Editor’s Note: Since we are marking the 100th anniversary of the Fatima apparitions this year, we thought it might be useful to summarize the six apparitions in the column nearest to the date of each one. So here are the highlights of the first apparition on May 13, 1917. For more details, see Fr. Andrew Apostoli’s book Fatima for Today.
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It was a Sunday in the Portuguese village of Fatima when the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared for the first time to three shepherd children — Lucia dos Santos, 10, and her two cousins, Francisco Marto, 9, and Jacinta Marto, 7. The children were tending sheep in the Cova da Iria when a flash of lightning led them to think a storm was coming, and they began rounding up the sheep to take them home.
They hadn’t gone very far when they saw a young woman dressed in white hovering over a small oak tree. “She was more brilliant than the sun,” said Lucia, “and radiated light more clear and intense than a crystal glass filled with sparkling water, when the rays of the burning sun shine through it.” She said that the Lady appeared to be about 17 years old and in her hands were rosary beads that shone like bright stars.
Sensing that the children were frightened, the Blessed Virgin said, “Do not be afraid. I will do you no harm.” “Where are you from?” Lucia asked. “I am from Heaven,” our Lady answered. “What do you want of me?” the 10-year-old inquired. The heavenly visitor replied that she wanted the children to return to the Cova on the 13th of each month at the same hour until October, and that she would tell them later what she wanted.
Curiously, Lucia asked the Lady if two young women from the village who had died were in Heaven. The Blessed Virgin replied that one of them was, but that the other, whose name was Amelia, “will be in Purgatory until the end of the world.” It was learned later that Amelia had been involved in immoral activity. She must have been sorry for her sins before she died, but she did not have sufficient time to atone for the temporal punishment attached to her sins.
Our Lady then asked the children if they were 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, the only one of the three who ever spoke to the Virgin, said that “yes, we are willing.” The Blessed Mother said that “you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.”
Before concluding the first apparition, our Lady made a request that she would repeat in all six appearances: “Pray the rosary every day to obtain peace for the world, and the end of the war.” She was referring to World War I, which would come to an end the following year. The Virgin Mary then rose toward the east and disappeared into the sky. Although Lucia cautioned her cousins not to mention the apparition, Jacinta told her mother about “the beautiful Lady from Heaven,” which brought considerable suffering to Lucia, who was mocked and accused of lying by her family and her neighbors.
Her mother took her to the parish priest, but his advice was to wait until June 13 to see what would happen then.
Q. How did Communion in the hand come about? Who is responsible for the eucharistic abuses in our diocese and parish? — M.A.W., Illinois.
A. Your pastor and bishop are responsible for any eucharistic abuses in the parish or diocese since the Church has issued many documents spelling out in detail the proper and improper ways of celebrating Mass and treating the Holy Eucharist. One such document is Redemptionis Sacramentum, which was issued in 2004 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The subtitle of the document was “On Certain Matters To Be Observed or To Be Avoided Regarding the Most Holy Eucharist.”
As for Communion in the hand, the 1969 Vatican document Memoriale Dominum said that the faithful were allowed in the early centuries of the Church “to take this divine Food in their hands and to place it in their mouths themselves. It is also true that in very ancient times they were allowed to take the Blessed Sacrament with them from the place where the Holy Sacrifice was celebrated. This was principally so as to be able to give themselves Viaticum in case they had to face death for their faith.”
By the ninth or tenth centuries, however, the practice of receiving the Host on the tongue was mandated. This was partly because of abuses, the instruction says, and partly because “there came a greater feeling of reverence toward this sacrament and a deeper humility was felt to be demanded when receiving it. Thus the custom was established of the minister placing a particle of consecrated Bread on the tongue of the communicant.”
This method of receiving our Lord remained the norm until recent times, when certain countries began experimenting with Communion in the hand. Pope Paul VI wanted the traditional practice of receiving on the tongue continued, but he said that Communion in the hand could be permitted in countries where two-thirds of the bishops petitioned Rome for permission. Authorization for Communion in the hand in the United States was given in 1977.
Not all bishops, however, feel that Communion in the hand has been a good thing. Just last month (April 13), for example, Bishop Robert Morlino of the Diocese of Madison, Wis., announced that, by next fall, he expects all the faithful in his diocese to begin receiving Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling.
m“I’m going to ask that we move together toward greater reverence when receiving Holy Communion,” said Morlino. “There is no question that Communion on the tongue is more reverent. And it doesn’t lend itself to a casual kind of behavior.”
Bishop Morlino last year asked that all tabernacles be located front and center in Catholic churches, and he has urged his clergy to celebrate Mass facing the east (ad orientem).
Q. Can you give me some good reasons for having the priest face away from the people at Mass? — K.R., Connecticut.
A. It would be more accurate to say that the priest is facing east. In an article that appeared in his diocesan newspaper The Beacon, and which was reprinted in the January 2017 Adoremus Bulletin, Bishop Arthur Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., who is chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship, explained the ad orientem posture:
“Writing in the 7th century, St. John of Damascus gives three explanations for the eastward stance of Christians at prayer. First, Christ is ‘the Sun of Righteousness’ (Mal. 4:2) and ‘the Dayspring from on high’ (Luke 1:78). Facing the light dawning from the east, Christians affirm their faith in Christ as the Light of the World. Second, God planted the Garden of Eden in the east (cf. Gen. 2:8). But when our first parents sinned, they were exiled from the garden and moved westward. Facing east, therefore, reminds Christians of their need to long for and strive for the paradise that God intended for them.
“And third, when speaking of His Second Coming at the end of history, Jesus said: ‘For just as lightning comes from the east and is seen as far as the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be’ (Matt. 24:27). Thus, facing the east at prayer visibly expresses the hope for the coming of Jesus (cf. St. John Damascene, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, book IV, chapter 12).”
Bishop Serratelli also quoted from page 151 of The Spirit of the Liturgy, written by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict XVI:
“The common turning toward the east was not ‘a celebration toward the wall’. . . it did not mean that the priest ‘had his back to the people’. . . . For just as the congregation in the synagogue looked toward Jerusalem, so in the Christian liturgy the congregation looked together ‘toward the Lord’. . . . They did not close themselves into a circle; they did not gaze at one another; but as the pilgrim People of God they set off for the Oriens, for the Christ who comes to meet us.”
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