Story of Fatima

The story begins on 13 May 1917, in the village of Fatima in Portugal. On that fateful day, near this small village, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, appeared to three young peasant children: Francisco, Jacinta and Lucia – aged 9, 10 and 7 years old. As was the custom, the children were tending their family’s sheep when they saw “a Lady all in white, more radiant than the sun… indescribably beautiful” who appeared to them standing over a bush.

From May to October 1917, Our Lady appeared on every 13th of the month (except in August 1917, when she appeared on the 19th) and spoke to the children.

News of these apparitions spread throughout the region. The children iterated that the Blessed Virgin Mary told them that God had sent her with a message for every man, woman, and child of the century. She promised that God would give peace to the whole world if Her requests for prayer, reparation and consecration were heard and heeded. While many people believed that the children had seen the Virgin, many others did not believe the children’s story and subjected them to ridicule. When it became known that Our Lady would visit the children for the last time on 13 October,1917; promising a sign that would convince the world that she had appeared, many pilgrims made plans to be there.

Although torrential rains battered the region for three days, nearly 70,000 people travelled through the heavy rain and mud to the site of the earlier apparitions to witness the predicted miracle. Many were contemptuous, unbelievers whose only intention was to discredit the children’s stories.

Suddenly, “the clouds parted … and the sun appeared between them in clear blue, like a disc of white fire” People could look at the sun without blinking, and when they looked up, the huge ball began to “dance”. The huge ball of fire whirled around with dizzying speed, throwing out all kinds of bright colours that were reflected on the faces of the crowd. The fiery ball spun in this manner three more times, then it seemed to tremble and shake and plummeted towards the earth in a violent zigzag course. The crowd was horrified and feared that this was the end of the world.

But the sun turned around and returned to its normal place in the sky on its zigzag course. All this happened within about ten minutes. After realising that they were not doomed, the crowd began to laugh, cry, scream and weep ecstatically. Many noticed that their previously soaked clothes were completely dry.

After this event, which became known as “The Miracle of the Sun”, the children were questioned many, many times about what they had seen and what they had been told. Their story never changed. The core of Our Lady’s message to the world is contained in the “secret” that she entrusted to the children in July 1917. The “secret” actually consists of three parts. The first part of the “secret” was a frightening vision of “hell” “where the souls of poor sinners go” and contained an urgent request by Our Lady for acts of prayer and sacrifice for the salvation of souls, with special emphasis on praying the Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The second part of the “Secret” explicitly prophesied the outbreak of World War II and contained the prediction of the immense damage that Russia would do to humanity if it abandoned the Christian faith and joined the totalitarianism of the Communists.

The third part was not revealed until 2000. Its revelation coincided with the beatification of Francisco and Jacinta. It contained no striking or catastrophic predictions, but the vision supported and confirmed the immense suffering endured by witnesses to the faith in the last century of the second millennium. Sister Lucia, the surviving member of the Fatima trio, confirmed that in the vision “the Bishop clothed in white” praying for all the faithful was the Pope. As he makes his way with great difficulty towards the cross amidst the bodies of the martyrs (bishops, priests, religious men and women and many lay people), he too falls to the ground apparently dead under a hail of gunfire. It is possible that the vision foreshadowed the 1981 assassination attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II. The Pope has always attributed his survival to the Virgin. However, it is also possible that the vision is a representation of the Church’s ongoing struggle against secularism and anti-Christian movements, and a constant call to prayer, sacrifice and devotion to Our Lady of Fatima.