At Fatima, Our Lady called the world to prayer, penitence and conversion of heart. She chose as her ambassadors three village children: Lucia dos Santos, who died in 2005, and her two cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, who died during childhood from influenza.

        An official history of the apparitions posted on the shrine’s Web site (www.santuario-fatima.pt/portal) notes that on May 13, 1917, after praying the rosary, as was the custom of the three children, they were playing when: “Suddenly they saw a brilliant light, and thinking it to be lightning, they decided to go home. But as they went down the slope another flash lit up the place, and they saw on the top of a [hill]…‘a Lady more brilliant than the sun,’ from whose hands hung a white rosary.”

        The Lady told the children to pray intensely and make sacrifices for sinners. She invited them to return for five consecutive months, on the 13th day. The children did so, and on the 13th day of June, July, September and October, she appeared and spoke to them again. On Aug. 13, local authorities did not allow the children to visit the site of the apparitions, but the Lady appeared nearby on Aug. 19.

        At the last apparition, on Oct. 13, with about 70,000 people present, the Lady told them that she was the “Lady of the Rosary” and that a chapel was to be built there in her honor. “After the apparition, all present witnessed the miracle promised to the three children in July and September: The sun, resembling a silver disc, could be gazed at without difficulty and, whirling on itself like a wheel of fire, it seemed about to fall upon the earth,” according to the history. Mary delivered her final message: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners.”

        During the course of her appearances, Our Lady of Fatima told 10-year-old Lucia that a conversion of communist Russia would avoid a further spreading of the Soviet “errors,” and that a war greater than World War I would break out if sinners did not stop offending God. Lucia, who was sometimes the only child of the three to speak directly with Our Lady, was also given a vision of hell. She kept the details of this vision secret until closer to her death.

        After Our Lady’s appearances, the three little seers suffered greatly. Family members, Church officials and others pressed them for more information, or urged them to retract their stories as lies. Pope John Paul II beatified both Jacinta and Francisco in 2000, and their remains are now entombed inside the basilica that was built where Mary first appeared. In 1921, Lucia entered the religious community of St. Dorothy and took the name Maria Lucia of Dolours. In 1948, with permission from Pope Pius XII, she entered the Carmel of St. Teresa at Coimbra and took the name Sister Maria Lucia of the Immaculate Heart. She was present at Fatima for her cousins’ beatification. After her death in 2005, her body was interred in the shrine.

Reprinted by permission of Columbia magazine, courtesy Knights of Columbus Supreme Council, New Haven, CT. Columbia is published monthly by the Knights of Columbus.

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