Centennial Year of the Fatima Apparitions—2017 will mark the 100th Anniversary of the appearance of the Blessed Mother to three shepherd children at Fatima in central Portugal. Our Lady made six appearances to Lucia dos Santos and her two cousins Blessed Francisco Marto and Blessed Jacinta Marto at Fatima near their home at Aljustrel in May through October of 1917. The children were first prepared for the visits from Our Lady by three apparitions of the Angel of Peace in 1916. In the three visits the angel taught the children prayers and gave the children the Eucharist.
In her appearances the Blessed Mother encouraged the children to pray the Rosary daily and, as the First World War was still raging, she encouraged prayers for peace. She promoted devotion to her Immaculate Heart and promised them that on her appearance on October 13, 1917, St. Joseph as well as Jesus would appear to them.
At that climatic October appearance 55,000 people gathered in the rain at Cova da Iria in Fatima and witnessed the “miracle of the sun.” Despite the clouds, the sun broke through and began to spin while growing larger. Many people knelt in fear that it would consume the earth. Miraculously the rain soaked cloths of the observers were dried. This miracle was seen by another 20,000 witness within a 25 mile radius of Fatima.
At this apparition the three visionaries were also privileged to see a series of visions of St. Joseph and the Christ Child who blessed the world. Mary also appeared several times and identified herself as Our Lady of the Rosary. She instructed the children to encourage that a chapel be built on the spot at Cova da Iria.
The appearances were not without trials and difficulties for the three children. Lucia dos Santos was harshly treated by her family and was reluctant to be present at the July 13 appearance. All there were kept from being at Fatima for the August 13 appearance because they were arrested by anti-clerical civil authorities even though they were each 10 years old or younger. They were released from jail on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, after the authorities thought they had thwarted Our Lady’s appearance. But she appeared to them on the 19th of that month near their homes at Valinhos rather than Fatima.
Two of the seers, the siblings Francisco and Jacinta, were to die very young victims of the influenza epidemic of the late 1910s. Their early deaths had been one of the messages of the Blessed Mother. Our Lady also instructed Lucia to learn to read and write. She later became a Religious and lived to just short of her 98th birthday.
In addition to instructing the children to encourage the daily praying of the Rosary, Our Lady gave the children three secrets. The first was a vision of hell after which she taught them the “Fatima Prayer for Sinners”. The second secret revealed the end of World War I but also warned of another more tragic World War and the spread of the errors of Communism if people did not cease offending God. The third secret was kept hidden by Sr. Lucia and not shared with the public. It was recorded in a letter preserved in the Vatican. Its contents were read to both Popes John XXIII and Paul VI but not revealed to the public until May 13, 2000, at the beatification ceremony for Blessed Francisco and Jacinto Marto. The secret felt by many to reveal the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II.
Years later in 1929, Lucia, now a Religious Sister in a Dorothean convent in Spain received a vision of the Most Holy Trinity and Our Lady. In the vision the Blessed Mother instructed the Holy Father to make a consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. For a number of reasons this was not able to be accomplished until March 25, 1984, three years after an assassination attempt on the life of Pope St. John Paul II. That attempt occurred on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima and John Paul attributed his survival to the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima. The Soviet Union dissolved on December 25, 1991.
Sr. Lucia also received a vision of the Holy Virgin and the Christ Child on December 10, 1925. In that vision the Blessed Mother promised to, “assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess their sins, receive holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
To celebrate the Centenary of the apparitions at Fatima, I’d like to plan to celebrate the First Saturday Devotions on each of the first Saturdays of the months of May-October. Plan to commemorate the Fatima Centennial by renewing or beginning your own devotion to praying a daily Rosary. It protected Pope John Paul II from the assassin’s attack. It brought down Communist Russia. It can still have a great impact on our lives and the world. Our Lady of Fatima, Pray for us.
