God’s plan for peace between Christianity and Islam.

Islam

Islam is the religion founded by Mohammed, which considers the Koran as its holy book. Followers of Islam are known as Muslims and, like Jews and Christians, believe in only one God. Yet despite this shared belief, over the centuries Muslims have engaged in tremendous wars with Christians (and Jews). Many would conclude from these wars that there is little hope for peace. However this is certainly not the case, for we see a beacon of hope in the surprising similarities to Christianity in the mainstream Islamic beliefs with regards to the Mother of Jesus. In supplement to this, certain events of the last 1500 years can be seen to be pointing towards a continual unraveling of a peace plan which God is performing through these shared beliefs - evidenced at Fatima, in Portugal, as well as other places around the world.

Fatima

As you may already know, there have been hundreds of physical appearances of Mary, the mother of Jesus throughout the centuries of Christianity. These apparitions have re-affirmed the gospel Jesus gave to the world. They have prophesized wars, warned against evil and frequently been accompanied by great miracles. One of the greatest of these events was at a place called Fatima in 1917. The apparitions at Fatima were towards 3 Catholic Shepard children. During them amongst other things, Our Lady prophesized the rise of communism, predicted the Second World War and showed the children a vision of hell, the place where poor sinners go. She also performed a miracle of the sun- making it expand and appear like a multi coloured Catherine Wheel. The miracle was seen by 70,000 people. A great number of these people came to see the promised miracle as skeptics but went away as believers.

The town name “Fatima” is a remnant from when the Moors once occupied Portugal. The village of Fatima was given the Islamic name of the well-loved Princess of the nearby Castle of Ourem. The beloved princess died at an early age after marrying the Count of Ourem and converting to Catholicism. Baptized with the Christian name of Oureana, she was named at birth "Fatima," like many other Muslim girls, in honour of the daughter of Mohammed. Of his daughter Fatima, the founder of Islam, said: "She has the highest place in heaven after the Virgin Mary." It is a fact that today, Muslims from various nations, especially from the Middle East, make so many pilgrimages to Our Lady of Fatima's shrine in Portugal that Portuguese officials have expressed concern. The combination of an Islamic name and Islamic devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is a great attraction to Muslims. God is writing straight with crooked lines, as we will see. Fatima is a key part of Heaven's Peace Plan.

The Koran

In the Koran, the holy name of the Blessed Virgin Mary is mentioned no less than thirty times. No other woman's name is even mentioned, not even that of Fatima. Among biblical men, only Abraham, Moses, and Noah are mentioned more times than Our Lady. In the Koran, Our Blessed Mother is described as "Virgin, ever Virgin." The Islamic belief in the virginity of Mary puts to shame the heretical beliefs of those who call themselves Christian, while denying the perpetual virginity of Mary. Make no mistake about it; there is a very special relationship between the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Muslims!

The Holy Land

The Holy Land has been a real battleground between the Islamic peoples and Christianity over the centuries. Evidence of this are the numerous churches and basilicas that have been built, destroyed, rebuilt (in the Crusades) and finally destroyed again (when Jerusalem was re-conquered). However, there is one remarkable exception: the Basilica of Saint Anne in Jerusalem. The Crusaders built this church and named it in honour of the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the Crypt of St. Anne's Basilica, a statue of the Infant Mary is venerated on what is believed to be the exact spot where Our Lady was born. The preservation of this Church demonstrates the Islamic devotion to Mary perfectly as the Muslims great reverence for Our Lady precluded the Muslims from destroying her birthplace. The foundation for Heaven's Peace Plan can therefore be found in the Land of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Spain

As the Muslims swept through Spain in the 8th century, a great religious treasure was buried for safe-keeping in the earth, high in the Estremadura Mountains. It was a much venerated statue of Our Lady holding the Divine Child Jesus. After the overthrow of Moorish occupation this special statue was enshrined in a nearby Franciscan Monastery next to the "Wolf River."

The Muslims, during their Spanish occupation, had actually named the river. The Islamic term for Wolf River is "Guadalupe" (Guada = River; Lupe = Wolf). Hence, the famous Catholic statue in Spain has been known, since the 14th century, by the Islamic name of "Our Lady of Guadalupe". 

Mexico

In the fullness of time, we can be sure that Almighty God knew that the Islamic religion would pose a serious threat to Christianity. God also knew that the Spanish missionaries would face grave resistance in the "new world" from the mighty Aztec Indians. The Aztecs worshipped an evil stone "serpent god" that demanded human sacrifice. It was extremely difficult to win souls for Christ from these people. However, with God all things are possible. Our Lady appeared to a humble Aztec Indian Catholic by the name of Juan Diego in 1531. When asked her name by Juan Diego, at the request of the local bishop, Our Lady's response, in the Aztec language, included the words "te coatlaxopeuh" (pronounced: "te quatlasupe") and meant "one who crushes the head of the stone serpent". To Juan Diego and his fellow Aztecs, this revelation had great meaning, coupled with the miraculous image of Our Lady standing on top of a "crescent," the symbol of the serpent god.

A tidal wave of conversions to Catholicism ensued. However, Bishop Zumarraga, who was from Spain, made what was no doubt a "heavenly mistake" that one day may lead to the mass conversion of Muslims. To the Bishop's Spanish ears, Our Lady's Aztec name of "Te Quatlasupe" sounded just like the name of the revered Madonna from Spain with the Islamic name, "Guadalupe". Hence, the bishop named the Mexican Madonna "Our Lady of Guadalupe". It is interesting that the "crescent" is also the symbol for Islam and that America's Shrine to Our Lady has an Islamic name. The image was impressed on Juan Diego’s tilma. The tilma itself is made from the fibres of the maguey plant which does not last more than 25-40 years, yet after 469 years, the original tilma can still be found in perfect condition in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Tepeyac. Scientific studies have determined that the image is not painted. The colours used to make the image cannot be identified by science. The eyes of Our Lady in the image have human qualities and reflections of those reported to be present in the room at the time of the apparition have been discovered in the inner eyes of the Virgin. In the ten years following Our Lady producing this image, nine million natives converted to Catholicism. The missionaries, once discouraged, were swamped with hundreds of baptisms every day.

Battle of Lepanto

On October 7, 1571, a great victory over the mighty Turkish fleet was won by Catholic naval forces. It was the last battle at sea between "oared" ships, which featured the most powerful navy in the world, a Muslim force with between 12,000 to 15,000 rowers. The patchwork team of Catholic ships was powered by the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (The Rosary is the name of a set of prayers, in which someone meditates on the way Mary experienced and witnessed the life of Jesus,)

Knowing that the Christian forces were at a distinct material disadvantage, the pope, St. Pius V called for all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory. We know today that the victory was decisive and it prevented the Islamic invasion of Europe. We can see here evidence of the Hand of God working through the rosary. At the hour of victory, St. Pope Pius V, who was hundreds of miles away at the Vatican, is said to have gotten up from a meeting, went over to a window, and exclaimed with supernatural radiance: "The Christian fleet is victorious!" and shed tears of thanksgiving to God. Also, as he looked out of the window at this point it is said that he saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary smiling. One of three admirals commanding the Catholic forces at Lepanto was Andrea Doria. He carried a small copy of Mexico's Our Lady of Guadalupe into battle. This image is now enshrined in the Church of San Stefano in Aveto, Italy. God chose to reveal his plan for peace through the Blessed Virgin Mary in an event that took place almost 1000 years to the day after the birth of Mohammed.

The Rosary

The prayers of the Rosary proved very powerful, St Padre Pio, a great devotee to Mary (and worker of many, many miracles) once said: "The Rosary is a weapon" and how right he was!

The Rosary is stronger than an A-Bomb!

There was a home eight blocks (about 1 kilometre) from where the A-Bomb went off in Hiroshima Japan. This home had a church attached to it which was completely destroyed, but the home survived, and so did the eight German Jesuit priests who prayed the rosary in that house faithfully every day and were praying when the bomb struck. These men were missionaries to the Japanese people. Not only did they all survive with minor injuries, but they all lived well past that awful day with no radiation sickness, no loss of hearing, or any other visible long term defects or maladies. Naturally, they were interviewed numerous times (Fr. Schiffer, a survivor, said over 200 times) by scientists and health care people about their remarkable experience and they say "we believe we survived because we were living the message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the rosary daily in that home". Of course secular scientists are still speechless, absolutely bamboozled that somehow; the bomb destroyed everything in a much greater radius, except them.

The Rosary

And with that we are back to Fatima, Portugal where Our Lady, when asked her name, said: "I am the Lady of the Rosary". At Fatima, Our Lady taught us to pray the Rosary every day. Heaven presented its peace plan at Fatima and truly gave us hope for the world. Conversions were promised at Fatima: the conversion of sinners; the conversion of Russia; and what also appears to be the conversion of Islam.

 The prophecies of saints

Some of the most holy Catholic saints foresaw that, in the final years of the world, Mary would bring all Muslims to Christ. It was revealed to Saint Louis Marie De Montfort, a Saints famed for his devotion to Mary, that there would come an “Age Of Mary” in which she would call all peoples especially the Muslims to her, and through her, to Jesus.

The situation today…

Today, the hatred of the Muslim countries against the West is becoming hatred against Christianity itself. It is our firm belief that these fears some entertain concerning the Muslims are not to be realized, but that Muslims, instead, will eventually be converted to Christianity — and in a way that many early Catholic missionaries would never have suspected. That it will be done through a summoning of the Muslims to a veneration of the Mother of God.

The Islamic explanation

It is difficult for Muslims to logically explain why neither Abraham’s nor even Mohammed’s mother is given such a mentioning as Mary in the Koran, and even harder to explain her preservation from Sin. Of course, some Old Testament prophecies demanded the mother of the Messiah to be a virgin- however many more numerous prophecies in the same books demand more vigorously that the messiah to be The Son Of God, Suffer death on a cross, bring redemption for our sins through his suffering and rise again after 3 days. Other than the strange mentioning in the Koran, there is really no rational, nor Old Testament Basis, for Mary to be seen so highly. Many are now realizing that only Catholic theology explains Mary’s position in the Koran perfectly- because it understands her full role, as both Mother of Jesus and “Mother of God”.

Conclusion

We believe that the Blessed Virgin appeared at Fatima in order to be known as "Our Lady of Fatima". A pledge and a sign of hope to Muslim people, and an assurance that they, who show her so much respect, may one day accept her Divine Son, too. There is much evidence to support this. For example, Muslims have shown enthusiastic reception to the Pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima which is frequently carried through the streets of some countries. Muslims have also attended the Catholic services in honour of Our Lady, allowed religious processions and even prayers before their mosques. In Mozambique the Muslims, who were unconverted, began to be Christian as soon as the statue of Our Lady of Fatima was erected. It is clear that devotion to Our Blessed Lady will carry the Muslims the rest of the way to her Divine Son. Why not pray, silently and humbly tonight, asking almighty God whether indeed he was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the most loved of all women in heaven.