By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
The previous article on this topic (April 28, 2016, p. 8A) looked at the first of the three apparitions of the Angel of Portugal, or the Angel of Peace, to the three Fatima seers, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, and Lucia dos Santos, in the spring, summer, and autumn of 1916.
This article will look at the second of these, in this, the centenary year of these angelic appearances, and see how it is still of significance for us 100 years later.
The first apparition of the angel made a deep impression on the children. In her Second Memoir, Sr. Lucia tells us that, “His words engraved themselves so deeply on our minds that we could never forget them. From then on, we used to spend long periods of time, prostrate like the Angel, repeating his words, until sometimes we fell, exhausted.”
These words were: “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.”
And before he departed, the Angel assured them of the power of their prayers when he said, “Pray thus. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are attentive to the voice of your supplications.”
The Angel next appeared to them at the height of the summer heat, one day when they were at home having a siesta. As they were playing on the stone slabs of the well at the bottom of the garden belonging to Lucia’s parents, the angelic figure they had seen in the spring suddenly stood beside them.
Without any preamble, he said, “What are you doing? Pray, pray very much! The most holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy on you.”
These are intriguing first words. We might have expected that he would not have been quite so insistent — after all, it is natural for young children to want to play. But it was as if he was saying, the time for play is past — you now have a higher vocation, that of prayer, insistent and continual prayer. This was because their vocation was to be such a high one, that of being the heralds of the message that our Lady would give to them the following year.
Then the Angel said, “Offer prayers and sacrifices constantly to the Most High,” to which Lucia responded, “How are we to make sacrifices?”
In reply he said, “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 upon your country. I am its Angel Guardian, the Angel of Portugal. Above all, accept and bear with submission, the suffering which the Lord will send you.”
This short statement is full of instruction for us. The first point to note here is the Angel’s insistence that, for the children, everything they did, could and should be made a sacrifice — and thus turned into an act of reparation against sin and for the conversion of sinners.
It’s interesting to note how this idea of making “everything you can a sacrifice” ties in, in many respects. with the teaching and example of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who lived and died shortly before the Fatima children.
She saw herself as a child of the Heavenly Father, and so totally dependent on Him for everything. She knew that little children do not try to do great things, but rather are content to do small acts for their parents, but acts done with great love — and this was how she followed out her “little way” of holiness, with many small sacrifices, expressed in a spirit of total abandonment to the will of God.
But whereas St. Thérèse was not usually the recipient of astounding spiritual favors, the Fatima children did see the Angel of Peace and our Lady. Despite that, they were not declared blessed because of the apparitions they had seen, but because they lived lives of holiness, in, as St. John Paul II put it, “the school of Mary.”
Clearly, the vocation of the children was much higher than that of the majority of us, and Sr. Lucia commented on this fact in a letter written in 1943, after the very penitential lives the Fatima children had led began to become better known.
Quite often they would go without food or drink in the searing Portuguese sun, and they also wore a rough rope around their waists as a form of penance. They even wore it at night, until, during the September 1917 apparition, our Lady told them that they only needed to wear it during the daytime.
In her letter, which was to her spiritual director, the bishop of Gurza, Sr. Lucia wrote: “This is the penance which the good Lord now asks: that every person has to impose upon himself is to lead a life of justice in the observance of His Law. He requires that this way be made known to souls. For many, thinking that the word penance means great austerities and not feeling in themselves the strength or generosity for these, lose heart and rest in a life of lukewarmness and sin.
“Last Thursday, at midnight, while I was in chapel with my superior’s permission, our Lord said to me, ‘The sacrifice required of every person is the fulfillment of his duties in life and the observance of my law. This is the penance I now seek and require’.”
So this was a clear divine indication that for the majority of people, the best form of penance they can do is to fulfill the demands of their daily duty, rather than trying — and perhaps failing — to accomplish difficult feats of penance, which may only lead to them ending up being discouraged.
But having said that, each person does have to try and find a balance and do what they can. So, for example, if someone finds fasting difficult then perhaps they can spend more time in prayer instead, and particularly eucharistic adoration, which was part of the teaching of the Angel during the third apparition in the autumn of 1916, as will be seen in a subsequent article.
Bringing About Peace
As noted above, the Angel went on to say: “You will thus draw down peace upon your country. I am its Angel Guardian, the Angel of Portugal. Above all, accept and bear with submission, the suffering which the Lord will send you.”
Thus, here he was saying that if they did what he asked, and lived sacrificial and prayerful lives, then they would help to bring about peace.
His final point was about the acceptance of the sufferings which God allows to happen to us. These sufferings are very meritorious because we don’t choose them ourselves, but rather accept them from God.
The three children had to endure much at the hands of the throngs of people wanting to question them, sometimes to the point of them being worn out with such questioning. And it was certainly the case that Jacinta and Francisco, and later on Sr. Lucia, all had much to suffer before their deaths.
In this centenary year of the angelic apparitions, it would surely be good for us spiritually if we were to take some time to meditate on the brief but powerful words which the Angel addressed to the children in the summer of 1916.
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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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