Today, May 13th, is the Feast of
Our Lady of Fatima. On this day in 1917, three shepherd children --Lúcia dos Santos (10) and her cousins Francisco Marto (9) and Jacinta Marto (7) -- saw the Blessed Virgin Mary in Cova da Iria, near Fátima, Portugal. She appeared as a "lady brighter than the sun," holding a rosary, and entrusted the children with a message from Heaven.
The Three Seers (as the children became known) were leading their flock out from Aljustrel on the morning of the 13th of May, the feast of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. They passed Fátima, where the parish church and cemetery were located, and proceeded a kilometer or so north to the slopes of the Cova. Here they allowed their sheep to graze as they played in the pasture studded with a few oak trees.
After having had their lunch about noon they decided to pray a rosary, although in a somewhat truncated fashion, saying only the first words of each prayer. Shortly, they were startled by what they later described as "lightning in a clear sky." Thinking that a storm might be approaching they debated whether they should take the sheep and go home. Preparing to do so they were again surprised by a strange light.
"We began to go down the slope driving the sheep towards the road," Lúcia said. "When we were half-way down, near a holm oak there [still standing there today, encircled by an iron fence], we saw another flash of lightning, and after a few steps we saw on a holm oak [a small one lower on the hillside] a lady dressed in white, shining brighter than the sun, giving out rays of clear and intense light, just like a crystal goblet full of pure water when the fiery sun passes through it.
"We stopped astounded by the Apparition. We were so near that we were in the light that encircled her, or which she radiated, perhaps a meter and a half away [4-5 feet]. The lady said, 'Please don't be afraid of me, I'm not going to harm you.'"
Lúcia responded for all three, as she would throughout the apparitions, "Where are you from?" The Lady answered, "I come from heaven."
The Lady wore a pure white mantle, edged with gold and which fell to her feet. In her hands the beads of a rosary shone like stars, with its crucifix the most radiant gem of all. Still, Lúcia felt no fear. The Lady's presence produced in her only gladness and confident joy.
"And what do you want of me?", Lúcia asked. The Lady said, "I want you to return here on the thirteenth of each month for the next six months, and at the very same hour. Later I shall tell you who I am, and what it is that I most desire. And I shall return here yet a seventh time."
"And shall I go to heaven?", asked Lúcia. "Yes, you will," said the Lady.
"And Jacinta?" "She will go too."
"And Francisco?" "Francisco, too, my dear, but he will first have many Rosaries to say." For a few moments the Lady looked at Francisco with compassion, tinged with a little sadness.
Lúcia then remembered some friends who had died.
"Is Maria Neves in heaven?" "Yes, she is."
"And Amelia?" "She is in purgatory."
"Will you offer yourselves to God, and bear all the sufferings He sends you? In atonement for all the sins that offend Him? And for the conversion of sinners?"
"Oh, we will, we will!"
"Then you will have a great deal to suffer, but the grace of God will be with you and will strengthen you."
Lúcia relates that as the Lady pronounced these words, she opened her hands, and "we were bathed in a heavenly light that appeared to come directly from her hands. The light's reality cut into our hearts and our souls, and we knew somehow that this light was God, and we could see ourselves embraced in it."
By an interior impulse of grace we fell to our knees, repeating in our hearts: "Oh, Holy Trinity, we adore You. My God, my God, I love You in the Blessed Sacrament."
The children remained kneeling in the flood of this wondrous light, until the Lady spoke again, mentioning the war in Europe, of which they had little or no knowledge. "Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and an end to the war."
After that she began to rise slowly in the direction of the east, until she disappeared in the immense distance. The light that encircles Her seemed to make a way amidst the stars. Lúcia said, "that is why we sometimes said we had seen the heavens open."
Jacinta Marto and her brother Francisco were canonized as a saint by Pope Francis on 13 May 2017, the 100th anniversary of the First Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. They are the youngest non-martyr saints in the history of the Catholic Church. Lucia dos Santos (aka nSister Lúcia of Fátima) has not yet been canonized, but was declared Venerable by Pope Francis on 22 June 2023. This recognition of her "heroic virtues" is a significant step in the Church's canonization process.
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