Fatima: Secret or Prophecy?

When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, “It is going to rain”; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, “There will be scorching heat”; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? (Luke 12:54-56)

Illiterate that they were, the little shepherds of Fatima did not know the concept of a prophecy and for this reason they referred to the two visions regarding the future that the Lady showed them at the July 13th apparition as a 'secret’.  Therefore what is widely known as the "Secret of Fatima” should be understood as the Prophecy of Fatima. It is in this sense that the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger called Fatima the most prophetic of all modern apparitions.

Prophecy and the signs of times
Following the Gospel of Luke quoted above, prophets are people who are wide awake and attentive to the signs of times, that is, to a present that is infused with a future that is already somehow foreseen here and now. It is one thing to see and another to be able to interpret and perceive the signs of a future already encrusted in the present moment.

For instance, throughout the centuries many people had seen how the steam from a pot of boiling water can shoot its lid off, and yet they could see nothing past a pot of boiling water. Mr. James Watt, however, saw beyond the obvious, and in trying to harness the power of steam, he built steam engines that greatly contributed to the industrial revolution.

Prophecy links the present to the future – in the sense that the future already gives news of itself and can somehow already be found in the present moment in the form of signs of times that only those who are wide awake are able to perceive; those who look at the world with eyes that look under and beyond the obvious, and at the same time, are always in contact with God who is the Lord of Time -- past, present and future.

Prophecy links the future to the present – in the sense that the future is not irreversibly fixed, but rather somehow interactive and susceptible to changes. In fact, the purpose of prophecies in the Bible is precisely to warn us of a future that is in our hands to avoid, as we have the freedom and the power to modify it and write history differently. In this sense, the future is not a train that has lost its brakes with no way of us stopping it, but rather a perfectly trained galloping horse whose reins are in our hands.

History of the secret
“The secret of the Lady”, as the children called it, consists of three clearly distinct parts; the first deals with the vision of Hell, the second with the militant atheism in Russia, and the third with a symbolic representation of the militant atheism throughout the 20th century.

The secret or the prophecy is composed of two visions that are the first and the third parts of the secret, with an intermediate discourse, the second part, from the Virgin which deals with the militant atheism in Russia. Communicated verbally in its entirety by the Lady to the three little shepherds on July 13, 1917, the secret was put into writing at two different occasions: the first and second parts were written on August 31, 1941, and the third on January 3, 1944.

In other words, it was only written down in full 27 years after the children first stated in 1917 that they were the keepers of a secret that they could not reveal. During the interrogations to which the children were subjected, out of curiosity that is innate in human nature, the questions regarding the secret were the most asked. First they were offered gold, silver and money to trick them into revealing the secret, and when this failed, the authorities threatened the children with death and psychological torture in the prison of Ourém. The children never gave in to any of their attempts, however.

Part 1: Vision of Hell
Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls, as if they were transparent burning embers and blackened, or burnished with human form, floating in the fire, carried by the flames of their own, together with clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side, like sparks in a great fire, without weight or balance, between cries and moans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear.

The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent.  This vision lasted but an instant, thanks to our kind Mother of Heaven, who had already prepared us by promising to take us to Heaven (at the first apparition) for if this was not so, I think we would have died of fear and dread.

The existence of hell is an inescapable fact of our faith. If we were to remove from the Bible all the pages in which hell is mentioned, we would undoubtedly end up with a noticeably smaller Bible, but then it would no longer be the Holy Bible that narrates the Word of God. There are more and more theologians who deny its existence, claiming that it exists like the zero in mathematics, to help only in the accounts, in virtue of a logical coherence, but that there is really no one in hell. Whether there is or there is not, we do not know or care to know; hell is the possibility of not being saved; it is the theological place of evil, just like Heaven is the theological place of good.

In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” (Luke 16:23-24)

In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, we have a vision of hell that, in the context of the parable, has the same pedagogical function as the vision that the little shepherds of Fatima had. By showing them this vision of Hell, Our Lady wishes to reaffirm its existence and that it is real the possibility of not being saved. The detailed description however, with souls falling into it and their torment in the midst of the fire plus the presence of demons that so terrified the little shepherds, is meant for pedagogical purpose and functions like an alarm bell for those who in this life do not follow Christ as the way, the truth and the life.

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)

In the Bible there are two forms of representation of hell: the hell as the eternal torture and the hell as the eternal death. The more common vision, the one that appears most often, is the hell as the eternal death, that is, a return into nothingness the one who was nothing, did nothing in life, served no one or nothing, and, instead of believing in God and eternal life, believed in nothing beyond death.

It is inconceivable that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ would condemn to an eternity of suffering and torture all those who in temporality, no matter how long, had lived in sin; not even the human court is this severe. There would be no just proportion between the crime and the punishment.

The few times therefore in which hell appears in the Bible as eternal suffering has merely a pedagogical purpose, based on the reality that human beings fear suffering more than death. From this, hell as the eternal torture is a motivational force to change lives here on earth that is far more superior than a hell conceived as an eternal death, although the latter is more in line with what it really will be.

As for the prophetic vision of hell, it is more compelling to view it as eternal torture. The little shepherds, therefore, did not see hell as it is, but rather how they imagined it to be, inspired by what they were told in the countless preaching in those days, in which hell as suffering was an almost obligatory theme.

Part 2: World War II and the militant atheism in Russia
You have seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners go, to save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end, but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI.

When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays.

If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.

Our Lady proposed the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as the antidote to combat evil on all fronts, individual and social. If Salvation is the true vision of God, which surpasses the beatific vision that some have access to on this earth, the proposal of this devotion is nothing other than the echo of the Gospel of St. Matthew (5:8): Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.  A heart that has been purged and purified of all evil and corruption sees God.

A heart that is clean is not divided, and is ready to commit unilaterally and unconditionally, wholly and totally, to God’s will. It is in this way a replica of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, as she says, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). The heart is the central engine of human activity, where thoughts gain the motivation and drive to transform themselves into works or behaviour. When our hearts belong to Christ, sooner or later, we may say as the apostle Paul had said, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: Lucia, the Messenger

Human profile
Lucia was born on March 22, 1907, the youngest of seven children of Maria Rosa and António dos Santos, brother of Olimpia Marto, the mother of Francisco and Jacinta. She was healthy and robust, had strong features unlike her cousin Jacinta's delicate ones, and was in fact quite plain. She had a flat nose, wide mouth with thick lower lip, and a rounded chin; her only redeeming features were her eyes which were dark, expressive, and luminous.

What she lacked in external beauty, God has compensated her with an internal one. She was very responsible, and since young has been entrusted with many tasks. Many parents in the village where she lived would bring their children to her house, and she would be the one to entertain and amuse them throughout the day. She was wonderful with children, they all looked forward to her company, and she would entertain them with all sorts of games, and storytelling of folk tales, stories from the Bible and biographies of the saints.  They would also sing religious hymns and folk songs, and dance which Lucia loved to do. Many of the reading materials she would get from her mother, who unlike most women in the village knew how to read.

In those days, the First Communion was made only at the age of ten; Lucia, however, did hers at six because blessed with a great memory, she already knew the catechism by heart. In addition to a good memory, she was also very intelligent, and creative in the activities and amusements she used to entertain the children who came to her house, so that all children, not just Jacinta and Francisco, had a special attraction to her.

Unlike Jacinta and Francisco, she was lively, extroverted and high-spirited, very much a leader. This did not stop her from being as sweet and affectionate as Jacinta, a feeling that she showed daily especially towards her mother when she came back from tending the sheep, as she would run to her mother for hugs, kisses and cuddles.

“Lucia was very amusing. She had a way of getting the best out of us so that we liked to be with her. She was also very intelligent, and could sing and dance and taught us to do the same. We always obeyed her. We spent hours and hours dancing and singing, and sometimes forgot to eat.” (Teresa Matias, a childhood friend of Lucia)

As she herself had written in her memoirs, Lucia had many friends with whom she used to go dancing and partying. The 13th of June was always a much anticipated day for Lucia on account of Saint Anthony of Lisbon feast day because it was celebrated in a special way in the village. Mrs. Maria Santos, knowing her daughter well, was sure that she would not miss this celebration for anything. But it was clear that she was mistaken since the apparitions had changed the way of being of Francisco and Jacinta as well as Lucia’s.

Jacinta and Francisco suffered through their illnesses and the small sacrifices that they occasionally offered up such as giving their lunches to the poor, and not drinking water when they were parched with thirst from the heat. Lucia did not need to seek out sacrifices because sufferings came to her every day. She was the one who suffered the most from the incredulity of those who did not believe in the apparitions, to the point that she had to endure abusive insults, threats, and even being beaten with the broom handle by her mother.

On the day of May 13, 1919, when the government wanted to prevent the pilgrims from going to the Cova da Iria, two guards on horseback spotted Lucia on her way to the place of the apparitions. They forced her to walk on between their horses to a wasteland and when they were alone with her, one said to the other in a loud voice: Here are some open trenches. Let’s cut off her head with one of our swords, and leave her here dead and buried. Then we’ll be finished with this business once and for all. When I heard these words, I thought that my last moment had really come, but I was as much at peace as if it did not concern me at all, said Lucia. After a minute or two during which they seemed to be thinking it over, the other replied: “No, we have no authority to do such a thing.”

In particular, she suffered very much from the disbelief of her parish priest, her sisters and mother. This last one even after being healed by a special favour from Our Lady came to say: How strange! Our Lady cured me, and somehow I still don’t believe! I don’t know how this can be!

Lucia and the Enneagram
The mind, the heart and the gut instinct are the three filters by which we normally grasp and relate with reality and with others.  Security is one thing that we all seek; the sentimental or emotional seek to relate, to be accepted and loved by others; in this way, they find their inner balance. The visceral or the instinctive trust in their instincts, their intuition or sixth sense; the cerebral use their mind to try to understand, because to them, knowledge means power.

Francisco was visceral instinctive, he felt good in himself, seeking nature, and detaching himself from everything and everyone, all he cared about was being with the “Hidden Jesus”, consoling him. Jacinta was sentimental, dependent on the relations with others, especially with her closest friend, Lucia, a day without her was a lost day; she discovered that suffering was a form of love and in it she saw her contribution to the salvation of many.

Lucia was clearly cerebral, and used her mind to understand everyone and everything that happened around her; as such, she was not like the sixes since these tend to be quite insecure and full of self-doubt. Lucia seemed to be firmly grounded and sure of herself despite that particular episode of doubt that came up when she wondered whether the apparitions were things of the devil. On this regard we must remember that the doubt did not come spontaneously into her mind, but rather it was put there by her parish priest whom she blindly trusted. She could not be a five either because unlike Francisco who liked to absent himself from others, Lucia preferred to be amid people as she was outgoing, inquisitive, resourceful and creative, always looking for new games or activities to entertain the children.

The number that comes closest to her way of being, ironically it seems to be a seven. Precisely the number of all the numbers in the Enneagram that tends to flee from suffering. And yet she was the one who suffered the most regarding the credibility of the apparitions. The three children were bullied by the general public, but while Jacinta and Francisco at least at home were safe and sound, and when outside were protected by the good reputation of their father Mr. Marto, Lucia at home was mistreated by her mother and sisters, and called a cheat and a liar, and in the streets it seemed that her mother did not care even if they beat her, if that would help her retract her claim that she had seen the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Furthermore, while she offered the sacrifices voluntarily, she was not as zealous as her two cousins. Lucia in some way was not as good at suffering as Jacinta nor was she as good at adoration as Francisco. Lucia lived and thrived in the social relations and diversion, which was why she was so good with children. No one entertains as well as a seven who is always ready for games, dances, fun…

In this sense, Lucia despite being the leader of the three, and the most important seer of the group, it is not immediately clear what part of the message of Fatima she embodied, like Jacinta with penance and Francisco with prayer especially the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

The reason for this has to do with the fact that Francisco and Jacinta knew that they would die soon and therefore lived their short earthly lives eschatologically, with their minds and hearts already in the world to come and looking forward to be in the presence of Our Lady, who had said that very soon she would take them to Heaven, but that Francisco will first have many Rosaries to say before entering. As for Lucia, she lived for a very long time the message of Fatima in its totality as a whole, and in its obscurity over many years secluded as a cloistered nun.

A life long in years, short in events
The lives of Francisco and Jacinta were short indeed, and by contrast Lucia’s was very long. Alone and abandoned by everyone, especially by her two friends, she consoled herself by repeating what Our Lady had told her: Don’t be afraid! I will be with you always, and my Immaculate Heart will be your comfort and the way which will lead you to God.

After the death of Jacinta, Lucia left Fatima on June 17, 1921, for an orphanage ran by the Dorothean Sisters in Porto, unbeknownst to the people. It was a proposal made by the bishop of Leiria, and which was readily accepted by Lucia and her mother, in order to analyze the events without Lucia’s constant presence and also to see if the people would stop going to the Cova da Iria now that the only remaining seer was no longer there.

Touched by the apparitions, Lucia’s life was long in years, but short in events. From the College of Porto, she left for the postulancy of the Dorothean Sisters at Pontevedra, and from there she entered the Dorothean novitiate at Tuy, Spain, and made her profession of vows on October 3, 1928. Her asylum in Spain lasted until 1946, after which she returned to Portugal, and visited Fatima and her family.

From there she received the authorization from Pope Pius XII to leave the Order of the Dorothean Sisters and realize her childhood dream of becoming a Carmelite. She then entered the Carmel of Saint Teresa in Coimbra on March 25, 1948, where she led a life of prayer and penance until her death on February 13, 2005, just weeks short of her 98th birthday.

Lucia the messenger
If Francisco was the contemplative, being prayerful because he spent many hours at prayer; Jacinta who like the Enneagram fours, lived the drama of the lost humanity by offering herself and uniting her sufferings with those of Christ for the redemption of sinners, what or who then was Lucia to the message of Fatima?

Lucia was the communicator because she alone had a full interactive relationship with Our Lady, she alone asked and answered, she alone conversed with the Lady. Lucia was the voice bearer of heaven; the messenger and in some way, the evangelist who many years later put into writing all that the Lady had said during the apparitions as well as the ways her cousins embodied the message of Fatima, of which she was the witness, the depository and the custodian.

Under the obedience to the bishop of Leiria, Lucia wrote down the Secret of Fatima, which she sealed in an envelope and mailed to the Pope along with her memoirs of the apparitions in which she also wrote in a biographic manner the lives and work done by her cousins and herself.

As a seer, she was until her death the go-between and the exegete of the message of Fatima. This role was clearly seen in the attempts made by the past popes, from Pius XII to John Paul II, regarding the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. All the popes did make the consecration, but all avoided naming Russia and sometimes were not done in union with all the bishops of the world.

Lucia did not hesitate to say that it was not done according to the way Our Lady wanted, if that is how she saw it. Finally the consecration made by Pope John Paul II on March 25, 1984, in Rome before the official image of Our Lady of Fatima and the icon of Our Lady of Kazan obtained the confirmation from Lucia, who affirmed that the consecration was made and was accepted by Our Lady.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: Jacinta, the Reparatrix

Human profile
Jacinta de Jesus Marto was born on March 11, 1910. She resembled her brother Francisco in appearance and had a beautiful oval face with a generous lower lip, tidy hair, and a small and well proportioned body. “She wasn’t as plump as Francisco,” her mother reported.

She was somewhat vain, liked to dress prettily, always had her hair well combed and in place, and liked to put flowers in them. She had a good singing voice and like her cousin Lucia, she loved to dance to the sound of her brother Francisco’s flute. She had fun at games but unlike her brother, she was a bad loser. Very self-centered, she had to choose both the game and partner and in this she was very uncompromising.

Furthermore, she did not have the free and independent spirit of her cousin Lucia. She was more dependent and in this matter, she was very close and very attached to her cousin; she would not do anything by herself and so to her one day spent without Lucia was one sad and meaningless day.

Morally she was irreproachable like her brother. She was taught never to lie; she came even to rebuke her own mother when the latter told her some small fib or white lie: “So, you lied to me, Mother? You told me you were going to one place but you went to another… lying is ugly, you know!” If she did not want to tell the truth she would remain silent and no one was able to draw a word out of her mouth. One day when Lucia got tired of so many interrogations and hid herself, the visitors asked Jacinta for her cousin’s whereabouts and to avoid lying she remained very silent: What did you tell them when they asked you about me? Asked Lucia. Oh, I kept very, very quiet! Because I knew where you were and lying is a sin.

The most important and pronounced aspect of her personality is her delicate sensitivity; it was so delicate that it seemed to be made of porcelain; she was very easily moved, wearing her whole heart on her sleeve. Already at 5 years old she would ask her cousin to recount the story of Our Lord's Passion; upon hearing again and again the narrative of the sufferings of Our Divine Redeemer – Lucia tells us – she would be moved to tears, and would weep and in her grief she would say – Our poor dear Lord – she repeated – I’ll never sin again! I don’t want Our Lord to suffer any more.

Quite often she would say: I like to tell Jesus that I love him so much! Many times, when I say it to Him, I seem to have a fire in my heart, but it doesn’t burn me. (…) I love Our Lord and Our Lady so much, that I never get tired of telling them that I love them. Jacinta had an exquisite soul, full of very delicate feelings, said her father.

She loved the sheep that she watched over and called each one by name. There was “Dove” and “Star” and “Beauty” and “Snow” – the most beautiful names in her vocabulary. The little white lambs were her favorites: “She used to sit with them on her lap, -- says Lucia – holding and kissing them, and at night she would attempt to carry a little one home on her shoulders to save it from getting tired, like the pictures of the Good Shepherd that she had seen in a holy picture that was given to her.”

Jacinta in the Enneagram
With a message for the whole human race, Mary appeared at Fatima to three children who represent this humanity; an incomplete humanity who peers at and relates to reality and others through a reductive and reducing prism. Lucia was clearly cerebral; with memory and intelligence as her strength. Francisco was visceral instinctive who did not give too much time to thoughts, and lived by vision, perception and contemplation; very few things mattered to him. Jacinta was emotional, all of her was emotional sensitivity.

What number could she be in the Enneagram? She cannot be a two since she had a basic personality that was quite egocentric, which the twos do not possess; not a three either because she did not seek success nor was she pragmatic; in my opinion, Jacinta is a four in the Enneagram.

Lucia knew Jacinta better than anybody else in the world and she described her in fact as being quite self-centered and absorbed in herself. Furthermore, as we shall see, the conversion of Jacinta came with the decentralization of her life when she realized that the center of her life was not her but Him, Jesus, who suffers for the sins of mankind which need reparation. It was then that she understood when Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me”. (Luke 9:23)

Like the fours, Jacinta was an overly tragic, romantic and sentimental figure, an individualistic dreamer with a fondness for beauty, as it is shown above by her reaction to the little lambs in imitating Jesus the Good Shepherd. Like all the fours, she fled from the ordinary. Jacinta did not accompany anyone except her dear Lucia, because she found other children to be vulgar who said stupid, ordinary things; in addition, she hated the lack of integrity. At home, she preferred and would seek the company of her peaceful brother Francisco, and avoided at all cost the company of her older brother John.

Another characteristic of the fours that we find in Jacinta is the fear of being alone and the feeling of abandonment as she expressed when she was put into the prison of Ourém and at her stay at Dona Estefânia Hospital in Lisbon where she repeatedly stressed, with tragic and dramatic overtones proper of the fours, the fact that in that hospital she would die alone.

Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît pas -- The heart has its reasons of which reason knows not. After meeting with the parish priest of Fatima, Lucia who like her mother saw him as a holy man and held him in high regard, started to doubt herself and at her own perception. For being cerebral and rational, Lucia began to wonder that perhaps the parish priest was right and these manifestations could be from the devil trying to deceive her. Jacinta, however, as she saw and knew things with her heart, disagreed with Lucia and strongly defended the veracity of the apparitions.

Since the parish priest had put the thought of the devil in Lucia’s head, she started to dream of him and had a nightmare of the devil dragging her down to hell all the while laughing at her expense. Finally when July 13th came she refused to go to Cova da Iria, and the cousins cried and begged her as they did not want to go alone; Jacinta especially said that she felt sorry for Our Lady who would be displeased with them.

Despite her earlier decision, when noontime, the hour of the apparitions, came Lucia's fears dissipated as if by a miracle, and she went with her cousins in the direction of the Cova, passing by thousands of people who were already heading that way.

Jacinta the reparatrix
“I understood that Love comprises of all Vocations and that Love is everything! (...) then, in a transport of delirious joy, I exclaimed: I have finally found my vocation, my vocation is Love! In the Heart of the Church My Mother, I will be Love, thus I will be everything, and thus my dream will be fulfilled.” Saint Therese of Child Jesus

I like so much to suffer for the love of Our Lord and Our Lady! They like very much those who suffer for the conversion of sinners. Jacinta

If the young Jacinta had known Saint Therese of the Child Jesus she would have certainly seen herself in Therese and identified well with her. We have said that each little shepherd embodied in their lives, and in their story of conversion an aspect of the message of Fatima. If Francisco embodied the love of prayer for the consolation of the Lord by spending limitless time with Him, then Jacinta was the heart of the message of Fatima.

Of the three, she was the one who empathized the most with the broken hearts of Jesus and Mary for the outrages and sins with which they are offended. From the moment Jacinta became aware of the brokenness of the hearts of Jesus and Mary, she offered herself to mend them with the glue of her love. Love is in fact the only glue that can unite humans among themselves and with God, and repair the broken and offended hearts as well.

“Whoever is committed to love, is in for suffering” – Or as Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.” (John 15:13) Jacinta was very aware of this and gladly accepted all the sufferings that came her way in reparation for all the sins that the Lord is offended.

Therefore, when she was crying in the prison of Ourém because she missed her parents very much, the suggestion from Francisco and Lucia to offer this as a sacrifice was enough to immediately make her wipe away her tears, and gladly and even with some pleasure to offer this sacrifice for the conversion of sinners. When the pain from her illness became almost unbearable, she would confide to her friend Lucia that Jesus must be very happy with her because this has cost her quite a bit.

Already when she and Francisco were sick in bed, she called with urgency for Lucia to tell her: Look, Lucia – Jacinta said to her all excited – Our Lady came to both of us and said that she is going to take Francisco very soon to Heaven. And she asked me if I would like to convert more sinners (by means of suffering). I told her yes, I wanted. Then after the hospital cold-blooded surgery, she said in an outburst prayer to Jesus, "Now, you can convert many sinners, for I suffer a lot."

Only God knows what she went through at the hospital in Ourém where she was operated on without anaesthesia; only God knows what she suffered with an ever-open wound in her chest already oozing with pus. And yet, her body was found to be incorruptible when it was exhumed in 1935 for the cause of beatification.

With his death on the cross Jesus restored the human race, and repaired our union with the Father. Jacinta who loved to imitate Jesus the Good Shepherd carrying the lost sheep on his shoulders in the midst of the flock, ended up also imitating him in the three-year length of time of his public life, the sufferings of his passion, and in the agony and loneliness of his death. She passed away three years after the apparitions and died alone in a hospital with an open chest wound just like her Lord.

Therefore in her short lifetime, Jacinta not only imitated Christ the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, but also imitated Christ the sacrificial Lamb who takes away the sins of the world because the conversion of sinners was the only motivation for her sufferings and short life.

Paraphrasing a sonnet by the Portuguese poet Camões, much more would she had loved if not for such a great love so short a life. She died three years after the apparitions on the 20th of February, 1920, at just 10 years of age.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: Francisco, the Contemplative

Human profile
Francisco de Jesus Marto was born on June 11, 1908, in Aljustrel, a little hamlet belonging to the parish of Fatima, municipality of Ourém in Portugal. He was the youngest son of Manuel Pedro Marto and his wife, Olimpia de Jesus dos Santos.

He was the brother of Jacinta, who like her, did not exhibit the rustic characteristics of their cousin Lucia. He was a handsome and sturdy boy with an oval face, high cheekbones and a full lower lip like his sister’s. Unlike her, however, he was gentle and a pacifist, but not one with “peace of the soul”. On the contrary, he was energetic, strong, purposeful and robust.

Typical of most children at that age, Francisco liked to play; however, unlike his sister he was not a poor loser, to the point that it almost seemed that he did not want to win at games at all. In fact, when someone broke the rules at a game or stubbornly denied him his personal rights, he yielded without resisting by simply saying, “Do you think it was you who won? That’s alright! I don’t care!”

And whenever someone took advantage of his calm nature to rob him of something, he would say, “Let him keep it, I do not mind.” His calm temperament used to exasperate his cousin Lucia; she could order him to do anything and he would do it without questioning.

He was not at all a coward, however. He could go out at night all alone without any fear or otherwise. He used to play with lizards and snakes that he found, and would get them to roll themselves around a stick and make them drink the sheep’s milk that he poured into the holes in the rocks, . He was passionate about music which he played on a reed pipe during the quiet hours, and like Jacinta, he was also a lover of flowers and nature.

Morally he was irreproachable – One morning – Mrs. Olimpia tells us – as he was going out to pasture the flock, I said to him: -- “Go today to the little hill at your godmother Teresa’s place, she is not there today, she went to the village.” And right away he answered: -- “Ah, that’s what I will not do!” I gave him a slap on the face but he did not flinch. He turned to me and said in a very serious voice, “So, it is my mother who is teaching me to steal?”

Francisco and the Enneagram
It is commonly understood that there are three centers of intelligence – the brain, the heart and the body; we are therefore cerebral, emotional, or visceral i.e. instinctive. While we all register reality, and relate to it and to others from all three intelligence centers, we always have one that is, somehow, default or preferential to the other two.

In the Enneagram´s psychological theory, there are nine types of personality, three for each of the personality center mentioned above; each personality type is identified by a specific compulsion, drive or tendency of which the person is unaware but influences and even determines his or her behaviour.

Whether it is by coincidence or providence, these three centers are very well represented by the three little shepherds. Lucia is cerebral, Jacinta is emotional and Francisco is visceral or instinctive. Each one of them incarnates the message of Fatima in their own way according to their basic personality and intelligence center. Within his instinctive center, Francisco is definitely not an 8 whose compulsion is to be strong or a 1 whose compulsion is to be perfect but is very clearly a 9 whose compulsion is to seek out peace and harmony, avoiding conflicts at all cost.

The nines in the Enneagram tend to forget themselves by accommodating the agendas of others. Lucia in her memoirs noted this of Francisco that he obeyed without questioning almost as if like a robot. The nines are excellent “peacemakers” because they have learned to minimize conflicts which we also note in Francisco. In order to avoid conflict, he was even capable of depriving himself of something dear to him, as is recounted in the following:

On one occasion, Francisco was gifted with a lovely handkerchief on which was stamped the image of Our Lady of Nazareth, which he prized dearly and displayed it with pride among his friends. The handkerchief was passed from hand to hand, and in a few minutes it disappeared. – “He liked the handkerchief very much” – says his mother – “and spoke about it very often”. When, however, they told him that the handkerchief was in the possession of another boy who claimed it to be his, Francisco made no effort to get it back: -- “Let him have it! What does a handkerchief matter to me?”

The nines avoid conflicts at all cost and seek tranquility, peace and harmony (internal and external). Francisco lived detached from everything and everyone, a little in the stratosphere; there were very few things that truly mattered to him who was quiet and impartial to people and things, a self-absorbed contemplative.

Eucharistic and contemplative
“I loved seeing the Angel and I loved still more seeing Our Lady. But what I loved the most of all was to see Our Lord in that light from Our Lady which penetrated our hearts. I love God so much… But He is very sad because of so many sins… We must never commit even the smallest sin!...” (…) “In a little while Jesus will come for me to take me to Heaven with Him and then I will always be looking at Him and consoling Him. How wonderful!  -- (Francisco)

-- We were burning, in that light that is God, and we were not scorched. – Francisco spent hours in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament which he called “the Hidden Jesus”. Penance and prayer summarize the message of Fatima; both Francisco and Jacinta did penance and prayer, but Francisco was more inclined to prayer while Jacinta to penance. While Jacinta in her penance was busy saving sinners, all Francisco wanted to do in his prayer was to console Jesus.

So just like Jesus did with the apostles, Francisco would from time to time without anyone realizing it leave the company of his sister and cousin and hide behind a wall or go to a deserted place and there he would pray alone. When Lucia and Jacinta found him, Lucia would ask, “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!”

Already after the apparitions, Lucia recalls that on their way to school, sometimes on reaching Fatima, he would say to her: -- Listen, you go to school, and I’ll stay here in the Church, close to the Hidden Jesus. It’s not worth my while learning to read, as I’ll be going to Heaven very soon. On your way home, come here and call me.

Despite the love for the Eucharist, for the Hidden Jesus, the parish priest of Fatima refused to give him Communion. But while the priest refused him, the angel in one of the earlier apparitions did not deny him the blessed sacrament, and upon receiving the Communion, Francisco exclaimed, “I felt that God was in me, but I didn’t know how.”

After the apparitions, the lives of the two siblings changed drastically. Jacinta never missed an opportunity to offer all the sacrifices to God for the conversion of sinners. Francisco, on the other hand, never missed an occasion to isolate himself from his sister, cousin and other children to spend long hours alone praying the Rosary and consoling Jesus. He said, “Do not come here; let me stay alone.” – But what are you doing here so long? – I am thinking about God who is so sad, because of so many sins! If only I was able to give Him joy!

I live without living in myself, and is so sublime the life I am hoping to live that I am hastening to die. (St. Teresa of Avila)

So deep was Francisco’s relationship with the “Hidden Jesus”, that he no longer thought or wanted anything else. All the time was yet not enough to be with Him, and to console Him. One day he was asked if he would like to become a carpenter, a soldier, a doctor, or even a priest and he responded that he would like to die instead and go to Heaven.

When Francisco and Jacinta were already very sick and confined to their rooms, oftentimes, Lucia was the one carrying messages between them. Since it was known to them that Francisco would die first, Jacinta sent words to remind him not to forget to pray for her and Lucia when he got to heaven. To which he responded that he was afraid he would forget when he saw Our Lord face to face. He was foreseeing that upon seeing Our Lord he would be so engrossed and absorbed by the vision of Him that everything would be completely erased from his mind.

And to Heaven in fact he did go on the 4th of April, 1919, two years after the apparitions and after some time of illness during which his parents were certain that they could save him. One day his godmother Teresa promised that if Our Lady would cure him she would offer Her his weight in flour; Francisco responded with an angelic smile, “Our Lady will not grant you this grace”.  To any word of hope of improvement, he answered, “It is useless, Our Lady wants me with her in Heaven”; he would not say it with a sense of tragic resignation, but joyfully smiling, and in good spirits.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima and its relevance to the world

If my wishes are fulfilled, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, then Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, bringing new wars and persecution of the Church. The good will be martyred and the Holy Father will have much to suffer, certain nations will be annihilated. But in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and the world will enjoy a period of peace. In Portugal the faith will always be preserved. Our Lady at the July 13th apparition

The twentieth century has been without a doubt the bloodiest century in human history. The God of Israel who saw the suffering of His people enslaved in Egypt could not contemplate so much horror, undaunted and unperturbed. At that time He sent Moses; at this time He sends Mary, the one who since the wedding feast at Cana has been attentive to the needs of His people, and since the visitation to her cousin, Elizabeth, has never ceased to visit her children.

In fact, since the first apparition of Our Lady at Fatima on May 13, 1917, until after the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981, in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome, Fatima has been at the center as a wake-up call to this suffering humanity.

Fatima, communism and the consecration of Russia
(…) I shall ask the Holy Father to consecrate Russia to my Immaculate Heart. July 13th apparition

Of all the requests that Our Lady made to the little shepherds, this was undeniably the thorniest. From Pope Pius XII, on 31st of October, 1942, to Pope Francis, on 13th of October, 2013, there have been already seven attempts to consummate this request. There have been many subterfuges in this consecration to somehow imply that Russia was being consecrated without ever naming her directly for obvious diplomatic and ecumenical reasons. José Milhazes, in his book The Message of Fatima in Russia, states that an image of Our Lady of Fatima was even secretly taken to the Red Square in 1970s.

Sister Lucia came so far as to "protest” saying that in the act of dedication on May 13, 1982, Russia did not appear to be the object of the consecration. And continued to say, “The consecration of Russia was not carried out as Our Lady requested”.

On 25th of March, 1984, Pope John Paul II sent for the official image of Our Lady of Fatima from the chapel in Fatima and for the famous Russian icon of Our Lady of Kazan at the Orthodox Church of the Blue Army, also in Fatima, and after reciting the Act of Entrustment he added, “Enlighten especially the peoples whose consecration and entrustment by us you are awaiting”. This was the most explicit formula of so many consecrations made thus far and Sister Lucia finally agreed that Russia had at last been consecrated as Our Lady had requested.

Just one year later the conversion of Russia took place; rising to power was Mikhail Gorbachev who launched the Perestroika reforms which in Russian means precisely conversion. With this revolution, the country put aside the militant atheism and established freedom of religion after all the years of institutional atheism.

Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Berlin until the fall of the Wall, said at the time, “For me it is obvious that the anti-Soviet revolution started in Fatima with the Virgin and the three children”. Just like the fall of the wall of Jericho (Joshua 6:20), the power of prayer succeeded where no other earthly power was able, including the military.

Fatima and Nazism
It was not only communism that felt attacked by Fatima, for the Nazis were also much disturbed. In fact, the official center of security of the Third Reich came to say that “all the propaganda of Fatima is directing its complete weight against the fundamentals of National Socialism (Nazism)”.

The message of Fatima is clear in its condemnation of communism as a militant atheism, it says nothing against the social revolution that communism brought about; there is also nothing explicit against Nazism as an ideology, it only speaks of the Second World War and of the many evils that it would cause. Despite Fatima being explicitly against the atheistic ideology of the Russian Revolution, the Allies did not want to use Fatima against Russia because it was allied with them against the Nazi Germany.  Instead what they did was to manipulate the message of Fatima to become a weapon against Nazism.

More explicitly, Fr. Luis G. da Fonseca rewrote the text in the second part of the Secret, where it was written the consecration of Russia, and substituted it with the consecration of the world. Instead of Russia spreading her errors, he wrote “an unholy propaganda will spread its errors in the world by promoting wars” and in this way, he deflected the center of the message from Russia to Germany in 1942. Historically therefore, Fatima also served as a weapon the Allies used against the Nazis.

Fatima and the Cold War
The blue dome of the Orthodox Church, behind the Basilica of Fatima, still goes unnoticed even today, although it is no longer painted blue. It was in fact for many decades called the Blue Army, the religious organization that has served the North Americans and the dictators from Latin America to demonize and fight against communism. It came to have over 25 million members, and its name clearly contrasts with the Red Army of the USSR.

It was certainly a peaceful army, but the Kremlin always suspected that it was a nest for CIA agents. It was founded by the American priest, Fr. Colgan, who synthesized the message of Fatima into three precepts: devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, praying the Rosary daily and fulfillment of the duties of the State.

The pilgrim images of Fatima
The first image of Fatima left Portugal in 1946 at the request of a parish priest in Berlin who proposed that the image should travel to all the European capitals and even to Russia. This was followed by other travels in 1948 to Africa, in 1949 to America, and in 1953 to South Korea, in the midst of the war the White Lady of Peace was once again a weapon against communism.

It was precisely in this year 1953 that in Cairo one of the largest Marian manifestations known in the country was organized and ironically, the image was paraded on a car belonging to the Russian embassy.

Fatima and Islam
The legend has it that Fatima was the name of an Arab maiden captured by Dom Afonso Henriques in the battle against the Moors, and given in marriage to one of his commanders, Dom Gonçalo Hermingues who was benevolent towards her, on the condition that she would freely accept the matrimony and convert to Christianity.

Fatima agreed, and after the appropriate instructions, she was baptized with the name of Oureana (which gave rise to the city today known as de Ourém). The beautiful princess, however, died in the prime of her life, and Dom Gonçalo, heartbroken, gave himself to God and entered the Cistercian Abbey of Alcobaça, 30 kilometers from de Ourém.

Fatima has always been a very common name in the Arab world because that was the name of the beloved daughter of Prophet Muhammad. Fatima was the object of veneration and respect of all Muslims, for being the daughter closest to her father and for having supported him in his difficulties. The same she did for her husband and children; she was also the only daughter of the prophet who had sons that survived beyond infancy who founded dynasties in countries like Egypt.

Few Christians know that Our Lady is venerated by the Muslims. In fact, when Muhammad entered Mecca and his soldiers began to destroy all the idols, he embraced a statue of Our Lady to protect it from the rampage.

The book of the Quran contains an entire sutra (chapter) on Mary; she is also the only woman whose name is in this book. All other women whom the book talks about are never mentioned by their name, like it is done for Mary, but rather by their relation to their male counterpart. For example, there is no mention of the name Sarah, instead she is referred to as the wife of Abraham.

Mary is venerated in the Quran as a virgin and mother of the prophet Isa (Jesus) who, for both Muslims and Christians, is the One who is to come at the end of time to judge the living and the dead. It could be said that the intervention of Our Lady of Fatima has not yet ended, and that she still has a word to say on the relations between Muslims and Christians.

It is a fact that in her pilgrim travels, Our Lady of Fatima has aroused curiosity and awakened a veneration among the Arabs for having the name of Fatima. It is not, therefore, all that impossible that Mary who is venerated by Christians and Muslims alike, especially under the invocation of Our Lady of Fatima, could bring these two groups closer together.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima and its relevance to Portugal

Standing before the great tide of atrocities of the 20th century, God could not remain a silent bystander. There was an urgent need for the echo of His voice, the Gospel, to somehow resound amid so much bloodshed.

It was also the period when the atheistic and nihilistic philosophies of the late 19th century sought their historical fulfillment. Just thinking of authors like Darwin, Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Freud and Nietzsche and we will notice that their theories have formed the minds and public opinions in the Western world.

Fatima is, in some way, God’s answer to the humanity of the twentieth century. A God who is not dead, despite what those philosophies predicted, nor lost or petrified in the minds of primitive humans. On the contrary, in these post-modern times more than ever, He is very much alive and makes His presence felt through His Word of Life which is eternal henceforth valid at all times and all places.

When it comes to choosing the place and the time for God to reveal Himself, some questions may arise: Why in 1917 and why Portugal? Why Fatima? Why those children and why Cova da Iria? There are no coincidences in God’s plan, nor do I think as Einstein used to say, that God rolls the dice. God always chooses thoughtfully the time, the place and the messengers or catalyzers of His message, just as He chose the land and the people of Israel to incarnate into the history of mankind.

Why Portugal?
The Land of Holy Mary – This was the name given to the lands between the Douro and Vouga Rivers in the 9th century by Alfonso III, King of Leon.  The Castle of Santa Maria da Feira was probably the military fortress and the administrative center of these lands. The veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in these lands predates the Portuguese nationality. In fact, the invocation of the Immaculate Conception dates all the way back to Afonso Henriques the first king of Portugal with the conquest of Lisbon in 1147. Since then Portugal has been known as the Land of the Holy Mary. Therefore, it makes all the sense that Mary would visit where it has always been considered one of her domains.

The Immaculate Conception is the Queen of Portugal – Since 1640, the kings of Portugal have stopped wearing crowns on their heads. As such, the coronation ceremony was replaced with another and came to be called the “acclamation”, in which the king receives the crown which he places by his side, not on his head. This practice was started by King John IV who had asked for Mary’s intervention in a battle for the restoration of independence; and upon success in the battlefield, the king proclaimed Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception as the Queen of Portugal.

This is therefore long before the Immaculate Conception of Mary was declared a dogma by Pope Pius IX in his Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus on the 8th of December, 1854. Already in Portugal Mary was venerated by her title of the Immaculate Conception and in choosing Fatima for her apparitions, Mary was visiting her kingdom.

Why Fatima?
But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel... (Micah 5:2)

The Biblical paradigm of choosing the least, the unknown and the unimportant, is also upheld here. Fatima, where the population was little over two thousand at the time, was a rustic parish, located in the irregular plateau of Serra de Aire, with a windy and humid climate, and poor rocky dry soil without watercourse. The people of that region, uncultivated and rustic like the land, made their living by agropastoral activities.

Despite the oppressive anticlerical, secular and liberal campaigns at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the vast majority of the people remained faithful to the Catholic faith, with the daily practices of prayer such as praying the family Rosary in the evenings and regular participation in the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist. The people were humble and lived by the liturgical calendar, living intensely the liturgical seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Corpus Christi… as well as the veneration of popular saints like St. Anthony of Lisbon.

Why those particular children?
God chooses the humble to confound the wise – Fatima follows this paradigm of the Gospel to the letter. How is it possible that such an important message, both to Portugal and the rest of the world, has been entrusted to three simple and illiterate peasant children?

At first glance Lucia who was 10, and her cousins Francisco and his sister Jacinta, 9 and 7 respectively, were perfectly ordinary children like so many other children in that part of the country, both in their flaws as in their virtues. But they had certain gifts and aspects of their personality that God was certainly going to use to get His message across.

Lucia – was quite plain in appearance, but she was amusing, cheerful and extroverted. She looked after, taught and entertained other children; and knew how to tell stories amazingly well especially the ones from the Bible, as to thrill little hearts like that of Jacinta’s. She was creative, high spirited and a natural born leader. She was therefore naturally qualified to be the speaker for Mary, the messenger and the bearer of the message for many years until her death in 2005.

Jacinta – unlike Lucia was physically graced, she was dainty, pretty and refined; but was psychologically the complete opposite of her cousin. She was shy, introverted, very sentimental and sensitive. She was qualified to be the heart of the message of Fatima, to be its suffragette, to embody that part of the message which gives account and meaning to the everyday sufferings by taking advantage of them for the greater good, for “the conversion of the poor sinners”.

Francisco – was neither like his cousin Lucia, nor like his sister Jacinta. He was less sentimental, more visceral or instinctive. He was not guided by the head like Lucia, nor by the heart like Jacinta, but by instinct. He was the most contemplative of the three, detached from life, from everything and everyone, had his mind and eyes set on the “Hidden Jesus” in the tabernacle as the three called the Blessed Sacrament; used to spend long hours in prayer and contemplation. He incarnated from the message of Fatima his love of the Eucharist.

Ironically, Francisco only received his Holy Communion on his deathbed at the hands of a new priest because the local priest who had refused to give him the sacrament was absent at the time.

Why the Cova da Iria?
The legend has it that Iria, or Irene, was a maiden born in a Roman village on the banks of the Nabão River in Tomar; she received her education in a monastery of Benedictine nuns. Endowed with great beauty and intelligence, the young Iria attracted the attention of both the monk Remigio, her spiritual director, and the young Earl Britaldo. Motivated by jealousy, the former gave her a potion to make her appear pregnant; upon seeing her in this condition the latter killed her. From Nabão River to Zêzere River, from Zêzere River to Tagus River, her body was found to be incorruptible in the locality called by her name Saint Irene, or Santarem.

The place where Our Lady appeared was on a private property which belonged to Lucia’s family, if this had not been so, the authorities would probably have closed the site and prohibited the people from going there.

The relevance of Fatima to Portugal
I live in a conflict between the emotional need for belief and the intellectual impossibility to believe. (…) The fact is that there is in Portugal a place that can compete, and advantageously, with Lourdes. There are wonderful cures, at cheaper cost.“ (Fernando Pessoa, 1888-1935).

This most internationally renowned Portuguese poet embodied very well the philosophical, social and political thinking of the Portuguese people at the time of the apparitions. Pessoa chanted with most Portuguese thinkers, and by imitating his European counterparts, made fun and satirized the faith of the common people, which was considered to be both the cause and the consequence of their ignorance and lack of culture.

Rising against the Catholic nationalism, which already had Fatima as its epicenter, Pessoa was already at that time part of a current, still in force today, which aimed to deny Europe of its Christian roots and to return to its pre-Christian paganism.

The incoherence is well expressed by Pessoa as the phrase above demonstrates. For example, he exalts the Portuguese discoveries and forgets or ignores that these would not have been possible without the faith that animated and motivated these discoverers. Furthermore, Camões who wrote the history of Portugal within the account of the discovery of the seaway from Europe to India acknowledged that the reason for the discoveries was “to expand the faith and the empire”.

The cross that was painted on all the sails on the Portuguese ships was the Cross of the Knights Templar; in fact, the great motivator and mentor of the discoveries, Prince Henrique, was himself a Templar.

With the seizure of power by Afonso Costa in 1910, the State saw the Church as an enemy to be eliminated; he inculcated the ideology of militant secularism and instead of engaging in dialogue with the Church, he imposed himself on the Church, beginning with the expulsion of her wisest and most intellectual order, the Jesuits, those who overshadowed him the most.

He banned religious ceremonies outside the Church, the ringing of the Church bells, legalized divorce, removed religious holidays, repressed and restricted as much as he could of the Christian press, and prohibited priests and religious from wearing their robes and habits in public. For the first republic, Fatima was an obscurantist belief, that is, one opposed to the increase and spread of knowledge.

Little did this secular policy last because, providentially, in 1917 the same year of the apparition, the Jacobean and antireligious government of Afonso Costa fell apart. Rising to power in his place was Sidonio Pais who introduced the New State, and put an end to the anti religious laws but, on the other hand, closed the parliament. The regime hardened further with the rise to power of Salazar in 1928 as the minister of finance and later as the prime minister. Portugal went from a liberal secular communist regime to the fascism of the New State without a war.

In 1931, the Portuguese bishops consecrated Portugal to the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be spared, as indeed it was, of the encroachment of communism that devastated the neighbouring country, Spain, with a fratricidal civil war from 1936 to 1939. Unlike Portugal, the transition in Spain to Franco’s fascism was by way of a bloody civil war, with the persecution of the Church where hundreds of bishops, priests, and religious men and women were killed.

Salazar was not clerical, but instead of attacking the Church he skillfully made use of her and, more specifically, of Fatima to demonize and attack communism, and to prevent any kind of political and social reforms. Fatima was nationally and internationally used as a weapon against the advancement of communism. However, the true message of Fatima never mentioned communism as a social political system, but rather exclusively made reference to militant atheism.

“In Portugal the dogma of Faith will always be preserved”
(…) when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? (Luke 18:8)
This sad and enigmatic question of Jesus, left hanging in the air, seems to suggest that faith is being passed from generation to generation in an increasingly weaker form, and it runs the risk of being lost in time, long before Christ comes the second time to judge the living and the dead.

We, the Portuguese, the inhabitants of the Land of Holy Mary, have the promise from Our Lady at Fatima to the little shepherds during the July 13th apparition and which was included as the second part of the Secret, that in these lands faith will remain until Christ comes to meet us… Come, Lord Jesus come!

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: Coincidence or Providence?

“Kairos” – The opportune moment
Inspired by an article published in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on December 14, 2011,  I realized that Fatima is protagonist of  numerous chance happenings in the twentieth century, linked to its message and meaning for the world. The skeptics will call them mere coincidences, and yet among the non-believers, there are more and more of those who claim that nothing happens by chance, a phrase that we see with increasing frequency on the Facebook applied to a thousand and one everyday situations.

When good comes out of which there is no plausible explanation, the non-believers call it good luck; similarly, when evil arises they call it bad luck. For the believers, on the other hand, the synonym for luck, whether good or bad, is providence. Believers do not get carried away in good times nor do they despair in bad because they know that “there is no evil that lasts forever nor goodness that always lingers”.

If the very hairs on our head are all numbered, as the Gospel says, then everything is Divine Providence. This means that all that happens, good and bad, is desired or permitted by God who “writes straight with crooked lines”. For those who place their trust and confidence in God, “no evil comes if not for a good purpose”.

The Church’s Yes to Fatima
The ecclesiastical process, the one in addition to the interrogations carried out by the parish priest of Fatima, Fr. Manuel Marques Ferreira, and the Canon Fr. Manuel Nunes Formigão, consisted of setting up a commission to initiate the official canonical inquiry to ascertain the veracity of the apparitions.

The commission started its work on the 13th of May, 1922, five years after the first apparition and ended on the 13th of October, 1930, exactly thirteen years after the closure of the apparitions. On that day, with the knowledge and approval of Pope Pius XI, the then Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, Dom José Correia da Silva, announced the results of the investigation, officially permitting the cult or the veneration of Our Lady of Fatima.

Long before the confirmation was given by the Church, the people who had never stopped flocking to Cova da Iria built a chapel in 1919 as the Lady had instructed the children. In 1922, criminals instigated by the politics of the time which were hostile to the Church and religion, placed two bombs in the chapel and another by the little oak tree where the Lady had stood during the apparitions. The bombs in the chapel exploded and destroyed its roof but the one placed close to the little oak did not explode.

Fatima and the popes
When World War I was at its height, on May 5th, 1917, Pope Benedict XV urged all Christians to plead for Mary’s intercession to obtain the “aspirated peace for this world gone mad”. Then only eight days later, Mary appeared at Fatima with her plan for the world peace. One year later in 1918, this same pope in a letter to the Portuguese bishops to restore the diocese of Leiria, to which the seers belonged, made references to the events in Fatima as “an extraordinary aid from the Mother of God”.

On that very day when Our Lady appeared at Fatima for the first time, May 13, 1917, Father Eugenio Pacelli was ordained bishop and was later elected pope under the name of Pius XII in 1939. Twenty-five years later when he celebrated his silver jubilee, he saw in this coincidence the secret designs of the Divine Providence.

Although she never met him in real life, Jacinta loved the Holy Father very dearly and prayed for him every day; in one of her private visions, she saw him praying very anxiously. Her love and desire to see the pope was so great that upon seeing so many people coming to Cova da Iria, during and after the apparitions, with a sense of disappointment and in her simplicity she came to say, “So many people come here, but the Holy Father never does!”

It is true that he did during Jacinta’s short lifetime, but he did go during her cousin Lucia’s. Pope Paul VI celebrated the 50th anniversary of the apparitions and met with Sister Lucia, who died on 13th of February, 2005. Five years earlier, on 13th of May, 2000, Lucia attended the beatification of her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta. The then Pope John Paul II recalled on that day the words of Jacinta and thanked her for her love, and her many prayers and sacrifices for the pope when he was not yet born.

The attack on Pope John Paul II
On the same day and at the same hour that Pope John Paul II was shot, 13th of May, 1981, sixty-four years earlier Our Lady had appeared at Fatima. It is not a secret to anyone that the bullet was fired by the Soviet Union because of the support this pope gave to the union called “Solidarity”, which acted as a Trojan horse inside the Soviet Empire and ended up being the Soviet’s downfall. It was not the Soviet Union that prevailed, however, but Our Lady of Fatima who miraculously deflected the bullet, and in the pope’s opinion “it was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path”.

Of the three bullets fired at Pope John Paul II, two of them did not cause serious injuries. But the damages done by the third projectile however were great. The bullet pierced the pope’s abdomen, hit the small and large intestines, grazed the sacrum, the bone at the bottom of the spinal column, and exited through his back.

On this course, the bullet passed within the providential centimeters of vital organs narrowly missing the aorta. If this artery had been hit, it is unlikely that Karol Wojtyla would have survived the race from Saint Peter’s Square to the Agostino Gemelli Teaching Hospital. He arrived there suffering from shock due to severe blood loss, which was speedily taken care of with a 3-litre blood transfusion and a surgery that lasted five and half hours.

Pope John Paul II who up until then had not expressed much interest in Fatima, despite being a fervent lover of Mary to whom he had entrusted his apostolic motto “Totus Tuus”, ended up visiting it a year later in 1982 to thank Mary who had protected him. John Paul II visited Fatima two more times because he realized that he was the pope referred to in the third part of the Secret of Fatima; the secret that his predecessors had read and stored away.

 In fact, Pope John XXIII was so impressed with it that he always kept it in his bedroom, even after being convinced that the secret did not pertain to him nor to his pontificate.

The knowledge the little shepherds had of their future
Yes, I shall take Jacinta and Francisco soon, but you will remain a little longer, since Jesus wishes you to make me known and loved on earth. He wishes also for you to establish devotion in the world to my Immaculate Heart. Spoken by Our Lady at the June 13th apparition

Not long after the second apparition, while they were still in good health, the little shepherds already knew what was awaiting them in the immediate future. They knew that Francisco and Jacinta would soon die and be taken up to heaven, and that Lucia would remain for a while on earth to bear witness to the Message of Fatima and to promote the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Furthermore, in her own private apparitions of Our Lady, Jacinta knew in advance all the circumstances surrounding her own death including the day and the hour. She knew that she would be going to two hospitals to suffer more but not to be cured, and that at the hospital in Lisbon, she would be accompanied by her mother who would then leave her there by herself. What tortured her the most was the knowledge that, once gone to the Lisbon hospital, she would never see her dear friend Lucia again, and that she would die there alone.

Crown of glory and crown of thorns
The crown of Our Lady of Fatima is made of pure gold, weighs 1200 grams and is decorated with 950 diamonds, 313 pearls, one large emerald and 13 other smaller ones, 33 sapphires, 17 rubies, 269 turquoises, one amethyst and four aquamarines etc. It was made from the jewelries offered by hundreds of Portuguese women as a thanksgiving for Portugal not entering into the Second World War.

Initially when Pope John Paul II gave the bullet used in his assassination attempt to be placed in the crown of Our Lady of Fatima, it was not known where best to put it. So it came as a great surprise to the jeweler who made the crown in 1942 that this very bullet had precisely the same diameter as the washer that joins the stems of the diadem. It was there that the bullet was placed, almost half a century later. Remarkably when the crown was made it had already reserved at that very moment a place for the future.

This resplendent crown, the fruit of love and labour of the Portuguese people for Mary, had remained incomplete all these years for it was still missing a pearl. The bullet that struck the pope, and providentially the place that this would occupy was always waiting. To set it in its place, the crown of glory now becomes the crown of thorns, and thus corresponds more to the life of Our Lady and to the life that every Christian is called to live, the glory by way of the cross and suffering, as represented by the bullet.

Fatima and Russia
If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace, if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church, the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. Spoken by Our Lady at the July 13th apparition

Three months after Our Lady declared this to the three little shepherds, Lenin grabbed the power in Russia and started the Bolshevik revolution which subjected neighbouring nations to violence and transformed them along with Russia into the great new Babylon, the Soviet Union.

“How many armies does the pope have?” – And so Stalin asked during his time, in order to ridicule the Vatican’s political and military potentials. History has shown that whoever laughs the last laughs the best. The spiritual power, even negatively, as the driving force of behaviour is always stronger than greed and all other worldly and earthly motives.

At the end, (said Mary in Fatima) my Immaculate Heart will triumph, and indeed at the end of the religious feeling, the belief in God has triumphed over the enlightenment, atheism and rationalism; faith has triumphed over reason, both in Russia as in Portugal and the rest of the world.

This is exactly what was said on May 10th, 1985, in a visit to Portugal by the then American President Ronald Reagan, surely inspired by God as he affirmed, “I venture to suggest that it is by the example of men like him (referring to Pope John Paul II) and in the prayers of the people from all over the world – humble people like the little shepherds of Fatima – that there resides a greater power than all the great armies and statesmen of the world”. Two years later, the first treaty of nuclear disarmament was signed between the United States and the USSR.

The Blue of Mary prevails over the red
Withdrawal of the Red Army from Austria -- on 13th of May, 1955 – This took place after 10 long years of campaign, promulgated by the Franciscan priest Petrus Pavlicek, which consisted of countless and constant processions and public recitation of the Rosary throughout the country, especially in Vienna. Faced with this silent, peaceful but proactive protest from the Austrians, the Russians withdrew from Austria which they had occupied since 1945.

The flag of the European Union – The flag of the Council of Europe, which today represents the European Union, was created on December 8 of that same year 1955, on the feast day of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The blue of the flag is the color of the Virgin Mary and the stars are those that surround the head of the woman described in the Book of Revelation, which is traditionally recognized as Virgin Mary.

The end of the Soviet Union – Finally, on the same day the 8th of December but in 1991, again on the feast day of the Immaculate Conception and seventy-four years after Mary had said in Fatima that in the end her Immaculate Heart will triumph, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed a document to put an end to the Soviet Union. On Christmas night of that year, the red flag with its hammer and sickle, was forever withdrawn from the highest summit of the Kremlin and in its place was hoisted the tricolor flag of the Empire of Peter the Great.

The consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart – One of the petitions of Mary, or condition for Russia to convert, was for the pope to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart. After numerous incomplete consecrations since Pope Pius XII in which Russia was never named, finally on 25th of March, 1984, Pope John Paul II made the consecration that was found to be acceptable to Our Lady, before the seer Lucia.

Two years later Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and initiated a series of social and political reforms, one of which was to end once and for all the militant atheism and the religious persecution. To these reforms he himself gave the name of Perestroika, or conversion in Russian.

The Berlin Wall – The Wall which for years has divided the two Germanys began its construction by the Democratic Republic of Germany on August 13, 1961. Its demolition was officially started on 13th of June, 1990, and was completed two years later.

Not few are the coincidences between Fatima and the various historical facts that took place in the twentieth century. When there are so many chance happenings and all seem to be pointing in the same direction, it is unlikely that they took place without a purpose or a deliberate intention.  In Fatima, and by means of Fatima, the Divine Providence intervened in the most belligerent century of human history.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: The Sociopolitical Intervention

Fatima is the greatest religious event of the first half of the twentieth century, an explosion, a violent eruption, of the supernatural world inside the borders of this agitated and materialistic earthly world. Paul Claudel -- French poet, dramatist and diplomat

Fatima – the most political of all the Marian apparitions. Clodovis Boff – theologian, philosopher, writer and professor
   
Through the course of history, the depictions of Mary in paintings and sculptures have gotten us used to a stereotyped image of her as the “humble servant of Zion”, passive, with a calm and serene expression who, instead of speaking openly to express her thoughts and feelings, ponders them in her heart (Luke 2:19). We do not deny that this is all true, but it is however only one facet of her personality.

I do not know for what reason that over the centuries the other aspect of Mary was never painted nor sculptured -- the woman of the Magnificat, who is full of energy and poised for action almost contradicting the paradigm described above. The one who exclaims, “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:51-53)

The proactive Mary – When I recite these verses, the image that comes to mind is more like that of the legendary Joan of Arc of the Hundred Years’ War between France and England or with the bare-chested woman waving the victory flag in front of the troops in the Storming of the Bastille -- not the image the Church has us accustomed. I admit to exaggeration, mainly in the violent aspect implicit in these images of my fantasy, but there is also exaggeration in the stereotyped one, insofar as the truth is more likely a blend of these two images. In other words, a Mary who is clearly not aggressive but who is much more proactive than passive.

The apparition of Our Lady in Fatima being the most political of all Marian apparitions according to Boff, that even to crisscross its authenticity there was a need to check it against some political manifestation in the biblical figure of Mary. In so doing, we can conclude from the Magnificat that Fatima was not the first time Mary “got involved in the politics”. Thus the message of Fatima is truly revolutionary, in a magnificat-style, and unravels for us the other side of Mary, that of the sociopolitical intervention, as a pre-proclamation of the Kingdom that her Son came to bring to the world.

In Fatima, Mary the Mother of the Church, the Mother of Life, visits her children with a message of life and peace for a world immersed in war and genocidal and ideological death. She came to announce that God is alive and well to all those, like Nietzsche who proclaimed him dead, in historical and ideological materialism as well as in militant atheism which had spread from Russia to the rest of the world.

In Fatima, Mary visits her people as she had once visited her cousin, Elizabeth. She asks the little shepherds to offer themselves and to participate with God in a plan of salvation for a world that has fallen victim to itself. A world that was encased in the ideologies of rationalism and sadistic nihilism which has brought on horrors of war and cruelty of torture and irrationalism of the twentieth century ethnic and religious persecution and cleansing. And by way of hope, she came to console her children in these bitter hours, and to give them the assurance that in the end her Immaculate Heart would triumph.

(…) I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity (Deuteronomy 30:15).  Like Moses, Mary in Fatima places side by side the hope and the threat, the salvation and the destruction, the promise and the warning, the grace and the judgment, and also like Moses, she urges us to choose goodness and the way of the Gospel in order to get away from the horrors into which the world has fallen.

The historical and social context of the apparitions
The two World Wars –About 12 million people were killed in the First World War, and 60 million in the Second. Never in the history of mankind had any previous wars wiped out so many lives, and if we count the number of wounded, these numbers double, and of these, many lived with one kind of disability or another for the rest of their lives.

The totalitarianism, the Nazism, the fascism and the communism with their ethnic and religious genocidal and cleansing ideologies – In addition to those who died in combat in the two World Wars, we add millions of victims of the totalitarian regime, the scale never seen before, that practiced ethnic cleansing such as the extermination of the Jews, the gypsies and the disabled in the Nazi concentration camps, the ideological cleansing the communist regime practiced in the Siberian gulags, and the tortured and missing of the fascist regimes in Europe and Latin America.

The atheistic and militant communist regime and its religious persecution – Freedom of religion was non-existent in the former Soviet Union and the satellite countries belonging to the Warsaw Pact and the various communist African countries of Chinese or Soviet orientation. For decades, this militant atheism has been persecuting the faith and every kind of religious behaviour, private or public. To this day, this is still happening in China and Cuba. According to Eloy Bueno, in his book The Message of Fatima, the number of martyrs in the 20th century amounted to 26,685,000.

The nuclear arms race and the Cold War – An escalation of nuclear warfare and a constant threat to the world peace followed after the United States dropped the atomic bombs over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. In effect, at the end of the Cold War the stockpile of nuclear weapons was enough to destroy the world not once but ten times over.

In this dismal and dark environment, before the end of the First World War, comes Fatima as the light of peace that is possible in a world in disarray.  During her July apparition, Our Lady of Fatima forewarns that a second world war would be worse than the first and leaves a foreseeable possibility of a third one as she calls for the conversion of Russia, in a special way, for being responsible for the atheistic and militant ideologies, and in a general way, to bring all sinners out of hell, not so much the one the little shepherds saw in the vision, but of the hell that the lives of men had become.

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:15)

“To great evils, come great remedies” – With the same urgency as Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, through Mary in Fatima in 1917, God intervenes directly and visibly in human history to redirect men to Christ His Son. Mary helps and protects the agent of the Gospel of peace and goodness and asks three children to offer themselves for the conversion of sinners, for Russia, and for world peace. If in Cana Mary intervenes and says to her son that they have no wine (which biblically means to have no joy), in Fatima Mary says to her Son that they have no peace.

The triad appeal of conversion, penance and prayer is at the same time the center of the Gospel and the core of the message of Fatima. In this way, we can say that Fatima echoes, in the dramatic and dark twentieth century, the message of the Gospel of two thousand years ago.

“My Immaculate Heart will triumph”
The 1917 Fatima can be seen as the extension of the Lourdes of 1858, when Our Lady appeared to Saint Bernadette as the Immaculate Conception, the dogma declared by Pope Pius IX years before in 1854 and of which young Bernadette had no concept of its meaning when Our Lady told her about it.

Human beings are both mind and heart, and the exaggerated rationalism of the 20th century which led to the genocide and horrors of wars were perpetrated by people without hearts. God is the Father and the mother, is man and woman; if Jesus represents God as Father and man, because as he said to Philip that whoever sees him sees the Father, then Mary, the mother of Jesus, represents God as the woman and mother.

That is why in a world of excessive chauvinism and rationalism, cold and cruel, God had to send a woman, Mary, so that women would stop seeing themselves only as cooks and housekeepers, and would join the men in the governing of the world’s political destinies. So that they would bring to politics and to the social life their sensitive and feminine hearts. Because the heart, as Pascal says, has reasons which reason does not know. And it is precisely this that we have been witnessing in the second half of the twentieth century in the Western world, and to a lesser extent in the rest of the world.

Femininity and masculinity are like the two wings of a bird; a bird that flies with only one wing would be flying in circles, and indeed in vicious circles has the human race been flying, repeating the same mistakes again and again from generation to generation. Our hope is that with women side by side with men engaging in all cells of social life, the world will become more humane. The twentieth century has been a century of too much brain and too little heart. Therefore, an inclusive world of all God’s children regardless of gender, race, religion or sexual orientation will undoubtedly be a better world.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph – An immaculate heart always triumphs when politics is governed with the heart, that is, with generosity, compassion, mercy and love, and not only with reason. When this heart is pure and immaculate without the rot of corruption, is free of malice and pesky self-interest, then there will be equality and peace in the world because this heart will triumph over reason and its purity over corruption.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Fatima: What did the little shepherds see?

A Lady dressed in white, more brilliant than the sun
“Dressed in white with a chain of gold around her neck extending down to her breast… her head was covered with a white mantle, yes, very white… I don’t know but it was whiter even than milk… which covered her to the feet… all embroidered with gold… Ah how beautiful! She kept her hands together, in this way” – and then the child rose from the stool, joined her hands at the breast, imitating the vision. (Jacinta)

Jacinta, the one more expansive and sensitive to beauty, could not contain within her the overwhelming supernatural joy that made her exclaim unceasingly, “Ah, what a beautiful Lady! Ah, such a beautiful Lady!” It was too great a joy to stay contained within such a small body and therefore it did not take long for her to tell her mother who was incredulous about seeing the beautiful Lady at the Cova. Her father, however, believed her story from the very beginning because knowing his child well, he knew that such a lover of truth would not lie.

How can we conceptualize the apparitions both of the Angel which took place one year earlier as a way of preparation and of Our Lady from May to October of 1917?

Apparition or vision?
The theory of autosuggestion says that in an environment where people expect apparitions then there will be apparitions. These are not consistent with the appearances of the risen Christ to the apostles, or to Paul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, nor with the Marian apparitions approved by the Church. Common in all of these is the fact that the “appearance” took the seers by surprise.

It is not a vision, however, because a vision is always private and an expression of a deep religious experience without the public and without a message to others. Furthermore, it implies an earlier religious experience, and is frequently a mystical phenomenon that indicates a long process of ascetics.

Contrary to a vision, an apparition is always prophetic because it is confined to a specific time and a specific place like in Fatima, Lourdes or Guadalupe, and there are witnesses from the very beginning. There is always a prophetic message for that particular time and place, and it is always accompanied by phenomena or miracles that do not have a scientific explanation.

It was, therefore, an apparition that the little shepherds experienced in Fatima, but was this like that of the risen Christ to the apostles? We are working with the principle that the transfigured humanity of Jesus Christ, his glorious body after his resurrection and ascension to heaven, never again appeared directly on earth in his corporeal reality like the apostles saw him. This same principle can be said of Mary, his mother. Therefore, the little shepherds did not have an apparition of Mary in her bodily reality but rather an imaginative one, a fantasy, a hallucination. Jacinta, in fact, in one of the interrogations stated that Our Lady was little more than one meter tall.

In order to explain the fact that during the last apparition that while the crowd’s attention was captivated by the miracle of the sun, the little shepherds saw part of the celestial court imagined each in their own way. They saw St. Joseph with the Child Jesus in his arms, Our Lady of Sorrows, Jesus Christ blessing the world and finally Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

We reject the petty presumption that anything that is not natural or “normal” is therefore pathological; the geniuses are not normal, and yet they are not pathological. Before allowing or supporting any apparitions, the Church verifies the following criteria: 1. The message is in line with the Gospel and the doctrines of the Church, 2. The seers are of perfect physical and mental health, and 3. The seers are honest and humble, and their lives are exemplary from the spiritual and moral point of view.

Divine hallucination
Hence this is how we classify the experience of the little shepherds at Fatima. Hallucination because Our Lady did not actually and objectively appear; if she had indeed been there, then all those present would have seen her also. Divine because it was not provoked by any illnesses of mind on the part of the little shepherds since they were perfectly sound of mind and body, but rather by God in order to pass through them a message for Portugal and the rest of the world.

Hallucination is a perception that occurs in the absence of the physical or corporeal state of the object perceived; it is similar to what occurs in nocturnal dreams where the sensation of reality is so alive that it is only when we wake up that we realize that it was not real. Therefore in the case of the seers of Fatima, they perceived the presence of Our Lady without her being really or bodily present.

So what is supernatural about this experience? The supernatural is in the reality that it was not the little shepherds who brought about this experience, but rather it was caused by God. This is the principal criteria for its authenticity. The children did not bring about the experience, they did not seek it and have done nothing to have it. This is where the scope of divine intervention is situated as well as later in the content of the message which in no way could have been invented by the children, given their condition of being rude and ignorant as the Canon Fr. Manuel Formigão called them.

I do not mean this to be the final word on the subject; what makes me one hundred percent certain that the children did experience something supernatural is that, in line with all people who have had divine encounters, it changed their lives so radically and dramatically. They did not only see an apparition and heard a message, but they also lived and embodied that message for the rest of their lives.

The vision of hell
Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientes recipitur. (St. Thomas Aquinas)
What is received, is received according to the capacity of the receiver. This Thomist principle helps us to understand and conceptualize the visions and in the case of Fatima, it is fundamental to the explanation of the vision of hell. When Our Lady showed the children the vision of hell, she could not show them the true reality of what hell is really like. It would have been like putting the sea inside a hole in the sand on the shore, paraphrasing the tale of St. Augustine in understanding the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

What the children saw was a re-creation in their own mind of all the preaching that up until then they had heard from priests, who in those days never tired of frightening people with the fire of hell; also, from the graphical representation in holy pictures and small land posts or monuments representing the souls in purgatory that even today abound along our pathways in the countryside.

Once again, what is there in this experience that points out divine revelation? Certainly not the way the children saw hell, but rather that the the vision was provoked by the Lady. In other words, the experience in itself was initiated by Our Lady; the particular way this experience was brought to life by the children has to do with their capacity to comprehend hell and with the way they have always imagined it which was formed by catechesis and the priests’ preaching. Paraphrasing Saint Thomas Aquinas’ principle, what the children saw, they saw it according to their mental capacity, and the images of their world view.

The miracle of the sun
After having suffered very much from the unbelief and the pressure from her mother and the parish priest to recant her story, Lucia asked the Lady at the July 13th apparition to perform a miracle “so that all may believe that Your Grace appears to us”. The Lady promised that she would and renewed that promise at the two subsequent apparitions on August 19th and September 13th. And so, this was how a large multitude of people came to gather at the Cova da Iria on the 13th of October, 1917. Here are some excerpts taken from O Século Newspaper, a liberal anticlerical and masonic daily of Lisbon:

And, precisely at the appointed time in July – at noon --- something amazing starts. Unexpectedly-- because a torrential rain had filled Cova da Iria with mud--, Lucia tells the crowd to close their umbrellas (…) (then) the sun shook, the sun took on never seen sudden movements, outside of all cosmic laws, -- the sun danced, according to the common expression of the peasants…

«It was like a ball of snow, revolving on itself » (Fr. Lorenzo)

«This sun’s disc moved vertiginously. This was not the sparkling of a heavenly body. It spun around on itself in a mad whirl. .» (Dr. Almeida Garrett)

«At some point, the sun stopped and then started to dance, and dance; stopped again and again started to dance» (Mr. Marto, Jacinta’s and Francisco’s father)

«A light, whose colors changed from one moment to the next, saw itself reflected in the people and in the things» (Dr. Pereira Gens – who saw it from 40 km away)

Once more we say it again that something happened, not nothing, and that this time, something which had been announced three months earlier, happened on the day and the hour indicated. The phenomenon was witnessed this time not only by the three poor, illiterate, rude and ignorant peasants, but also by teachers, priests, medical doctors and professors of the local university. So what exactly happened?

Of all the explanations available to explain this phenomenon, the one that appears to us to be the most plausible is given by the physicist and Benedictine monk, Fr. Stanley Jaki (1924-2009) who was a professor at Princeton University in New Jersey where Einstein was also teaching. Fr. Jaki actually bothered to go to Portugal to interview some of those who had experienced the phenomenon firsthand, and here is his conclusion:

It is a very rare meteorological phenomenon, resulting in the convergence and interaction between cirrus clouds (at high altitudes, consisting of ice crystals), with the low altitude clouds (made of particles of water in liquid state), the wind  that made the particles of water and ice interact in a twirling spiral wheel, which in turn generated simultaneously a beam of shimmering colours (resulting from the refraction of sun’s rays on the water and ice particles) and a rare “lens” effect, which explains the amazement of the people in Cova da Iria, who thought that the sun, appearing to increase in size, was going to plunge on them… Stanley L. Jaki, God and the Sun at Fatima, Real View Books, 1999.

If it was not an astronomical phenomenon, if the sun did not dance and the laws of physics were not violated, but was only a meteorological phenomenon, rare but possible, then where is the miracle? The miracle lies on the fact that it had been foreseen by the little shepherds five months before and it was pointed out by Lucia the very day and the exact moment when it was to happen and indeed it did happen.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC