God understands human history not only contextually, as we hope to do, but also in the fullness of time, which reflects His infinite intelligence. His capacity is beyond our understanding, and He intervenes in our lives and in history itself in such a way as to preserve our sacred freedom of will. Only He can know how to influence people and events in order to nudge us in the right direction without compelling us to do so. The very salvation of our souls, individually and collectively, can depend upon how we respond to these choices that we’re given in life.
Although we don’t deserve and haven’t earned this assistance any more than we have earned our salvation through the Incarnation, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, God sometimes offers a prompt to us. In those moments, His help is there for the taking. But sometimes even a miracle, replete with instructions and warnings, is not enough to move people to a concerted, sustained effort. The world tends to get in the way.
When Did The Story Of Fatima Begin?
According to Fr. Michael E. Gaitley, author of The Second Greatest Story Ever Told, the tale of Fatima really begins before most people realize. When Pope Benedict XV was elected on September 3, 1914, the First World War had just broken out. The new Pope was understandably disturbed about the carnage and would come to refer to it as “the suicide of civilized Europe.” He set out to foment peace among the nations, all of which distrusted him. In desperation, he invited Catholics to pray a solemn novena to Mary, whom he called our “Mother of Mercy,” to ask for peace. It was on May 13, 1917, the eighth day of this novena, that the first apparition of Fatima occurred. An answer to prayers, initiated by the Pope and joined by many Catholics, occurred when Mother Mary spoke to three innocent children about the state of the world and Catholic morality. It seemed to defy common sense to skeptical people who just didn’t think God would choose this venue and those young children for such an important message. People just don’t picture God working through the weak or the innocent in an attempt to save souls. Mother Mary’s call for prayer and repentance would be ignored by many in the ensuing decades, with tragic results. It would greatly behoove mankind to take another look at the Miracle of Fatima.
Even before the novena, Lucia and the children had experienced three visits in 1916 from an angel calling himself the Angel of Peace. These visits occurred at a well close to the place where Mary would appear in 1917. The angel prepared the children for Mary by teaching them prayers, giving them the Eucharist, and encouraging them to pray the Rosary in order to bring about world peace. Mary would ask them this and more.
The first appearance of Mother Mary occurred on May 13, 1917, at the Cova de Iria, a grazing area near Fatima. Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco (ages 10, 7, and 9, respectively) were tending their families’ sheep when they saw a bright light and a woman in a white mantle with gold braid holding a rosary above a small holm oak tree. The lady told them not to be afraid and that she was from heaven. Although all three saw her, only Lucia spoke with her. Jacinta saw and heard her, but Francisco could only see her.
Mary told the children to pray the Rosary for peace and to make sacrifices for sinners who were going to hell in large numbers. She asked them to do penance for people who no longer could pray for themselves and asked if they would be willing to bear suffering and make reparations for sinners. This was a call for repentance and reparation for the entire world, not just the children. When they agreed, Mary said that the grace of God would strengthen them. She asked that they return on the thirteenth of each month for the next six months and, interestingly, that she would appear a seventh time. According to EWTN, the seventh visit occurred in 1920 at the Cova de Iria when Lucia was preparing to leave for boarding school. Mary appeared in order to encourage Lucia to give her life to God, which she did in 1921 by becoming a religious sister in Spain.
The Second Visit To Fatima
During the second visit, on June 13, 1917, Mary repeated the request for the children to return to the spot on the thirteenth of each month and for them to continue to pray the Rosary for peace. She then gave them the Fatima prayer, asking people to say it after each mystery. She said that Lucia should learn to read and write, and that Jacinta and Francisco would be going to heaven soon, but that Lucia would live for some time to establish devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart. She said that Jesus wanted this in order to lead people to Him. They saw a vision of her Immaculate Heart surrounded by thorns and experienced an intense light that made them feel enveloped by God.
The Third Apparition
The third apparition in July was significant because Mary revealed a three-part secret to the children and said that it should not be made public immediately. The first part of the secret involved a terrifying vision of hell revealed to the children as the fate of many souls due to evil in the world. Mary again asked people to pray the Rosary and to make sacrifices for the salvation of souls. This would have a profound effect on the children, who began making such sacrifices. Mary said she would ask for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart, even though Russia was still Catholic at the time. The Bolshevik Revolution would occur in a few months. She indicated that if this was not done, Russia would spread its errors throughout the world. She said that her Immaculate Heart would ultimately defeat evil. She also asked for the Communion of Reparation on First Saturdays. Mary would reiterate the consecration request to Lucia in a separate apparition in June 1929. It would be carried out successfully, at last, by Pope John Paul II in 1984. The Soviet Union was ultimately dissolved in 1991.
The second part of the secret involved Mary’s prediction that the First World War would soon end, but that a worse war would ensue during the reign of Pius XI if people failed to pray and repent. Mary told them that God wanted to establish devotion to her Immaculate Heart in order to save sinners. She again showed the children a vision of her heart surrounded by thorns representing the injury caused by sin.
Mary warned that a light in the night sky would signal the start of this new conflagration, by which God would punish the world with “war, famine, and persecution of the Church and Holy Father.” This would, unfortunately, come to fruition in 1938, when, during the reign of Pius XI, an intense and widely viewed aurora borealis appeared in the night sky over Europe. It was the most impressive one seen in many years. Hitler’s annexation of Austria occurred two months later, setting off World War II.
The third part was a prophetic vision of a bishop dressed in white visiting a city half in ruins. The bishop, presumably the Pope, is ultimately killed along with others by soldiers using bullets and arrows. Pope John Paul II interpreted this vision to be a prediction of the 1981 assassination attempt on him in St. Peter’s Square. The warning was supposed to be divulged in 1960, as per Sr. Lucia, who believed that Mary wanted it delayed for a time. However, both Popes John XXIII and Paul VI decided not to release it in the sixties. After the attempt on his life, John Paul sent for Sr. Lucia’s written account and concluded that it predicted his assassination. He believed that Mary had intervened to spare him.
Mary Appears A Fourth Time
The fourth apparition occurred at Valinhos, near the children’s homes. This happened because the mayor of the district encompassing Fatima held the children for interrogation, at times threatening them in an effort to get them to recant. They held fast and refused to do so.
At the Cova de Iria, a crowd had gathered expecting the children to attend. Instead, they witnessed a cloud over the holm oak tree and a temperature change indicating Mary’s presence. The children were released on the Feast of the Assumption on August 19, 1917, and were tending sheep at Valinhos when Mary appeared. She told them to continue praying the Rosary and making sacrifices for sinners. She also repeated her wish that they go to the Cova de Iria on the thirteenth of September and October. She promised to perform a miracle on October 13 so that people would believe.
The Fifth Apparition
The fifth apparition occurred on September 13, 1917, and was witnessed by a crowd of about 30,000 people. Word had traveled over the prior months. Mary repeated her request that the children say the Rosary and return on the thirteenth of the next month, as she always did at each visit. In response to a question about healing sick people, Lucia knew that Mary indicated that some would be healed while others would not. She again promised a miracle in October and said that Our Lord, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Our Lady of Sorrows, and St. Joseph with the Child Jesus would appear. She said that God was pleased with the sacrifices the children had been making but restrained them a little.
Many in the crowd that day reported seeing rose petals fall from the sky, although they disappeared before hitting the ground.
The Sixth Time Mary Appears: The Miracle of the Sun
On October 13, 1917, the sixth apparition occurred, along with the miracle promised by Mary, often referred to as the Miracle of the Sun. Conservative estimates suggest that at least 50,000 people witnessed the event, which took place around midday as Mary had predicted. Up until then, it was pouring rain at the Cova de Iria that day. Suddenly, it stopped raining and the sun came out. The three children were experiencing a vision of the Holy Family when suddenly Lucia cried out, “Look at the sun.”
By most accounts, the sun appeared as a rimmed disc that people could stare at without retinal irritation or damage. It began to move erratically, seeming to spin, and emitted various colored rays that projected onto the crowd and the ground. It defied cosmic laws by seeming to spin, then advance and recede toward Earth.
Finally, the sun detached from the sky and plummeted toward the earth, creating fear and panic among the crowd, before returning to its usual position. Amazingly, the ground and people’s clothing had thoroughly dried in the few minutes during which this event occurred. Many skeptics among the crowd, including scientists and journalists, confirmed witnessing these phenomena. There were also confirmatory reports from people ten to twenty miles away. Lucia reported in her memoirs that she did not witness the phenomenon with the sun because of the visions she was seeing, as Mary had predicted. Photographs of the crowd gazing at the sky still exist.
Reflecting on the Miracle
The story of Fatima is a relatively long one with many details; however, the overriding message was very simple. God was informing us, through Mary, of the paramount importance of prayer, namely the Rosary, total conversion, and reparation for sin. She impressed upon three innocent children the need for sacrifices on behalf of sinners who were going to hell in large numbers. After seeing the vision of hell, they took this to heart in a way that most adults would not be capable of. The innocent began to make sacrifices for the benefit of the guilty. Mary approached the children because they were innocent like her and her Son. She was very much here to remind us of our collective responsibility toward one another. Peace in the first half of the twentieth century and beyond was in our grasp, as well as the conversion of many, if only we had listened to her message. Unfortunately, not enough believers did. Many wonderful things have been achieved through the miracle of Fatima, but mankind missed an opportunity to save millions of lives and to mitigate the pain of souls who, as Mary said, had no one to pray for them.
It stands to reason that the most insightful observations on the Fatima miracle come from Bishop Fulton Sheen, one of the great Catholic theologians of the twentieth century. He pointed out common ground between Christians and Muslims regarding Mary and saw the miracle as a prompt to Muslims to accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God, with Mary as Mother of both Him and us.
Bishop Sheen pointed out that when Muslims pulled out of Portugal hundreds of years ago, a princess named Fatima remained behind to marry a Christian man and adopted his faith. He would go on to name the town Fatima, reflecting its connection to the former Muslim princess. As the Prophet Mohammed also had a daughter named Fatima, the conversion message in this story is impossible to ignore.
Bishop Sheen also saw a warning about the atomic age in the message of Fatima. He pointed out mankind’s propensity to separate God from nature. He said that “man throughout history has always become wicked when, turning his back on God, he identifies himself with nature.” Bishop Sheen believed that nature and science both become tyrannical when divorced from God. In his time, we had become consumed with fear of the atomic bomb. Atomic fission is how the sun lights the world, which brings us back to Mary and the miracle of the sun.
While certainly a warning, in Bishop Sheen’s view, of the coming menace of atomic weapons, the Miracle of the Sun could also be interpreted, he believed, as a sign of hope. Mary, having been invested by God with power over nature, could exercise control over the most awesome natural source of heat and light in the solar system. Although we missed the chance to avoid a war, it is not too late to heed her warnings and to pray for mankind in the way she once asked three innocent children to do. They didn’t let her down.
More Resources On Our Lady Of Fatima
Fatima: The Apparition That Changed the World
Our Lady of Fatima: St. Joseph Picture Book
Inside the Light: Understanding the Message of Fatima
The World of Marian Apparitions: Mary’s Appearances and Messages from Fatima to Today
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Image: Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash
