More than a hundred years ago, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to three little shepherds in Fatima, Portugal, with a crucial message for the century and its looming dangers. Even if many of these events seem like part of a distant past, the message of Fatima is not irrelevant. The latest World Youth Day in Lisbon gives us the opportunity to once again reflect on the message of faith, hope and charity that Our Lady gave us for times of difficulty. Let us look back on the events of Fatima — in Venerable Lucia dos Santos’ own words.
What happened at Fatima?
Lucia dos Santos and Francisco and Jacinta Marto were ordinary children, poor shepherds who were well-loved by their community and families, each very pious in their own way. In 1916, an angel appeared to them on three different occasions in the Cova da Iria.
In these apparitions, the angel asked them to pray for sinners and insisted on the importance of offering our sufferings to God for their conversion. He asked them to pray often: “Oh My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love you. And I beg pardon for all those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love you.”
Our Lady’s apparitions began eight months later. Much of the world was suffering in 1917 at the time. World War I was wreaking havoc across Europe, and in Russia, a turbulent revolution would later give rise to the Soviet Union. The apparitions, safe to say, were just what the world needed.
On May 13, when Lucia was 10, Francisco, 9, and Jacinta, 11, Our Lady appeared to the children with a flash of lightning.
She asked them, “Will you offer yourselves to God, and bear all the sufferings he sends you, in atonement for all the sins that offend him and for the conversion of sinners?”
They replied that they would. She then asked them to return to the same location she appeared to them every month.
Lucia describes the encounter: “We were bathed in a heavenly light that appeared to come directly from her hands. The light’s reality cut into our hearts and our souls, and we knew somehow that this light was God, and we could see ourselves embraced in it. By an interior impulse of grace we fell to our knees, repeating in our hearts: ‘Oh, Holy Trinity, we adore you. My God, my God, I love you in the Blessed Sacrament.’”
Following the visit, the children told their families. The Marto parents were the first believers of Fatima, but Lucia’s parents would prove more difficult. Her mother believed she was lying, while her father was not religious at all and was indifferent.
Secrets and sufferings
Between the second and fourth apparitions, the children suffered much at the hands of their families and the local authorities, who believed they were lying. But the children remained steadfast, and with encouragement from Francisco and Jacinta, Lucia overcame her own doubts caused by her family’s disbelief.
The second apparition, on June 13, revealed that Francisco and Jacinta would soon be taken to heaven. Lucia would remain on earth for a while to tell the story of Fatima. The third apparition would reveal much more.
On July 13, Our Lady revealed to the children three “secrets of Fatima,” the third of which would not be released until 2000 by St. John Paul II. The first was a vision of hell and a warning about World War II; the second, a warning about Russia.
L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, published a special insert in 2000 on the secrets. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith also published a document titled “The Message of Fatima,” in which all three secrets are published “in their entirety.” It contains an interpretation of the secrets approved by John Paul II and signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then prefect of the Congregation.
The document stated: “The first and second parts of the ‘secret’… refer especially to the frightening vision of hell, devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Second World War, and finally the prediction of the immense damage that Russia would do to humanity by abandoning the Christian faith and embracing Communist totalitarianism.”
The third secret was a prophecy. Lucia wrote, “[There was] a Bishop dressed in white, we had the impression that it was the Holy Father. Other bishops, priests, men and women religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big cross … before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain on his knees, at the foot of the big cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other bishops, priests, men and women religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the cross, there were two angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.”
John Paul II saw himself reflected in the image of the martyred Pope. The assassination attempt that he miraculously survived on May 13, 1981, occurred on the anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. He later said, “It was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path.” He considered he was delivered by Our Lady from the death that was prophesized for him in Fatima.
The ‘Miracle of the Sun’
Two apparitions later, tension was growing in Fatima; authorities were alarmed by the number of people flocking to the Cova da Iria. The children were promised a miracle at the final apparition, which would take place on October 13, so that the world would believe.
Lucia described the vision: “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. When, a little later, this apparition disappeared, I saw Our Lord and Our Lady; it seemed to me that it was Our Lady of Sorrows. Our Lord appeared to bless the world in the same manner as St. Joseph had done. This apparition also vanished, and I saw Our Lady once more, this time resembling Our Lady of Carmel.”
Then came the miracle: the sun “danced” to eyewitnesses, who were 70,000 in attendance.
“Opening her hands, she made them reflect on the sun, and as she ascended, the reflection of her own light continued to be projected onto the sun itself,” Lucia wrote. “Here … is the reason why I cried out to the people to look at the sun … I was moved to do so under the guidance of an interior impulse.”
Fatima for today
Even though the secrets of Fatima seem to refer to events of the past, her message is still relevant today. Many of the errors of communism are still alive and have found renewed force in our culture and other parts of the world. Christian persecution in the world is on the rise and many people are leaving the faith.
The message of Our Lady of Fatima is filled with hope. As she warned of future wars, death and persecution, she didn’t request anything that surpassed our abilities. Instead, she reminded us that prayer, the offering of our sufferings and our own conversion were powerful means of transforming history. She reminded us that, as Christians, we can only bear fruit if we abide in Christ — sin, on the other hand, sterilizes our actions.
She said that God wished to establish in the world the devotion to her Immaculate Heart for the salvation of “poor souls.” Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary implies embracing the same attitude of heart as Mary in her fiat — “your will be done” — and defining this attitude as the center of our whole life. Our Lady was asking us to imitate her, as St. Paul did in his letters (1 Cor 4:16).
Let us then not forget her message in our time. We must look at history through the eyes of salvation history: God and the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph, but Christ calls us to collaborate in his plan of salvation in our daily lives. Christ calls us to become true disciples, following the example of Mary, his Mother.