Last week Pope Francis made a two-day pilgrimage to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the first apparition of the Blessed Mother to the three shepherd children at Fatima on May 13. In his Sunday Regina Coeli address in St. Peter’s Square, the pope said that during his pilgrimage he saw himself as a pilgrim of hope and peace. He said he had immersed himself in prayer at Fatima in an atmosphere of recollection and contemplation.
During his visit at a Mass attended by half a million worshippers Pope Francis declared canonized saints two of the young seers, Jacinta and Francisco Marto. They are the youngest people, Francisco aged 10 and Jacinta aged 9, who were not martyrs, ever canonized by the Church. The two young seers died in 1919 and 1920, victims of the international influenza epidemic. As part of the apparition, the seers stated that the Blessed Mother had predicted their early deaths.
The third seer, Sr. Lucia dos Santos, who was 10 at the time of the visions, lived to the age of 97. In 2008, three years after her death, Pope Benedict XVI, suspended the usual five year waiting period before the start of the beatification process. Lucia’s sanctity is still under study by religious authorities.
In Pope Francis’ homily at the vigil on the evening before the canonization Mass he acknowledged that those in attendance were on a pilgrimage with Mary. He asked, “Which Mary?” He asked if they felt Mary was “a teacher of the spiritual life,” or “unapproachable and impossible to imitate?” Is she, “a woman ‘blessed because she believed’ always and everywhere in God’s words or a ‘plaster statue’ from whom we beg favors at little cost?” “Is she “the Virgin Mary of the Gospel, venerated by the Church at prayer,” or “a Mary of our own making?” He encouraged the crowd to allow the watchful gaze of the Blessed Mother to sing with joy of the mercies of the Lord.
During his visit, the Pope said he felt compelled to come and venerate the Virgin Mary and to entrust to her all her sons and daughters. Francis encouraged the faithful to pray to God “with the hope that others will hear us.” The pope reminded his fellow pilgrims to cling to the Blessed Mother and remember her warning through the visionaries to resist, “a way of life that is godless and indeed profanes God in his creatures. Such a life frequently proposed and imposed risks leading to hell.”
In his homily at the canonization Mass Francis encouraged the faithful to be open to the love and guidance of the Blessed Mother. “With Mary’s protection, may we be for our world sentinels of the dawn, contemplating the true face of Jesus the Savior, resplendent at Easter. Thus may we rediscover the young and beautiful face of the Church, which shines forth when she is missionary, welcoming, free, faithful, and poor in means and rich in love?”
St. Patrick’s will continue the celebration of the Centennial of the Apparitions at Fatima with the celebration of a First Saturday Mass each month through the month of October. Plan to join in our prayer of the Mass for the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima.