From Fatima to Medjugorje, what John Paul II said

From Fatima ... to Medjugorje
Also on May 13, 2000, during the homily of the beatification Mass of Francis and Jacinta, John Paul II defines some important aspects of the apparitions of Fatima: "The message of Fatima is a call to conversion", he recalls. And he warns the children of the Church not to play the game of the "dragon", that is, the Evil one, "because the last goal of man is Heaven" and "God wants nobody to get lost". For this precise reason, he concludes, the Father sent his Son to earth two thousand years ago.
The heavenly Mother would therefore have manifested herself in Portugal to turn the hearts of men to God, and to divert them from the snares of Satan. Two essential aspects, as we now know, also of his twenty-year presence in Medjugorje.
And not surprisingly, then - an extraordinary fact in the history of the Marian apparitions - the Madonna here would have made a precise reference to other apparitions, precisely those of Fatima. As Marija testifies, the heavenly Mother would reveal to her that she was coming to Medjugorje to "complete what she had begun in Fatima".
From Fatima to Medjugorje, therefore, a tightrope for the Conversion of humanity would unfold. The Pope himself confirmed this, in conversation with the Slovak bishop Pavel Hnilica.
There are at least two aspects in which the Fatima-Medjugorje link becomes evident, and in both cases the figure of the current Pope also comes into play.
The first: in Portugal Maria had announced the fall of the world into the plots of totalitarianisms and had asked for prayers for Russia. In Medjugorje, Our Lady appears beyond the "iron curtain" and promises, among many other things, that Russia will be the country where she will be honored most. And John Paul II consecrates Russia and the world to the immaculate Heart of Mary on March 24, 1984.
Second aspect: Our Lady appears for the first time in Medjugorje just over a month after the Pope, the "bishop dressed in white falls as dead" in St. Peter's Square. She does it not on any day, but on June 24, 1981, on the feast of Saint John the Baptist, forerunner of Christ and prophet of conversion: she too invites to conversion and prepares hearts for the welcome of her Son Jesus.
On these considerations Father Livio Fanzaga set the ample conclusive essay of this book, underlining Maria's care for humanity in this troubled age.
But if Mary is a great gift for humanity, it was above all for the Church, protecting her head, the Pope. During the first community apparitions of Medjugorje, referring to the attack of May 13, the Virgin admits it openly to the visionaries: "His enemies tried to kill him, but I defended him."

Mary instrument
"Our Lady saves the Pope and uses the plan of the Evil One to carry out his long-prepared projects of grace", observes Father Livio Fanzaga. Even from the most absolute evil, God can derive good.
"In all this long time" the Queen of Peace has never stopped walking alongside the Pope, Father Livio underlines, "speaking a Slavic language like him, anticipating or accompanying his teachings and making him the privileged instrument of triumph of his immaculate Heart ».
Was it not John Paul II who entrusted the world to her? And with what epochal consequences. Isn't he the man who, according to even non-aligned commentators, changed the history of the century just ended? It is a certain fact that his speeches for a new humanity, against abortion, against all exploitation and discrimination, against the misuse of nature, against the consumerism of capitalist globalization, against all totalitarian ideology and all relativism have affected the consciences . And in a supernatural key it is difficult not to connect his testimony and his life with the great facts we have witnessed, above all the communist collapse in the Eastern countries.
Our Lady protected him? It's safe. She who in Fatima, in 1917, appearing to three shepherd children, had predicted his sufferings, always gave him the strength to go on, through an attack, even serious illnesses, surgical operations, in the tireless fulfillment of his daily duties.
From all these indications Father Livio is led to believe that the length of the apparitions of Medjugorje is also connected to the analogous duration of the pontificate of John Paul II: "I like to think that the Virgin will continue to manifest itself at least until the end of this pontificate". A very personal consideration, precise, but which, in the following paragraph, would find the most authoritative confirmation.