Our lady of Fatima
Our Lady of Fatima
On the noon of May 13, 1917, in the parish of Fatima in Portugal, three young shepherd children were playing, building a little house of stones (on the site where the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary now stands – construction started in 1928).
They suddenly saw a brilliant light. Thinking it was lightning, they decided to head back home. The children, Lucia de Jesus dos Santos (then 10 years old) and her cousins, Francisco (nine) and Jacinta Marto (seven) saw on the top of the holm oak tree (where the Chapel of Apparitions now stands), a Lady more brilliant than the sun, and from whose hands hung a white rosary.
The Roman Catholic church later certified that it was the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, henceforth referred to as the Lady of Fatima.
The Lady was said to have told the children that it was necessary for them to soak themselves in prayer and to appear at the same place on the 13th day of each month. The apparition appeared before them five more times and, as word got out, more people were present each time to witness it, too.
For the final appearance on Oct 13, 1917, some 70,000 people were present while a thunderstorm raged, and they were promised a miracle. The sun suddenly appeared and seemed to get closer and closer to the crowd and “danced and whirled” in front of the onlookers who could look directly at it without their eyes burning.
The three children – or the seers – too fulfilled the promises to the Lady. For the two youngest ones, it proved to be short lives (which they themselves had prophesied).
They were infected by the flu pandemic that swept through the world then. Francisco was the first when, at age 10, he succumbed to his illness. Jacinta died at age nine a year later, after a long and painful episode.
The principal seer, Lucia, devoted her life to the religion and from 14 years of age was in different orders of nuns; finally she became a Carmelite nun. She reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary again, twice, and even of Christ on two separate occasions.
She died on Feb 13, 2005, at the age of 98.
On the noon of May 13, 1917, in the parish of Fatima in Portugal, three young shepherd children were playing, building a little house of stones (on the site where the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary now stands – construction started in 1928).
They suddenly saw a brilliant light. Thinking it was lightning, they decided to head back home. The children, Lucia de Jesus dos Santos (then 10 years old) and her cousins, Francisco (nine) and Jacinta Marto (seven) saw on the top of the holm oak tree (where the Chapel of Apparitions now stands), a Lady more brilliant than the sun, and from whose hands hung a white rosary.
The Roman Catholic church later certified that it was the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, henceforth referred to as the Lady of Fatima.
The Lady was said to have told the children that it was necessary for them to soak themselves in prayer and to appear at the same place on the 13th day of each month. The apparition appeared before them five more times and, as word got out, more people were present each time to witness it, too.
For the final appearance on Oct 13, 1917, some 70,000 people were present while a thunderstorm raged, and they were promised a miracle. The sun suddenly appeared and seemed to get closer and closer to the crowd and “danced and whirled” in front of the onlookers who could look directly at it without their eyes burning.
The three children – or the seers – too fulfilled the promises to the Lady. For the two youngest ones, it proved to be short lives (which they themselves had prophesied).
They were infected by the flu pandemic that swept through the world then. Francisco was the first when, at age 10, he succumbed to his illness. Jacinta died at age nine a year later, after a long and painful episode.
The principal seer, Lucia, devoted her life to the religion and from 14 years of age was in different orders of nuns; finally she became a Carmelite nun. She reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary again, twice, and even of Christ on two separate occasions.
She died on Feb 13, 2005, at the age of 98.
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