Our Lady of Fatima

Fatima at 100

On May 13, 1917, Mary, the Mother of God, known also by a title of “Our Lady of Fatima,” revealed herself to three shepherd children in a small town in Portugal. 100 years later we firmly recognize and follow the lead Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia who gave us a renewed opportunity to enter into deeper communion with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through His Mother.

Saint John Paul II tells us that “the message of Fatima is, in its basic nucleus, a call to conversion and repentance as in the Gospel.”

At Fatima we were told to “Pray the Rosary, every day, in order to bring peace to the world.”

Hence, we pray for ourselves, indeed, all sinners, as we say the prayer Our Lady of Fatima asked to be added after each mystery of the Rosary: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are most in need of Thy mercy.” During the six monthly apparitions in 1917, Mary instructed Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco to pray the Rosary daily for peace, and to make sacrifices for sinners, saying that “many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them.”

So, today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Fatima with special solemnity, as we mark the 100th anniversary of her first apparition.

Our Lady of Fatima

Our Lady of Fátima, pray for us!

Today is the day set aside by Mother Church to liturgically memorialize Mary’s appearances to three shepherd children at Fátima, Portugal in 1917. Here is an essay looking at why this title of Mary is important to us, “Our Lady of Fatima and Coincidences.”

Those who pray the rosary likely add this prayer following the Doxology: O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are in most need of Thy mercy. The prayer is given to us by the Virgin Mother indicates her maternal care for our eternal destiny. While optional, I don’t know many who refuse to pray this prayer. Sometimes those most in need of the Lord’s mercy is me.

A published editorial…

Much has been written concerning the six famous apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a little town in Portugal between May 13 and October 13, 1917. Later it would be said, and rightly so, that everything She predicted there to the three little shepherds has been fulfilled point by point. The story is too long to tell in detail in a few words, and indeed it is not over yet.

Our Lady of Fatima was sent to warn the 20th century that humanity had not followed the path that had been indicated to it by her Son; humanity had not developed as God intended, and the time of the last and worst enemy was fast approaching. She said that if Her requests for prayer and penance were not heard, Communism would spread its errors all over the earth. She appealed to the Apostles of the Latter Times to come forth, those who lived in humility, poverty and contempt for the world, repeating what She had already said at La Salette, France, in greater detail in 1846.

During the final apparition on October 13th, She appeared as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, accompanied by Saint Joseph and the divine Child. Through Lucy of Fatima, Mary had promised a miracle to convince doubters of the reality of Her presence and the Will of God She had conveyed by Her words, and She fulfilled that promise. On October 13, 1917, the great Miracle of the Sun occurred, witnessed by all who were present at Fatima, an international crowd of 70,000 spectators. The sun whirled about and seemed to be plunging down as it sent off multicolored rays; many cried out that it was the end of the world.

A large shrine was built at Fatima, and in the 1940’s more than a thousand miracles had already been duly confirmed there. The famous Secret of Fatima, part of which was disclosed by the Vatican to certain heads of State in 1963, still remains largely a secret for most of the people who have been waiting for it since 1960, the year that the Virgin said it was to be made public.

Magnificat magazine — special edition on Fatima. Editions Magnificat, Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, Canada

Our Lady of Fatima

On May 13, 1917 three Portuguese children –Lucia dos Santos, Francisco and Jacinta Marto – playing at the Cova da Iria in the village of Fatima, saw a beautiful Lady which they described as being dressed in the ‘shining white of the Sun … indescribably beautiful face’. Her folded hands a rosary. The Lady told the children to return to that place every 13 months, promising to take them to heaven. She also asked them to pray the rosary for the intention of reparation of offenses against God and for the conversion of sinners. The children followed the advice.

In the third appearance, on July 13, the Lady asked the children to pray the Rosary for an end to the war and gave them a secret that consisted of three parts: the first was the vision of hell, the second referred to the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the third woman’s vision was flooded with Sun that counter-acts the forces of evil and the persecution of the Church by Governments atheists. “The good will be martyred,” said the Lady, “the Holy Father will have much to suffer and various Nations will be annihilated. Finally, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, which will be converted, and the world will be granted a period of peace.”

On October 13, about 60,000 people in attendance saw the Sun spinning, known as “the Miracle of the Dancing Sun,” was seen as fast as a gigantic wheel of fire and dash zig-zagged across the sky. The whole thing lasted about ten minutes, then the globe returned to the point from which it was dropped.

Mary renewed her call to penance and prayer, commending devotion and consecration of persons to her immaculate heart.

It must be noted that on this date in 1981 the Turkish citizen Ali Agca shot Pope John Paul II. The bullet was deflected and the Pope later traveled to Fatima embedding that bullet in the Crown of the Virgin.

Francisco and Jacinta Marto, died in 1919 and 1920, were beatified on 13 May 2000. Lucia became a Carmelite nun and died on February 13, 2005 at 97 years old.

Tonight, at St George Church in Guilford, CT about 150 gathered for Adoration and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, the rosary and a procession with the Fatima statue on the town green (the pic above). The unique thing about this procession at St George’s is that it’s likely the only parish in the Archdiocese of Hartford, indeed in New England, located on a town green (in a former very Protestant area).

Our Lady of Fatima

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Fatima. Cardinal Polycarpo and the bishops of Portugal join together at the famous shrine to the Blessed Mother to dedicate the papacy of Pope Francis to her. This gesture of devotion has been done for the last several popes entrusting all things of the papal office to the Maternal guidance and protection of the Mother of God. Today is also the anniversary of the attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II in 1981. Let’s add the intention of peace and charity to those of the Pope, the bishop, the pastor of our parish and family. Here is an Act of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary (do it today).

O Mary, Virgin most powerful and Mother of mercy, Queen of Heaven and Refuge of sinners, we consecrate ourselves to thine Immaculate Heart.

We consecrate to thee our very being and our whole life; all that we have, all that we love, all that we are.

To thee we give our bodies, our hearts and our souls; to thee we give our homes, our families, our country.

We desire that all that is in us and around us may belong to thee, and may share in the benefits of thy motherly benediction.

And that this act of consecration may be truly efficacious and lasting, we renew this day at thy feet the promises of our Baptism and our first Holy Communion.

We pledge ourselves to profess courageously and at all times the truths of our holy Faith, and to live as befits Catholics who are duly submissive to all the directions of the Pope and the Bishops in communion with him.

We pledge ourselves to keep the commandments of God and His Church, in particular to keep holy the Lord’s Day.

We likewise pledge ourselves to make the consoling practices of the Christian religion, and above all, Holy Communion, an integral part of our lives, in so far as we shall be able so to do.

Finally, we promise thee, O glorious Mother of God and loving Mother of men, to devote ourselves whole-heartedly to the service of thy blessed cult, in order to hasten and assure, through the sovereignty of thine Immaculate Heart, the coming of the kingdom of the Sacred Heart of thine adorable Son, in our own hearts and in those of all men, in our country and in all the world, as in heaven, so on earth. Amen.