Our Lady of Fatima

This year, 2017, marks the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady to the shepherd children of Fatima, Portugal.The visions of the Blessed Virgin began on May 13, 1917, and then on the 13th day of five subsequent months.

While tending sheep, Lucia Dos Santos and her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, reported seeing "a woman dressed in white more brilliant than the sun." Calling herself "Our Lady of the Rosary," Mary asked them to pray the rosary daily for the conversion of sinners. She asked for prayer, penance, and the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.

In 1930, the Bishop of Leira-Fatima approved the apparitions. Every Pope thereafter has recognized these events and encouraged devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In the final apparition (October 13, 1917), Mary appeared with St. Joseph. A crowd of 70,000 witnessed the sun dance, spin, display in various colors and descend on them. It dried their rain-soaked clothes and the land. It was an event reported 40 miles away.

Two children did not live long beyond the apparitions. Francisco, 10, received his First Communion on his death bed and died the next day, April 4, 1919, a victim of influenza. Jacinta, 9, died on February 20, 1920, after a surgery for an abscess in her chest. Lucia joined the Sisters of St. Dorothy in Spain but later the Carmelite Convent in Coimbra, Portugal, until her death in 2005, at the age of 97.

Our Lady gave the children a secret in three parts. The first was a vision of hell; the second was of the impending war and the need for the consecration of Russia lest it spread its “errors throughout the world.” The third was that of a “bishop clothed in white,” getting shot. St. John Paul II saw his assassination attempt on May 13, 1981. the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima as a fulfillment of this secret. In 1982, he took a bullet fragment that had wounded him and had it placed in the crown of Our Lady’s statue in Fatima. Sr. Lucia agreed with the Pope’s interpretation of the prophetic vision.

On May 13, 2000, St. John Paul II beatified Francisco and Jacinta. Their canonization is close at hand. In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI authorized the canonization process of Sr. Lucia Dos Santos.