Feast of Our Lady of
Fatima
May 13
On a spring day
in 1916, three children watched their family’s sheep on a hillside in rural
Portugal. Completely oblivious to the fact that their country was at war and
that Pope Benedict XV was begging Mary’s intercession and lamenting World War I
as the “suicide of Europe,” the children sang, danced, and played games.
When it began to
rain, they took refuge in a cave-like rock formation and prayed the customary
daily rosary. In a hurry to get back to their games, they said only the first
words of each prayer as they fingered the beads: “Our Father, Hail Mary, Hail
Mary, Hail Mary… .”
Who could have
predicted that these ordinary children were on the threshold of an experience
that would transform them radically and give birth to a message of peace that
still resonates today? But on that warm afternoon, Lucia dos Santos, age ten,
and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, ages nine and seven, saw the first
of three visions of an angel. And these visions were only meant to lead up to
something even more extraordinary—the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima .
. .
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