Jewish identity of his queen, Ahasuerus agreed. Seeking to find the most opportune date to destroy the Jews of the empire by consulting pagan oracles, Haman then casts lots (Hebrew pur) to determine the date of 13th Adar as the most auspicious moment to strike:

Letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces with instruction to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods.
(Esther 3:13)

When the 13th Adar would come round, each citizen of the empire would be free by royal command to slaughter the Jews and despoil their property. Upon learning of this plot to destroy all the Jews in the empire, Mordecai beseeches Queen Esther to intercede for them to the King. And at great risk to her own life, Esther then bravely entered unbidden into the the royal court in an attempt to save her people.


Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me for my wish, and my people for my request. For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have been silent, for our affliction is not to be compared with the loss to the king.”
(Esther 7:3-4)

It has rightly been noted that on a symbolic level, each of the main characters of the Book of Esther correspond to heavenly counterparts - which is something to keep in mind here. King Ahasuerus represents God, while the evil Haman symbolises the Devil. Queen Esther in turn parallels the Virgin Mary, the Queen of Heaven who intercedes for her people - while the good, fatherly-figure of Mordecai can be equated with St. Joseph.
When the king learns of Esther's lineage, and that Haman's plot would see her slain along with the rest of her people, Ahasuerus then makes provisions to spare the Jews from the coming slaughter:

Then Esther spoke again to the king. She fell at his feet and wept and pleaded with him to avert the evil plan of Haman the Agagite and the plot that he had devised against the Jews. When the king held out the golden scepter to Esther, Esther rose and stood before the king. And she said, “If it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and if the thing seems right before the king, and I am pleasing in his eyes, let an order be written to revoke the letters devised by Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, which he wrote to destroy the Jews who are in all the provinces of the king. For how can I bear to see the calamity that is coming to my people? Or how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?” Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, “Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows, because he intended to lay hands on the Jews. But you may write as you please with regard to the Jews, in the name of the king, and seal it with the king's ring, for an edict written in the name of the king and sealed with the king's ring cannot be revoked.”
 The king's scribes were summoned at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day. And an edict was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded concerning the Jews, to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces, to each province in its own script and to each people in its own language, and also to the Jews in their script and their language. And he wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed it with the king's signet ring. Then he sent the letters by mounted couriers riding on swift horses that were used in the king's service, bred from the royal stud, saying that the king allowed the Jews who were in every city to gather and defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, children and women included, and to plunder their goods, on one day throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.
(Esther 8:3-12)

We are then told of the complete reversal of the fortunes of the Jews on the 13th Adar, when their enemies' plans were turned on their heads.

Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king's command and edict were about to be carried out, on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.
(Esther 9:1)

This sudden turnaround in fortune - bouncing back from the threat of total extermination to consolidate the highest ranking subordinate political role in the imperial court, at the very seat of the current world-power, resonates quite strongly with the fate of the Jews in the wake of the Holocaust in the 20th century. The birth of the modern state of Israel in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War saw one of the sharpest, and indeed greatest political reversals in human history. The Jewish people had went from the extreme of the very real threat of total annihilation under the boot of Nazi tyranny, to being reborn once again as a nation after enduring millennia of aimless wandering amongst gentile nations. The guiding hand of God was surely at work here...

So instead of being destroyed on the 13th Adar, the Jews won victory over their enemies. The next day, when news of this victory began to spread (on the 14th Adar), is still celebrated today as the feast of Purim.
In directing us to Queen Esther interceding to spare the Jews from complete annihilation in the words of Holy Scripture, it seems almost certain that Our Lady of Fatima (bearing the yellow star of Esther in sympathy with her fellow people) was warning of the horrors of the Holocaust that was to come. The story of Queen Esther, which tells of the threat of the Jews being completely destroyed, but is then turned into a moment of victory, directly parallels the situation under Antiochus IV Epiphanes, when the persecution of the Jews by this wicked Seleucid ruler was turned on its head, and the Holy Land was restored to the people of Israel under the Maccabees.
It is interesting then to note that just after the last apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, coinciding with the Miracle of the Sun on 13th October, 1917, preparations for the restoration of Israel were already under way, with the issue of the Balfour Declaration by the British government on November 2nd, 1917 - calling for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in the land of Palestine. When control of Palestine fell into the hands of the British government in the wake of World War I, the Balfour Declaration was drafted into the British Mandate for Palestine. By rather ominous happenstance, a decisive victory that allowed Britain to take control of Palestine was won just a year later, during the Battle of Megiddo in 1918. And in the post Our Lady of Mt. Carmel: The Visions of Fatima and the Battle of Har Megiddo, we have already established how the Virgin Mary's appearance as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel during the Miracle of the Sun pointed to the significance of the Battle of Armageddon in the Book of Revelation (which as I argue in the book, will take place in the future as a direct consequence of these events).
These occurrences, taking place in the same period as the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima, paved the way for the restoration of Israel in the aftermath of the Second World War. It may be no coincidence then, that the Israeli Declaration of Independence was made on May 14th, 1948 - just a day after the anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima on May 13th, 1917. This correlates with the way in which the Feast of Purim is celebrated on 14th Adar - the day after the intercession of Queen Esther to save the Jews from destruction.
Given the fact that the restoration of Israel took place exactly 1,260 years after construction began on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (see the post The Abomination of Desolation), it seems inescapable from concluding that these events were highly prophetic in nature. Indeed the Third Secret itself appears to allude to the abomination of desolation spoken of in Scripture. The city on a hill with a large cross on top is a clear reference to Jerusalem, and the actions of the angels -gathering up blood and sprinkling it on the souls of the deceased, echoes the inner workings of the Temple performed by the Levite priesthood. The city being "half in ruins" points to one of the original, preterist meanings of the "abomination of desolation", when the Romans ransacked Jerusalem, destroying the Temple in 70AD.

Although we can conclude that the Secrets of Fatima appear to have foretold the Jewish Holocaust, which was conducted under the auspices of the forerunner to the Antichrist - the anti-Elijah or False Prophet (who Our Lady of La Sallete foretold would arrive "before twice fifty years would go by" - i.e. before 1946); they also look beyond this to the time of the final persecution of Christians under the Antichrist. As Qoheleth informs us, history, especially prophetic history, has a tendancy to repeat itself:

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done...
(Ecc 1:9)

Just as the Book of Daniel tells us that the False Prophet, or "Little Horn", was prefigured in a persecutor of Jews - Antiochus IV Epiphanes; the Book of Revelation models the person of the Antichrist on a persecutor of Christians - the Emperor Nero (whose name forms the basis of the prophecy of the number of the Beast). Rather frighteningly, it appears that the Jewish Holocaust foreshadows a future Christian Holocaust under the Antichrist, in a manner which echoes the words of St. Paul: "first for the Jew, then for the Gentile" (Rom 1:16).
Turning back to the connections between Fatima and the Jewish Holocaust, there seems to be further confirmation of this relationship in Sr. Lucia's memoirs, which describes Jacinta's visions of the Second World War:


Jacinta's Visions of the Holy Father
 
One day we spent our siesta down by my parent's well. Jacinta sat on the stone slabs on top of the well. Francisco and I climbed up a steep bank in search of wild honey among the brambles in a nearby thicket. After a little while, Jacinta called out to me:
"Didn't you see the Holy Father?"
"No."
"I don't know how it was, but I saw the Holy Father in a very big house, kneeling by a table, with his head buried in his hands, and he was weeping. Outside the house, there were many people. Some of them were throwing stones, others were cursing him."
I have already told you how, one day, two priests recommended to us to pray for the Holy Father, and explained to us who the Pope was. Afterwards, Jacinta asked me:
"Is he the one I saw weeping, the one Our Lady told us about in the secret?"
"Yes, he is," I answered.
"The Lady must surely have shown him also to those priests. You see, I wasn't mistaken. We need to pray a lot for him."
At another time, we went to the cave called Lapa do Cabeco. As soon as we got there, we prostrated on the ground, saying the prayers the Angel had taught us. After some time, Jacinta stood up and called to me:
"Can't you see all those highways and roads and fields full of people, who are crying with hunger and have nothing to eat? And the Holy Father in a church praying before the Immaculate Heart of Mary?
And so many people praying with him?"
Some days later, she asked me: "Can I say that I saw the Holy Father and all those people?"
"No. Don't you see that that's part of the secret? If you do, they'll find out right away."
"All right! Then I'll say nothing at all."

Visions of War

One day, I went to Jacinta's house to spend a little while with her. I found her sitting on her bed, deep in thought.
"Jacinta, what are you thinking about?"
"About the war that is coming. So many people are going to die, and almost all of them are going to hell! Many homes will be destroyed, and many priests will be killed. Look, I am going to heaven, and as for you, when you see the light which the Lady told us would come one night before the war, you run up there too."
"Don't you see that nobody can just run off to heaven!"
"That's true, you cannot! But don't be afraid! In heaven I'll be praying for you, for the Holy Father, for Portugal, so that the war will not come here, and for all priests."

(Fatima in Lucia's Own Words, Third Memoir, pp112-113)

Here we are told that part of the secret concerns the sufferings of a pope, who while weeping and praying in the sanctuary of his own house (devastated by the plight of those hungering and thirsting as a result of the war), is slandered and heckled by those outside. The endnote to Lucia's Third Memoir identifies the pope of Jacinta's visions as Pius XII, stating: "There is every reason to assume that this refers to Pope Pius XII, the great Pope of the Immaculate Heart of Mary."(Third Memoir, n17). It was Pius XII who made the first attempt to fulfil Our Lady's request to consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, having done so on October 31st, 1942, just before major turning points in the war. Although it was acknowledged that this consecration didn't fulfil all the criteria specified by Our Lady (since it wasn't performed by all the world's bishops as well as the pope), it appears to have gained certain graces. The fall of Stalingrad began a few days later, on 19th November, 1942; with the surrender of the German forces on 2 Feb, 1943 - the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.
Could the Secrets of Fatima be connected with the plight of Pope Pius XII during the war? This saintly pontiff has been wrongly lambasted by some elements of the media as "Hitler's Pope", for allegedly failing to condemn Nazi Germany's systematic slaughter of the world's Jews. The truth of the matter was that this holy Pope worked fervently to save thousands of Jews - which appears to be a truth reflected in Jacinta's vision. (See here for a neutral debate on Pius XII and the Holocaust). Is this the real meaning behind Jacinta's vision of those outside the pope's house, throwing stones and cursing him? The vision of the Holy Father weeping bitterly inside his own house perhaps provides an insight to the impossible dillemma Pius XII was presented with during this time.

It seems then that Hitler was prevented from achieving his goals during the Second World War due to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, who like Queen Esther, interceded to save her people from complete annihilation. The great aurora borealis of 1938, which looked to many like flames reflected in night sky threatening to set the world ablaze, appears to have symbolised the flames of the angel's sword in the Third Secret - which die out upon contact with Our Lady's protective splendour:

After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand...


See also the related post: The Prophetic Symbolism of Our Lady of Knock