How Fatima changed the world (1)

By Emmanuel Ojeifo

“If men knew what eternity is, they would do everything to change their lives.”  – Our Lady of Fatima 1917.

On Sunday, May 13, 1917, three little shepherd children – Lucia dos Santos and her two cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto – aged ten, eight and seven respectively were herding the sheep of their parents at a village named Cova da Iria in the town of Fatima, Portugal. The children reported that they saw a vision of a woman dressed in white, “brighter than the sun” and holding a rosary in her hand. The figure was “as if suspended in the air above the trees” and “looked like a statue made of ice. It was “shining somewhat transparently in the sunlight,” said Lucia, the eldest of the three children. When Lucia asked the Lady who she was and where she came from, she simply replied: “From heaven. I have come to ask you to return here for the next six months. Always come here at the same time on the thirteenth of each month. Then I will tell you who I am and what I wish for.” 

Lucia enjoined the children not to tell anyone about what they had seen. But could anyone keep silent about such an encounter with the supernatural? Jacinta was the first to break the pact. She wept as Lucia scolded her. “All I said was ‘What a beautiful Lady’.” “Now stop crying and don’t tell anyone about what the Lady has told us,” Lucia reinforced. “But I already did,” said Jacinta. “What did you say,” Lucia inquired. “I said that the Lady promised to take us to heaven!” “Why did you have to go and say that? “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I won’t say anything to anybody again.” Jacinta had told her family about seeing the brightly lit woman. Jacinta’s disbelieving mother told neighbours about it as a joke, and within a day the whole little village knew of the children’s vision. With the news broken, many pilgrims began to visit the area.

Lucia’s mother sought counsel from the parish priest, Father Ferreira, who suggested she allow them to go. He asked to have Lucia brought to him afterward so that he could question her. The second appearance occurred on 13 June, the feast of St Anthony, patron of the local parish church. On this occasion the Lady revealed that Francisco and Jacinta would be taken to Heaven soon, but Lucia would live longer in order to spread her message and devotion to the Immaculate Heart. According to Lucia’s 1941 account, she asked the Lady if the three children would go to heaven when they died. She said that she heard the Lady reply, “Yes, I shall take Francisco and Jacinta soon, but you will remain a little longer, since Jesus wishes you to make me known and loved on Earth. He wishes also for you to establish devotion in the world to my Immaculate Heart.”

On June 13, the children received the message, which Lucia retained in her prodigious memory and only years later revealed in two distinct stages. The message included a vision of Hell and the request to establish devotion to the Immaculate Heart throughout the world. It also spoke of the conversion of Russia and the attempt to kill the “Bishop dressed in White,” the pope. The Lady asked the children to devote themselves to the Holy Trinity and to “pray the rosary every day to bring peace to the world and an end to the war.” This was the period when the First World War was being fought. The Lady predicted that prayer would lead to the end of the War. There was also a prophecy that a miracle would occur during the apparition of October 13 that year. 

During the July apparition, the Lady said to Lucia: “I want you to come here on the thirteenth of next month, to continue to pray the rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you.” As the apparitions continued for successive months, thousands of people began to flock to Fatima. Newspapers reported the prophecies, and more and more pilgrims were attracted to the scene of the apparition. The children’s accounts were deeply controversial, drawing intense criticism from both local secular and religious authorities.

On August 13, 1917, the provincial administrator Arthur Santos (no relation to Lucia Santos) intervened, as he believed that these events were politically disruptive in the conservative country. He took the children into custody, jailing them before they could reach the Cova da Iria. Santos interrogated and threatened the children to get them to divulge the contents of the secrets. Lucia’s mother hoped the officials could persuade the children to end the affair and admit that they had lied. Lucia told Santos everything short of the secrets, and offered to ask the woman for permission to tell the official the secrets. That month, instead of the usual apparition in the Cova da Iria on August 13, the children reported that they saw the Virgin Mary on August 19, a Sunday, at nearby Valinhos. She asked them again to pray the rosary daily, spoke about the miracle coming in October, and asked them “to pray a lot, a lot for the sinners and sacrifice a lot, as many souls perish in hell because nobody is praying or making sacrifices for them.”

At the last apparition on October 13, 1917, there was a huge crowd of between 70,000 and 100,000 people who had gathered to witness the apparition. The children had earlier reported that the Lady would reveal her identity and perform a miracle “so that all may believe.” What took place on that day has come to be known as the ‘Miracle of the Dancing Sun.’ Among the throngs of people who came to witness the October apparition were photographers and journalists from the Lisbon-based anti-clerical newspapers O Dia and O Século. Then the miracle happened: the sun danced. The phenomenon lasted for several minutes and was visible for miles around. The article that appeared in O Séculowas signed by Avelino de Almeida, the chief editor, who had gone to Fatima with the express intention of demolishing what he regarded as a silly superstition. He ended up being confounded by the miraculous sign and he proclaimed the veracity of what had happened. 

According to accounts, after a period of rain, the dark clouds broke and the sun appeared as an opaque, spinning disc in the sky. It was said to be significantly duller than normal, and to cast multi-coloured lights across the landscape, the people, and the surrounding clouds. The sun was then reported to have careened towards the earth before zig-zagging back to its normal position. Witnesses reported that their previously wet clothes became suddenly and completely dry, as well as the wet and muddy ground that had been previously soaked because of the rain that had been falling.” At the apparition, the Lady revealed her identity: “I am Our Lady of the Rosary. I have come to exhort the faithful to change their lives and to stop offending the Lord by their sins. He is already too much offended. I wish for a chapel in this place… If men amend their ways, the war will soon end.” Unpredictably, the First World War ended shortly after the last apparition in October 1917. Many commentators have said that the end of the war was secured not by fighting arms, but by the praying of the rosary.

As predicted by the Lady, Francisco and Jacinta didn’t live long. Francisco died of the Spanish fever on April 4, 1919. He was just eleven. Jacinta died of pleurisy on February 20, 1920. She was ten. Lucia, by contrast lived a long life, which crossed to the threshold of the twenty first century. She died on February 13, 2005. They are buried at the Sanctuary of Fatima. Pope John Paul II beatified Francisco and Jacinta Marto on 13 May 2000. Their mother Olímpia Marto said that her children predicted their deaths many times to her and to curious pilgrims in the brief period of time after the Marian apparitions.

Fatima has long been associated with Pope St John Paul II, one of the longest serving Catholic pontiffs who ruled for 27 years. Fatima provides one of the most dramatic and spectacularly interpretive keys to the surprising twists in the story of John Paul II’s pontificate. Part of the secrets of Fatima is the prophecy about the “Bishop dressed in white” on whose life an attempt would be made. This 1917 prediction came to pass on May 13, 1981 when the Turkish assassin Mehmet Ali Agca shot severally at the pope as he rode in his popemobile in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican. The pope was miraculously saved. The bullets which would have damaged his vital organs, were directed “by the hand of the Virgin Mary” as the pope would later say. On May 13, 1982 the Polish-born pope made a pilgrimage to Fatima to thank Our Lady for saving his life. One of the bullets fired at him now adorns the crown of the Statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima.

Father Ojeifo is a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja.