The Muzzled Sister By J.R. Nyquist 10.30.01

[kabud]

The Muzzled Sister
By J.R. Nyquist 10.30.01
http://web.archive.org/web/20020615212717/www.sierratimes.com/archive/files/oct/30/nyquist.htm
Year after year, decade after decade, she has been forbidden to speak.
In fact, her bosses are afraid of what she might say. Therefore they
have instructed her: "Do not speak to anyone without premission."

Such are the alleged official instructions to a once illiterate girl
who tended sheep -- a girl who is now very old, and world-famous. No
doubt it is a strange case. To get the world's ear is not an easy
thing for a shepherd girl. Imagine the world-transforming
possibilities. Imagine the power of such a person. But those in
authority keep her muzzled, perhaps because transformations are not
always pleasant. Still humble, still poor, she obeys. She is a
disciplined and loyal adherent, ever faithful even to those who might
-- for reasons of state -- oppose, thwart or alter her message.

I am writing of Sister Lucia dos Santos, cloistered in a Carmelite
convent in Coimbra, Portugal. To explain who she is and what she
represents I will not quote from any Catholic authority. I will not
represent a religious viewpoint. Instead, I will quote the work of a
scientist named Jacques Vallee, who under the heading "A Morphology of
Miracles," in a volume called "The Invisible College," writes of
inexplicable phenomena that once surrounded Sister Lucia. In fact,
this phenomena represents the best-documented crack in material
reality ever to appear. But is this really so strange? The universe
itself is a miracle, after all, and mankind should not be surprised to
find miracles within the miracle.

To be sure, the skeptics and agnostics will speak of mass psychosis,
hallucination and schizophrenia. So long as nothing unnatural happens
in their vicinity, as long as angels leave them unmolested, they are
perfectly smug. But when superhuman intelligences bend the skeptic's
little mind and seriously tweak his reality, the skeptic will crumble
in terror like the peasant, the shepherd and the village idiot.

The scientist, Vallee, tells of such an event, which happened within
living memory. It happened in front of 70,000 witnesses at a place
called Fatima, Portugal, on Oct. 13, 1917 (on the eve of the Bolshevik
Revolution). "The events at Fatima," writes Vallee, "involve luminous
spheres, lights with strange colors, a feeling of 'heat waves,' all
physical characteristics associated with UFOs."

But this is not a case of little green men mutilating cattle or
abducting New York science fiction writers. The phenomenon of Fatima,
notes Vallee, "also encompass healing and prophecy and a loss of
ordinary consciousness on the part of the witnesses...."

An apparition of a lady appeared, and a prophecy was given to three
shepherd children. A portion of this unearthly communication was
sealed in an envelope, not to be opened by the Pope until 1960. Even
then, the Vatican did not dare reveal its contents for another forty
years, adding to the mystery. Last year the Vatican supposedly
revealed the secret, which had to do with an assassination attempt on
the Pope -- something which took place 20 years ago.

But why would the Church keep a fulfilled prophecy secret for two
decades?

According to Vallee, who had a source inside the Vatican, when Pope
John XXIII opened the sealed envelope in 1960 and read the contents
the listeners were shocked and frightened. One of the Pope's
secretaries saw the cardinals leaving after the so-called Third Secret
of Fatima was read. This secretary was brushed aside by a cardinal who
looked as if he'd seen a ghost.

"What revelation could have so shaken these men?" asked the intrigued
scientist, Vallee. "Perhaps it was the confrontation with the nature
of a phenomenon that transcends our reality and our highest beliefs,
transcends our concepts of reason and of faith, and whose very
absurdity appears carefully designed to misguide our probing minds."

The message of Fatima -- the part that has long been known -- involves
a warning to the world. Joseph Pelletier's book, "The Sun Danced at
Fatima," offers the following translation of the Fatima message, which
was given at the time of the First World War:

"The war is going to end, but if people do not stop offending God
another and worse one will begin during the reign of Pius XI. When you
see a night illuminated by an unknown light know that this is the
great sign that God is giving you that he is going to punish the world
for its crimes by means of war, famine, and persecution of the Church
and of the Holy Father.

"To prevent this I shall come to ask for the consecration of
Russia.... If they heed my requests, Russia will be converted and
there will be peace. If not, she will spread her errors throughout the
world."

The scientist, Vallee, thought this warning was a "mixture of
seriousness and absurdity." It must be pointed out that approximately
three weeks after the miracle at Fatima Russia was taken over by
atheists under Vladimir Lenin. Thousands of priests were butchered.
Many were buried in mass graves. Churches were looted and vandalized.
Some were turned into "atheist museums," used as communist teaching
tools. Meanwhile, Lenin's followers turned Russia into the world's
greatest prison-house, described by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in "The
Gulag Archipelago" as a vast "sewage disposal system" which ebbed and
flowed with the raw stuff of ruined lives.

From Russia the Bolshevik madness spread to Eastern Europe, to China,
to Korea and Southeast Asia. Then to Cuba and Africa, to Afghanistan
and Yemen, Ethiopia and the Congo. The carnage continues, even now, in
Angola and Colombia and in the forced labor camps of the People's
Republic of China. Just as the apparation at Fatima foretold, Russia's
error was spread. By some counts, 100 million people are dead as a
result.

And maybe worse atrocities lie ahead. Perhaps that is why Sister Lucia
has been compelled to keep silent. But rumors out of Italy, attributed
to Father Luigi Bianchi, allege that Sister Lucia is now worried. The
events of Sept. 11 have agitated and alarmed her.

I am not Catholic and I am no theologian. I am not trained to wisely
interpret prophecies or comment upon supernatural occurences. Along
with Vallee I am baffled, but also convinced that something did happen
at Fatima in 1917. Was it demonic or angelic, extraterrestrial or
ultraterrestrial?

Whatever it was, it pointed to Russia and offered a warning that ought
to make perfect sense -- even to skeptics.