By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
This article will consider the third and final appearance of the Angel of Portugal to the Fatima children in the autumn of 1916. This is rightly regarded as the most important of these three visitations, principally because the Angel gave the children Holy Communion, but also because of the power and depth of the prayer he taught them.
The site of this third apparition is commemorated at the place called the Loca do Cabeço, which is not far from Valinhos, where our Lady would appear to the seers the following August, following their release from the custody of the local mayor who had illegally kidnapped and imprisoned them.
One day in the autumn of 1916, probably in late September or October, the little shepherds were out with their sheep, and once they had arrived at the spot chosen for grazing, according to Sr. Lucia in her Second Memoir, they knelt down, with their foreheads touching the ground, and began to repeat the prayer the Angel had taught them previously, that is, “My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love You! I ask pardon of You for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love You.”
The first point worth noting about this is that they had remained faithful to saying this short prayer — perhaps others might have become bored with it, but their fidelity to it shows that they had already developed a great commitment to prayer, and this made them worthy of further graces.
In fact, Sr. Lucia goes on to say that she didn’t know how many times they had repeated this prayer, when, “an extraordinary light shone upon us.” The Angel had returned. All three jumped up and saw him. Sr. Lucia reports that he was holding a chalice in his left hand, with a Host suspended above it, from which some drops of blood fell into the chalice.
He left the chalice and Host suspended in mid-air, and then knelt down beside them and asked them to repeat the following prayer three times:
“Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore You profoundly, and I offer You the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifference with which He Himself is offended. And, through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of You the conversion of poor sinners.”
The wording of this prayer, and the actions of the Angel which accompanied it, are very instructive. Firstly, his posture of kneeling down alongside the children, shows us how we should kneel and even bow down in adoration before the Holy Eucharist. Then it is a trinitarian prayer, which was repeated three times. Also, it is a prayer of adoration, which offers up the Real Presence of Christ in the world’s tabernacles, in reparation, and through the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, it appeals for the conversion of sinners.
In addition, it is an excellent prayer to say before receiving Holy Communion, as a means of preparing ourselves to worthily receive the Body and Blood of Christ.
The Angel then rose and taking the chalice and the Host in his hands, he gave the Host to Lucia, while he offered the Precious Blood in the chalice to Jacinta and Francisco. As he did so, he said, “Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men! Make reparation for their crimes and console your God.”
It is noteworthy that the Angel gave the children Holy Communion under both kinds, at a time when this was not the custom in the Church, and also to see how he emphasized that their receiving Communion was not only a means of strengthening them spiritually, but also a way for them to offer reparation to God.
The other thing to note is that the fact that Jacinta and Francisco partook of the chalice while Lucia received the Host. This is possibly linked, in some mysterious way, to the fact that the two younger children would die young, while Lucia would live until the age of 97.
Then, once he had given them Communion, the Angel once more prostrated himself on the ground and asked the children to repeat the prayer he had just taught them again three times, with him, saying “Most Holy Trinity….” Then he disappeared.
We can get an idea of the effect this encounter with the Angel, and their reception of Holy Communion, had on the seers from these words of Sr Lucia in her Fourth Memoir: “Impelled by the power of the supernatural that enveloped us, we imitated all that the Angel had done, prostrating ourselves on the ground as he did and repeating the prayers that he said. The force of the presence of God was so intense that it absorbed us and almost completely annihilated us. . . . The peace and happiness which we felt were great, but wholly interior, for our souls were completely immersed in God. The physical exhaustion that came over us was also great.”
She then tells us that they remained for a long time in this prayerful position, repeating the Angel’s words over and over again. They were so absorbed in this prayer that when they finally stood up, they saw that it was already dark, and thus time to go home.
Sr. Lucia also tells us that during this third apparition, the presence of the supernatural made itself felt even more intensely than had been the case during the two previous apparitions. She says that Francisco did not venture to speak about what they had experienced for several days, until he finally said, “The Angel gave you Holy Communion, but what was it that he gave to Jacinta and me?”
“It was Holy Communion, too,” replied the still joyful Jacinta. “Didn’t you see that it was the Blood that fell from the Host?” Francisco in response said, “I felt that God was within me, but I did not know how!”
Then, says Sr. Lucia, prostrating themselves on the ground, he and his sister remained for a long time, repeating over and over the prayer of the Angel, “Most Holy Trinity. . . .”
The following year, when they saw our Lady for the first time, on May 13, 1917, she communicated a brilliant light onto the children from her hands. In that light, they somehow saw themselves in God, and by an interior impulse were moved to repeat in their hearts the following words: “O most Holy Trinity, I adore You! My God, my God, I love You in the most Blessed Sacrament!”
Here we have an echo of their experience with the miraculous Host which they saw, and of the trinitarian prayer which the Angel taught them, the previous autumn.
Later on, Francisco said to Lucia: “I loved seeing the Angel, but I loved still more seeing Our Lady. What I loved most of all was to see Our Lord in that light from Our Lady which penetrated our hearts. I love God so much! But He is very sad because of so many sins! We must never commit any sins again.”
This is a very revealing point because it shows us that it was through our Lady that Francisco was led deeper into the divine mystery of our Lord’s presence. That is one of the most important and significant lessons of Fatima for the Church — that Mary leads us deeper into the mystery of Christ.
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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 a time-travel/adventure book for young people — details can be found at: http://glaston-chronicles.co.uk/.)
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