The Story of Fatima
The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, appeared 6 times to 3 shepherd children; Lucy, Francisco and Jacinta; between May 13 and October 13, 1917.
She came to the little village of Fatima which had remained faithful to the Catholic Church during the recent persecutions by the government.
She came with a message from God to every man, woman and child of our century.
Our Lady of Fatima promised that the whole world would be in peace, and that many souls would go to Heaven if Her requests were listened to and obeyed.
She told us that war is a punishment for sin; that God would punish the world for its sins in our time by means of war, hunger, persecution of the Church and persecution of the Holy Father, the Pope, unless we listened to and obeyed the commands of God.
- The Catholic Church has endorsed the Fatima Message since 1930.
- Five successive Popes have publicly indicated their approval of the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima and Her message.
- As also prophesied, Francisco and Jacinta died in the odor of sanctity in 1919 and 1920.
- Our Lady of Fatima continues to work miracles today through Fatima water which is sent from Fatima around the world. This Fatima water sprang up in Fatima at the spot the Bishop told people to dig, very near where Our Lady appeared at the Cova da Iria (the Cove of Peace) in Fatima. Still other people are cured when they go on pilgrimage to Fatima, which is about 90 miles north of Lisbon, Portugal.
- She promised us, "If My requests are granted Russia will be converted and there will be peace".
- But She also warned us, "If My requests are not granted, Russia will spread her errors throughout the world raising up wars and persecutions against the Church, the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated."
- She has told us that the whole world (the part surviving) will be enslaved by the atheistic tyrants of Russia.
- Sister Lucia died on February 13 at her Carmelite convent in Coimbra, Portugal, after a long illness. Living in isolation in the cloistered convent.
- Born on March 22, 1907, Lucie Dos Santos was only 10 years old when the Virgin appeared to her and her two young cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, on a field outside the town of Fatima, on May 13, 1917. The apparitions continued through October 13 of that same year, and the seers conveyed Mary's predictions of World War II, the rise of Russian Communism, and the urgent need for the faithful to pray the Rosary.
- Sister Lucia also revealed the famous "third secret" of Fatima, which was kept secret by successive Popes until May 2000, when John Paul II revealed the text of a mystical vision involving a "bishop dressed in white" who was struggling toward the Cross, over the bodies of martyrs, until he himself was felled by gunfire. Pope John Paul concluded that the vision referred to the attempt on his own life. Some Catholics continue to insist that aspects of the "third secret" have not yet been disclosed, although the Vatican insists that there is nothing more to reveal.
- Sister Lucia had spoken of the Fatima promises in four published memoirs, but kept the "third secret" hidden. She divulged that secret to the Bishop of Leira, Portugal, in January 1944; he confided the secret to Pope Pius XII. Sister Lucia had said that the secret should be revealed at the Pope's discretion, but not before 1960.
- The first Pontiff to meet privately with Sister Lucia was Paul VI, when he visited Fatima in May 1967. Pope John Paul II met with her on three separate occasions: in 1982, when he made a pilgrimage to Fatima to thank the Virgin for saving him from assassination; in 1991, on the 10th anniversary of the shooting; and in 2000, for the beatification ceremonies.
- Francisco and Jacinta Marto were beatified by Pope John Paul in ceremonies that took place at Fatima on May 13, 2000-- the anniversary of the first apparition there. Both Francisco and Jacinta had died in their youth-- in 1919 and 1920, respectively. Sister Lucia made a rare journey outside the Carmelite cloister to take part in the ceremony.
- After the Fatima apparitions, and subsequent personal visions of the Virgin in 1923 and 1929, Lucie Dos Santos entered religious life-- first in Spain and later, in 1948, as a Carmelite in Portugal.
The Secrets
The first secret was a vision of Hell, which Lúcia describes in her Third Memoir, as follows: "Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.
The second secret included Mary's instructions on how to save souls from Hell and convert the world to the Catholic faith, written in 1917: "You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illuminated by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, 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 good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.
The Third Secret The third secret, a vision of the death of the Pope and other religious figures, was transcribed by the Bishop of Leiria and reads: "After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!' And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, Religious men and women going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, Religious men and women, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God."
