The Attraction of the Lady

The story of the shepherd children beatified by the Pope on May 13th, and of Lucia, the living witness to an unexpected event that changed the lives of three children. All the way tosainthood, to confound the learned and clever. The secret of secrets

by ANDREA TORNIELLI

“I bless you, Father, for hiding these things from the learned and clever and revealing them to little children.” When John Paul II began his homily, repeating Jesus’ words from the Gospel of Matthew, in the plaza in front of the sanctuary of Fatima, the gigantic images of Francisco and Jacinta Marto had already been unveiled. The two shepherd children-who were 9 and 7 years old in 1917 at the time of the apparitions and who died in great suffering not long afterwards–from that moment were officially Blessed. Never before had the Church raised to the altars children who were not martyrs. Never before had the Congregation for the Cause of the Saints recognized that such simple children had attained perfection of Christian life.
The story of Lucia dos Santos, the only survivor, and of Francisco and Jacinta, began in April 1916 when an angel appeared to them and urged them to prayer and penitence. On May 13, 1917, the three little shepherd children of Aljustrel, a small suburb of Fatima, were tending their grazing sheep in the nearby Cova da Iria. Just after twelve noon, they saw first a great light and then, above a small ilex tree, a “Lady more radiant than the sun” holding a white rosary in her hands. The apparition told the children that it is necessary to pray very much, and asked them to return to the Cova da Iria for the next five months at the same time on the 13th day of each month. Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta returned punctually in June, July, September, and October. Only on the 13th of August did they miss their appointment, because the Mayor of Villa Nova de Ourém, to whose district Fatima belonged, took them away and threatened them, in an attempt to make them confess that they had lied. But the Virgin appeared to them just the same, a few days later, on August 19th, while the children were tending their sheep on the spot called “dos Valinhos,” half a kilometer from Aljustrel.

The last apparition
On October 13th, during the last apparition and in the presence of about 70,000 people, the “beautiful Lady” said she was the Virgin of the Rosary and asked them to build a chapel in her honor on that spot. The little church is today protected by a large cement roof incorporated into the sanctuary, while in the place of the ilex tree where the apparition had hovered–destroyed piece-by-piece by the faithful who flocked there–a column of white marble now rises, holding the statue of the Virgin of Fatima. During the last apparition, everyone present saw a miracle: the sun appeared as a disc and changed color several times, turned on itself, and seemed to fall to the earth. Everyone was able to look at it without difficulty. Some years later, in 1950, Pius XII, greatly devoted to the Fatima apparitions (the first took place when Pacelli was consecrated Bishop in the Sistine Chapel by Benedict XV), saw the same miracle while walking in the Vatican gardens. The “Lady more radiant than the sun” gave the three children of Aljustrel a dramatic experience: she took them to see hell. From that day on, pain for the punishments to which sinners are subjected would mark their lives indelibly. “What most impressed and entirely absorbed Blessed Francisco,” said John Paul II in his homily, “was God in that immense light which penetrated the inmost depths of the three children. But God told only Francisco ‘how sad’ He was, as he said. One night,” the Pope continued, “his father heard him sobbing and asked him why he was crying; his son answered, ‘I was thinking of Jesus who is so sad because of the sins that are committed against Him.’ He was motivated by one desire–so expressive of how children think–‘to console Jesus and make Him happy.’… He devotes himself to an intense spiritual life, expressed in assiduous and fervent prayer, and attains a true form of mystical union with the Lord.... Francisco bore without complaining the great sufferings caused by the illness from which he died,” the Pope said. “It all seemed to him so little to console Jesus: he died with a smile on his lips.”

Like a mother
The Virgin of Fatima told the little shepherds that she had come to ask people “to stop offending God, Our Lord, who is already very offended.” Speaking with the sorrow of a mother, she asks the children, “Pray, pray much and make sacrifices for sinners; many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them.”
The true message of Fatima lies right here. It is not in the apocalyptic secrets of the prophecies that may or may not have come true. The real message of Fatima reiterates the words of St. Paul: “I will make up in my own body all the hardships that still have to be undergone by Christ.” Man too, with his sacrifice, can participate in the redeeming work of Jesus.
“Little Jacinta felt and personally experienced Our Lady’s anguish,” observed John Paul II, “offering herself heroically as a victim for sinners. One day, when she and Francisco had already contracted the illness that forced them to bed, the Virgin Mary came to visit them at home, as the little one recounts: ‘Our Lady came to see us and said that soon she would come and take Francisco to heaven. And she asked me if I still wanted to convert more sinners. I told her yes.’… Jacinta had been so deeply moved by the vision of hell in the July 13th apparition that no mortification or penance seemed too great to save sinners.”

Lucia’s memories
Sister Lucia dos Santos, 93 years old, the only survivor of the three children who saw the visions, lives in a cloistered convent in Coimbra. She is the witness; she is the one who wrote in her memoirs the story of the visions and the messages they received. She is the one who sent hundreds of letters to the popes, asking them to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But the two shepherd children, Francisco and Jacinta, the “little ones” to whom Mary showed herself, have not been given the honor of altars because they saw the “beautiful Lady.” Even if Pope Wojtyla chose the occasion of his third pilgrimage to Fatima to announce the publication of the famous third secret, which regards the long trail of martyrs of the twentieth century and the attempt on his life on May 13, 1981, this circumstance must not eclipse the heart of the religious event which has recently taken place: the beatification of two children who decided “ to make up in their own bodies all the hardships that still have to be undergone by Christ.”
During one of the apparitions, the Virgin said to the children that Portugal would preserve the dogma of the faith. Average attendance at Sunday Mass in that country is 50%, and whoever participates in a celebration cannot help being struck by the profound faith of that people: a faith that is simple and essential. The same faith that animated the little shepherds of Aljustrel continues to animate the crowds of pilgrims who with their rosaries in their hands cross the great space in front of the sanctuary of the Cova da Iria on their knees.