On 13 October 1917 a crowd of about 70,000 people gathered on the Cova da Iria fields outside the village of Aljustrel near Fatima, Portugal, to witness a divine miracle. There were varrying reports, but the general consensus was they saw unusual colours in the sky and sunrays, the sun seemed to be dancing in the sky, then falling from the filament, growing larger as it got nearer. It then moved in a zig-zag manner back to it's original position. The vision lasted about ten minutes. It had rained earlier and the ground was wet, and the peope were soaked. After the vision, the Earth was dry and so were their clothings.
There were believers and non-believers, lawyers, scientists, skeptics and secular reporters in the crowd. None saw the apparition of the Immaculate Mary, but they believed they witnessed a supernatural event, a miracle.
"The sun’s disc did not remain immobile. This was not the sparkling of a heavenly body, for it spun round on itself in a mad whirl, when suddenly a clamor was heard from all the people. The sun, whirling, seemed to loosen itself from the firmament and advance threateningly upon the earth as if to crush us with its huge fiery weight. The sensation during those moments was terrible." ..... scientist witness Dr. Almeida Garrett, Professor of Natural Sciences at Coimbra UniversityIt is obvious the sun never moved since that would have been noticed all over the world and none was reported. Whatever happened, it was a local phenomenon, seen only by the crowd at Fatima. There has never been a Marian miracle witnessed by such a large crowd. Canonical investigation took a long while and it was only in 1930 that the Catholic Church accepted the event as a miracle.
The Guardian Angel of Portugal:
The children did not know then that the angel's mission was to prepare them for the visit by the Blessed Mary. There is much that we can learn from what the angel taught the chidren.
- How to pray. Kneel down, bow forward until forehead and palms touch the ground and say “My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love Thee. I beg Thee forgiveness for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love Thee.” Repeat the words.
- The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are attentive to the voice of our supplications.
- Offer prayers and sacrifices constantly to the Most High.
- Sacrifice for sinners; can be anything one forgoes.
- Sacrifice is an act of reparation for the sins with which He is offended.
- Sacrifice as a supplication for the conversion of sinners.
- Above all, accept and endure with submission whatever the Lord sends us. Suffering purifies our soul.
The children felt great peace and happiness and became very prayerful. They practiced sacrifices in their litte ways, like giving up their lunches to the birds. They did penance by wearing tight ropes round their bodies.
Our Lady Of The Rosary :
The children were told she came from heaven, not to be afraid of her, and she want them to come to the field on the 15th of the next 5 months. She will tell them who she is in future.
The lady asked if they wish to give themseves to God, for which they will have to endure sufferings as an act of reparation for the sins for which He is offended, and to ask for the conversion of sinners. This the children agreed. She told them they will have to suffer, but the Grace of God will be with them
They were told to recite the rosary everyday to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war. The lady then floated up into the air, moved east and disappeared.
The visitation continued on the 13th of the next 5 months at the same place and time, except for 13 August when the children could not go to the fields as they were detained by the authorities. The Lady appeared before them on the 19 August instead, when the children were at another place called Valinho.
Her consistent requests to the children :
- Say the rosary for world peace and end of war which only the Lady of The Rosary can obtain.
- Make sacrifices, and when making sacrifices to say " O Jesus, this is for love of thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
- Pray thus : "O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of hell. Take all souls to heaven, especially those who are most in need."
When Lucia petitioned for cures for the sick, the Lady said she will cure some, but not for others.
She told the children the world war is ending soon.
When she saw the robes on the children's bodies, she told them that they should take them off at night when they sleep. It suggests that it is not necessaty to go extreme in sacrifices or penance.
She said in October she will reveal who she is, what she wants, and perform a miracle so all may believe.
The Miracle of the Sun :
The youngest child Jacinta could not contain her excitement and she told her mother of the apparition. Soon the word spread and crowds began to gather, ever growing in size at each visitation. In all the visitations, the vision of the Lady could only be seen by the 3 itte seers.. The crowd could see the children kneeling, fixated and speaking to nothing above the holmoak tree. A few in the crowd caught a glimps of the flash of light and tiny clouds lift off the holmoak tree when the Lady made her exit. Neither could the crowd hear anything. Francisco could see, but strangely he could not hear the Lady who told Lucia to tell her cousin all that she had said.
Word had spread about a miracle to be performed on 13th October. A huge crowd of people, including many from faraway cities, had gathered at Corva da Iria and it had rained in the morning. In the afternoon, at the same appointed time as for all previous visitations, Lucia suddenly pointed to the sky and said "Look at the sun". The crowd looked up and could see strange colours in the sky, the sun, spinning like a disc and growing larger as it seemed to fall onto Earth. The crowd was terrified and thought the sun was going to crash. Then it started to move in zig-zag fashion back to its original position.
At this point, unseen by the crowd, the Lady, as promised to the children, revealed herself. She asked that a chapel be built at the site for her. They saw up in the clouds, St Joseph carrying a baby in one arm, and the Lady of the Rosary by his side. St Joseph made the sign of the cross and blessed the crowd. The vision then disappeared.
Hoax or True Miracle :
Naysayers point to pareidolia (the tendency for incorrect perception of a stimulus as an object, pattern or meaning known to the observer). We look at the clouds, in the water, in the forest, etc, see some patterns and thought we see something we know there. Instead of the Blessed Virgin, a Chinese may see Kuan Yin, and a Roman see Diana. Did the chidren see the Blessed Virgin? The apparition was not a blurred vision. The children could make out details clearly - facial features (she was beautiful), like on 13th September when she appeared sorrowful, her dress, rosary, bare feet. There was communication and the apparition identified hersef.
Jacques Fabrice Vallee, a computer scientist and ufologist, was the first to suggest many religious apparitions, such as Fatima, are UFO visitations. Many religious skeptics are persuaded by this suggestion, without evidentiary basis. The facts actually work against this idea. By 1917, UFO sightings have already been publicised. The Fatima crowd should have been able to distinguish a manufactured flying object in the clear afternoon sky. No one reported any other sensation that seem to accompany a UFO in close range, such as electromagnetic interference. If it was an UFO, it would have been a world first and only ever, for extra-terrestrials to put on a public display in front of 70,000 crowd in broad daylight.
Could it be hallucination, taking into consideration the religious fervour amongst the crowd. This is hardly conceivable as there were many skeptics amongst the crowd. It is possible for a person to be hallucinated, but for a mass hallucination of 70,000 and for everyone to have imagined the same vision is just impossible. Two facts completely demolish this argument. The ground was wet and peoples' clothes were wet. As the sun supposedly came near, everything dried up. That was physical manifestation, not imagination. The miracle was observed by some peope as far away as 40km from the Corva da Iria. It was impossible for these off-site observers to be under any hallucination.
The shepherd children were very young, innocent and not educated. There is neither motivation nor capability to perpetrate such a massive hoax. Their sudden dedication to prayers, saying rosary, sacrifice and penance for sinners can only be explained by the impact of the experience of the apparition on them. Lucia went on to dedicate her life as a nun in a Carmelite monastery where she stayed for most of her adult life, seldom leaving the compounds.
The sun obviously never moved as no one else in other parts of the world reported such an event. Some scientists suggest some sort of atmospheric disturbance may have occured, such as sun dogs. If the causation was atmospheric disturbance, it must be localised since no similar visions appeared in other regions. Attributing the miracle to atmospheric phenomenon requires of the hoaxer the impossible capability to trigger a natural event to occur at a predetermined time.
The canonical investigation is a very long process where the miracle must stand up to scientific inquiry from religious and non-reigious scientists. The Church is extremely careful and more stringent for a Marian miracle as any false declaration may destroy the credibility of the Blessed Virgin. After working through thousands and thousands of testimonies, interviews, interrogations, the Pope finally approved the Miracle of Fatima in 1930.
True to the predictions of the Blessed Virgin, World War I ended on 11 Nov 1918. Both the Marto siblings died of the Spanish flu, Francisco died in 1919 and Jacinto in the folowing year. Lucia lived a long life and died in 2005 age 97. To protect her from the immense publicity and visitors, Lucia was moved to Porto in 1921. In 1924 she joined the Sisters of Dorothy, a convent in Tui, Spain. In 1948 she joined a Discalced Camerlite Convent in Coimbra, Spain, where as a cloistered nun, she spent the rest of her life in prayers and had practically no contact with the outside world. After Fatima, the Blessed Virgin Mary did appear to Lucia again, as she said she would.
The 3 Secrets of Fatima :
On the 13th July appearance, the Lady told the children 3 secrets. The First Secret was a revelation of Hell. She lowered her hands and light flowed downwards which seemed to open up the ground to show many terrible sufferings of souls burning in the inferno. The sight of the lost souls of sinners suffering terrified the children.
The Second and Third Secrets are great mysteries in themseves of which the three young seers were told not to reveal until such time as the Blessed Virgin will let them know. These are of great concern to humanity generally and Catholics specifically. They are profoundly related to our times and explain a lot of the crisis in the world and the one apostolic true church. These two secrets are covered separately in the following blogs. The faithful Catholics may want to try to comprehend the circumstances of their church which is under attack from within by Satanic forces. My triology on Fatima actually has the higher objective of helping to raise alarm bells on the dangers faced by Catholics imposed by renegade cleric that is leading the flock away from salvation.
The context of Fatima :
The beginning of the 20th century was a time of turmoil in the world. World War 1 was raging. Portugal was under the short-lived First Republic which was persecuting Catholics. Tsar Nichoas II had just lost his throne in Febuary 1917 and Russia was on its way to becoming a communist state. Margaret Sanger, the activitist who coined the term "birth control", had just opened her first birth control clinic in the US which later evolved to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (Sanger herself was actually against abortion).
Due to anti-clerical policies, the Fatima event was viewed with suspicion by Portuguese authorities. The children's parents were understandbly skeptical and unhappy with their claims. So too were villagers, The children faced ridicule, On the 12 August, the 3 chidren were kidnapped by the local mayor, detained and told to recant their story under threat of being boiled in burning oil. They steadfastly refused to cave in to official demands. .
Pope Benedic XV made great efforts to prevent the war and bring peace but papal diplomacy was unable to stop the carnage of World War I. In a 5 May 1917 letter for peace, he ordered that the invocation "Queen of Peace, pray for us" be permanently added to the Litany of Loreto. He placed the peace of the world in Her hands and made the appeal:
"To Mary, then, who is the Mother of Mercy and omnipotent by grace, let loving and devout appeal go up from every corner of the earth – from noble temples and tiniest chapels, from royal palaces and mansions of the rich as from the poorest hut – from blood-drenched plains and seas. Let it bear to Her the anguished cry of mothers and wives, the wailing of innocent little ones, the sighs of every generous heart: that Her most tender and benign solicitude may be moved and the peace we ask for be obtained for our agitated world."One week after that, on 13 May 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in Fatima to the 3 little sheperd children.
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