Corpus Christi Blog

Our Lady of Fatima

10-13-2019Weekly Reflection©2017 EWTN

In 2017, a large group of parishioners traveled to Fatima, Portugal to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima. Her consistent message of praying the rosary is still as important today as it was in 1917. October 13 is the 102nd anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun. Here is the story…

Despite the ridicule and jokes of the secular, atheistic press, more than 30,000 people gathered in the Cova for the September apparition. Whether drawn by devotion or curiosity, they prayed the rosary while awaiting the arrival of the visionaries and their vision. When at last the time came they could hear Lucia say,

“What do you want of me?”

“Continue the Rosary, my children. Say it every day that the war may end. In October Our Lord will come, as well as Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. Saint Joseph will appear with the Child Jesus to bless the world. God is pleased with your sacrifices, but He does not want you to wear the cords to bed. Keep them on during the day.”

“I have the petitions of many for your help. Will you assist a little girl who is deaf and dumb?”

“She will improve within the year.”

“And the conversions that some have asked to have brought about? The cures of the sick ones?”

“Some I will cure, and some I will not. In October I will perform a miracle so that all may believe.”

With these last words still ringing in their ears, the Lady rose and disappeared in the heavens, as Lucia called to the crowd, “If you wish to see her—look! Look!”

During the night of October 12-13, it had rained throughout, soaking the ground and the pilgrims who made their way to Fátima from all directions by the thousands. By foot, by cart and even by car they came, entering the bowl of the Cova from the Fátima-Leiria road, which today still passes in front of the large square of the Basilica. From there they made their way down the gentle slope to the place where a trestle had been erected over the little holm oak of the apparitions. Today on the site is the modern glass and steel Capelhina (little chapel), enclosing the first chapel built there and the statue of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fátima where the holm oak had stood.

As for the children, they made their way to the Cova amid the adulation and skepticism which had followed them since May. When they arrived they found critics who questioned their veracity and the punctuality of the Lady, who had promised to arrive at noon. It was well past noon by the official time of the country. However, when the sun arrived at its zenith the Lady appeared as she had said she would.

“What do you want of me?”

“I want a chapel built here in my honor. I want you to continue saying the Rosary every day. The war will end soon, and the soldiers will return to their homes.”

“Yes. Yes. Will you tell me your name?”

“I am the Lady of the Rosary.”

“I have many petitions from many people. Will you grant them?”

“Some I shall grant, and others I must deny. People must amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins. They must not offend our Lord any more, for He is already too much offended!”

“And is that all you have to ask?”

“There is nothing more.”

As the Lady of the Rosary rose toward the east she turned the palms of her hands toward the dark sky. While the rain had stopped, dark clouds continued to obscure the sun, which suddenly burst through them and was seen to be a soft spinning disk of silver.

“Look at the sun!”

From this point, two distinct apparitions were seen, that of the phenomenon of the sun seen by the 70,000 or so spectators and that beheld by the children alone. Lucia describes the latter in her memoirs.

After our Lady had disappeared into the immense distance of the firmament, we beheld St. Joseph with the Child Jesus and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun. St. Joseph and the Child Jesus seemed to bless the world, for they traced the Sign of the Cross with their hands. When, a little later, this apparition disappeared, I saw Our Lord and Our Lady; it seemed to me that it was Our Lady of Sorrows (Dolors). Our Lord appeared to bless the world in the same manner as St. Joseph had done. This apparition also vanished, and I saw Our Lady once more, this time resembling Our Lady of Carmel. [Only Lucia would see the latter, presaging her entrance into Carmel some years later.]

This would be the last of the apparitions of Fátima for Jacinta and Francisco. However, for Lucia, Our Lady would return a seventh time, in 1920, as she had promised the previous May. At that time Lucia would be praying in the Cova before leaving Fátima for a girls boarding school. The Lady would come to urge her to dedicate herself wholly to God.

As the children viewed the various apparitions of Jesus, Mary and Joseph the crowd witnessed a different prodigy, the now famous miracle of the sun.

Excerpted from 100 Years of Fatima ©2017 EWTN, https://www.ewtn.com/fatima

BACK TO LIST