The spirituality of Fatima is, therefore, not an egocentric spirituality, that is, a set of spiritual practices where the objective is to benefit and perfect the one who practices them; for this reason, it is not comparable to the asceticism of the monks which has sanctification, mysticism and beatific vision as the final goal.
Quite the opposite, both the prayer and penance that Mary asked of the shepherd children had a concrete and specific goal: the conversion of “the poor sinners” and the reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It is, therefore, an altruistic spirituality.
It is true that through these practices the little shepherds became sanctified, but the practices were not done by the children with the intention to sanctify themselves but to contribute to the spiritual welfare of others. In other words, it was not to save themselves that they did what they did, but rather to save others. In this sense, both their personal prayer and penance are their contribution to the universal mission of salvation.
Even when the children decided not to sin anymore the fundamental reason that led them to do so was not to become saints, a thought that never entered into their minds. It was their great love for God that propelled them to do all that they could not to offend Our Lord further. In other words, even in their avoidance of sin, their objective is altruistic.
Prayer of intercession
Then Abraham came near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it?” (…) “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake”. (Genesis 18:23-26)
Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. (Exodus 17:11)
The two great patriarchs of our faith, Abraham and Moses, experienced the value and the efficacy of intercessory prayer to God for the sake of their people. Later the task of asking God for the well-being of the people was assigned to the priests who were descendants of Aaron. The medieval Christian society was divided into classes, and each class was given a specific task: the nobles defended the clergy and the people, the clergy interceded for the nobles and the people, and the people provided material support for the clergy and the nobles.
Nowadays prayer is not an exclusive task of a particular class of people. Instead, we are all called to pray. Prayer is a means for us to express not only our love for God but also for our neighbours when we pray for them. Prayer can be our answer to God when He asks us where is our brother (Genesis 4:9). Unlike Cain, we ought to see ourselves as guardians of our brother by caring for him, wanting what is good for him, and acting in his favour. All these are realized not only through deeds but also through prayers as we intercede for him to the One who can do him the most good, more than we can ever do especially in areas beyond our reach.
The Our Father and the Hail Mary prayers, as well as most Christian prayers, never exclude others. Even when we pray them in the privacy of our rooms and in our hearts, others are always there with us because we address ourselves to God in the plural form as a community; and whatever we ask in these and other prayers, we do not ask for ourselves exclusively, but also for the entire community of believers.
Chapter 17 of Saint John's Gospel presents the so-called priestly prayer which happens to be the longest prayer in the entire Bible. In the second and third part of this prayer, Jesus prays to the Father for his disciples and then for all the believers. The important point of this prayer is the unity among all faithful and it is in this oneness where we are all members of the Mystical Body of Christ that all intercessory prayers rest upon.
The communion of saints is very dear to Catholicism. It consists of solidarity that is established among all the baptized, whether they live in space and time, or beyond in purgatory or in the bosom of God. It is on the basis of this communion that the Portuguese people has a special devotion in praying and offering the Eucharistic sacrifice for the most abandoned souls in purgatory, those who have no one to intercede for them.
When I had already decided not to go and cut my hair today, I began to hear a voice inside of me urgently imploring me to go; the more I ignored it the more insistent the voice became until it turned into an obsession. I gave up then and went. As I entered the shop, the barber surprised me by saying that he was at that very moment praying to the Lord that I would come in today.
“… Prayer is the most effective supplement after traditional medicine, surpassing acupuncture, herbs, vitamins and other alternative remedies.” (Washington Post, March 24, 2006)
It is difficult to quantify the efficacy of prayers. At the apparitions in Fatima, Lucia presented many intentions to Our Lady and she responded that some would be answered while others not. Faced with this reality, we can only say with certainty that it is easier for our requests to be answered if we formulate them than if we don't. However, whether our petitions are answered or not, it is God’s will that is fulfilled not ours; a will which we are called to accept unconditionally, because God is our Father and no one knows better than Him what we really need and what is more beneficial for our salvation.
Matthew 5:44 – Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you – Even enemies cease to be one when we have the courage to pray for them as the Gospels ask us to do. It is in fact something mysterious that we can all experience; the moment we succeed in praying for those who want us harm, our hatred for them ceases.
Francisco and Jacinta the reparators of humanity
In the summer of 1916 while they were playing in Lucia’s backyard, near the well of Arneiro, an Angel appeared and said to them:
--What are you doing? Pray, pray much! The most holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy on you. Offer prayers and sacrifices constantly to the Most High.
With the passage of time, Sister Lucia interpreted this interjection of the Angel not as a reprimand because they were at play, but as a call to something of supreme importance, that is, to prayer. This call to attention must still echo in our hearts because as Christians we get distracted with too many things; very much like Marta in the Gospel, we tend to waste time on less important things… instead of sitting, despite the frenzy of our days, at Our Lord's feet like Mary, the sister of Marta, and fixing our gaze on Him who is all in all.
The little shepherds answered faithfully to the wake-up call of the Angel and again one year later, to the exhortations of Our Lady to pray and offer sacrifices in their daily lives according to their capabilities as the Angel had suggested, for the conversion of sinners. They took upon themselves this task like a mission, and embodied it in accordance to their personality and character.
Jacinta being the emotional one, and without neglecting prayer especially to the Blessed Sacrament or the “Hidden Jesus”, was more drawn to offer sacrifices because she had great pity for sinners and the more she could save the better. Francisco being the most intuitive of the three, without neglecting sacrifice like his sister, was more inclined to prayer; he was especially sensitive to the sadness of Jesus and used to spend hours and hours alone in consoling Him.
Prayer and sacrifice is an inseparable binomial like theory and praxis. To pray without making sacrifices is comparable to that character in the Gospel who says “Lord, Lord”, but does nothing to embody the Word, that is, to put it into practice (Matthew 7:21).
On the other hand, sacrifices without prayer would not be Christian either; therefore, the Blessed Virgin Mary also taught the little shepherds a prayer to go with all the sacrifices that they make: “O my Jesus, it is for love of You, in reparation for the offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for the conversion of poor sinners.”
Using a letter from the post office as an analogy to explain the relationship between sacrifice and prayer: sacrifice is what is written in the letter, prayer is the envelope where the address is written, in this case to God in Heaven.
Francisco the consoler of the Lord
One day Lucia asked Francisco:
--“Francisco, why don’t you tell me to pray with you, and Jacinta too?”
--“I prefer praying by myself,” he answered, “so that I can think and console Our Lord, Who is so sad!”
I asked him one day:
--“Francisco, which do you like better – to console Our Lord, or to convert sinners, so that no more souls will go to hell?”
--“I would rather console Our Lord. Didn’t you notice how sad Our Lady was that last month, when she said that people must not offend Our Lord any more, for He is already much offended? I would like to console Our Lord, and after that convert sinners so that they won’t offend Him anymore.”
Francisco recognized simultaneously the transcendence of God and the jubilation derived from His presence. He confessed: “What I loved the most was to see Our Lord in that light which Our Lady which put in our hearts. I love God so much!” Francisco felt himself “on fire in that light which is God (…)” and affirmed, “What is God? … We could never put it into words!”
It was in this union with God that made him perceive the pain that human offenses cause Jesus. Francisco empathized greatly with Him for “He is so sad” and, for this reason drew from him the touching response, “If I could console Him!” (Cf. Portuguese Episcopal Conference 2017)
Perhaps this will be the most contemplative part of the Fatima message. Francisco was in fact a contemplative, used to separate himself from his companions, and probably would have become a monk had he lived to adulthood. However, the contemplation that made him spend the entire morning day after day in the Church of Fatima praying in front of the Hidden Jesus while Lucia and Jacinta went to school was not to make himself feel good by being in God’s company, but solely to console Jesus who is sad from all the offenses of sinners.
Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
… I will take Jacinta and Francisco soon. But you are to stay here some time longer. Jesus wishes to make use of you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” (I promise salvation to those who embrace it, and those souls will be loved by God like flowers placed by me to adorn His Throne).
The cold modern world of technology pays little attention to symbolism. In order to better understand what the Hearts of Jesus and Mary mean, it is helpful for us to enter into the world of poetry. We all know that the expression to wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve means being emotional about certain topic or situation. This is how the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary are presented – as a display of distress and concern for the situation of humanity, so the faithful can see and do something about it.
In the biblical sense and also in the message of Fatima, the heart is not only a pear-shaped muscle that pumps blood throughout the body, but it is also the symbol of the very innermost part of man where thoughts, affections and will all come together.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus – The image of Jesus with his heart in his chest, and sometimes in his hand, is a graphic representation to make it very clear how much Jesus loved the people of his time to the point of suffering and giving his life for them, his friends and all humanity. Devotion to this image has inspired Christianity since the apparitions to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque between 1673 and 1675. These visions are not out of the historical and biblical context if we think that it was really the soldier who pierced Jesus and opened his chest to show us his heart.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary – The image of Mary represented like that of Jesus with the heart in her chest means love, dedication and suffering for her son from conception till death on the cross. Crucified and before giving up his spirit, Jesus gave us his mother to be our mother, thus starting her passion for the brothers and sisters of her son, the whole humanity.
The Virgin Mary communicates to the shepherd children that her son wants to establish this devotion on earth, hence the reason why Lucia were to remain living while Jacinta and Francisco were soon to be taken up to Heaven. This image is also not out of historical and biblical context if we think of old Simeon’s prophecy that a sword will pierce Mary’s soul.
“You can only pay love with love” – The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus like that to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and all other devotions and acts of love to God are not needed by God. It is us who need them, for the fact that it is only when we are open to the love of God that His love produces fruits in our lives.
But as long as we turn our backs on God, His love which never stops will not have any effect in our lives. On the other hand, it is not possible to be at the same time open to the love of God without loving Him, hence why this proverb makes perfect sense that God needs our love to love us. Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. (John 14:23)
The Immaculate Heart of Mary is the mediator of all graces; it was this heart, immaculate for being conceived without sin, that agreed to God’s plan of conceiving His son for the salvation of humanity. By being the mediatrix of the primordial Grace that is Christ, and also in the smaller graces, Mary is always the mediatrix between Heaven and Earth.
For this reason Jacinta was fervently devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, exhorting her cousin Lucia to propagate this devotion, for which reason she was to stay many years on earth:
“It will not be long now before I go to Heaven. You will remain here to make known that God wishes to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. When you are to say this, don’t go and hide. Tell everybody that God grants us graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; that people are to ask her for them; and that the Heart of Jesus wants the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be venerated at His side. Tell them also to pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace since God has entrusted it to her. If I could only put into the hearts of all, the fire that is burning within my own heart, and that makes me love the Hearts of Jesus and Mary so very much!”
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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