Fatima
Prophecy in 1454 AD
I am
not so sure about this because the evidence is inconclusive but there are
important facts here and the combination of three different documents makes it
at least credible. True or false, I believe
it deserves reflection by my readers for the other facts in this story, the
possibility that it is true, and the fact that it does no apparent harm to
faith or Fatima.
These
three documents all relate to the happenings at and near the death of Sister
Filipina on October 16, 1454, in the Monastery of Saint Mary Magdalene of
the Dominican nuns of Alba, south of Turin, Italy.
Sister
Filipina was dying. The whole religious
community had gathered around the bed of the Dominican and accompanied her with
the prayers for the dying. Blessed Margaret of Savoy, founder and abbess, and
Father Bellini, confessor of the religious, were also present. All were
witnesses to the extraordinary facts that occurred and they signed and sealed a
document that surfaced recently addressed “to those who will read these
pages in the years to come.” In 2000, the Dominican nuns of Alba published
the documents related to the extraordinary fact.
There
are three documents from the convent of Alba, and these provide the substance
of this article.
This
first is a four-page unnumbered manuscript note, dated October 7, 1640, which
was added to a book written by Father Jacinto Bartesio in 1640 and containing
the essential body of the revelation of Sister Filipina.
The
second is an insertion to the notebook with the inscription, “1624—Book in
which are recorded the Masses, Miracles and ex-votos are offered every day to
Blessed Margaret of Savoy in Alba.” The insertion is dated 1655, begins on page
52 of the notebook and it is written “with a clear and slender calligraphy” by
a religious who signs “Sister C.R. M.”
The
third is some notes written by Sister Lucia Mantello in 1855. She lived in the
convent briefly and became a Salesian religious afterwards. She did not know of
the two previous documents, where all three were “rediscovered casually on
August 19, 1999 and published in 2000.
The History
of Sister Filipina
Sister
Filipina was of a princely line. Her father, Philip II of Savoy, Prince
of Acaia, was born in 1344, and had to defend his rights to the paternal fief
by force. He was disinherited by his stepmother, betrayed and targeted for death.
On December 20, 1368, he was chained and hurled into the icy waters of Lake
Avigliana near Saint Michele delle Chiuse Abbey between Piedmont and Savoy.
On
the same year, his only daughter, Umberta Felipa, was born in the castle of
Sarre. She never knew her father, and when she learned of his terrible fate,
became a nun in order to obtain for him the grace of eternal salvation. She
took the name of Filipina dei Storgi.
Prince
Philip was wearing a medal around his neck at the hour of the execution. The
medal belonged to his ancestor, Blessed Umberto II (1080–1103),
sovereign count of Savoy and hero in the defense of the papacy against the
unjust claims of Emperor Frederick Barbarrossa.
The
assassins fled when Philip’s body disappeared in the water. Yet, unbelievable
as it may appear, the prince did not die. He miraculously returned to the
surface without being seen by anyone, a favor he attributed to Blessed
Umberto’s medal.
He
set out for exile, leading a penitent’s life from then on. Using a pseudonym,
he went on pilgrimages to the sanctuaries of France, Switzerland and Spain, and
finally Fatima in Portugal.
Why Did Prince Philip Go To
Fatima in the 14th Century?
Queen
Mafalda was married to Dom Alfonso Henriques (1128–1185), founder of the
Kingdom of Portugal. She was a daughter of Amadeus III of Savoy, count of the
Holy Roman German Empire, who died in the Second Crusade, and a sister of
Blessed Umberto, to whom the prince owed his life.
The
region of Fatima and the nearby lands were taken forcefully from the Moors by
King Alfonso Henriques. Afterwards the king saw to the colonization and control
of the conquered area against the continuous Moorish incursions. To achieve
that end, Dom Alfonso, with the participation of Doña Mafalda, granted great
extensions of those lands to two select religious orders. He also assigned
castles to noble Portuguese, paladins of the Re-conquest.
One
favored religious order was Citeaux (Cistercians), whose “co-founder” was Saint
Bernard of Clairvaux, the great Marian apostle of the Middle Ages, and cousin
to the king. The Cistercians erected the celebrated Santa Maria de Alcobaça
Abbey, birthplace of Portuguese culture, less than 25 miles west of Fatima.
The
other religious order was that of the Templars, a military order of
chivalry to defend the Holy Land, also created under Saint Bernard’s influence.
After their suppression, hotly disputed to this day, the Templars were expelled
from the rest of Europe and took refuge in Portugal. Their headquarters was
located in Tomar, approximately 19 miles east of Fatima. In 1318, during
the reign of Dom Diniz, they became the headquarters for the Order of
Christ. The cross of the Templars-Order of Christ was on the sails of the
ships of Pedro Alvares Cabral, discoverer of Brazil. That cross was the
insignia that fluttered in the first years of Brazil’s history on the standards
and banners of that new land, called Land of the Holy Cross.
Fatima
is located at the crossing of the routes connecting the castles of Leiria,
Tomar, Santarem, Ourem and Porto de Mos, which was traveled by kings, nobles
and Knights Templar. In 1385 AD Blessed
Nuno Alvares Pereira was passing through Fatima, his horse “knelt, and seeing that, Dom Nuno said, ‘Here a
great miracle will take place.’”
In
the outskirts of Fatima was a small monastery erected by Cistercians from
Alcobaça, and all that remains of that monastery are its foundations that serve
as the foundation for the present parish church of Fatima built in the 18th
century and originally called Our Lady of the Rosary. (Recently proof of
this was found in the side walls.)
Most
likely Queen Mafalda (Matilda in English) of Savoy, sister of Blessed Umberto
and first Queen of Portugal, in honor of Most Holy Virgin, built the small
abbey chapel that later became the Church of the Children of Fatima, in the
place called at the time, the ‘Rock of Fatima’. This is what Philip went to visit, and the documents speak of.
The
fact is that Prince Philip returned to the land of his birth after years of
absence. He presented himself first to his uncle, the bishop of Tarantasia,
Eduardo of Savoy (U1395). Afterwards he began to search for his daughter, who
was hiding under a pseudonym.
The
years passed, and neither the wrinkles marking his face, nor his beggar’s
clothing betrayed to strangers that he was Philip, the youthful and feared
warlord he once was.
Among
the homes he visited in his fruitless search was that of his niece, Blessed
Margaret of Savoy-Acaia. The last time
he was with her, in December 1418, he revealed his true identity, and told her
of the miracle at the hour of his execution, and all about his later life.
Finally, he entrusted to her his most precious relic—Blessed Umberto’s
medal—asking her to give it to his daughter in case she ever appeared.
According
to one of the documents, “Once he had made this last revelation, he breathed
his last the next night in the church of Saint Francis, on the sepulcher of his
brother Louis of Savoy, even as he yearned to return to the tomb of Blessed
Umberto in Altacomba.”
Blessed
Margaret kept the medal. Like her father, Prince Philip’s daughter had
disappeared a long time before. In fact, she had joined, “along with her
mother, the monastery of Saint Catherine of Alba, taking the name, Sister
Filipina, for her father whom she believed to be dead.”
Years
later, Blessed Margaret went to Alba, where she founded the Monastery of Saint
Mary Magdalene. Some time later, Sister Filipina requested to be transferred to
the new monastery, having an authorization from Pope Nicholas V, dated January
16, 1448. However, it was not until her death that she confessed to Blessed
Margaret that she was her cousin. It was at that moment that Sister Filipina
learned through Blessed Margaret of the virtuous death of her father, for whose
salvation she had offered her religious life, as well as of his passage through
Fatima. Then, enraptured with admiration, she received the miraculous medal.
Sister
Filipina spent her whole life not knowing that her sacrifice had been accepted.
At her death the admirable meaning of her life was presented to her like a
lightening flash. Furthermore Heaven rewarded her with a vision of the future
triumph of Our Lady over “a certain monster from the Orient . . . which would
be slain by Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of Fatima if all men had invoked her
with great penitence.”
The 1454
AD Revelation of Fatima
On
October 16, 1454, according to one of the documents,
“It
happened that during the agony of her death [Sister Filipina] had a magnificent
vision or revelation, during which, in the presence of Father Bellini, the
Abbess Foundress and all the nuns, she spoke of hidden things aloud . . . .
Enraptured by a celestial joy from on high, she greeted by name and aloud the
heavenly inhabitants3 who came to
meet her, namely the Most Holy Lady of the Rosary, Saint Catherine of Siena,
Blessed Umberto, and Abbot William of Savoy. She spoke of future events both
favorable and harmful for the House of Savoy, until an undefined time; she
spoke of terrible wars; of the exile of Umberto II of Savoy in Portugal; of a
certain monster from the East, the scourge of mankind, but which would
be slain by Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of Fatima if all men would
invoke her with great penitence. After that, she expired in the arms of her
cousin, Blessed Margaret of Savoy.”
Indeed,
in 1454, 463 years before the apparitions at Cova da Iria, heaven revealed the
chastisement of a sinful world by a “monster from the East, the scourge of
mankind,” an image that seems to embody the “errors of Russia”
against which Our Lady warned men in 1917.
Furthermore,
Our Lady indicated a sign of the times in which the “scourge” would take
place—on the occasion of the exile of King Umberto II of Italy. That
took place in 1946, one year after the end of World War II, and five years
after Sister Lucy made public the content of the message revealed at Fatima!
Already
in the 15th century, the revelation also emphasized the condition set by Our
Lady in 1917: a “great penance” for the world to free itself from the “scourge
of mankind coming from the East.”
In
1454, as in 1917, heaven announced the final triumph of the Most Holy Virgin.
One of the documents now published states that the “monster from the East,
the scourge of mankind . . . would be slain by Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of
Fatima.” In another document, one reads the same assertion: “Satan will
wage a terrible war, but he will lose, because the Most Holy Virgin Mother of
God and of the Most Holy Rosary of Fatima, ‘more terrible than an army in
battle array,’ will defeat him forever.”
History of Documents
The
story does not end there. As aforementioned, in 1454 all those present signed
and sealed the documents narrating Sister Filipina’s portentous vision to be
kept for posterity.
In
1638, 184 years later, Father Jacinto Baresio, O.P., published a history of the
noble family of Savoy at the request of the Duchess of Mantua, Margaret of
Savoy-Gonzaga, then regent of Portugal. When he wrote it, Father Baresio
analyzed Sister Filipina’s chronicle and figured that the episode of Prince
Philip’s execution could stain the reputation of the dynasty. So he simply
burned it!
However,
as soon as he left, the abbess and the older nuns in the monastery, who had
read the original, recreated from memory the document’s text, and each one
signed the text as a proof of authenticity on October 7, 1640.
In
1655, a nun who signed only her initials, left another written document,
confirming everything said in the previous one, in the terms that follow:
The
written memoirs say that in Portugal there is a church in a little town called
Fatima, built by an ancestor of our holy founder Margaret of Savoy, Mafalda,
Queen of Portugal and daughter of Amadeus II of Savoy, and that a statue of
the Most Holy Virgin will speak about very grave future events, for Satan will
wage a terrible war. But he will lose because the Most Holy Virgin Mother of
God and of the Most Holy Rosary of Fatima, “more terrible than an army in
battle array,” will defeat him forever.
Nonetheless,
these other manuscripts were also forgotten, because of the religious
persecutions that closed the Dominican convent in Alba twice.
Time
passed, and in 1855 or 1885, the then Abbess Benedetta Deogratias Ghibellini,
“received a revelation by a holy soul of the content of that lost chronicle and
confided it verbally to her successor, with the obligation of transmitting it,
always in secret and not publicly, until each event had been verified.”
On
May 22, 1923, Mother Prioress Stefana Mattei communicated the secret to Sister Lucia
Mantello, who briefly stayed with the Dominicans before joining the Salesians.
She did not have the ancient documents in her possession. She merely
transcribed this revelation, transmitted by each abbess to her successor, which
referred to the chronicles that had been lost.
Errors of Russia
In my
opinion the errors of Russia are still with us. They are in the constitution of the European Union. From 1914 till 1984 this “monster from
the East, the scourge of mankind" spread its errors all over the world. From 1984 on it has been loosing the war to
the great warrior, Our Lady of Fatima, starting from the statue at the
parish Church that smiled at Lucia at her first communion. The war has a long way to go because
communists do not give up without a fight and they are now working to take over
Western Europe. Our Lady is at the head
of Her army in this fight. Are you
behind Her fighting as one of Her children?
In the end She will win with or without you. However, the smaller Her army the harder the victory will be. It is up to you.
Richard Salbato
Catholic
Encyclopedia:
Blessed
Margaret of Savoy
Marchioness of
Montferrat, born at Pignerol in 1382; died at Alba, 23 November, 1464. She was
the only daughter of Louis of Savoy, Prince of Achaia, and of Bonne, daughter
of Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy, and was given in marriage in 1403 to Theodore,
Marquis of Montferrat, a descendant of the Greek emperors, the Palæologi, and
widower of Jeanne, daughter of the duke of Bar and of Lorraine. Her piety,
already great, increased after she had heard the preaching of St. Vincent
Ferrer, who spent several months in Montferrat. Therefore, when she was left a
widow in 1418, she decided to abandon the world. Leaving the direction of the
affairs of the marquisate to Jean-Jacques, the son of her husband by his first
marriage, she retired to Alba where she joined the Third Order of St. Dominic.
A little later, Philip Maria, duke of Milan, asked her hand in marriage and
begged the pope to relieve her of her vow. But Margaret opposed a formal
refusal to this request and thoroughly resolved to give herself entirely to God:
with several young women of rank, she founded a monastery and placed it under
the rule of the order of St. Dominic. Redoubling her mortifications she made
rapid progress in the way of perfection and died in a saintly manner. On 13
December, 1464, her remains were placed in a simple tomb; in 1481 they were
transferred to a different and much more beautiful sepulchre built in her
monastery at the expense of William, Marquis of Montferrat.
Philip
II (1438-1497)
Philip II, surnamed the Landless was the
Duke of Savoy for the brief reign from 1496 to 1497, one year.
He was the granduncle of the previous duke Charles
II, and the youngest surviving son of Duke Luis of Savoy and Anne of Cyprus. He
however was not the heir general of the previous duke, there being several
females before him in the line of succession. To ensure male inheritance to the
Savoy line, his eldest son Philibert was married to his cousin, the only sister
of the deceased young Duke. However, the plan did not succeed: the girl died at
age 12. (Philip had already died in the meantime.) The children of the
daughters of Philip's eldest brother Duke Amedeo IX of Savoy were next in line,
and were entitled to the inheritance of the line of heirs-general, including
Cyprus and Jerusalem. Despite of the fact that Cyprus and Jerusalem did not bar
succession in female line, Philip however took those claims and used those
titles as well. His male successors in Savoy also continued to do so, thus
giving their ducal title a higher, royal titulary.
He spent most of his life as a junior member of the
ducal family. His original paanage was the district of Bresse, close to the
French and Burgundian border, but it was lost and therefore Philip received his
sobriquet "the Landless".
He married two women:
1.
Margaret of Bourbon (1438-1483) and had 3 children from
this marriage Louise (1476-1531), married Charles of Valois-Orléans, Count of
Angoulême, had children including: Francis I of France
whose daughter Margaret of Valois married to Emanuele Filiberto
of Savoy. 2. Girolamo (1478) 3. Philibert II
(Filiberto II) (1480-1504)
2. Claudine or Claudina de Brosse of Brittany (1450-1513) and had 6 children
from this marriage: Carlo III
(1486-1553) who succeeded his half-brother as Duke of Savoy, Louis (1488-1502),
Philip (1490-1533),
duke of Nemours , Assolone
(1494), Giovanni Amedeo (1495), Philiberta (1498-1524),
married Julian II di Medici (1479-1516), duke
of Nemours
He had also other 8 illegitimate children by 2
mistresses known as Libera Portoneri and Bona di Romagnano. One of those
children was Rene de Savoie, known as the Grand Bastard of Savoy.
House of Savoy
The House of Savoy was a dynasty of nobles
who traditionally had their domain in Savoy, a region between Piedmont, Italy,
Frnace and French-speaking Switzerland. They once had claims on the modern
canton of Vaud in Switzerland, but their access to it was cut by Geneva during
the Reformation, after which it was conquered by Bern.
They became Kings of Sardinia and later of Italy.
Their Kingdom ended with the referendum by which
Italians chose the republic as the form of state. Under the Constitution of the
Italian Republic, male descendants of the House of Savoy were forbidden from
entering Italy. This provision was removed in 2002.
The house descended from Humbert I, Count of
Sabaudia (or "Maurienne"), Italian Umberto I "Biancamano", 1003-1047
or 1048, and includes the Counts of Savoy, the Dukes of Savoy, the Kings of
Sardinia, and the Kings of Italy. Piedmont was later joined with Sabaudia, and
the name evolved into "Savoy" (Italian "Savoia").
Reference:
http://www.catholiccitizens.org/platform/platformview.asp?c=19476