By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
Fatima, the First Hundred Years: The Complete Story from Visionaries to Saints, by Barry R. Pearlman (Angelico Press, 2017); 278 pages, $14.95 paperback. Available from Amazon.com.
Fatima, the First Hundred Years: The Complete Story from Visionaries to Saints, is an updated version of the author’s previous work, Fatima: A Heart for the World. As the author says in his preface, “The purpose of this book is to retell the story of Fatima, and, at the same time, explain in familiar language the profound and momentous message which has been given to the entire world.”
Rather than moving immediately to deal with the Fatima story, though, the author begins by looking at our Lady’s role in the Bible, showing how she was the exemplary disciple of the Lord who lived that discipleship in a spirit of faith and obedience. He also describes how she is our spiritual mother, the one who most perfectly kept in her heart all the things she experienced about Jesus. And as he reminds us, Mary is the Immaculate Conception, the only human being free from original sin, and so this in turn means that her heart is also immaculate.
The author then deals briefly with some of the major nineteenth-century Marian apparitions, including Rue du Bac, La Salette, and Lourdes. Concerning this section of the book, it should be said that there are question marks over some “prophecies” made by one of the La Salette seers, Melanie, who elaborated on the genuine original secret which was given to her by our Lady.
The second chapter deals with the situation in Europe which led up to First World War, including the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in Russia, in 1917, just as the events at Fatima were unfolding in Portugal — a country in which the Church was undergoing persecution at the hands of a government determined to wipe out Catholicism within two generations.
Those plans, though, were foiled by the apparitions of our Lady to Jacinta and Francisco Marto, and Lucia dos Santos, the three little Shepherds of Fatima, from May to October 1917. In succeeding chapters Pearlman retells the Fatima story, in an account interspersed with theological discussions and reflections, in a way that makes this book different from most accounts of the Fatima story.
In doing this, he draws on the main sources for Fatima, including valuable texts such as William Thomas Walsh’s Our Lady of Fatima, which was first published in the 1940s. He also refers to Sr. Lucia’s Memoirs, and particularly, Fatima in Lucia’s own Words I, which is the essential Fatima text, as well as important works such as Fr. John de Marchi’s Fatima: The Full Story, and Francis Johnston’s Fatima: The Great Sign.
The author succeeds in bringing out the importance of themes such as the rosary, devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart, and the necessity of reparation, and he also quotes from authors such as St. Catherine of Genoa, in order to better explain the doctrine of Purgatory, which was mentioned during the very first apparition of our Lady.
The chapter entitled “Penance” certainly brings out the way the children wholeheartedly responded to our Lady’s requests, and also to the admonitions of the Angel of Portugal or of Peace, who appeared to them on three occasions in 1916, and told them to:
“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. . . . Above all, accept and bear with submission the sufferings which the Lord will send you.”
These sufferings included long interrogations at the hands of, among others, Rev. Dr. Manuel Formigao, who was a canon and a professor at a local seminary. These interrogation left the children exhausted.
There is a good chapter on the October 13 apparition and the Miracle of the Sun, during which the sun gyrated around in the sky, changing color as it did, before plunging toward the ground in a way that terrified the crowd of at least 70,000 people who had come to witness the promised miracle, making many of them believe it was the end of the world.
After detailing eyewitness accounts of the miracle, which are very convincing in themselves, he then attempts to understand and explain how it could have happened, noting that there is no natural explanation which can be made to fit the facts, and so we are surely dealing with a phenomena due ultimately to sheer divine power.
Pearlman suggests that the miracle may be connected in some way with the luminous orb which brought our Lady to the Cova da Iria, and which was seen by several witnesses. He conjectures that this orb may have expanded to such an extent that it encompassed the whole area around the Cova, and that the Miracle then took place inside this volume — this explains why the miracle was both very convincing for the eyewitnesses, and yet did not involve the displacement of the sun from its normal course in space. In effect, then, the miracle was a gigantic apparition within that specific area.
The final chapters of the book deal with what happened in the period leading up to the deaths of Jacinta and Francisco not long after the final apparition, and the later life of Lucia as firstly a Dorothean Sister and then, from 1948, as a Carmelite.
The author describes the moving final days of the two younger seers, and details some of the things said by Jacinta when she was in an orphanage in Lisbon before her death. The young girl spoke of the most dangerous sins as being those of the flesh, and of how morally dangerous fashions would appear in the future. She also spoke of the necessity of priests being very pure and obedient, and of people generally fleeing from luxury and riches.
Sr. Lucia’s later life was certainly not a path of roses, as she pursued the mission given to her by God through the Blessed Virgin that she should both make her known and loved and work to establish the devotion to her Immaculate Heart throughout the world — a huge task for an enclosed nun, and one which now, in the centenary year of the apparitions, needs to be taken up with much greater urgency by Catholics as a whole.
Triumph
The author also deals with the Triumph of Mary’s Immaculate Heart, which was prophesied by the Blessed Virgin during her July 13, 1917 apparition. He relates this to the collapse of Communism in the early 1990s, and while this is true in one sense, it is surely also the case that the promised Triumph will also have much wider ramifications, including the conversion of Russia and the period of genuine peace which our Lady also promised.
One glance at the present condition of the world indicates that, barring some supernatural intervention, we have a long way to go before those two events are likely to happen.
The final chapter of the book is an “Epilogue” which neatly sums up the main points of the Message of Fatima, including the importance of reparation to, and devotion for, Mary’s Immaculate Heart, as well as the daily rosary.
While not overly technical in the theological sense, Fatima, the First Hundred Years is comprehensive enough to satisfy readers looking for a solid theological approach to Fatima. Some effort is required to fully appreciate the contents of this book, but with that effort the reader’s understanding of the Fatima story will certainly be enhanced.
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(Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian Apparitions, and maintains a related website at www.theotokos.org.uk. He has also a written two time-travel/adventure books for young people — details can be found at: http://glaston-chronicles.co.uk.)
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