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Faith, conversion, prayer and fasting are the way to Peace

According to the united testimony of the visionaries, Our Lady on the occasion of her apparition gave a series of messages, to be transmitted to the people. Even though there are many messages, they can be summarized in five themes:

Already on the third day, Our Lady stressed peace as the first of her messages:

The second of Our Lady's messages is faith. Already on the fourth, fifth and sixth day of apparitions, Our Lady exhorted those present to have strong faith. Understandably, she repeated this message many times. Without faith we cannot arrive at peace! Not only this but faith is itself an answer to God's Word, which he not only proclaims but actually gives to us. Our Lady presented faith as an answer to everything, no matter whatever people were looking for.

Conversion was another one of Our Lady's frequent messages. This presupposes that she noticed either a weakness or a complete lack of faith in humanity today. And without conversion it is impossible to achieve peace. True conversion means, the purifying or cleansing of the heart,(Jeremiah 4:14), because a corrupt or 'deteriorated' heart is the basis of bad relations, which in turn brings social disorder, unjust laws, base constitutions etc.

Almost daily, from the fifth day of apparitions onwards Our Lady recommends prayer. She requests everyone to "pray without ceasing". Prayer, therefore stimulates and strengthens our faith, without which our relationship with God is disordered;-as is our relationship with each other. Prayer also reminds us of how close God is to us even in our daily lives: In prayer we acknowledge Him, we give Him thanks for His gifts to us, and we are filled with a hopeful expectancy of that which we need, but particularly our redemption. Our response should be "spoken faith", or "prayer". In prayer, faith animates, renews, strengthens and sustains itself. In addition to this, man's prayer really bears witness to the Gospel, and to the existence of God, thus provoking a response of faith in others.

Already on the sixth day of the apparitions, Our Lady often recommended fasting because it aids faith. That is, the practice of fasting aids and ensures control over oneself. Only the person who can dominate himself is truly free, and is capable of abandoning himself to God and to his neighbour, as faith demands. Fasting guarantees him that his abandonment to faith is secure and sincere. It helps him to free himself from every slavery, but especially to the slavery to sin. Whoever is not in the possession of oneself is in some way enslaved. Therefore fasting helps the individual to restrain himself from disordered pleasure seeking which in turn leads him to a futile and useless existence often wasteful of the very goods which are necessary to others just for basic survival.