Saints celebrated on the 13th of May
OUR LADY OF FATIMA
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED AT FATIMA?
The three children were watching their flocks as usual. They were ten-year-old Lucia dos Santos and her two cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, nine and seven respectively. They were in a natural depression among the hills which was called the Cova da Iria. They had said their Rosary, as was their custom, and they had begun building a stone playhouse.
SUDDENLY, A BRILLIANT SHAFT OF LIGHT PIERCED THE AIR
Suddenly, a brilliant shaft of light pierced the air. Frightened, they looked about them. The sun shone brightly, and there was not a cloud in the sky. How could there have been lightning? Just the same, they decided that they had better go home. They gathered the sheep and started down the hill.
When they were halfway down, another shaft of light filled the air. Panicky, they turned toward the right, and there, standing above a small holm oak they saw a beautiful Lady.
“It was a Lady dressed all in white,” Lucia says, “more brilliant than the sun; shedding rays of light, clearer and stronger than a crystal glass filled with the most sparkling water, pierced by the burning rays of the sun.”
HER HANDS WERE JOINED IN AN ATTITUDE OF PRAYER
Her hands were joined in an attitude of prayer. From her right arm hung a string of pearly white beads ending in a cross of burnished silver. Her feet were bare and rested on a cloud that just touched the little evergreen.
"DO NOT BE AFRAID"
“Do not be afraid,” the Lady said in a sweet voice, “I will not harm you.” (How similar to the first words spoken to the children of La Salette!)
The words and the voice were both reassuring, and Lucia summoned enough courage to ask, “Where are you from, Madam?”
“I am from heaven.”
“What do you wish of me?”
“I come to ask you to meet me here six months in succession at this same hour, on the thirteenth of each month. In October, I will tell you who I am and what I want.”
"AM I GOING TO HEAVEN?"
Francisco could see the Lady but he could not hear her, nor could he hear any of the subsequent apparitions. Jacinta could both see and hear the Lady, but Jacinta did not talk to her. All conversation during the series of apparitions were between the Lady and Lucia.
“And I, am I, too, going to heaven?” Lucia asked.
“Yes, you shall.”
“And Jacinta?”
“She, too.”
“And Francisco?”
“He, too, but first he must say many Rosaries.”
Father John De Marchi in "The Immaculate Heart" says that here the Lady’s beautiful and compassionate glance rested for a little while on Francisco. “For reasons we are not qualified to fathom, it held a shade of sadness and disapproval. Somewhere in his little heart the Lady must have read a fault that others could not see.
Lucia thought of two girls who used to come to her house to learn sewing from her sisters. Both girls had died only recently.
“Is Maria Nevers in heaven?”
“Yes, she is.”
“And Amelia?”
The document gives three different versions of our Lady’s answer to this question: “She is in purgatory”; “She is still in purgatory”; and “She will be in purgatory till the end of the world.”
Many people have objected to the third version, but Lucia has insisted that it is the correct one. She says there is nothing strange about it; a person can go to hell for all eternity for missing Mass on Sunday.
"DO YOU WISH TO OFFER YOURSELVES TO GOD?"
The Lady then said to the children: “Do you wish to offer yourselves to God and endure all the suffering that He may chose to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and to ask for the conversion of sinners?”
“Yes, we do!” Lucia answered eagerly.
“Then you will have much to suffer, but the grace of God will assist you and always bear you up.”
"SAY THE ROSARY EVERY DAY TO OBTAIN PEACE"
She opened her hands. From each palm came a stream of light which shone on the children and seemed to penetrate to the depths of their souls. Moved by an inward impulse the children fell to their knees and prayed: “Most holy Trinity, I adore You! My God, my God, I love You in the Most Blessed Sacrament.”
The Lady spoke again. “Say the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war.”
SHE DISAPPEARED IN THE IMMENSITY OF SPACE
“She began to elevate herself serenely,” Lucia says, “going in the direction of the east until she disappeared in the immensity of space.”
From: “The Woman Shall Conquer” by Don Sharkey, Prow Books/Franciscan Marytown Press, Libertyville, IL, 1954
➡️ Fatima Apparition - 13 June
⬅️ Fatima Apparitions - The Beginnings
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