By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
We are now living through the Year of Mercy inaugurated by Pope Francis, which began on December 8, 2015, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, and will end on November 20, 2016, the feast of the Solemnity of Christ the King. So it could be said that liturgically the Year of Mercy leads us from our Lady to Christ, which is also what her apparitions at Fatima are meant to do, as is Marian devotion in general.
And it is surely providential that the Pope decided that the Year of Mercy should immediately precede 2017, the centenary of the Fatima apparitions to the three young seers, Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia, between May and October 1917. Pope Francis is due to visit the Portuguese shrine next year, and undoubtedly large numbers of people will also be making a special pilgrimage there to celebrate the anniversary.
Regarding the subject of the Divine Mercy and how it relates to Fatima, it is significant that there is a definite link between the two devotions. The theme of mercy crops up a number of times in the Fatima message as a whole, as for example when the Angel of Portugal appeared to the three young shepherds during the summer of 1916, and told them that the most holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary had designs of mercy on them.
But apart from that, the first apparition of our Lady, on May 13, 1917 — which took place exactly 99 years ago this month — has many important lessons for us. In fact, in one sense it is amazing that there was so much depth in such a brief apparition. But perhaps that is not so surprising when we consider that this was a message which truly came from God.
The first important lesson we can learn is about the person of our Lady herself, and what this first apparition revealed about her. In her memoirs, Sr. Lucia recounts her reaction at seeing the Blessed Virgin for the very first time when the children, who were looking after the sheep in the Cova da Iria, thought a thunderstorm was beginning and began to hurry home:
“We had only gone a few steps . . . when, there before us on a small holmoak, we beheld a Lady all dressed in white. She was more brilliant than the sun, and radiated a light more clear and intense than a crystal glass filled with sparkling water, when the rays of the burning sun shine through it.”
Here, Lucia states that the beautiful Lady they saw was actually brighter than the sun. Just imagine what an impact that must have had on the children, who had previously seen the Angel of Portugal, or the Angel of Peace, three times during 1916.
And as anyone who has experienced the summer sun in Portugal knows, it is very bright, certainly far too bright to look at. But somehow, the children were able to look at our Lady despite her brilliance, and this brilliance is in itself surely a pointer to the incredible sanctity of the Blessed Virgin.
In fact, it is probably the case that the grace that our Lady received from God at her Immaculate Conception, was greater than the final grace of all the angels and saints taken together.
That is an absolutely staggering thought really, and if Catholics generally could grasp that point, it would revolutionize how they see the Blessed Virgin, and enable them to much better appreciate her person and role.
And this idea makes sense really, on another level, because God had to raise our Lady to a pitch of holiness that would make her capable of becoming the Theotokos, the God-bearer, and true Mother of God — an awesome privilege if ever there was one.
So even before she said a word at Fatima, just in the way she appeared, the Blessed Virgin was teaching a crucial lesson about the importance of her role in the Church and in the life of believers generally, as their spiritual Mother.
Then, as the children stood dumbfounded before this amazing vision of such a beautiful lady, “bathed in the light which surrounded her, or rather, which radiated from her,” she spoke to them, saying, “Do not be afraid. I will do you no harm.”
Here again is an important insight into our Lady’s person, her motherly concern not to frighten the children, just as Christ immediately reassured His disciples when they saw Him after the Resurrection.
Lucia next asked where the Lady was from and heard her say, “I am from Heaven.” After asking the children to come back to the Cova for six months in succession, on the 13th day of each month, and at the same hour, the Blessed Virgin then answered Lucia’s query as to whether she too would go to Heaven, in the affirmative. She also said that Jacinta and Francisco would also go to Heaven, but that he would have to say “many rosaries.”
This surely is also an important lesson for us, too. The immediate concern of the Blessed Virgin was to reassure Lucia and speak of Heaven, which is, or ought to be, the goal of every Christian. And of course, if Francisco, a young boy, had to say many rosaries to get to Heaven, then we too ought to pray the rosary frequently, and even daily.
Then our Lady turned to the means by which the children would get to Heaven saying, “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?” Lucia, speaking for all three said, “Yes, we are willing.”
“Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.”
As she said these words, our Lady opened her hands and communicated to the children a “light so intense that, as it streamed from her hands, its rays penetrated our hearts and the innermost depths of our souls, making us see ourselves in God, who was that light, more clearly than we see ourselves in the best of mirrors.”
So not only did the children see the Blessed Virgin as vision of light, but they also, in some profoundly mysterious way, experienced God in the light that came from her hands.
Finally, before disappearing into the “immensity of space,” our Lady made of the children a very practical request, saying, “Pray the rosary every day, in order to obtain peace for the world, and the end of the war.”
Even in the very first Fatima apparition, then, the Blessed Virgin revealed the germ of the whole message she wanted to give, with her very appearance indicating her extraordinary holiness, and her words indicating her focus on Heaven, on the grace and presence of God in the soul, and on the power of the rosary.
If we can likewise focus on those points in looking forward to the Fatima centenary next year, we will be making the best possible preparation for that historic occasion.
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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 at: http://glaston-chronicles.co.uk/.)
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