Well, we're back from Fatima after a wonderful week. I had to be carried kicking and screaming to the airplane, as I usually do it's so hard to leave. You were all remembered in prayer, dear readers, and your intentions remembered in a Mass I offered at the Capelinha, the Chapel of Apparitions.
We had a wonderful time of prayer, candlelight processions, visits to the holy places around the town and further afield to Lisbon (the house of St Anthony) and the Eucharistic Miracle of Santarem. We also got to visit Coimbra for Mass in the monastery where Sr Lucia lived most of her religious life, and to the tomb of St Elizabeth of Portugal, my first visit, but which was a little disappointing as it is very run down.
All the talk of the sanctuary was of a "miracle" of the sun which took place last month, on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima. After the Solemn Mass, images of Blessed John Paul were being broadcast over the square to celebrate his beatification, when the sun changed and became like a large host with a halo around it. Many of you may have heard about it, but here in Ireland we heard nothing - our media would not tend to be interested in such celestial happenings. When visiting the Dominican sisters of Perpetual Rosary they confirmed it: they saw it from their cloister. Apparently the phenomenon lasted three hours. Here are some videos so you can see for yourself. The first is the moment when the "miracle" was first seen, the last, Portugese television's report:
People ought not to look at the sun. Serious eye damage can result. The fact of the matter is that if anyone does look directly at the sun, they will see what looks like a white host surrounded by a fiery halo. All the while they are doing that, they are risking serious eye injury. I remember on a trip to Medjugorje a few years back, a young man in our group looked at the sun and could still 'see' an image of the sun many hours later. I believe he hurt his eyes. I just want to warn everyone not to be looking at the sun. It is very dangerous.
ReplyDeleteI think these sun miracle things are costing people their sight. I note also that Joe Coleman had people looking at the sun too and many people damaged their eyes.
No need to look at the sun, mate, just look at the photographs and the video. It seems from various reports something extraordinary happened in Fatima last month - no wonder the media was silent.
ReplyDeleteWhen there is a geniune miracle of the sun damage is not done to the eyes, otherwise 70,000 people in the Fatima area in 1917 would have gone blind - no reports of it. If God is giving a sign, I'm sure he will make sure no one is hurt.
As for Joe Coleman, it is obvious that man is a fake so I would not go staring at the sun for him.
A sun halo is a beautiful thing, but it is not a miracle, and it is a bad idea to look at it.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(optical_phenomenon)
What happened at Fatima in 1917 was a miraculous thing, but these modern day things are not miracles, just natural, albeit beautiful sun phenomenon.