The Third Secret: The Centenary of Fatima and the Sign of Jonah

And what are we in comparison with those believers and saints who shall then exist, seeing that they shall be tested by the loosing of an enemy with whom we make war at the greatest peril even when he is bound?
(St. Augustine of Hippo, City of God, XX:8)

Certain events took place last year which my mind is still grappling to come to terms with. In 2017, some key components of my research on the subject of Catholic eschatology was suddenly propelled into the limelight, and a number of rather extraordinary events unfolded which gave me considerable pause for thought. It should be helpful to recap some of these events below in order to gain a sense of perspective (more for myself than anyone else). After my blog post The Sign of Jonah and the Binding of Satan was plagiarised by the hugely popular Protestant prophecy preacher Pastor Mark Biltz and subsequently went viral, racking up millions of views on YouTube, I attempted to contact several journalists in an attempt to bring to light that this material originated from my research, rather than Pastor Biltz.

Biltz's original video plagiarising my work in November 2016 can be seen below, and was later massively popularised by his publishers World Net Daily and Pastor Steve Cioccolanti, whose YouTube channels commands massive influence in the field of Protestant Rapture theology/dispensationalism.

I had wanted to correct the fact that this material had been stripped of its roots in Catholic eschatology and completely missed the key point as to what I was attempting to communicate. The core message I wanted to highlight was the fact that in Matt 12, the sign of Jonah is mentioned by Christ in the same context as the "binding of the strong man". In his monumental text The City of God, the Church Doctor St. Augustine of Hippo demonstrated that this passage was directly related to the period of the unbinding of Satan at the end of the Millennium in Rev 20: The Lord Jesus Christ Himself says, No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man — meaning by the strong man the devil, because he had power to take captive the human race; and meaning by his goods which he was to take, those who had been held by the devil in various sins and iniquities, but were to become believers in Himself. It was then for the binding of this strong one that the apostle saw in the Apocalypse an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss, and a chain in his hand. And he laid hold, he says, on the dragon, that old serpent, which is called the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,— that is, bridled and restrained his power so that he could not seduce and gain possession of those who were to be freed. (St. Augustine of Hippo, City of God XX:7) My central hypothesis was given the fact that the First World War Eclipse of 21st August, 1914 had directly crossed the site of ancient Nineveh, much like the Bur Sagale Solar Eclipse of 763BC (the original "sign of Jonah") this was a major sign announcing that the tumultuous events of the 20th century were directly related to period of the unbinding of Satan for the "little while" described in Rev 20: And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time... When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. (Rev 20:1-3, 7-9) The release of Satan to gather the nations of the world together for war at the end of the "thousand years" (i.e. the Sabbath Millennium discussed by the Early Church Fathers) is exactly what was implied by the prophetic vision of Pope Leo XIII concerning the century of Satan's greater power, which remains my most popular blog post at over 90,000 pageviews. The only publication to respond to my correspondence attempting to highlight Pastor Biltz's plagiarism of my work was the online edition of the British tabloid The Daily Star. They were more interested in my research concerning the potential future fate of America reflected in the message of Fatima though, and decided to concentrate on this subject, rather than flagging up Biltz's plagiarism of my work. This was the first time any of the material in my book concerning the threat of a mega-tsunami event generated by the lateral collapse of the volcano Cumbre Vieja in the Canary Islands has been covered by the mainstream media. You can read the full article here.  Even though this story was sensationalised in a typically crass fashion (as you would expect from a tabloid newspaper), and there were a number of glaring factual errors (such as the claim that Sr. Lucia was blind and that she has already been canonised), the basic gist of my material was communicated to a wide audience. Soon after this article was published, the story was then also circulated by the popular Greek newspaper Protos Thema (here) and a number of YouTube videos repeating this subject sprang up in various different languages (see here for a video in Russian with over 45,000 views, or here for a video in Chinese with over 37,000 views). Around the same time on 3rd October, 2017, I made what was undoubtedly my greatest breakthrough in my writing career, when my first article was published on Vatican Insider at La Stampa, showing that the "Filial Correction" of Pope Francis by 250 Catholic theologians had breached the guidelines outlaid in the CDF document Donum Veritatas: On the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian (see here). Vatican Insider is arguably one of the most influential publications in the Catholic Church, since it is run by the famous Vaticanista Andrea Tornielli, a key aide and personal friend of Pope Francis. My friend and fellow expert on Catholic eschatology Stephen Walford was famously granted a 45-minute private audience with Pope Francis in recognition of the importance of his articles on Vatican Insider (see here), and was extended the extraordinary privilege of having the Holy Father provide the preface for his recently published book Pope Francis, the Family and Divorce: In Defence of Truth and Mercy. My first article on Vatican Insider was quickly attacked by The Remnant Newspaper (see here and here), and also by Life Site News (see here and here). My two other articles on Vatican Insider on the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church (here and here) remain among the best defences against the accusations of Pope Francis (or any pope) falling into formal heresy by issuing heretical documents as part of the authentic papal magisterium. Although a brief and rather weak attempt at critiquing my research on the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church in Vatican Insider was made by Fr. Brian Harrison here (an emeritus professor of theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico), there hasn't been any other credible attempt to challenge the content of these articles, since doing so would effectively deny a dogma of the Catholic faith which must be firmly held by all believers. Turning back to my material on the Third Secret being covered by The Daily Star, I have to emphasise categorically that I did not attempt to indicate that the tsunami seen by Sr. Lucia during the 1944 Tuy apparition of the Virgin Mary would occur on the centenary of the Miracle of the Sun in October 2017. The Daily Star merely put its own spin on my writing to give that impression. The timeline I present in my book clearly theorizes that this event will only occur at the end of the period of the restoration of the Church foretold in both Sacred Scripture and private prophecy, just before the rise to power of the Antichrist. The period of the restoration of the Church under the ministry of the Two Witnesses, referred to as the renovatio mundi in Medieval prophecy, is still clearly to take place in the future, and can only occur at the end of the "short time" given to Satan alluded to in the vision of Pope Leo XIII. Most Catholics would agree that we are living in the age of apostasy which was foretold to take place towards the end of the world, when the love of many would grow cold because of increase of evil (which can be put down as a consequence of the unbinding of Satan): You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. (Matt 24:6-14) As Jesus states in the Olivet discourse, at the end of this period of trial for the Church the Gospel would then be preached throughout the world during the period of restoration, and only then would the end of the world come about with the appearance of the Antichrist as the "abomination of desolation". The destruction of the eschatological world power referred to as "Babylon" in the Apocalypse occurs immediately before the rise to power of the Antichrist, after which the "ten kings" hand over world dominion to the Beast:

Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said “With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again. (Rev 18:21)


“The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one hour will receive authority as kings along with the beast. They have one purpose and will give their power and authority to the beast. They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.”
Then the angel said to me, “The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages. The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to hand over to the beast their royal authority, until God’s words are fulfilled. The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.” (Rev 16:12-18)

So according to this scenario, any potential mega-tsunami threat caused by the collapse of Cumbre Vieja is still years in the future after the Church has been restored and purified to prepare itself for the coming of the Bridegroom, and I don't care to speculate on exact dates for any such event. The 1944 Tuy apparition is when Sr. Lucia was instructed to write down the contents of the Third Secret, and is thought by many to intimately related to the secret itself. The Daily Star article covering my research was first published on 18th Sept, 2017, quickly followed by an article on Protos Thema on 19th Sept. By weird coincidence, a seismic swarm occurred at Cumbre Vieja just three weeks later, beginning on October 7th, 2017 sparking fears of an imminent eruption at La Palma. This was the first sign of any volcanic activity at Cumbre Vieja since its last eruption in 1971, and was just a week after the ominous date of Michaelmas/Yom Kippur on 29th Sept, 2017 - which was the central feature of the "40 day" countdown highlighted by Pastor Mark Biltz in his various YouTube videos plagiarising my material on the sign of Jonah. Biltz's plagiarism of my material on the sign of Jonah was picked up by Pastor Steve Cioccolanti in the below YouTube video, and subsequently went viral in the run-up to the Great American Solar Eclipse. The below video alone has over a million views, and there were multiple other videos created on this subject, each attracting millions of views apiece. Biltz even appeared on the massively popular Jim Bakker show a number of times promoting my research on the sign of Jonah, ensuring that it became a veritable phenomenon on the approach to the eclipse itself. Once I contacted Pastor Cioccolanti and presented him with the evidence that this material originated from my research, he then issued a number of videos highlighting the fact that Pastor Biltz had plagiarised my work in order to promote his book God's Day Timer (which of course fails to mention anything about the sign of Jonah being related to the Bur Sagale Eclipse, or the First World War Eclipse). Despite the fact that Pastor Cioccolanti flagged up Biltz's plagiarism of my work in a video with over 200,000 views, (watch above from the 5 minute mark), Pastor Biltz has still refused to apologize or even acknowledge that he directly lifted the material on the sign of Jonah from my blog. Although my material on the sign of Jonah was robbed of its connection with the period of the unbinding of Satan at the end of the Millennium by Pastor Biltz, he did manage to promote my research on this subject to an audience of millions in the approach of the Great American Solar Eclipse. America experienced a dizzying array of natural disasters during the course of the 40-day period in the wake of the solar eclipse, and anyone who took heed of Biltz's videos saw the hand of God in these events, including Pastor Cioccolanti (see the video below, with over half a million views). I find it completely mind-binding that at this precise time period, the greatest scare concerning apocalyptic events (besides the North Korean Nuclear Crisis) had centred upon the exact subject of the threat presented by Cumbre Vieja. Once the seismic activity at Cumbre Vieja ignited fears of a possible volcanic eruption in October 2017, The Daily Star then published another number of articles referencing my research on Sr. Lucia's 1944 Tuy apparition here and here.

It seems beyond coincidence that this seismic activity at Cumbre Vieja took place just before the centenary of the Miracle of the Sun on the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary - since the Virgin Mary had repeatedly requested that the shepherd children of Fatima should pray the Rosary every day for the conversion of sinners. Recourse to the Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the conversion of sinners lies at the core of the message of Fatima. As Cardinal Ratzinger (future Pope Benedict XVI) stated in The Message of Fatima: The first and second parts of the “secret” of Fatima have already been so amply discussed in the relative literature that there is no need to deal with them again here. I would just like to recall briefly the most significant point. For one terrible moment, the children were given a vision of hell. They saw the fall of “the souls of poor sinners”. And now they are told why they have been exposed to this moment: “in order to save souls”—to show the way to salvation. The words of the First Letter of Peter come to mind: “As the outcome of your faith you obtain the salvation of your souls” (1:9). To reach this goal, the way indicated —surprisingly for people from the Anglo-Saxon and German cultural world—is devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The fact that this seismic activity took place at this particular date - just immediately after the details of the 1944 Tuy apparition was widely popularised in the secular media (with its message reaching tens of thousands of people), in the immediate aftermath of the 40-day period of repentance being communicated to millions of Christians worldwide, seems to be a sign that the contents of the vision seen by Sr. Lucia is indeed related to a volcanic collapse at this precise location. As I note in some detail in the post The Canary Islands and the Seven Burning Mountains of Enoch, the exact location of the seven "burning mountains" standing at the entrance to the underworld at the ends of the earth in the Book of Enoch was clearly based on the description of the Canary Islands in Greek mythology - which was the fabled location of the Isles of the Blessed. Given the fact that the Book of Enoch was a known source used by the author of the Apocalypse, this means that the "great mountain, burning with fire" being thrown into the sea described in Rev 8:8 can be triangulated to the location of the Canary Islands. The fact that this seismic activity at Cumbre Vieja took place almost immediately after the 40-day period associated with the Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017 demands that we pay close attention to a possible link between the "sign of Jonah" sequence of eclipses beginning on 21st August 1914 (marking both the beginning and the end of the period of the unbinding of Satan), acting as a warning concerning the tsunami seen in Sr. Lucia's 1944 Tuy vision. Anyone who has paid close attention to this blog and the comments section at the end of each post will know that what I had really speculated was that at the end of the 40 day period corresponding with the Hebrew month of Elul after the 2017 Solar Eclipse, America would face the prospect of nuclear war but would ultimately be spared, just like the ancient Ninevites were spared from destruction after Jonah had announced the city's destruction. This is precisely what was indicated in the Third Secret of Fatima - that the hand of the angel with the flaming sword would be stayed by the rays issuing from the hands of Our Lady to allow for a period of penance during the restoration of the Church: The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fátima, on 13 July 1917.
I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.
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: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: 'Penance, Penance, Penance!'. And we saw in an immense light that is God: 'something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it' 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.
Tuy-3-1-1944 When the Third Secret was first published in 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger had indicated that the flaming sword should be interpreted as the threat of nuclear war: Let us now examine more closely the single images. The angel with the flaming sword on the left of the Mother of God recalls similar images in the Book of Revelation. This represents the threat of judgement which looms over the world. Today the prospect that the world might be reduced to ashes by a sea of fire no longer seems pure fantasy: man himself, with his inventions, has forged the flaming sword. The vision then shows the power which stands opposed to the force of destruction—the splendour of the Mother of God and, stemming from this in a certain way, the summons to penance. In this way, the importance of human freedom is underlined: the future is not in fact unchangeably set, and the image which the children saw is in no way a film preview of a future in which nothing can be changed. Indeed, the whole point of the vision is to bring freedom onto the scene and to steer freedom in a positive direction. The purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably fixed future. Its meaning is exactly the opposite: it is meant to mobilize the forces of change in the right direction. (Cardinal Ratzinger, Theological Commentary, The Message of Fatima) So the threat presented by the angel's sword is intimately related to nuclear war, and the Third Secret thus foretold that the world would be spared from nuclear war due to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. The fact that the world came to the brink of nuclear war precisely at the end of the 40-day period connected with the 2017 solar eclipse on the centenary of Fatima during the North Korean Nuclear Missile Crisis in late September of that year, makes it almost certain that the world was only spared from the threat of chastisement due to Our Lady staying the hands of the angel with the flaming sword. The rumblings at Cumbre Vieja immediately after this thus appears to be a further warning confirming the threat of God's judgment if humanity continues to turn its back on Christ. The radical turnaround from the North Korean Nuclear Missile Crisis, with President Trump's meeting with Kim Jong-un in June 2018, appears to indicate that some form of divine intercession has been at play during the centenary of Fatima. It would thus seem safe to attribute the remarkable nature of this climbdown to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, since the prevention of nuclear war was clearly foretold in the Third Secret of Fatima. The fact that the feast of Michaelmas on the 29th September 2017 was highlighted by the 40-day countdown from the solar eclipse gives a further indication of the threat of judgement from the angel with the flaming sword. It is interesting to note that Michaelmas had overlapped the Jewish Day of Atonement on this particular year. A feast day which is also alluded to in the Third Secret of Fatima, with the two angels sprinkling the blood of the martyrs making their journey towards heaven. The theme of the sprinkling of blood alludes to the actions of the Jewish High Priest on the Day of Atonement/Yom Kippur, who sprinkled the blood of sacrifice on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant for the forgiveness of the sins of Israel; and the Ark was itself adorned with the two cherubim represented in the Third Secret. We can only hope and pray that the Church will soon be restored as the "little while" given to Satan finally draws to a close. The appearance of the "sign of Jonah" is intimately connected with the binding and unbinding of the "strong man" of Matt 12, which according to St. Augustine of Hippo, occurs at the end of the Sabbath Millennium discussed by the Early Church Fathers. in the sixth thousand of years or sixth millennium (the latter part of which is now passing), as if during the sixth day, which is to be followed by a Sabbath which has no evening, the endless rest of the saints, so that, speaking of a part under the name of the whole, he calls the last part of the millennium — the part, that is, which had yet to expire before the end of the world — a thousand years; or he used the thousand years as an equivalent for the whole duration of this world, employing the number of perfection to mark the fullness of time.
(St. Augustine of Hippo, City of God XX:7) As I discuss at some length in my book, the timing of the Sabbath Millennium can be firmly dated to the 20th century using the biblical chronology established by the Church Doctor St. Bede the Venerable. My strict adherence to the Augustinian model of eschatology as a means of interpreting the significance of the unbinding of Satan at the end of the Millennium in relation to Pope Leo XIII's vision concerning the events of the 20th century is the primary reason I have come to loggerheads with the followers of Fr. Joseph Iannuzzi. The followers of Fr. Iannuzzi promote the millenarian eschatology of Joachim de Fiore, which was refuted by St. Thomas Aquinas and condemned by the Church. In his various books on this subject, Fr. Iannuzzi attempts to align himself with the Protestant dispensationalist understanding of the Millennium, which is essentially millennialist/millenarian in nature. According to Fr. Iannuzzi, Satan will only be bound at some point in the future during a millenarian age of total world peace on earth, rather than being bound through Christ's sacrifice on the Cross to facilitate the spread of the Gospel. Hopefully the Church authorities will soon confute the heretical eschatology of Fr. Iannuzzi in order to confirm that Catholics must adhere to St. Augustine of Hippo's understanding of the Millennium of Rev 20, since the Catechism of the Catholic Church condemns all forms of millenarianism as the "deception of the Antichrist": The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgement. the Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism. (CCC 676)