The vision of hell!

Last week I went to see the musical, by Filipe La Féria: Fatima. It tells the story of the Virgin Mary’s appearances to the three shepherds. It is a vision of an artist from the historical facts and the message of Fatima itself.

I only have one word: « Amazing! ». This is not another representation of something that is in the past, a historical fact, but which had repercussions, not only national, but also international. Anyone who knows the prophetic power of the message of Fatima knows how at a point in twentieth century history, 1917, has lit up all the history behind and the one that came to our day.

What impressed me most? Hell!

In what we know the visions, the Virgin Mary granted that the shepherds could contemplate the vision of the suffering of the fire of hell. La Féria decided to materialize this suffering of hell with real images of history.

I saw the trench soldiers, the First Great War, and Hitler and World War II; The dictatorships and wars that plagued humanity in this century… to the collision of the planes in the twin towers in New York.

First I wondered, ‘This is a historical error!’ And then I remembered how Fatima’s message carries with it a realistic and symbolic view of the story itself. There is a light and hope that appears in Fatima: there will be suffering and pain, there will be wars and dead, but finally the immaculate heart of Mary will triumph.

Pope Francis in Fatima on the anniversary of the apparitions (now some say visions) said to us, « We have a mother. » It’s true… we have a mother and we have hope… for Mary’s immaculate heart to mean the unconditional love of a mother.

La Féria was able to gather in two hours a synthesis of human suffering, the suffering of the shepherds, the suffering of a people – the Portuguese people – but also the power of God above the power of evil.

I have believed, for many years, that sermons and preaching have their timeliness in their traditional orality, but the arts now, as in the past, have a power to involve men in words. The arts are the best speech that can express such a engaging message. Because the beauty of words receives from the arts the most sublime support of the human soul.

I really believe that we lack symbolic power that gives meaning to materially exacerbated realism of the contemporary world. Today we look at what’s out and can’t get into what is inside. Because, as Saint Exupery would say, the essential is invisible to the eyes… St. Thomas Aquinas, yet: what escapes the senses, only faith can see it.

The first pilgrims of Fatima began a movement over the last century. I look at the photographs of the last appearance and see the bare feet of so many men and women… I see the drama of war in the fallen military of that time… Today, sitting on the Politeama, we managed to enter the crowd of those who watched in 1917 to supernatural phenomena. La Féria not only gives us the story of the three shepherds, but leads us to make the experience of those who attended all those phenomena… Better, just, just see!