The Shrine of Fátima

The shrine of Fátima is dedicated to the apparition of the Virgin Mary seen by the three little Shepherd Children. Pastorinhos (above)Lúcia, Francisco and Jacinta. The incident took place on the 13th May 1917 whilst the children were out in the countryside tending to their flock. They said that they saw the lady, or rather Our Lady. "A lady more brilliant than the sun". 'The Lady' told them that they must pray a lot, she herself held a white rosary in her hands. She told them to return on five consecutive months on the thirteenth of each month. On the last apparition on October 13th there were more than 70,000 people present, the Lady told them that she was the Lady of the Rosary and that a chapel was to be built in her honour. All of the people present witnessed the promissed miracle, the sun shining brightly and rotating in the sky. as if it were to fall to the earth.

There were also a number of masons present and reporters, one reporter said he witnessed nothing.

There are many accounts of the other apparitions and what The Lady said to the children, on one occasion she told them to kiss the stairs where she descended. Basically they were told they had to worship her.

John Paul II believed that it was the "hand of Our Lady" which saved his life on that terrible day of May 13th in 1981. He visited the shrine many times. On one occasion he placed the bullet which hit him in the crown of the "Virgen"


I myself have my doubts, the children may have seen something, but I doubt very much that it was the Virgen Mary. For the following reasons.
The afterdiscussions became very political and especially directed toward the abolishing of communism. Strangely enough, the Russian Revolution came a few days or weeks later.


The third part of the secret refers to Our Lady's words: ‘If not [Russia] will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated' (13-VII-1917).

The third part of the secret is a symbolic revelation, referring to this part of the Message, conditioned by whether we accept or not what the Message itself asks of us: ‘If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, etc.'.

Since we did not heed this appeal of the Message, we see that it has been fulfilled, Russia has invaded the world with her errors. And if we have not yet seen the complete fulfilment of the final part of this prophecy, we are going towards it little by little with great strides. If we do not reject the path of sin, hatred, revenge, injustice, violations of the rights of the human person, immorality and violence, etc.

And let us not say that it is God who is punishing us in this way; on the contrary it is people themselves who are preparing their own punishment. In his kindness God warns us and calls us to the right path, while respecting the freedom he has given us; hence people are responsible”.⁽⁵⁾

It almost sounds like a shrewd political manouvre. Parish councils held a lot of weight in those days.

The other thing that makes me beleive that the origins of the apparition were not entirely holy, is the fact that The Lady, who also claimed the the world would be saved through her immaculate heart, asked to be 'adored'. In the book of revelation it states otherwise after John saw an angel...;

Revelation 19:10 Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, "Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

Second commandment
Exodus 20:4-6

4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.


Amazingly enough most people don't even know the Ten Commandments. Fátima seems to me to be basic Idol Worshipping. In July/August 2005 there were terrible fires here in Portugal. The fire fighters had a terrible time, there weren't enough helicopters etc. Later on in the same year, VIP helicopters transported the 'statues' of the Pastorinhos and Our Lady, to a football stadium!

A imagem de Nossa Senhora, oferecida pelo Santuário de Fátima, e as dos Pastorinhos, oferecidas pela postulação para a canonização, foram transportadas por um helicóptero da Força Aérea Portuguesa para o estádio do Futebol Clube de Alverca, de onde seguiram em procissão até à nova igreja. Cerca de oito mil pessoas encheram o recinto desportivo.

It is basic Idolatory and Marian Worship, they tell us nothing at all. If I ask you what is gods plan? would you know?
How many of the ten commandments do you know?

Lecture By Tulku Lama Lobsang

On Monday evening I had the privilege of meeting The Tulku Lama Lobsang at a Lecture he held in the Quinta do Pombal, Algarve, Portugal. I was expecting him to be clad in orange and to my surprise he wore black. Everybody stood as he entered, everybody that is except for me, I just didn't seem to have time it was a bit weird actually, I wasn't really sure if I should have or not; the King and I came to mind.

He sat and started to talk about Tibetan Medicine, which is his speciality, along with Lu Jong.

He said that all of us have un-manifested illness within us and at some point of our lives it manifests itself, other times it lays dormant just to manifest at another time. Men (and women) must get ill. Sickness is part of life. If we are not sick now, then don't worry, one day we will be. (So if we are well, we are not complete in a sense without illness?)

Death was another subject, he explained about food and how eating will kill us. He said we eat food, that will kill us and if we don't eat we also die. He then gave this example: When we hunger we are in pain and after we eat we are also with discomfort because we eat too much, then we are full. He explained that some Tibetan Priests, when they die just disappear, this brought to my mind, Enoch. God decided that he was too good, so he took him, he was never found by anybody. The Lama also mentioned Jesus and said that he was taken in a likewise manner, he was a high priest.

He said that death was an illusion. That Love is an illusion, as is hate, and even life. I commented that maybe illusion itself is also an illusion. He said he was sure it was.

I wondered if anyone understood what he was saying, or did we just think we did. Perception was also another theme. (To be discussed later) He said that Buddhism in the west is only different because the cultures are different; people are brought up differently, although the concept is the same.
He mentioned however, that we are not always the same; that many people that morning may have said their mantras and felt full of peace and calmness and then in the afternoon when it rained they were sad and so forth.
We all change during the course of the day and even our lives.

I suppose one cannot change too much because we have to have a base, be it religion or Philosophy about life. It is like the chameleon, although he changes his colour to suit his environment, he still remains a chameleon. (That was my bit there, not the Lama)

He swayed and moved about on his seat as he spoke and told us that neither evil nor good exists, but it is the thought that makes it so (as it is part of our illusion) In Romans, the New Testament it says a very similar thing. Once we are aware that something is harming us, if we continue to do it then it is 'bad'. If we continue to do something without being aware of the danger, then we are not to blame. Even Shakespeare said it.

He has a way of speaking that only the trained listener can really understand, and somebody with a little knowledge of 'profundities'. Otherwise it just sounds like nonsense. Jesus was similar, many people even today don't understand what he said, and they say he is contradictory, but he was just being profound. He said that anybody who loves their family more that they love him could not be his follower. He who saves his life shall lose it, and he who loses his life shall save it.

On the whole I enjoyed the evening. I found many parallels between the Christian faith (or philosophy) and Buddhism. I even surprised a friend of mine; she never expected to see me there. I will post some photos of her later on. If you would like any information of the programme for Quinta do Pombal, visit their website: www.quintadopombal.net

Do we really need a God?

Rui never did get back to me.

I have been tampering with the idea of starting a group, just to discuss these things, called: "Do we really need a God?" I was also thinking of doing it in Portuguese, maybe at the same time. I think people are curious about certain things, they just don't like getting it shoved down their throats.

Through discussions everybody could get across their different ideas of who they think god is etc. It could be interesting...