Because prayer is not weakness.

Prayer is the most powerful weapon in the entire arsenal of human history.

Our Lady said it herself at Fatima.

The rosary can stop wars.

The rosary can convert hearts.

The rosary is the weapon that heaven placed in our hands for exactly this moment.

Now I want to speak to you about Russia because you cannot understand Fatima without understanding Russia.

And you cannot understand what is happening in the Middle East tonight without understanding the role that Russia has played in army equipping and empowering the forces now arrayed against the peace of the world.

Our lady said in 1917 before the bullshik revolution had even fully succeeded.

She said that if her requests were not granted, Russia would spread her errors throughout the world.

her errors.

Not her armies, though the armies came too, but her errors.

The spiritual errors of materialism, the philosophical errors of atheism, the political errors of totalitarianism, the cultural errors of moral relativism.

And did Russia spread those errors?

Did Russia spread those errors?

She spread them to China.

She spread them to Cuba.

She spread them to Eastern Europe, to Africa, to South America.

And she spread them, my brothers and sisters, she spread them to the university, to the media, to the cultural institutions of the Western world itself.

The errors of Russia have penetrated the very fabric of Western civilization.

We have dismantled the family.

We have rejected the sanctity of human life.

We have banished God from the public square.

We have done with our own free hands exactly what our lady warned we would do if we did not heed her message.

And now and now we stand at the edge of a conflict that could draw in nuclear powers.

Iran with its missiles.

Russia with its weapons supplied to proxy forces.

The United States with its military might.

Israel with its existential resolve.

And beneath it all, beneath the noise of politics and the thunder of weapons, there is a spiritual reality at war that the secular world simply cannot see because it has blinded itself to the supernatural.

But we can see it.

You can see it.

if you have eyes to see.

And the Lord Jesus himself said, he said it in the Gospel of Luke 21:20.

He said, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near.

Jerusalem surrounded by armies.

Turn on your television.

look at your telephone and tell me tell me that those words do not resonate in a way they have not resonated in decades.

But I do not want you to despair.

I refuse to let you despair because that is not what Fatima is about.

That is not what the gospel is about.

Our Lady did not come to Fatima to announce doom without hope.

She came with a promise.

She said, and this is the most beautiful thing, she said.

She said, “In the end, my immaculate heart will triumph.

The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me.

Russia will be converted and a period of peace will be granted to the world.

In the end, my immaculate heart will triumph.

in the end.

Not the triumph of missiles, not the triumph of armies, not the triumph of any nation’s military power or political strategy, the triumph of a mother’s heart, the triumph of the immaculate heart of Mary, the triumph that God himself ordained before the foundation of the world, that the woman clothed with the son, whose image St.

John saw in the book of Revelation 12 verse one that woman would crush the head of the ancient serpent.

And we are living we are living in the chapter of that great story that comes just before the triumph.

The chapter that feels the darkest.

The chapter where the enemy seems strongest.

The chapter where people are tempted to believe that evil has won.

But evil has not won.

Evil cannot win because evil is a creature and God is the creator and the creator holds the final word over all creation.

Now I want to speak about something that weighs upon my heart with particular heaviness.

Something that I believe the faithful need to hear even if it is difficult, even if it is uncomfortable.

There are those serious scholars, faithful Catholics, devoted servants of our lady who believe that what was released by the Vatican in the year 2000 was not the complete text of the third secret.

There are those who believe there is a portion of the secret, a spoken portion.

Words from our lady’s own lips that has not yet been made public.

Words that speak directly to the crisis in the church.

Words that speak to apostasy from within.

words that speak to a shepherd who would lead the flocky.

I do not say these things to cause scandal.

I do not say them to undermine the authority of the Holy Father or the Magisterium.

I say them because the faithful deserve honesty.

Because the faithful deserve to be treated as adults capable of receiving the fullness of heaven’s message.

because our lady herself asked that the secret be revealed in 1960 1960 siti and it was not revealed until 40 years later.

And when it was revealed, many faithful Catholics, not dissenters, not enemies of the church, but deeply devoted, reverent, Orthodox Catholics said, “This does not seem complete.

And tonight, as I watch the fires of war spreading through the ancient land of scripture, I ask myself, if heaven spoke a warning that was not fully heeded, if a message from our celestial mother was partially suppressed, partially hidden from the children she was trying to protect.

What does that mean for where we stand today?

It means we must pray harder.

It means we must fast more earnestly.

It means we must return truly return to the sacraments, to confession, to the eukarist, to the rosary.

And it means we must not be afraid.

The prophet Isaiah in chapter 41 10, the Lord says through him, “Fear not, for I am with you.

Be not dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you.

I will help you.

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Fear not.

Fear not.

This is the most repeated command in all of scripture.

The angels say it.

The prophets say it.

Jesus himself says it.

He says it to the disciples in the storm tossed boat when he walks across the water.

He says it to the women at the empty tomb on Easter morning.

He says it to St.

John on the island of Patmos in the book of Revelation 1:1 17 when John falls at his feet as though dead and Jesus places his right hand upon him and says, “Fear not, I am the first and the last and the living one.

I died and behold I am alive forever more and I have the keys of death and Hades”.

He has the keys of death and haze and he has not lost them.

Not to Iran, not to Russia, not to the forces of darkness that are moving across the face of this earth in this present hour.

He holds the keys.

He is lord of history and he is not surprised by anything you see on the news tonight.

Let me tell you about the children of Fatima.

Let me tell you what they did when they received these terrible visions because it is deeply instructive for us right now.

Little Jasinta after seeing the vision of hell after receiving the secrets became consumed with a burning desire to save souls.

She voluntarily gave up her lunch to hungry children.

She slept on stone floors.

She fasted.

She prayed with extraordinary intensity for sinners.

She said at the age of 99 9 years old she said so many souls are lost because there is no one to make sacrifices and pray for them.

9 years old speaking with the wisdom of a saint and she died at 10 10 years old in a hospital in Lisbon alone because our lady had told her she would die alone and she accepted it.

She accepted it.

A 10-year-old girl accepted martyrdom and solitude in union with the suffering Christ.

What does that say to us?

What does that say to those of us who are adults, who have received the fullness of the faith, who have been baptized, confirmed, nourished at the table of the Lord.

What does that say to us when we tremble before the challenges of this moment?

It says, “God gives the grace needed for the moment.

He gave it to a 10-year-old child.

He will give it to you”.

Now, let us speak of Iran and Israel directly.

Let us not flinch from the geopolitical reality of this moment because the faith is not afraid of reality.

The faith illuminates reality.

Iran.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has declared for decades that Israel has no right to exist.

Its leaders have spoken openly, publicly without shame about wiping the Jewish people from the map of the Middle East.

This is not interpretation.

This is not Western propaganda.

These are words spoken in public forums before cameras into microphones by the leader of that nation.

and Israel, tiny Israel, a nation the size of New Jersey surrounded all every side by forces that deny its right to exist has once again exercised the most primal right of every human community the right of self-defense.

Now I am not a politician.

I am a priest, a cardinal of Holy Mother Church.

And so I do not speak to the military strategy.

I do not speak to the foreign policy calculations.

I leave those things to those who are called to them.

But I speak to the soul of the matter.

I speak to the spiritual reality beneath the political surface and the spiritual reality is this.

The land of Israel is the land of the patriarchs.

Is the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

It is the land where the word of God took flesh in the womb of the blessed virgin Mary.

It is the land where Jesus walked and preached and healed and suffered and died and rose.

That land is not simply a geopolitical territory.

That land is sacred in the history of salvation.

And what happens in that land reverberates through the spiritual realm in ways that secular analysis cannot capture.

and Persia, ancient Persia, modern Iran, that land too appears in the scripture.

In the book of Esther, the Jewish people faced extermination in Persia.

And God raised up Esther, a woman to intercede, to stand between her people and destruction.

And the book of Esther says in chapter 4:14 that Mori and who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this for such a time as this.

And I said to you tonight you watching this wherever you are in the world who knows whether you have not come into this moment of history for such a time as this.

Who knows whether your prayers, your rosary, your fasting, your conversion of heart.

Who knows whether those acts of love and sacrifice may not be part of what tips the scales in the heavenly realm between catastrophe and grace.

Do not underestimate what you can do.

Do not underestimate the power of one soul on its knees before God.

Now, here is something that I want to say with great care, with great pastoral care, because I know that there are people watching this who are frightened.

People who see the news and feel the ground shifting beneath their feet.

People who have children, grandchildren, who look at the world and wonder, “What kind of world are we leaving them”?

And I want to look you in the eye as directly as I can through this medium.

And I want to tell you something that I believe with every cell of my being, with every beat of my heart.

God has not abandoned the world.

God has not abandoned you.

God is not asleep.

God is not distracted.

God is not ringing his hands in heaven wondering how this all went so wrong.

God is sovereign.

He was sovereign before Fatima.

He is sovereign during these conflicts.

He will be sovereign on the other side of whatever is coming.

And his love for each soul, for your soul, for the soul of the soldier in the field, for the soul of the statesman making decisions, for the soul of the child in the shelter, for the soul of the priest at the altar.

His love for each soul is infinite, personal, and unshakable.

The great St.

Theresa Lazu, the little flower, doctor of the church.

She wrote in her autobiography, “Everything is grace.

Everything, even this, even the storms, even the wars, even the moments that make us cry out to God in the darkness, where are you”?

Because even in those moments, especially in those moments, he is there.

He is in the darkness with us.

as he was with the three young men in the fiery furnace in the book of Daniel chapter 3.

There was a fourth figure walking with them in the flame.

And the pagan king looked into the furnace and said, “I see four men walking in the fire and they are not hurt.

And the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.

There is a fourth figure in every fire and his name is Jesus”.

Now let me speak of the consecration of Russia because this is the hinge point of everything.

This is the condition upon which the promise of Fatima turns.

Our Lady asked for the solemn public consecration of Russia specifically Russia to her immaculate heart to be performed by the pope in union with all the bishops of the world.

This was not a vague or general request.

It was specific.

It was precise.

It was a request from the mother of God and it carried with it a specific promise.

If this consecration is made, Russia will be converted and a period of peace will be granted to the world.

And the question that has tormented the church for a century, the question that has divided scholars and saints is whether that consecration has ever been validly performed.

Pope Pas performed a consecration in 1942.

Pope Paul V performed one in 1964.

Pope John Paul 2 performed consecrations in 1982 and in 1984.

Pope Francis performed a consecration on March 25.

There was deep fervent hope.

People wept at the altars.

People believed that finally finally the request of heaven had been satisfied.

And yet and yet 3 days later 3 days later Russia invaded Ukraine.

Fullcale invasion, tanks and missiles and the destruction of cities.

3 days after the consecration, I do not claim to know the full mind of God in this.

I do not claim to definitively interpret these events, but I say to you, the question remains open.

The question of whether heaven’s specific conditions have been met remains an open and urgent question.

And the urgency of that question is underscored is underscored with blood and fire by everything we are watching unfold in the world today.

What if we have not yet fully done what our lady asked?

What if there is still a prayer, still a consecration, still a response that heaven is waiting for?

What if the conversion of hearts, the conversion of our own hearts is the missing piece?

In the book of Joel 2:es 12-13, the Lord says, “Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning, and ren your hearts and not your garments.

Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

And he relents over disaster.

He relents over disaster.

Rend your hearts, not your garments.

Rend your hearts.

This is not a call to performance.

This is not a call to external religious display without internal conversion.

This is a call to the deepest.

most costly form of prayer.

The prayer of a truly broken and contrite heart.

The prayer of a soul that says, “Lord, I have sinned.

Lord, I have been distracted.

Lord, I have put other things, comfort, entertainment, politics, money, career.

I have put other things before you.

And I repent.

I come home.

I come back to you”.

Because the prodigal son, remember the prodigal son in the Gospel of Luke 15, the father does not wait at the door.

The father sees him while he is still a great way off.

And the father runs.

He runs.

He does not walk with dignity and reserve.

He runs and he falls upon his son’s neck and he kisses him.

That is the God who’s waiting for us tonight.

The God who runs.

The God who does not stand on ceremony when a lost child comes home.

The God whose mercy is wider than any war, deeper than any crisis, more powerful than any weapon.

He is waiting.

He is running toward you even now.

Will you run to meet him?

I want to speak in the time that remains about what we must do.

Not what governments must do, though governments have their responsibilities.

Not what military leaders must decide, though they must answer before God for their decision.

But what we, you and I, what we must do in this hour, first pray the rosary every day.

Our Lady of Fatima asked for the daily rosary.

Not the weekly rosary, not the occasional rosary when things feel particularly dangerous.

The daily rosary.

This is the medicine that heaven has prescribed for this disease of hatred and war and violence that afflicts the human family.

Take your medicine.

Take it every day.

The 15 mysteries, the joyful, the sorrowful, the glorious, and the luminous, which were given to us by Pope John Paul 2.

They are a school of prayer.

They walk you through the entire mystery of salvation.

They unite your heart to the heart of the woman whom God chose to bring his son into the world.

Pray the rosary.

Second, go to confession.

If you have not been to confession recently, and by recently I mean within the last month, go this week.

Go tomorrow.

The sacrament of confession is not a religious formality.

It is the most dramatic, most personal, most healing encounter with the mercy of God that a human being can experience this side of heaven.

The absolution spoken by the priest is the voice of Christ himself saying, “Your sins are forgiven.

Go and sin no more.

There’s no psychiatrist on earth, no therapy in the world, no pill that can give you what confession gives you.

Go.

Third, receive the eukarist worthily.

The body and blood of Jesus Christ truly, really, and substantially present under the appearances of bread and wine.

This is the source and summit of the Christian life.

This is the miracle that happens every single day on every Catholic altar in the world.

The same Jesus who walked on water, who raised Lazarus, who rose from the dead, he comes to you.

He enters your body.

He makes your body his tabernacle.

Receive him with awe.

Receive him with preparation.

Receive him in a state of grace.

And let him transform you from within.

Fourth fast.

Our Lady of Fatima asked for sacrifice.

The church prescribes fasting on Fridays, but go beyond that.

Fast on Wednesdays, too, as the ancient church did.

Fast not because God needs to be appeased like a pagan daily who must be mllified with offerings.

Fast because fasting weakens the power of the flesh over the spirit.

Fast because when your stomach is empty, your prayer becomes more urgent, more real, more desperate.

Fast because it is an act of solidarity with those who are suffering in the conflict zones of this world.

Fast because our lady asked for it.

And when the mother of God asks for something, a child of God gives it.

Fifth, convert.

Truly convert.

Let this moment, this terrifying, uncertain, worldshaking moment, let it be the moment that something changes in you permanently, not just emotionally, not just temporarily, but permanently.

A deepening of faith, a renewal of commitment, a turning away from whatever has been keeping you from God.

Because the question is not ultimately will Iran and Israel make peace.

The question is not ultimately will Russia be converted.

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