What really is the ‘Triumph of the Immaculate Heart’?

That’s what Our Lady of Fatima said to the children of Fatima on July 13th, 1917.

Those words came at the end of the so-called “Second Secret,” right before the “Third Secret,” which many of us believe has never been properly revealed.

“The Triumph of the Immaculate Heart” is a concept which fills many Catholics with hope, and rightly so. But hope for what? What do these words actually mean?

In this show we’re going to look at what we can know about this “Triumph,” what we can hope for from it, and what we can do to help bring it about.

You’re going to want to stick around for this.

Let’s begin, as we always do, with the Sign of the Cross. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

On July 13th, 1917, Our Lady of Fatima had already appeared twice to the three children of Fatima – Lucy, Jacinta and Francisco.

The apparitions had already become known to some of the townspeople, who had taken up the practice of going to the Cova de Iria, where they took place, to say the Rosary at the foot of the little holm oak where Our Lady appeared.

Because it was known that Our Lady was appearing on the 13th of these months, a crowd had already gathered there in expectation. There were apparently three or four thousand people there – some of which were skeptics.

The children went there with their families – and at the end of the Rosary, Lucy cried out: “Shut up your umbrellas” – which they had been using to shield themselves from the burning Portuguese sun – “Our Lady is coming!”

As usual, only the children could see anything. Lucy asked Our Lady what she wanted of them. 

“I want you to come here on the 13th of next month,” she said, “and to continue praying the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only She can help you.”

Lucy asked the apparition to tell them who she was, and to work a miracle so that everybody would believe in what they were saying.

“Continue to come here every month,” Our Lady said. “In October, I will tell you who I am and what I want, and I will perform a miracle for all to see and believe.”

Lucy then presented some requests, and Our Lady said that it was necessary to pray the Rosary to obtain them. Then she said:

Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’

And it was then that she revealed the three great secrets of Fatima.

The first was a vision of Hell. Here’s how Lucy described it:

As Our Lady spoke these last words, She opened Her hands once more, as She had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me.) The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals.

Sister Lucy later wrote that this vision lasted only a moment, and that if it were any longer – and if not for her earlier promise that they would be taken to Heaven – then she thinks they would have died of fright.

That was the first “secret.”

Our Lady then revealed the second. I’m going to read it to you in full, because we can’t discuss the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart without the full context.

“You have seen hell,” Our Lady said. “where the poor sinners go.”

To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. 

If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end, but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the reign 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 against the Church and 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 against the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated.

And then, as a part of that second secret, she said:

In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted, and a certain period of peace will be granted to the world.

She then revealed the third secret, immediately following the second. All Lucy wrote of it is as follows:

In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, etc. Do not tell this to anybody. Francisco, yes, you may tell him.

That “etc.” indicates a text that was not revealed publicly. Lucy wrote this third secret down in 1943 for the bishop, and it was sent to Rome – to be opened and released to the world at Lucy’s death, or in 1960, “whichever came first.” In 1955, Cardinal Ottaviani asked Sister Lucy why she had specified that date. “Because it will appear clearer,” he told her. 

This secret has become the subject of a lot of speculation and controversy – especially when a text was revealed by the Vatican in 2000, which many people believe was either incomplete or fabricated.

There’s much that could be said about this third secret – and LifeSiteNews has covered it previously. But today, we’re looking primarily at the second secret, and trying to pin down exactly what “The Triumph of the Immaculate Heart” really is.

If we look at what Our Lady said, it seems like we already have our answer. Let’s hear it again:

In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted, and a certain period of peace will be granted to the world.

It seems to be made up of three components:

• The consecration of Russia by the Pope
• The conversion of Russia
• A “certain period of peace” granted to the world.

And it’s a clear statement that all this will happen. Our Lady doesn’t say that her Immaculate Heart might triumph, or that it will triumph if something happens. She says it will triumph.

In her memoirs, Sister Lucy explained it all a bit more. During the visions she received as a nun in Tuy, she asked Our Lord why he would not convert Russia without the Pope making the consecration. And he said to her:

Because I want My whole Church to recognize that consecration as a triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to extend its cult later on and place devotion to this Immaculate Heart beside the devotion to My Divine Heart… The Immaculate Heart of Mary will save Russia. It has been confided to Her.

So, the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart here seems to be the spread of devotion to the Immaculate Heart, as a result of a spectacular conversion of Russia which can be explained in no other way, and this devotion attaining a place comparable to that of the Sacred Heart. 

Frère Michel de la Sante Trinité, the foremost expert on Fatima, wrote:

What will be this triumph, which has been foretold? The universal expansion of devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As for this devotion, it is summarized completely in two words: consecration and reparation.

Now, that might seem like something of an anti-climax. Isn’t it supposed to involve a great renaissance of the Church? 

To be sure, Our Lady speaks of a “period of peace” as the result of this conversion of Russia and the spread of the devotion, but is “a period of peace” the same thing as the world or many nations becoming Catholic?

Well, there are a few important things we draw out of this, and which can give us further clarity on what has been promised.

First, God sent the Blessed Virgin Mary to reveal all this to three children, and worked a stupendous miracle (the miracle of the sun) in order to confirm its truth. God doesn’t do that kind of thing for an anti-climax. 

Next, look at what Our Lady said. “A certain period of peace will be granted to the world.” Some people might say that the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart comes after the end of the world. But eternity is not “a certain period.” That shows us that this promise is for this world, and that it will happen before the end of the world. Because of that, it may be the principal means by which Catholics will be prepared for the persecution of the Antichrist.

And as I just said, if God sends the Blessed Virgin to prophesy a period of peace for this world, as a result of a miraculous national conversion of Russia, and confirms both points with another miracle, then we can bet that this conversion will have an amazing effect on the world.

It will have an amazing effect on Russia. A country that has been lost to Communism and the schism of the Eastern Orthodox sect for centuries will suddenly become Catholic. All the good religious instincts of the Russians will find their fulfillment in the Catholic Church and the true religion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And all the secular aberrations of modern Russia – which, in spite of what is good there, is still mired in divorce, abortion and so on – will be purified. 

Russia’s population is over 140 million. Whether “the conversion of Russia” means that its citizens will become super pious and holy Catholics, or something less than that, it’s got to be something significant. That’s going to be millions of souls put on the path of salvation that currently are not there. That’s a massive good.

But what does a national conversion mean? 

That’s the clue to another massively important good that was promised at Fatima. The conversion of a nation does not mean that its citizenry becomes Catholic, and its government remains secular, or even Eastern Orthodox. That latter one would just be a move from atheism to schism – not a conversion at all.

No, the conversion of Russia means – it inevitably means, even if not immediately – the establishment of the Social Kingship of Christ in Russia, and of Russia as a Catholic state.

The Catholic Church teaches that states and civil powers have just as much a duty to recognize Our Lord Jesus Christ as God and King as individuals do. This is what Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas was all about, and it’s what the feast of Christ the King was all about – until it had its meaning changed after Vatican II.

Throughout history, nations have converted because their lings and rulers have converted and submitted themselves to the Church. This has always been the way: a growing number of Catholics in a nation will have an effect, but it is not until the authorities become Catholic that a nation really converts. And so a Catholic Russia, under the Social Kingship of Christ, will have a Catholic government.

The Social Kingship of Christ means that their laws must be in conformity with the Gospel, and that there must be a communal, social worship of Christ in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – or, to put it in terms that would no doubt be used when that happy day arrives – the Divine Liturgy. We can use that term, because the rites of the Eastern Orthodox sects are Catholic rites, and are still used in the Catholic Church, and it will surely be those rites used by Catholic Russia. And those rites are beautiful and glorious, by the way, and just as fitting for the worship of God as the Traditional Latin Mass.

The history of Russia will also mean that there will be public and national repentance for the crimes carried out by the Communists – the repression of the Church, the mass murder, the enslavement of so many in the Gulags, and the terrible, atheistic and immoral influence the USSR exercised over the world.

And public repentance requires reparation – not just in terms of prayers, but in terms of repairing the damage done to those other nations. Russia is a major world power, allied with other significant powers. The conversion of Russia will require using these alliances for the common good of the world.

Would the secular and godless countries of the West, which are already opposed to Russia now, suddenly accept Catholic Russia’s purifying influence on them? That seems unlikely – but even if there are initial conflicts, “a certain period of peace will be granted to the world.” 

And given everything else we just mentioned, it does seem that this “period of peace” will result in the flourishing of the Church herself. 

How could it be otherwise, if powerful nations become her sons and advocates?

Portugal, Spain and Austria

And Heaven has already given us proof that Russia’s conversion involves everything I just said.

In the immediate aftermath of the Fatima apparitions, the world was given a foretaste of what would happen to Russia and the world under the influence of devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Let’s start with Portugal itself. Sister Lucy herself explained that the extraordinary blessings given to Portugal in the twentieth century were intended as a partial demonstration of what the full Triumph would be like, when Heaven’s requests were fulfilled.

Cardinal Cerejeira, Patriarch of Lisbon – who was initially a skeptic – said:

What has taken place in Portugal proclaims the miracle. And it foreshadows what the Immaculate Heart of Mary has prepared for the world.

In 1953, he also said:

Fatima has become the altar of the world… Fatima is rising as the miraculous anti-Russia.

What did he mean by “the miraculous anti-Russia”? He meant that Portugal, under the influence of Fatima, was the opposite of Russia, under the influence of Communism.

But to really see how miraculous it all was, we have to see how bad things were in the first place.

Before the Fatima apparitions, Portgual had endured 150 years of Masonic domination – and I mean that literally. Portgual actually had openly Masonic governments and civil leaders who were fanatically anti-Catholic. It’s quite well known that the mayor of Ourém, Artur de Oliveira Santos, who arrested and threatened to boil the three shepherd children in oil, was himself a Freemason and rabidly anti-clerical. He actually founded a Masonic Lodge in his native town shortly before being appointed mayor.

In 1759, the Jesuits were expelled from Portgual – and that was when the Jesuits were one of the most powerful forces for good. (An order of Fr. James Martins, they were not.) Missionary orders were expelled from Portuguese colonies and territories. At certain periods, the Church was actively persecuted and banned from public life.

Following the 1910 revolution, persecution became really ferocious, and a host of immoral laws were promulgated. Religious teaching in schools was suppressed, cassocks banned in public, church bells banned from being rung, public celebration of religious feasts suppressed, government involvement in seminaries (even to the point of naming professors and determining the curriculum). The revolutionary government also legalized divorce, cremation, and all sorts of other things.

The great historian of Fatima, Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité said of this epoch: “Finally, the victory of Freemasonry was complete.” And he quoted the grand architect of these laws, Afonso Costa, as saying “In two generations, Catholicism will be completely eliminated in Portugal.” 

Humanly speaking, the whole thing was hopeless. Cardinal Cerejeira actually described the state of Catholic Portugal at this time as an “old, stripped-down trunk” which had suffered “the axe of persecution.” 

But Heaven can turn around things which are humanly hopeless – and in the same breath, the cardinal told how this “trunk grew green once more, was covered with branches, flowers and fruits, and shelters its children anew.”

What was it that actually happened?

After initial resistance, the Portuguese hierarchy – with the encouragement of Rome – came to embrace the messages of Fatima. The various public acts that took place were met with more and more blessings, and culminated on May 13, 1931. On this day, the Portuguese bishops all consecrated the nation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary – inspired by Sister Lucy herself. Frère Michel explains that the extraordinary graces that followed corresponded to the fact that the bishops and the hierarchy engaged themselves in the devotion. 

Do you remember what Heaven said to Sister Lucy about Russia? The Pope and all the bishops were to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart. What we have with the 1931 consecration is an act which parallels the structure of the main request, and brought about a parallel result.

Frère Michel talks about a “triple miracle” – a miracle of conversion, of political social renewal and of peace.

Let me give you some statistics that illustrate the miracle of conversion. In the diocese of Portalegre, seminarians went from 18 in 1917 to 120 in 1929 – to 201 in 1933. The bishop of that diocese had been skeptical – but in 1929 Pope Pius XI himself told him to thank Our Lady of Fatima for these results.

In Braga, there were 478 seminarians by 1933, and in Leiria, the seminary went from being CLOSED to numbering 75 by 1933.

As I already said, religious were expelled in 1910, and up until 1926 there were only 370 in the whole country. But by 1941 there were over 300 Jesuits again, and 1321 professed religious. That’s quadrupling in ten years.

Among the laity, The Pious Union Crusaders of Fatima quickly garnered 500,000 members in 1934 – this lay movement was strongly devoted to the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart, and was fiercely anti-Communist. 

Frankly, so much good happened in this area that it is impossible to recount it all here. I can only give you a taste.

Then there was the political and social renewal of the country. After decades of languishing under Masonic rule, Portugal gained Dr. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar as its leader. Salazar was a daily Mass-goer, former seminarian, and dedicated Catholic. The night before he accepted power, he kept a vigil before the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle. The foundations of the state under his rule were “God, Country, Authority, Family, Work.” His laws were in keeping with the Gospel: the Concordat of 1940 suppressed divorce and gave the Church full liberty in all the necessary matters of education, marriage, and so on. 

Pope Pius XII later said of Salazar: “I bless him with all my heart, and my most ardent wish is that he can carry to completion his work of national restoration, both material and spiritual.” 

In short, what we see here is the establishment of the Social Kingship of Christ. And that’s crucial, because today some people see it as utopian, idealistic, or a pipe dream. And yet it happened in Portugal, a European country, not long ago – and after 150 years of Masonic horror.

If that doesn’t give you hope for America, and the rest of the west, I don’t know what will.

Finally, there was the miracle of peace. And this is really remarkable. In February 1939, Sister Lucy wrote to her bishop informing him that Portugal would be spared, because of the consecration of 1931.

Adolf Hitler had a detailed plan for invading Portugal, which had been drawn up under the title of “Operation Felix.” Everything was ready: eight divisions, 2,000 aircraft, a Panzer division… 

But Spain’s General Franco refused to cooperate, and the plan was abandoned. Pius XII later told the Portuguese that “[the war] has raged around your borders but has not crossed them” – and why? “Thanks especially to Our Lady,” he said.

Sister Lucy said that this protection was not only thanks to the consecration, but a proof of what would have been granted to other nations if they had done the same. She later wrote to Pius XII saying exactly that:

Our Lord promises a special protection to our country in this war, due to the consecration of the nation, by the Portuguese Prelates, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; as proof of the graces that would have been granted to other nations, had they also consecrated themselves to Her.

But while they did not receive the same protection as Portugal, other countries which did have recourse to Our Lady at this time did receive other remarkable graces.

Austria

Take Austria. After the Second World War, an eastern zone was occupied by Soviet forces – and the USSR had no incentive to withdraw. There were petrol wells, a foothold in central Europe, and yet in 1955, after somewhere between 700,000 and 1,000,000 Austrians – 10 to 12 percent of the population – signed a pledge to say the Rosary every day in response to Our Lady of Fatima’s request, Moscow unexpectedly agreed to a complete withdrawal. Eastern Austria avoided the fate of East Germany.

Teresa Neumann, the stigmatist, was clear: “It was definitely the prayers and numerous Rosaries of the Austrian people,” she said, “which acquired their liberty from all Russian domination.”

Remarkable. And it took place in the Germanic, central European country of Austria – showing it wasn’t just about Portugal or Iberia. The Austrian people did what Our Lady requested – the Rosary, devotion to the Immaculate Heart – and it produced the concrete, geopolitical result of the withdrawal of the Red Army.

If the daily Rosary by 10 percent of the Austrian population could drive out the Soviets, what would the full consecration and conversion of Russia do?

And what might 10 percent of the population of the United States, or Canada, or any modern nation praying the Rosary achieve?

Spain

And what about Spain? I’ve already mentioned that Franco refused to cooperate with Hitler’s invasion of Portugal. But Spain itself experienced an incredible Catholic renaissance following a period of devotion to Our Lady of Fatima.

We have to remember that Spain suffered an absolutely atrocious civil war from the Left, who were killing bishops, priests and seminarians, raping nuns, digging up the corpses of nuns and putting them on display, destroying holy statues and who knows what else. It was a true attempt to destroy the Catholic Church in Spain. And few of us know about it today, because it doesn’t appear in our history classes at school.

Out of this chaos, the forces of order won, and the Communists were routed. But it was a hard-won war.

From 1948, the Pilgrim Statue of Our Lady of Fatima toured the Spanish dioceses, to great popular enthusiasm. Franco then signed a concordat with the Holy See in 1953, which was praised as “undoubtedly the most perfect the Vatican had ever concluded.”

Franco re-established the Church as “the sole religion of the Spanish nation,” recalled the Jesuits (expelled by the republic), made Catholic education obligatory in schools and universities, abrogated divorce laws and so on.

If that sounds familiar to you, it should: once again, this is what is meant by the Social Kingship of Christ.

In 1954, Franco himself consecrated Spain to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, “Solemnly, officially and irrevocably.” Again, the consecration was linked directly with the Kingship of Christ, and Pope Pius XII joined the act on the same day with his own prayer.

Can you imagine that? A head of state, consecrating his nation to the Immaculate Heart and invoking Christ as King? This is what the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart looks like when taken seriously at the level of a nation.

Other countries

Other countries even further afield felt the effects of these graces. In 1949 alone, there were 120,000 conversions in the U.S.

Another great convert, Hamish Fraser – a Scottish Communist commissar during the Spanish civil war – attributed his conversion to Our Lady of Fatima and became an ardent advocate of the Fatima messages. In fact, in 1952, he was about to give a speech in Paris on the messages, and just as he was about to start, a dove flew down and landed on his head, where it remained for 12 minutes. His talk was about how Our Lady of Fatima can convert Communists – if we do what she asked. And this was taken as a divine approval of his message.

But look, all these incredible blessings came about because of partial responses to Fatima’s requests. And Sister Lucy said explicitly that they were proof of what would happen in the full Triumph, if the full requests were obeyed.

But here’s a sobering corollary. All these blessings lasted only as long as fidelity to Our Lady of Fatima lasted.

Portugal and Goa

In 1954, India’s Nehru threatened to invade Goa on 15 August. There was a “spiritual mobilization” of Portugal, with many prayers and devotions offered in defense of the territory. A thousand pilgrims walked from Lisbon to Fatima on foot, arriving on August 14 – and, unexpectedly, Nehru ordered his forces to stand down.

But… get this. Less than ten years later, in the 1960s, once fervor had cooled, Portugal did indeed lose its Indian territories. The lesson is clear: the protection of God, and the “Period of Peace,” is conditional on the help sought from Him and the trust placed in Him, and in the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Once that’s gone, so is the protection. It’s not a one-and-done magic spell, but calls for continuous devotion to the Immaculate Heart and dependence on her – and on God through her.

So in short, the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart is indeed primarily about the conversion of Russia and the spread of devotion to the Immaculate Heart – but a secondary effect of these two great goods, and contingent on that faithfulness remaining, is a Triumph of the Social Kingship of Christ for nations as a whole.

Now, that won’t be a utopia any more than Franco’s Spain was. But it will be the restoration of justice towards God, who will receive the recognition and worship from the State what he deserves – and it will allow many, many more people to be saved.

And that period of peace in the world is a definition of Heaven’s, so it won’t just be an absence of war but will also surely mean peace in the womb, and thus nations will outlaw the killing of children in their mother’s wombs.

I think we can safely say that it will be a great vindication of the Church too – and a definitive end to the crisis she has been experiencing for these last sixty years.

Here are a few thoughts on what the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart in the Church might look like:

• Public repentance of the pope and bishops for leading the faithful astray
• Repentance for fawning over James Martin, S.J.
• Repentance for the LGBT pilgrimage
• Repentance for the demotion of Our Lady from her titles as Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces
• Repentance for Pachamama idolatry
• Repentance for naming a pedophile a Venerable
• Repudiation of false teachings: Traditiones Custodes, Fiducia Supplicans, Amoris Laetitia, changes to the      Catechism on the death penalty, Gaudete et Exsultate, Desiderio Desideravi
• The errors of Russia that infiltrated the Church are extinguished
• Repentance for priests turning their backs to Our Lord in the Tabernacle at Mass
• Repentance for shoving tabernacles off to the side
• Repentance for misleading women to yearn for ordination through female altar servers and readers
• Ban on Communion in the hand
• Expunging of base hymns and return to Gregorian chant and reverent sacred music (no guitar Masses)
• Full restoration of traditional liturgy and discipline
• Rise of an Angelic Pope who leads the purification

This is the goal. This is what we have to work for, and what we have to pray for. The means to achieve it are perfectly clear: on the part of the hierarchy, Russia must be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart by a Pope and the bishops in union with him. On the part of the laity, we are to carry out the First Saturday Devotions – that is, on the First Saturday of each month we do the following:

• Go to confession
• Receive Holy Communion
• Say five decades of the Rosary
• Spend 15 minutes meditation on the mysteries of the Rosary

… all in a spirit of reparation for sins against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That’s the devotion that Our Lady gave to Sister Lucy in 1925 – and if the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart were not enough, she attached astounding personal promises to it, too. You can read about them here.

We have a clear goal, a clear way to achieve it, clear promises from Heaven that we will succeed, and thus clear grounds for hope.

So what are we waiting for?