Catholics have Fatama, Fundamental Christians have Revelations, Jew have Daniel, Ezekiel. All predict the same events…..
Pope Francis presided yesterday over a special prayer for Ukraine that harks back to a century-old apocalyptic prophecy about peace and Russia that was sparked by purported visions of the Virgin Mary to three peasant children in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917.Francis invited bishops, priests and ordinary faithful around the world to join him in the consecration prayer. Retired Pope Benedict XVI was due to participate and an envoy of Francis was celebrating a simultaneous mass at the Fatima shrine itself. The ritual is of deep spiritual importance to many Catholics. It deals with some of the more controversial aspects of the Catholic faith: purported visions of the Madonna, prophecies of hell, Soviet communism and the death of a pope, and whether the prophecies contained in the so-called “secrets of Fatima” have already been fulfilled. The mass was Francis’s latest effort to rally prayers for an end to the war while keeping open options for dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church and its influential leader, Patriarch Kirill. The Fatima story dates to 1917, when according to tradition, siblings Francisco and Jacinta Marto and cousin Lucia said the Virgin Mary appeared to them six times and confided three secrets. The first two described an apocalyptic image of hell, foretold the end of World War I and the start of World War II, and the rise and fall of Soviet communism. According to later writings by Lucia, who became a nun and died in 2005, Russia would be converted and peace would reign if the pope and all the bishops of the world consecrated Russia to the “Immaculate Heart of Mary”. For some traditionalist Catholics, Francis’s pronunciation of Russia in the prayer, as well as his invitation for all the world’s bishops to join him, finally fulfils the original Fatima prophecy. Some quibble that he has added in Ukraine, while others point to the fact that the original call for Russia’s “conversion” – presumably to Catholicism – might well have been a priority for the Catholic Church in 1917 but is not now. Soon after Pope Francis announced his plans, Patriarch Kirill said he, too, was inviting the Russian Orthodox to direct prayers to the Virgin. Kirill has called for peace but has also seemingly justified the invasion by invoking the two countries as “one people’ NN: Old enemies the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church, In the Middle East its the Sunnis, and Shiite and throw in the Jews for good measure. These are the ingredients for WWIII.