Our Lady Of Fatima

JOE SIXPACK

We have all heard of Our Lady of Fatima, but it seems few actually know the story of her appearances at Fatima, Portugal in 1917. It’s not possible to do the story justice on the limited space here, but I’d still like to give you as much of the story as I can for your edification.
Three shepherd children — Lucia Santos, and her cousins Francesco and Jacinta Marto — were chosen by our Lady for the privilege of visits from Heaven. She appeared to the children once a month in the Cova da Iria on the thirteenth day, from May through October.
The first apparition was just before the children, but as word got out across the countryside, people came from all over to see the children being visited. Many of the people came because they were seeking miracles for themselves or loved ones, especially healing miracles. Others came to scoff at the children and the “superstition” of the peasants.
A great deal happened during the course of those six months, but the highlight of the apparitions occurred on October 13 with what has come to be known as the Miracle of the Sun. This miracle was granted, according to our Lady, so that all would believe. Her message was so important to mankind that Heaven was pleased to grant this most extraordinary miracle to defeat our cynicism and pay attention to the message. The Miracle of the Sun was the only miracle in all of history where the exact date, time, and place of its occurrence were announced in advance.
But before I tell about the miracle, there are a few things of historical significance I’d like to mention that deal directly with our Lady’s message.
As our Lady appeared to the children, World War I was raging across Europe. Our Lady told the children the war would end soon, but that if the world didn’t heed her message, return to her Son, and do penance for themselves and the sins of the world, a worse and greater war would plague the world as a punishment for our sinfulness. She said the sign that the next war was about to begin would be a great light in the sky.
On January 28, 1938, there was a great aurora borealis seen over every nation involved in World War II. The great light was called an aurora borealis, but many scientists admitted they called the light an aurora because they didn’t know what else to call it, as it didn’t really meet the criteria for an aurora. Fifty-six days later, Hitler marched on Austria to mark the beginning of the Second World War in Europe.
Our Lady also told the children, “I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church.”
The mention of Russia spreading her errors throughout the world puzzled everyone, because Russia was known to be a devoutly Christian nation. However, communication wasn’t as instantaneous then as it is today. It would often take months for news to spread about world events. What no one could have known when our Lady told about Russian errors being spread throughout the world was that at that very moment the Bolshevik Revolution was taking place, which gave us Lenin and his new Communist state. Of course, we know that Russia did indeed spread the errors of Communism around the globe, just as our Lady had predicted.
There were several other messages our Lady gave us that were of global significance, all of which continue to be warnings to us today, but we lack the space to cover them here. Instead, we’ll move on to the Miracle of the Sun — the great miracle granted “so that all will believe.”
It was October 13, 1917. Even though it had been raining for three days, 70,000 pilgrims trudged through the mud and foul weather to be present for the miracle. Shortly after the children arrived at the Cova, our Lady appeared to them with her final message. When she finished, our Lady pointed to the sky as the clouds parted. The children looked to the sun and Lucia pointed and shouted, “Look!”
What the children saw was altogether different from what the 70,000 onlookers observed. The children saw several apparitions in the disc of the sun: Mary as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel holding her Infant Son, our Lord exposing His Sacred Heart, the Two Hearts, and St. Joseph holding the Christ Child. But what the other people saw did much more to drive home our Lady’s warnings.
At first the sun began to spin. As it spun, the sun threw off every color of the spectrum. Then it began to dance across the sky while spinning and tossing off the colors. The people were in awe of what they saw…then things became frightening.
As the 70,000 observers looked on in terror, the sun began to plummet to Earth. People began to scream and run, many shouting out their sins as they saw impending death hurling at them from the sky. All present were convinced the world was about to end, and many of them were far from prepared. Judgment had come!
Then, as suddenly as it began, the sun returned to its place in the sky, motionless. The people cried out in relief and thanksgiving. As they began to collect themselves from the horror they’d just experienced, that’s when they realized yet another miracle had occurred. Even though it had rained for three days, the ground was perfectly dry. In addition to that, there was no longer mud on anyone’s clothing or shoes.
It would be easy for us to scoff and say these people were the victims of mass hysteria, except for several proofs of what had happened that can’t be explained away.
Portugal at the time was governed by an oppressive Communist regime. Reporters from the weekly Lisbon Communist newspaper O Seculo were present for the miracle and reported it in the next issue, exactly as it happened. The government forced the newspaper to write a retraction the following week, but copies of that original newspaper are available today from the World Apostolate of Fatima.
There was also a government observatory forty miles away from Fatima that recorded the Miracle of the Sun as it was observed by scientists there. So there is scientific proof of the miracle as well. While the miracle was taking place in Fatima, Pope Benedict XV was also granted a vision of the Miracle of the Sun at the Vatican.
All of this tells us our Lady’s messages at Fatima were of the utmost importance, and they continue to be important to us today. Unfortunately, the cynicism of an atheistic world has obscured her message and left us all in grave danger. I would urge everyone to read the captivating book by William Thomas Walsh titled Our Lady of Fatima. As the best supplement to that short book I’d recommend a documentary narrated by Ricardo Montalban simply titled Fatima, which is available from Ignatius Press. The documentary includes expert commentary by Malcolm Muggeridge, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, James Hitchcock of St. Louis University, and Warren Carroll of Christendom College.
The reason I decided to tell you about Our Lady of Fatima is that so many people today are what have been called apparition chasers — they chase after any purported apparition, thinking it’s the latest message from Heaven, but most of them turn out to be either tricks of the Devil or scams run by unscrupulous people. This is a practice that is dangerous to one’s faith, and it should be wholeheartedly discouraged.
There are already many legitimate apparitions that have the weight of full approval from the Church. Among them are: Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes, the Virgin of the Poor, and the personal revelations of Our Lord as the Divine Mercy to St. Faustina.
And these contain all we need to bolster our faith and lead us to the practice of our faith which will get us to Heaven.
If you have a question or comment you can reach out to me through the “Ask Joe” page of JoeSixpackAnswers.com, or you can email me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
Hey, how would you like to see things like this article every week in your parish bulletin as an insert? You or your pastor can learn more about how to do that by emailing me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.