(Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from Jeff LeJeune’s spiritual memoir Dear John, (2020), a story that combines the spiritual and personal with the geopolitical stage)

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Today was Saturday May 9, a day I spent in Jeanerette plowing through the final work I had to grade for my online class. It was unseasonably chilly and overcast, what can be compared only to a good November, gumbo day. I was down emotionally for much of it. Strange, considering that I would finally be reaching the end of my consecration journey the next day. Or, not so strange, considering I would be reaching the end; perhaps in the back of my mind I was continuing to feel the effects that had started earlier in the week, the “what now” feeling that can follow any celebrated ritual.

Since I didn’t write on May 9, it would become the second place to include epilogue material for the book, along with May 6. And on this most special date today as I start the second epilogue, July 6, one year after I arrived in Puerto Rico to meet my mission friends, I embark on a chapter that I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for God to inspire me with. He finally did yesterday. I know exactly the topic I need to broach in order to bring together the threads of the personal and universal I have been blending and discussing this whole book.

The epiphany has been coming over time, and then plunged deeper and more permanently with one push yesterday morning.

And of course, given all the sacred back and forth between Mary and Joseph I experienced, this whole epiphany has to do with St Joseph. Once again, in the final hours of this emotional book-writing experience, the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Queen and our Mother, the main focal point of this entire consecration, is ending it where it started. She is bringing me right back to Joseph, just as he initially brought me to her.

Please, for just a moment, stop and think about how much I have talked about this in these pages. Really think about it. How beautiful and humble are the holy people God gives to us as models and friends? They are always, always, looking for opportunities to give to us and to each other.

And it’s because all of this, every single bit of it, ultimately, is about Jesus Christ the Lord.

On to Joseph. One of the most irritating aspects of the Fatima story is that his appearance is rarely, if ever, mentioned. I had completely forgotten about a little book titled St Joseph, Fatima and Fatherhood I’d obtained years ago, about the significance of his appearance with the Child Jesus and Mary on October 13, 1917, the last of six dates Mary appeared to the three children in the small village in Portugal.

You would think that would be pretty significant. Especially since he appeared in direct conjunction with the infamous Miracle of the Sun event.

Then again, I don’t think I ever actually read the book, so its contents were something I should have known long ago. It is one of those little opportunities we miss in life that would fortunately come back around for me.

There are two crucial aspects of this final Fatima apparition on which to reflect. First, there is the docile scene of Joseph holding the Child standing to the left of the sun and blessing the world, while the Virgin Mary is standing to the right of the sun; secondly, there is the unmistakable miracle Mary had promised the children months before—an erratic, spinning crash of the sun toward Earth witnessed by 70,000 spectators who, of course, thought the end of the world was upon them. In this second event, the members of the Holy Family are not visible anymore.

These two events may seem wholly disjointed at first glance. Indeed, before I became acquainted with Joseph’s presence at Fatima just last week, the Miracle of the Sun seemed more a major sign than anything—a sign promised by Mary so that the multitudes would believe the children’s story going back to May 13. But the reality of Joseph, and him holding the Child no less, is so abundantly important that it defies understanding as to why his part of the story is left out of so much of the literature.

Sister Lucia described the appearance in her Memoirs: “After Our Lady had disappeared into the immense distance of the firmament, we beheld St Joseph with the Child Jesus and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun. St Joseph and the Child Jesus seemed to bless the world, for they traced the Sign of the Cross with their hands.”

In this consecration, I have learned much concerning the deference of Mary to Joseph. The truth that Fatima seems to point to is that this deference is not only an act of her will, but more importantly an act of God’s will. It is Joseph and the Child blessing the world in the first part of the apparition, not Mary. This would seem to put Joseph on a pedestal enough to imply his superior holiness, but the truth is the exact opposite; it is this fact—that Mary and Jesus both hold more rank in holiness than Joseph—that makes this blessing, this clear fatherly authority in the family, evidence that Joseph’s power is willed by God the Father himself.

Consider Scripture. God sends the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation to announce the conception, by the Holy Spirit, of the Messiah in Mary’s womb. Yet, despite Mary’s immaculate conception and Joseph’s natural conception, the angel would appear to Joseph in a dream four times when it came time to protect the family. The first time was to assure him that Mary, to whom he was already betrothed, was in fact still a virgin and that it was by the Holy Spirit that she was with child (Mt 1:19-20). This is sometimes known as the Annunciation of Joseph.

The second dream was to warn Joseph to take the Child and his Mother to Egypt to avoid Herod’s murderous plot (Mt 2:13). The third was to inform him that those who meant to kill the Child were now dead, and that he could return the family to the land of Israel (Mt 2:19-21).

The fourth dream, in my opinion, perhaps shows the agency and authority of Joseph more than any other—even to the level handed over by God the Father himself. In the immediate verse following the above, where the angel directs Joseph to take the family back to Judea, a strange thing occurs. This verse states, after Joseph had indeed taken the family back to Israel, “But hearing that Archelaus reigned in Judea in the room of Herod his father, he was afraid to go thither; and being warned in sleep retired into the quarters of Galilee. And coming he dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was said by the prophets: That he shall be called a Nazarene” (Mt 2:22-23).

This indeed is puzzling. Why the two dreams? When the coast finally cleared of Herod, but Herod’s son had assumed the throne, why wouldn’t God simply have his messenger instruct Joseph to go to Nazareth in the third dream? Why tell him to return home if home was so dangerous? And perhaps most convincingly, why tell him to return home if the Old Testament had prophesied that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene?

There is only one answer that also keeps intact God the Father’s omnipotence and sovereignty—God allowed Joseph, and no other, the chance to examine the landscape and make a new decision that would protect Jesus and Mary. God clearly knew of the danger in Judea, despite Herod’s death, and could very well have skipped the third dream; instead, he makes abundantly plain for anyone reading this chapter the unfailing trust he has in Joseph. He willingly hands Joseph the authority to either stay or go, and of course Joseph’s concern with Archelaus is the precipitating prayer that invites the fourth and final dream—which is God’s response to that concern, the response to that prayer.

Yahweh, I am deeply troubled by the fact that you have led us back into possible danger. But you know you have my trust, and I know you know all things. Help me protect the Child and his Mother. Guide me in thy holy and never-failing will.

Yes, Joseph, your concern is warranted, and your faith has earned you favor. The Child and his Mother are indeed still in danger. Rise now, and take them to the land of Galilee. There, you will be blessed.

It is much like what Benedict XV did back when his prayer precipitated the coming of Our Lady of Fatima. God had already decided on the response to the prayer he also inspired, which, like Joseph’s story, also included an angel. It is the miracle of a humble God helping us believe in the power of simply going to him in faith.

All for the sake of helping us believe in ourselves.

He is saying to Joseph, point blankly—I trust you.

I trust you with my very own Son and his Mother. You protect them.

When the enemy wanted to destroy the Savior of the world, at every turn it was Joseph God sent the angel to. And Mary—the Holy Mother of God herself—submitted to him.

And she submitted because Joseph was the head of the household.

This is why the final apparition is so critical to understanding the overall message of Fatima. Leaving Joseph out of the story keeps it incomplete. It is only when Joseph is included that we find that the ultimate premonition of Fatima does not have to do with Mary alone.

It has to do with the family.

The attack on the family has been raging in the free world for decades now. Once again, the movie A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing can shed some light on the slow, sinister creep of evil into our society, targeting, specifically, the nuclear family. It is not the destruction of America by an outside enemy, an impossibility proven through our bold victories in World Wars I and II; it is instead an inscrutable crumbling from within, just as termites destroying a house go unseen while, for a time, the exterior looks the same.

Symbolically, in the apparition, when the Holy Family is intact, the sun remains still between them. Equally symbolically, when the Holy Family is no longer seen in its entirety, it is then that the sun begins to shake and plummet toward Earth—indicating a chilling omen of what is to come if we reject the sacredness of the family. In 2008, Carlo Cardinal Caffarra, the founding president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family, said that Sister Lucia herself, the only one of the three children to see the entirety of the final apparition,  had written to him, saying, “Father, a time will come when the decisive battle between the kingdom of Christ and Satan will be over marriage and the family.”

Is it any wonder that Pope Francis is so dubious when, among a litany of other things he has said (and maybe more importantly, not said), he gives a new name and new focus to John Paul’s vision? The Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family is now called the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.

That is correct. The word Family is replaced with Family Sciences. This is disturbing. The history of the field of science is wrought with fraud and corrupt government funding. Additionally, Francis also changed the leadership, the statutes, and the members of the Institute. The question that should be asked is, if this isn’t a radical departure from John Paul’s vision, why would there be any need to make such wholesale changes?

The answer should be obvious.

In Amoris Laetitia, Francis writes:

“Anthropological-cultural change, that today influences all aspects of life and requires an analytic and diversified approach, does not permit us to limit ourselves to practices in pastoral ministry and mission that reflect forms and models of the past.”[1]

Moreover, Francis believes the Church is obligated to respond to the modern needs of the world, that the Church must compromise its ideals to meet the inherent demands of a world that no longer supports the Christian understanding of marriage. He emphasizes not Christ or the Holy Family—which seem to be those “limiting forms and models of the past” of which he speaks—but instead contemporary science in analyzing family life.

All of this is in direct conjunction with his signing of the Abu Dhabi document that says God wills the plurality of religion. As Archbishop Viganò states, this is a “blatant heresy” and “terrible blasphemy.” It is a direct assault on the first commandment.[2]

“Saying that God wants to be worshipped as something other than how He revealed Himself means that the Incarnation, Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Savior are completely meaningless,” said Viganò.

[1] “Pope gives new name, new focus to John Paul II Institute on Marriage and Family,” CatholicCulture.org. Sept 2017.

[2] “Arbp. Viganò: Pope Francis is Teaching ‘Blatant Heresy … a Terrible Blasphemy,’” CNSNews.com. April 2020.

Numerous cardinals and Christian scholars have also condemned the document, not to mention a slew of other words and postures of Francis that have simply made it impossible for me to support him anymore. There are a growing number of Catholics, those willing to pay attention to world affairs and not keep their head blissfully in the sand, who agree. Dr Taylor Marshall, powerful Catholic apologist and author of the book Infiltration, has called Francis the worst pope in history because, while there have been plenty of sinful popes, never has there been one to so egregiously teach against fundamental precepts of the Catholic faith.

After I have defended him for years, after I have shaken my head and said there’s no way the pope—not the POPE—could be purposely leading the flock astray, in a few short months there have been discoveries and straws that have finally broken the camel’s back for me. Whereas I was praying for him at the beginning of this consecration, I have added to that prayers against whatever darkness he may be perpetrating in the Church, whether that be knowingly or unknowingly.

A bit about Archbishop Viganò, the man who cannot seem to get a straight answer or any answer at all from Francis concerning serious issues of the faith. Viganò is one of the shepherds, the most prominent one in fact, fighting the evil infiltration of the Church. Has been for a long time now. He is hated by many of his brother bishops. The recent letter he wrote to President Trump was comprised of more than just your typical warm and fuzzy sentiments from a pastor to a political leader. Anyone who reads the letter, and considers the time he took to even write it to the President of the United States of all people, will see in it both serious warnings and stirring hope for the free world.

The fact that he paralleled the terminology Deep State and Deep Church is eternally groundbreaking in itself. It indicates that the same swamp Trump has been talking about draining since his run for the presidency exists side by side with the swamp in the Catholic Church.

This should also tell us that from the very beginning, when Trump has used that phrase, he has been alluding to so much more than just Republicans vs Democrats. The Evil One is real.

Right off the bat, this does a very important thing: it helps people who assume that the entire Catholic Church is corrupt see that believing such a thing would entail that all of America is corrupt. And obviously, we know, this is not the case.

It also illustrates that the same resistance to communism that Trump and his supporters espouse also exists in the Catholic Church.

This type of alignment, this type of reaching out with the hand, is unprecedented in American history.

But perhaps what is even more extraordinary, and should give great hope (and information), is that President Trump tweeted his endorsement of Viganò and the letter’s contents.

Knowing a little about Viganò will indicate, at least to a novice degree, why this letter and his courageous stance is both monumental and necessary in this civil war, indeed world war, we are currently fighting.

Just last month, Viganò was among the many shepherds who sent out an appeal against corruption, infiltration, money grabs, and exploitation concerning Covid-19. Of course he was met swiftly with hate and venom inside the Church, by whom Dr Marshall would call the infiltrators, while not even a month later, more and more evidence concerning the truth about the spread of Covid-19 continues to surface.

MAY 13 COMPANION PIECE

Do Americans Know About the Miracle of the Sun? 70,000 Were There

If this information isn’t enough, or if some of us look at it and view Viganò as just a right-wing nut, as some Catholics do, consider what evil he has flushed out, to the risk of his own life, concerning finances and moral degradation in both the Vatican and the United States Church. Consider his challenge of Francis on both moral issues and the teaching of Catholic dogma. Of course there will be those who hate him. He has blown open a Vatican bank scandal and exposed high-ranking church officials for the wolves they are.

One only need ask themselves this question: why would so many bishops speak out against a man who exposes such corruption, such crimes in a Church in which they have sworn to lead the flock? Why would they hate a man who exposes sin? This answer can be condensed into one word.

Infiltration.

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May everyone named directly or referenced indirectly ask forgiveness and do penance for their sins against America and God. I fight this information war in the spirit of justice and love for the innocent, but I have been reminded of the need for mercy and prayers for our enemies. I am a sinner in need of redemption as well after all, for my sins are many. In the words of Jesus Christ himself, Lord forgive us all, for we know not what we do.

Jeff LeJeune is the author of several books, writer for RVIVR, editor, master of English and avid historian, teacher and tutor, aspiring ghostwriter and podcaster, and creator of LeJeune Said. Visit his website at jefflejeune.com, where you can find a conglomerate of content.