🙏 | Oil Your Lamps
One hundred years of errors: What history’s most ignored prophecies are telling us right now.
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Louis XIV, known as the “Sun King”, ruled France for 72 years, becoming the longest reigning monarch in European history. During his time, Versailles was transformed from a hunting lodge into the most magnificent palace in the world. France was at the height of culture, art and fashion. He consolidated absolute power and summarized his reign with a phrase that has ever since echoed through history: L’état, c’est moi. I am the state.
On June 17, 1689, a known French mystic named Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque received a powerful revelation from Jesus Christ. The message was specific and direct: King Louis XIV was to publicly consecrate himself and the entire nation of France to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He was to build a church in its honor and place the image of the Sacred Heart on the royal coat of arms and the flags of France.
The King never responded. Whether he did not received the message — she had sent copies to the King’s confessor and other influential figures — or simply chose to ignore it, history does not say with certainty. What history does confirm is that exactly one hundred years to the date of that revelation, on June 17, 1789, the Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly, stripped the French monarchy of its absolute legislative power and launched the French Revolution. Louis XVI, direct descendant of the Sun King, was imprisoned and later beheaded by guillotine. France, once considered the eldest daughter of the Church, began its long drift into secularism.
One hundred years. To the day.
On July 13, 1917, three peasant children in Fatima, Portugal received apocalyptic visions. The message delivered to them was specific: to prevent a second terrible global conflict, God requested the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. If the request was ignored, Russia would spread her errors throughout the world. Such “errors” were state-enforced atheism, totalitarian communism, materialistic ideologies, and the erosion of traditional moral values. Famously, the Bolshevik Revolution happened a few months later, in October of 1917.
The formal and final vision attributed to Fatima came on June 13, 1929. During a late hour of prayer, Sister Lucia experienced what she described as a profound manifestation of the Virgin Mary. Heaven once again formally requested the Consecration of Russia. Two years later, in a subsequent visitation, Sister Lucia received another message, this time from Jesus himself. The warning was pointed: the modern Church was delaying the request, just as the French monarch had done before his ruin.
Jesus told Lúcia, “Like the King of France, they will repent and execute it, but it will be late. Russia will have already scattered her errors throughout the world...”
The century of Vatican dithering that followed has given us communism, materialism, abortion on demand, gender confusion and a Church that in too many places resembles a shadow of a shepherd. The errors that were specifically named in 1917 have not merely spread. They have become the dominant cultural and political framework of the Western world.
In 2022, Pope Francis performed a consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart. Many faithful Catholics received it with hope. Others, including a significant number of theologians and clergy, questioned whether it met the precise conditions requested at Fatima, and whether Francis — whose pontificate has generated more controversy than perhaps any other in modern history — had the standing to execute it validly. That debate is above my non existent pay grade and frankly, it is a whole other essay. What I will say is that the Ukraine war did not end and the errors have not receded.
See, I have told you ahead of time
We are approaching the 100-year anniversary of the 1929 vision. Have apostasy, ignorance and sheer disdain for the teachings of Christ reached critical mass? No one knows the hour or the day but many are fairly certain we are approaching the end of something. Why the rush to implement Agenda 2030?
The proliferation of nuclear weapons, bioengineered diseases, man-made crises and the now undeniable presence of non-human intelligence are not separate phenomena. They are the accumulated consequences of a century of choices made by a civilization that was warned, repeatedly and specifically, and chose otherwise.
The gospel tells us this all would happen (Matthew 24:4-25). If the world turned from Jesus and crucified Him when He walked among us, why would we expect anything different now? The world will not conform to His truth. It never has. But we are called not to be of this world. And that distinction, in the moment we are living, matters more than it has in a very long time.
We are alive to watch prophecy unfold in real time. This is not a reason for fear but for something closer to awe. Rather than dread, we should be watchful, expectant and prepared. Our lamps should be well oiled.
The Sun King ignored a letter and his great-great grandson lost his head one hundred years later. The Church ignored Fatima and Russia’s errors spread across a century. This is not a subtle pattern but an open invitation to respond differently than our predecessors. We have choices to make and the free will to do so. Fearless in faith, this is daunting but quite exciting.
“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” — Matthew 25:13
Heavenly Father,
Grant us the wisdom not to be surprised by what You told us was coming and the courage not to look away from it.
We pray for the Church, which has too often chosen the comfort of silence over the discomfort of prophecy. We pray to be the faithful remnant who have kept our lamps burning through decades of confusion and compromise.
We lift those who are just now beginning to sense that something is wrong at a level that politics cannot fix and technology cannot solve. May that unease lead them towards Your Holy Heart and not toward the counterfeit certainties that are being prepared for them.
We are genuinely grateful to be alive at this moment. You placed us here on purpose. May we be found ready, watchful and unafraid, with our lamps well oiled and our eyes fixed on what is coming rather than what is passing away.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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It would be beneficial for any reader of this article to understand the history of Russia. Prior to the Bolshevik revolution Russia was an Orthodox Christian nation. The Tsars were Christian. The Bolsheviks were not, and a great part of their attacks were against the Christian faith, as much as against the rule of the Tsar. Many of the so-called "pogroms" that occurred during the period from 1900 to 1917 were instigated by Bolshevik attacks against Christian celebrations, processions, etc. In my opinion, the prophecy of Fatima was directed to the Bolsheviks and their anti-Christ persecutions of the normal Russian people and the Christian church. And, I would ask the author to please NOT conflate the Soviet Union with Russia. The 2 are not the same. This continues in our mainstream news media. Russia was not the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union was not Russia., although it included the Russian country. By and large, the ethnic Russian people never wanted what the Bolsheviks were peddling. If you want to understand this important period in the history of the world, which continues to affect us today, I strongly urge you read "200 Years Together", by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn. This work will enlighten you to the facts of that horrible period from 1905 to 1920.
Unmentioned is Pope John Paul II 's Marion Year in 1987-1988. During that time we were encourage to pray for the conversion of Russia and her consecration to the Blessed Mother. Barely a year later, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet union started to disintegrate.
I firmly believe that a billion Catholics prayed that into happening.