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Mary

Understanding Fatima

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One hundred years after the Mother of God appeared in a village in Portugal to Lucia Santos, and Francisco and Jacinta Marto, Catholics and non-Catholics alike continue to be intrigued…

One hundred years after the Mother of God appeared in a village in Portugal to Lucia Santos, and Francisco and Jacinta Marto, Catholics and non-Catholics alike continue to be intrigued by the story of Fátima and Our Lady’s message to the three little shepherds.

During this centenary of those apparitions, we consider some perennial questions related to private revelation that pertain not only to Fátima but also to the other Church-approved appearances of Jesus and Mary, as well as how we may respond to what happened at the Cova da Iria a century ago.

What is the difference between public revelation and private revelation?

Public revelation is the Deposit of Faith, which includes sacred Scripture and the Apostolic Tradition. Private revelation, which does not belong to the Deposit of Faith, is a help to the faithful during a particular time in the history of the Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that private revelation does not “improve or complete Christ’s definitive Revelation.” The authority of the Church has recognized some private revelations as authentic: “Guided by the magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church” (No. 67).

For what reasons have Jesus and Mary appeared in various places?

As one would expect, Our Lord and Our Lady have come on occasion to deliver a message. Whether from Christ in Paray-le-Monial, France, to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, or in Poland to St. Faustina, or from the Virgin in Guadalupe, Mexico, to St. Juan Diego, or in Lourdes, France, to St. Bernadette Soubirous, a heavenly communication is given, often as a directive to cooperate with God as He does something for His sons and daughters, and sometimes even to avoid evil.

Are Catholics obliged to accept the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima?

Catholics do not need to accept Our Lady’s message at Fátima as public revelation but rather recognize it as a private revelation that is useful in our era. No one is duty-bound to have a particular devotion to Mary under this title. At the same time, it appears difficult not to conclude that the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima, which is honored by the highest authority in the Church and encourages adherence to the same, have a significant meaning in our time and have resonated in the hearts of countless Catholics for the last century.

What response should be given by Catholics to the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima?

Given the long-lasting esteem of the Church for Our Lady’s message that she delivered at Fátima, the following seems to be an appropriate reply.

Knowledge

Although many Catholics have given at least a cursory glance to these apparitions of Our Lady, very few know Fátima in detail. Thus there exists a general lack of understanding about what the Blessed Mother proclaimed there and, consequently, what is required of us.

Perhaps the most basic question is: Why should we learn about Mary’s appearances at Fátima? True, the Fátima message adds nothing to, but rather complements, the Deposit of Faith. It is in accord with God’s revelation to us. It offers to us a contemporary lens through which we may consider Our Lord, all that has been disclosed about Him and His benevolent plan for us.

Our Lord, fully aware of the challenges of our era, allowed His mother to grace our earth with her appearances to Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta. Christ gave Mary this singular mission: to go to Fátima to proclaim the holy Gospel in a way that would attract modern ears.

Since God never does anything without reason, He intends that the Fátima message find root deep within us. He has done His part. The time has come for us to do ours.

Appreciation

Gratitude is always to be our response to who God is and what He does for us. That He sent Our Lady to Fátima in order to remind us of what is truly important is only another reason to be thankful to Him.

What most concerns the Mother of God is our everlasting salvation. She wants each of us to be able to enter paradise! Such maternal compassion for her sons and daughters can only move our hearts to joy and gratitude.

The best and most lasting appreciation that we can show Our Lord for the Fátima message is our sincere conversion. Nothing compares to our genuine change of heart.

Application

Much of what Our Lady said at Fátima can be seen as being under the umbrella of “encouragement.” Mary wished for all who heard her to put into practice what she conveyed to the children.

Spiritual authors are agreed that based on Our Lady’s words to the children and her subsequent mandates to Sister Lucia, we and all who seek to follow Christ are to: receive the Church’s sacraments, particularly confession and the holy Eucharist, worthily and often; recite the Rosary daily; wear the brown scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel; pray for sinners, especially — in the words with which we address our Lord Jesus Christ in the Fátima ejaculation — “those in most need of Thy mercy”; make sacrifices in reparation for the sins that offends the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary; perform our “daily duty,” which is our personal vocation and all that that entails.

Great effort and courage are needed to live the Fátima message. We tire, our mood can change quickly, we become distracted, etc. Despite those real challenges, however, we must, with the help of the Holy Spirit, overcome them and reply positively to what Mary desires of us.

Evangelization

There is much we can do in our families and parishes to promote Our Lady and her words at Fátima. We can recite the Rosary at home with our family. We can ask our pastor for permission to pray it in the church before or after Mass; to make brown scapulars that are presented to the pastor so that he can enroll both children and adults in the devotion of the brown scapular; to provide materials that bear an imprimatur about Mary and Fátima at the doors of the church and that may be used in the parish religious education classes; to invite someone who is well-versed in the Fátima message who can address the parishioners, etc.

Private revelation approved by the Church is a boon for us on the way to heaven. Our Lady’s words at Fátima remain informational and inspirational, guiding us to embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ as never before.

Msgr. Charles M. Mangan is the director of the Marian Apostolate in the Diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where he serves as the vicar for consecrated life and canonical adviser to the bishop.

First Saturday Devotion

During the apparition of July 13, 1917, Our Lady said to Lucia, “I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.”

On Dec. 10, 1925, the Infant Jesus and Our Lady appeared to Sister Lucia, then a Dorothean religious, in Pontevedra, Spain. Jesus said: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.” Mary then spoke: “Do you, at least, strive to console me. Tell them that I promise to assist at the hour of death with the graces necessary for salvation all those who, in order to make reparation to me, on the First Saturday of five successive months, go to confession, receive holy Communion, say five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for a quarter of an hour, meditating on the 15 mysteries of the Rosary.”

On May 29, 1930, Jesus explained to Sister Lucia that five offenses against Mary’s Immaculate Heart are repaired by the First Saturdays — namely, offense against her Immaculate Conception, Perpetual Virginity, Divine and Spiritual Maternity, sacred images, and the offense of those who implant indifference or hatred against the Immaculate Mother in the hearts of children.

Major Apparitions

Guadalupe (1531)
Our Lady appeared in Mexico to an Indian peasant, Juan Diego, and left her image on his tilma (cloak). During the next 10 years, there were 9 million conversions of Aztecs to the Catholic faith. A fresh spiritual vitality — centered on prayer, self-denial, chastity and the reception of the sacraments — now reigned.

Lourdes (1858)
On February 11, the Ever-Virgin appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in the cave of Massabielle near Lourdes, France. There would be 17 more apparitions. Our Lady identified herself as the Immaculate Conception and asked that a chapel be built there, which has become renowned as a place of healing for the sick.

Fátima (1917)
There were three appearances to the children in 1916 of the “Angel of Peace,” who emphasized the importance of prayer and sacrifice, the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament and the reparation to be offered. Mary first apperad on May 13, 1917. There were six apparitions, the last October 13, during which the sun spun in the sky and then hurtled to the earth before it resumed its place. Our Lady highlighted the daily recitation of the Rosary, one’s “daily duty” and the need for reparation.

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Mary

Finding Jesus in the Immaculate Heart

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An antiphon from the Liturgy of the Hours for the solemnity of Mary’s Immaculate Conception refers to her as the “fairest honor of our race.” Or in the Second Vatican…

An antiphon from the Liturgy of the Hours for the solemnity of Mary’s Immaculate Conception refers to her as the “fairest honor of our race.” Or in the Second Vatican Council’s terms, Mary “far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth” (Lumen Gentium, No. 53). It’s fitting and appropriate, then, to echo St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s claim that when speaking about Christ’s mother: “De Maria numquam satis” (“About Mary, never enough”). This maxim has proven true for theologians over the 2,000-year history of Christianity. As the first believer, she is the model of Gospel living par excellence. As Pope St. John Paul II put it: “Among creatures no one knows Christ better than Mary; no one can introduce us to a profound knowledge of his mystery better than his Mother” (Rosarium Virginis Mariae, No. 14).

The Immaculate Heart

How do we know Mary best? As with anyone, her key is in her heart. Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Mt 6:21). We know from the Magnificat that Mary’s treasure is her Son.

Mary referred to her heart several times at Fatima, including once when she told the oldest shepherd child to whom she appeared, Lucia, something integral to her messages: “I will never leave you; my Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.” It’s clear we need to pay attention to what defines her heart.

Scripture references Mary’s heart twice, both in the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel (verses 19 and 51). We learn that Mary “reflects” and “keeps” in her heart the mysterious events surrounding the Incarnation. Intertwined with her core identity is the identity of her Son and that of his mission as redeemer and savior. Mary’s fiat (“yes”) was the portal through which God chose to allow himself to begin his saving work. Mary’s fiat remedied Adam and Eve’s “no,” showing us the way to her Son, who is the remedy for all sin. The Virgin Mother is the channel through which God brings healing balm to humanity’s sinfulness, through whom we experience the fullness of grace. She who is “full of grace” presents to us and leads us to her Son.

The contents of her heart

It is the condition of Mary’s heart, then, that serves as a model for Christians in our quest to follow her Son. It is within her heart that God chose to come and find his initial dwelling among us. This is integral to the message of Fatima, the message that ultimately brings the peace for which humanity yearns. When we live like Mary, when we commit our whole selves to Christ and invite his word to dwell within our hearts, we prepare ourselves to be agents of peace. With Mary as our guide, each of the baptized is to present and lead the world to her Son. As Pope Paul VI said in his 1974 Marian encyclical Marialis Cultus: “In the Virgin Mary everything is relative to Christ and dependent upon him” (No. 25).

This is what defines Mary’s holy, immaculate heart. The identity of her heart is what forms the themes of Fatima’s message: humble holiness, charity and undying obedience to and faith in God’s will. These qualities are what each of us must appropriate within our own hearts. This enables us to reflect upon and keep Christ in our hearts like Mary. These qualities are, indeed, the legend on the map directing us to God, as Mary identified her Immaculate Heart at Fatima. Each of us is called to make the defining characteristics of Mary’s heart the defining characteristics of our own hearts. The transformation to which each of us is called is made possible and accomplished in Mary.

‘Ad Jesum Per Mariam’

For this reason, devotion to Mary’s heart — her Immaculate Heart — has been proposed for emulation by saints and theologians for centuries. From the earliest Christian times, believers turned to Mary and sought “to imitate her in making their lives an act of worship of God and making their worship a commitment of their lives” (Marialis Cultus, No. 21). From the fourth century, as Paul VI calls to our attention in his Marian encyclical, St. Ambrose hoped that his flock would adopt Mary’s heart. “May the heart of Mary be in each Christian to proclaim the greatness of the Lord; may her spirit be in everyone to exult in God,” St. Ambrose preached.

Roots of the devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart are particularly ingrained among the French. St. John Eudes was well-known for propagating the devotion through his 17th-century preaching and teaching. Several parishes in France took up a feast day to honor the Immaculate Heart at his behest, and he is credited with sparking universal interest in the devotion.

At Fatima the Blessed Mother reiterated the work of many preachers and saints. Mary’s words to Lucia indicate that she is indeed the clearest model for Christians who desire to follow her Son. As the prayer composed by French Sulpician Father Jean Jacques Olier said, we are to find “Jesus living in Mary.” There also is great wisdom in the motto of the French mariologist St. Louis de Montfort, who teaches: “Ad Jesum Per Mariam” (“To Jesus through Mary”). We should make the famous Monfortian prayer, from which John Paul II took his episcopal motto, our own: “Totus tuus ego sum, et omnia mea tua sunt. Accipio te in mea omnia. Praebe mihi cor tuum, Maria” (“I belong entirely to you, and all that I have is yours. I take you for my all. O Mary, give me your heart”).

Apparitions and consecrations

Mary gives to us her heart. But moreover, she exposed at Fatima a path for us to adopt her heart and place ourselves in her motherly embrace. Through the First Saturday devotion, the Blessed Mother shows us how to make holy, loving, obedient hearts from which peace emanates. In the July apparition at Fatima, Mary explained that, on five consecutive First Saturdays, participants of this devotion “shall confess, receive holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for 15 minutes while meditating on the 15 mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”

This devotion springs from a glimpse of hell that Mary showed the three Fatima visionaries, after which she said, “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.”

Devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart received universal support from Venerable Pope Pius XII 25 years after the apparitions at Fatima. It seemed providential since he was ordained a bishop on May 13, 1917 — the day Mary first appeared at Fatima.

Not only did Pope Pius XII establish the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1942, but he also composed a prayer of consecration to her Immaculate Heart. In compliance with the wishes made known by the Blessed Mother at Fatima, and in subsequent apparitions to Lucia, Pope Pius consecrated the world (in the midst of World War II, 1942) and Russia (toward the start of the Cold War, 1952) to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Russia’s consecration was explicitly desired by the Blessed Mother because of communism’s growth and anti-Christian agenda.

The consecratory prayer composed by Pope Pius XII beautifully reiterates the call to form our hearts after Mary’s. An excerpt of the prayer shows this devotion ties together so many of the themes of Fatima’s messages: “Oh, Mother of Mercy, obtain peace for us from God! Obtain especially those graces, which can convert human hearts quickly. Those graces, which can prepare, establish and insure peace. Queen of Peace, pray for us; Give the world at war the peace for which all are longing, Peace in truth, Justice and the Charity of Christ. Give them peace of the arms and peace of mind, that in tranquility and order the kingdom of God may expand.”

Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic. Follow him on Twitter @HeinleinMichael. This article appeared originally in Our Sunday Visitor.

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Mary

An enduring message of peace

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The world in which the three children of Fatima lived was not unlike our own. They began receiving supernatural visions in 1916, in the midst of World War I. Dubbed…

The world in which the three children of Fatima lived was not unlike our own. They began receiving supernatural visions in 1916, in the midst of World War I. Dubbed the “war to end all wars,” in many ways it embodied the rampant secularism beginning post-Enlightenment. Today there is no doubt that secularism has a firm grip on our world — not to mention an ongoing fear and threat of war in a deeply divided and wounded world. We are still a world longing for peace.

The message of Fatima is best understood in this context. The children were chosen to relay to us a heavenly message that was meant to direct us back toward humanity’s ultimate and truest destiny — to live as God’s true children. Fatima reminds humanity of our call to mirror our heavenly Father, to foster peace.

In many ways the message of Fatima was meant to heal a plagued society, by prescribing various essential aspects of Christian life that had gone by the wayside in a secularized world. The message of Fatima gave us the balm we needed to heal society’s wounds. That message, which was so relevant then, remains so relevant today.

Preparing the children

The apparitions at Fatima, the centenary of which the Church celebrated in 2017 — specifically from May to October — were prefaced by three other apparitions of the self-described “Angel of Peace.” Some points of the angel’s message are worth considering and provide us with some of the kernels of the messages later delivered by Our Lady. Much more can and will be said about the messages from Our Lady’s apparitions in the coming months.

A look at the delivery of all great heavenly messages in Scripture will show us how God prepares the recipients of the message. Consider here the prophets of the Old Covenant, or even St. John the Baptist, who heralded the Messiah — the one who came to bring peace by reconciling the world though his sacrifice.

Thanks to such preparatory work, people knew not only to look for the Messiah — the longed-for savior of God’s people — but also to recognize him when he came. Those preparatory messengers were emissaries who prepared the way for the King.

At Fatima, the angel, a title that means “messenger,” prepared the three shepherd-children of Fatima to receive the message that Jesus intended for his mother to deliver.

The angel who visited the Fatima children came to them three times in 1916. And those preparatory visits were extremely important to prepare the children for Our Lady’s visits. But they also serve to highlight some of the essential themes to the overall message of Fatima that presents anew the remedy to sin that Christ alone can give.

Faithful in prayer

The foundation of the angel’s message to the Fatima children was to increase their prayer life. It was explained that a strong prayer life was needed to strengthen and sustain them in the future plans that Jesus and Mary had for them. It is known that the lives of the seers would change dramatically once the apparitions became known — that they would be mistreated and suffer. And the two Marto siblings, Francisco and Jacinta, would suffer painful, early deaths.

Beyond teaching the children prayers, the angel asked them to make sacrifices. But Lucia, the cousin of the Marto children and the eldest of the visionaries, asked the angel how they should go about this.

Years later, Sister Lucia recorded the angel’s response in her diary.

“Make of everything you can a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which he is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners. You will thus draw down peace. … Above all, accept and bear with submission, the suffering which the Lord will send you.”

This angelic message contains several themes central to the later messages delivered to the children by Our Lady: sacrifice, love for sinners and peace. None of these themes are groundbreaking in the sense that they all flow from and direct us to Christ. But they were a necessary reminder to a troubled world that lost sight of these essentials.

Lives of sacrifice

By inviting the children to practice lives of sacrifice, the angel invited them to imitate Christ’s own life. Everything the Lord did, he offered to his heavenly Father.

On the night before he died, he sacrificed his own will in favor of God’s in the Garden of Gethsemane. On Good Friday he offered up his spirit to the Father for our sake, in the greatest act of sacrificial love the world has ever known. He gave us a model to follow at the Last Supper, showing us how to imitate his act of love on Calvary — to put ourselves aside and sacrifice ourselves in humble service to others. As St. Thomas Aquinas declared: “To love is to will the good of another.”

When we live in imitation of Christ’s sacrificial life, we find the cure to the selfishness that plagues the world. Today’s world is in great need of sacrificial living, of loving — to will the other’s good above our own.

The angel of Fatima says all things should be offered as sacrifice. So like Christ, we should sacrifice to God all that we would normally long for: our wants, comforts, longings or inclinations. We offer our very lives to God, who gave them to us in the first place.

St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, calls us to live sacrificially, exhorting us even “to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1).

The message that the angel delivers about sacrifice connects it to two other realities. Our sacrifices should be offered on behalf of sinners. This is an act of charity, of love for those who are separated from God through whatever sins they committed. By living sacrificially and working to reconcile our brothers and sisters with God, the angel then teaches that peace will be the result.

Peace is the fruit of reconciliation. By working to heal ruptured relationships and eradicate selfishness, peace will naturally flow. In his own sacrifice, St. Paul says Christ was “making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20).

Our Lady gave further and clearer instructions to the children of Fatima relating to prayer and sacrifice, all of which aimed to direct the world on the path to peace — a world engaged in so much strife and destruction resulting from a lack of prayer and sacrifice.

Worthy apparitions

After the thorough investigations conducted by the Church, which happens after any sort of supernatural apparition, the Church has endorsed the message of Fatima at the highest levels. The local bishop of Fatima deemed the apparitions to be worthy of belief by the faithful in 1930. The messages of Fatima became especially significant during the World War II era, and the apparitions were particularly championed by the wartime pontiff Pope Pius XII, who was ordained a bishop on May 13, 1917, the date of Our Lady’s first apparition to the shepherd children.

The first half of the 20th century was dominated by two world wars in which Russia was a major player. The rise of communism in Russia — an embodiment of secularism’s ideals, with its persecution of religion and its exaltation of domination and selfishness — was seen as a major obstacle to world peace. Sister Lucia received later visions from Our Lady in which she asked for the entire world, particularly Russia, to be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart — the heart through which we contemplate Christ’s own. Pope Pius XII did so on multiple occasions, notably in a solemn ceremony at the Vatican in 1942. Pope John Paul II also did so in 1984.

Subsequent popes have all been proponents of the message of Fatima. In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI pointed out the connection of sacrifice and peace in Fatima’s message during a pilgrimage to the Fatima shrine, noting that the Christian is defined by an “unshakable hope which bears fruit in a love which sacrifices for others.” He added: “Only with this fraternal and generous love will we succeed in building the civilization of love and peace.”

Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic. Follow him on Twitter @HeinleinMichael. This article originally appeared in Our Sunday Visitor.

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Saints

Sts. Francisco and Jacinta Marto: Patrons of prisoners

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Three holy children saw the Blessed Virgin Mary appear to them in Fatima, Portugal, from May to October 1917. As with all saints, holiness is particular to their own state…

Three holy children saw the Blessed Virgin Mary appear to them in Fatima, Portugal, from May to October 1917. As with all saints, holiness is particular to their own state in life — and these seers are no exception. While it would be inappropriate to discuss all three as saints at this time — since the eldest, Lucia, is not yet beatified — the two younger children were beatified in 2000. Both Francisco and Jacinta Marto died less than three years after their last vision of Mary.

While some who have witnessed an apparition of the Blessed Mother have been beatified/canonized, not all have been, as being the recipient of such a privilege is not what makes one a saint. The life of holiness is the cause. At the time of their beatification, they were the youngest nonmartyrs ever raised to this dignity by the Church, which many regard as the fulfillment of Vatican II’s teaching on the universal call to holiness.

The visions of Fatima changed the lives of the three young children who saw Mary at the Cova da Iria. She appeared to average Portuguese peasant children. Although illiterate, they were not dumb.

As Lucia lived many years after her two cousins — dying in 2005 at the age of 97 — she wrote memoirs of those events, including character details of her fellow seers. Francisco is described as a musically gifted boy, pensive and easygoing. Jacinta loved to sing and dance, and she was quite affectionate.

The apparitions didn’t change their personalities but they did help form their holiness. Francisco chose to “console Jesus for the sins of the world” in private prayer. A jarring vision of hell given to the children in one of the apparitions made a big impression on Jacinta. It prompted her desire to save sinners with prayer and penance, making sacrifices as instructed by Mary. Both Francisco and Jacinta participated in strict self-mortifications in response to this as well.

The holy siblings knew their deaths wouldn’t be far off because Mary told them that she’d take them to heaven soon. During World War I, they were just two of the multitude of victims from influenza the world over. Despite their lingering illnesses, Francisco and Jacinta were consistent in making Eucharistic holy hours, lying prostrate for hours at a time in response to the holy angel’s directive at the apparitions.

Francisco embraced his suffering lovingly, without complaint. He refused to go to the hospital, and died a day later on April 4, 1919, with a smile on his lips. Jacinta went on to suffer even more greatly. After going to the hospital, she received an operation and several minor procedures, all of which were attempts to preserve her life. None of them worked. She offered her continuing pain for the conversion of sinners. The hospital chaplain came to hear Jacinta’s confession on Feb. 19, 1920. At that time, she asked also for holy Communion and anointing, but the priest denied her, saying he would return the next day. But she didn’t last that long.

In his homily at their beatification, Pope St. John Paul II said these holy children of Fatima show us the fruits that can be borne of a total oblation to our Blessed Mother. “Devoting themselves with total generosity to the direction of such a good teacher, Jacinta and Francisco soon reached the heights of perfection,” he said. He concluded by imploring, “May the message of their lives live on forever to light humanity’s way!”

Francisco and Jacinta were canonized on May 13, 2017 by Pope Francis.

Their feast day is Feb. 20.

Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic.

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Mary

Fatima’s final visions

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In 2017, the Church celebrated the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s appearances at Fatima, Portugal. While belief in apparitions such as these are not required of the Christian faithful, one…

In 2017, the Church celebrated the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s appearances at Fatima, Portugal. While belief in apparitions such as these are not required of the Christian faithful, one realizes, after examining the message of Fatima closely, that it really is just the basic message of Christianity. When understood properly, and in the right context, Fatima relays to humanity a plan for life that is contained already in Scripture.

Fatima’s promise is peace — something for which every human heart longs. The problem is, many of us debate how to achieve it. For the Christian, it is clear that peace comes through modeling one’s life after Christ himself. The message of Fatima aims to remind us simply of that basic fact. It redirects us to appropriate the life of obedience, sacrifice and prayer that defines the life of Christ — attainable through the heart of his Blessed Mother. Peace is not imposed from on high; it must well up in the hearts of men and women. We will know peace only when we “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 13:14).

The messages of Fatima were delivered only to the three shepherd children — Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta — but those messages were not just for them. Rather, the children were emissaries to all of humanity. And to add credibility to their word, the apparition at Fatima on Oct. 13, 1917 — the last apparition to the children — contained supernatural phenomena visible to more than 70,000. Even then, though, many still attempt to discredit what happened that day. In the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, often appropriated by many, “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”

The events of Oct. 13 have caused it to be remembered as “the day the sun danced.” The occurrences at Fatima that day brought many to conversion and belief. In many ways, the miracle that day supplied credibility to the shepherd children and the messages they received from the Blessed Mother at Fatima.

The day the sun danced

What happened at Fatima on Oct. 13, 1917? Eyewitnesses testified that the sun began emitting an astounding variety of rays in a spectrum of colors. As it began zigging and zagging across the sky, the sun eventually appeared to hurl itself down toward earth.

The crowds gathered in anticipation that morning were soaking wet from the massive rain that fell. When the sun did its dance, not only did their clothes instantly dry, but the soaked and muddied ground dried up, too — parched and cracked after the solar spectacle.

The event came to pass in accord with what had been foretold by the oldest seer, Lucia. For that reason, many came to the Cova di Iria at Fatima that day. The onlookers included believers and nonbelievers alike. Many in the secular press came to Fatima that day hoping to see the shepherd children proven wrong. They planned to seize upon an uneventful day in hopes to discredit not only the visionary children but also the Church itself. By God’s providence, many of them left converted.

In the subsequent decades since the final apparition at Fatima, theologians and scientists have attempted to explain the solar phenomena that happened that October day. None of the skeptics have been able to disprove it was on account of heavenly intervention. That does not mean they have not tried, however. Some skeptics have claimed that it was mass hysteria on the part of the crowds — something quite unlikely considering tens of thousands saw the sun dance that day. Likewise, there were no reports of eye damage by the witnesses, something that surely would have occurred for anyone directly staring into the sun under normal circumstances. Other skeptics have claimed it could have been a UFO, although even up until now no other life outside this planet has been discovered. And there are other attempts that have not held any weight according to reason or logic. Yet the question remains: How could the young, illiterate shepherd girl Lucia have predicted the day and time for the unique solar phenomenon without a heavenly disclosure?

Other visions that day

In addition to the usual vision of the Blessed Mother that the children saw during the previous apparitions at Fatima, the children also saw other visions on Oct. 13, 1917. It is worth exploring what these other visions mean and what their connection to the message of Fatima might be.

Lucia recorded that St. Joseph and the Child Jesus were there that day, blessing the earth. This connection illustrates the importance of family life, especially in connection to the promise of peace made at Fatima. Peace is only possible when we subscribe to God’s plan for creation, and there is no doubt that the family is a foundational building block in creation’s order. Additionally, St. Joseph reminds us that fatherhood, and, thus, complementarity, is intrinsic to God’s plan.

Aside from the way Mary appeared to the children during the six apparitions at Fatima, the children also saw her presence manifested in two other, familiar ways that October day: as the Sorrowful Mother and Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Throughout the ages, Mary has appeared and manifested herself in a variety of ways. These apparitions each draw our attention to different emphases of the spiritual life, for which she is the exemplary human model. Out of love and concern for us, Mary had repeatedly tried to steer humanity back on the path toward a full, life-giving relationship with God.

What can we draw from Fatima’s connection to the Sorrowful Mother? Devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart is encouraged at Fatima — a heart that is also sorrowful, as we learn in Scripture (see Lk 2:34-35). The message of Fatima renews the call to repent from our sins, and, when we think about it, Mary’s heart is sorrowful because of the harsh reality that her Son was born to die for the redemption of sins. Reflection on Mary’s sorrow draws our attention to the fact that the Sorrowful Mother is sorrowful solely because of us and our sins. For this same reason, peace is lacking in the world.

Devotion to the Sorrowful Mother helps us to remember that God’s favor is not immune from suffering. While Mary was favored and chosen to be the Mother of God, her life clearly is filled with suffering. The shepherd children knew suffering well — two of them would suffer painful deaths in a short period of time. By meditating on Mary’s experiences of grief and sorrow, we more fully can understand that God is alive and active even in our lives’ suffering. Her suffering offers a prism through which to view the totality of human suffering.

And the vision of Our Lady of Mount Carmel? Tradition holds that the Blessed Mother was especially honored by the founding members of the Carmelite order. The Marian devotion is so rich within that religious community that St. Teresa of Ávila — one of the greatest Carmelite saints — referred to the order as “the Order of the Virgin.”

Likewise, tradition holds that it was to the Carmelite St. Simon Stock that Mary appeared in the mid-13th century. It was in this vision that the Blessed Mother is said to have imparted the brown scapular to the saint — attached to it the promise that whomever dies wearing it will be saved.

Also related to the scapular is the apocryphal story that Pope John XXII received an apparition from Mary. In the message she delivered to the pope, Mary promised to retrieve from purgatory each Saturday those who died wearing the scapular in the previous week. While there is no verification or circumstantial evidence to support this claim, nor is it promoted today as part of the scapular devotion, it is interesting to note the connection of Saturday to Fatima. In 1925, the Fatima seer Lucia — at the time a professed religious nun — received a vision from the Blessed Mother requesting the First Saturdays devotion in reparation for sins, that which causes the sorrows of her heart. Long a day dedicated to the Blessed Mother, Saturday now contains special significance because of this subsequent apparition connected to Fatima — and those from Our Lady of Mount Carmel nearly a millennia before.

Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic. Follow him on Twitter @HeinleinMichael. This article originally appeared in Our Sunday Visitor.

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Pilgrims encounter the message of Fatima

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Pilgrims to Fatima, Portugal, today will find a beautiful campus of churches, monuments, plazas and other buildings that have been built up around the site where the Blessed Virgin Mary…

Pilgrims to Fatima, Portugal, today will find a beautiful campus of churches, monuments, plazas and other buildings that have been built up around the site where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in 1917. Collectively referred to as the Sanctuary of Fatima, the shrine and its grounds offer an abundance of opportunities for pilgrims to encounter the Lord and his Blessed Mother.

The latest available statistics reflect that the small Portuguese village’s population is just under 12,000. But the fascinating events of a century ago have turned Fatima into one of the most visited Catholic shrines in the world.

These shrines both inspire and assist pilgrims who desire growth in the Faith — a main theme that caused their construction in the first place. As the American novelist Willa Cather wrote in “Death Comes for the Archbishop,” “Doctrine is well enough for the wise,” but “the miracle is something we can hold in our hands and love.”

Many fortunate Catholics have had the opportunity to make a pilgrimage to Fatima during this centennial anniversary year. However, for those unable to make the trip, the following gives a glimpse of what makes the sanctuary so special.

Fatima shrine’s origin

It is said that in the first three years following the final Fatima apparition more than 2 million pilgrims visited the Cova da Iria, the field where Mary is believed to have appeared to three shepherd children on multiple occasions in 1917. Local villagers built the first small chapel, known today as the Chapel of the Apparitions, on the site of the apparitions in 1919. This original chapel only lasted three years before it was destroyed in 1922.

As civic and Church leaders awaited the results of the Church’s formal investigation regarding the apparitions, they were ambivalent about construction of the original chapel at Fatima. The local bishop first participated in any liturgy on the site in 1927, an event that was associated with the installation of Stations of the Cross on the nearby hillside. A center for infirm pilgrims also opened in Fatima that year.

Sanctuary of Fatima

Between 1928 and 1954, the church of Our Lady of the Rosary — named so because of the Blessed Mother’s repeated requests to pray the Rosary daily for peace — was under construction. During that time, the Catholic Church officially approved the Fatima apparitions as worthy of belief. Dedicated upon completion of its construction, the church was named a basilica by Venerable Pope Pius XII. A striking square, surrounded with a colonnade and a variety of statuary representing Portuguese saints, graces the area in front of the basilica.

Above the entrance to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary stands a marble statue of Our Lady as she appeared at Fatima. The artwork was sculpted by an American priest and presented as a gift to the sanctuary from Catholics in the United States. A mosaic in the sanctuary depicts the Holy Trinity’s coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary — a scene evoking the fifth glorious mystery of the Rosary. The theme of the Rosary also is echoed in four main statues in the church’s interior that depict various apostles of the Rosary: Sts. Anthony Mary Claret, Dominic, John Eudes and Stephen of Hungary.

During construction of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, pilgrimages to that location increased. So, too, did interest in the two visionaries who were deceased at the time — now Sts. Francisco and Jacinta Marto. In 1935, their bodies were reburied in the basilica church, where they remain today. The body of the third seer, Lúcia Santos, joined those of the other two in 2006, a year after her death. The Marto seers were canonized this May by Pope Francis. In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI waived the mandatory five-year waiting period to open a cause of canonization for Lúcia.

Papal plaudits

In 1946, Venerable Pope Pius XII granted permission for a canonical coronation of the Our Lady of Fatima statue at the shrine. The abundance of pilgrim crowds that day forced the site to be shuttered temporarily, and a monument on the sanctuary’s grounds is dedicated to Pope Pius XII for his support of the Fatima message.

Two other popes also are memorialized on the campus of the Fatima sanctuary: Pope Blessed Paul VI and Pope St. John Paul II. Paul VI was the first pope to make a pilgrimage to Fatima, having done so in 1967 for the 50th anniversary of the apparitions. The Paul VI Pastoral Center on the campus of the shrine has an auditorium that seats more than 2,000 and can accommodate more than 400.

John Paul II made three historic pilgrimages to Fatima during his papacy. In addition, he credited Our Lady of Fatima for saving his life following a 1981 assassination attempt that took place on her feast day. One of the bullets lodged in his body that day rests in the crown atop the statue of Our Lady of Fatima in the Chapel of the Apparitions.

Another significant portion of the Fatima sanctuary includes a portion of the Berlin Wall, which calls to mind the dark history of communism in Russia. Our Lady’s request at Fatima for Russia’s consecration bore fruit when the wall fell in 1989, along with communism in Russia.

A variety of other chapels and buildings dot the landscape of the sanctuary’s grounds. The greatest of these is the stark, modern church dedicated to the Holy Trinity — erected because of a need to accommodate more pilgrims than the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary could. Construction commenced in 2004, with a cornerstone blessed by John Paul II and containing a fragment of marble from the tomb of St. Peter. The church was dedicated in 2007 by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. It was named a basilica in 2012. There are also two retreat houses on the shrine’s grounds, which also serve as guest hostels — Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.

American Fatima shrines

A little closer to home, there are three well-known shrines that honor Our Lady of Fatima in the United States found in Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey.

The Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima was founded in 1946 to promote devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and daily recitation of the Rosary as well as observance of the duties associated with one’s state in life. The National Blue Army Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima church was built in Washington Township, New Jersey, in 1978. The shrine’s grounds contain replicas of two important Marian chapels: Fatima’s Chapel of the Apparitions and the Holy House of Loretto — the house in Italy that claims to have been mystically transported from the Holy Land for safe-keeping during the Crusades. There is also a Rosary garden and many outdoor shrines.

In 1963, the Barnabite Fathers from Italy chose to build what would become the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Lewiston, New York — a sacred place through which they could promote the message of Fatima in the United States. There are many outdoor shrines and statues on the 16-acre campus near Niagara Falls, but the centerpiece is the shrine church, which was named a basilica in 1975. A statue of Our Lady of Fatima, sculpted of Vermont granite, sits atop the domed, glass church. The campus also houses the only other replica of Fatima’s Chapel of the Apparitions in the United States.

Additionally, there is also a shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima in Holliston, Massachusetts, which was founded in 1949 by the Xaverian Missionaries.

Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic. Follow him on Twitter @HeinleinMichael. This article originally appeared in Our Sunday Visitor.

 

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