Apostasy: Fatima's Third Prophecy

This poem was written in response to the Rattle® Poetry Ekphrastic Challenge for October 2023 and was ultimately not selected. You can find more information here.

https://www.rattle.com/ekphrastic/

The image that this poem was specifically written about can be found here. (October 2023 – Arthur Lawrence's “Shadowland”)

https://i0.wp.com/www.rattle.com/ekphrasis/EC23Oct.jpg?ssl=1

Apostasy: Fatima’s Third Prophecy

What truths are held in that once sealed text?

The third secret of Fatima revealed

A vision for the future of the Roman Catholic Church

Religious men and women on a pilgrimage

Up a steep mountain side to a cross on a hill

The Holy Father, Bishop in White

Shot before that cross and the others dead

While an angel of the Lord comes to collect the blood of their martyrdom

“In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be preserved.”

But what do those words harbor for the rest of the world?

Will Rome lose her faith? Will she fall like walls of Jericho?

Or will the church destroy itself from within?

Has the devil already found the cracks and availed himself of the weakness?

Or will she fade away? Dwindle down to nothing when there is no one left to fill her pews?

For she has closed the churches to prayer and the schools to teaching

See, the clergy thinks they walk the path of Calvary

But they do not make it to the cross

They do not practice their true faith

Behold, the decline has already begun

From the Great Schism to the Ninety-five Theses

It has broken; it has divided

From sins committed against the innocent and innocence lost forever

To people downtrodden and oppressed

For two thousand years, the Church has faltered

And some would say that it has failed

But their followers have not fallen

The faithful still hold the faith

They see that salvation lies where it always has

In Jerusalem, that place called Golgotha

The true rock on which the church is to be built

His death for the forgiveness of sins

A temple torn down, for faith is not in a place

Remade in three days, for faith is in a person

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost

The mother and the apostles

All that is written in the book

From sinners to saints

True faith must be in us

No matter where we practice it

We must find our own way to the holy mountain

Take the pilgrimage to the New Jerusalem

And we will be the rebirth of Rome, a universal catholic church

For faith must be lost to be found again

Submitted under MRB