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On May 13, 1917, three children, Lucia de Jesus dos Santos (10 years), Francisco Marto (9 years) and Jacinta Marto (7 years), reported seeing "... a whiter lady brigher than the Sun" on an oak tree a meter or so, when pasturing their little flock in the Cova da Iria, the place of Aljustrel, belonging to the municipality of Ourem, Portugal.
Lucia saw, heard and spoke with the appearance, Jacinta saw and heard Francisco only saw but did not hear her.
The apparitions were repeated within five months and would carry a message to the world. On 13 October 1917 the apparition told them to be Our Lady of Rosário.
Our Lady of Fátima (Portuguese: Nossa Senhora de Fátima, European Portuguese: [ˈnɔsɐ sɨˈɲoɾɐ dɨ ˈfatimɐ]) is the title based on purported apparitions to three shepherd children at Fátima, Portugal, on the thirteenth day of six consecutive months in 1917, beginning on May 13. The three children were Lúcia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto.
The apparition is also referred to as Our Lady of the Rosary (a term first used in 1208 for the reputed apparition in the church of Prouille), because the children said the apparition called herself the "Lady of the Rosary". A combination of these titles is also seen, i.e. Our Lady of the Rosary of Fátima (Nossa Senhora do Rosário de Fátima).
The events at Fátima gained fame due to elements of secrets, prophecy and eschatology, particularly with regard to World War II and possible world wars in the future. Chief among these is also the alleged urgent need for the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The reported apparitions at Fátima were officially declared "worthy of belief" by the Catholic Church.
In the spring and summer of 1916, nine year old Lúcia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto were herding sheep at the Cova da Iria near their home village of Fátima, Portugal. They claimed to have experienced the visitation of an angel on three separate occasions. The angel taught them prayers to pray, to make sacrifices, and to spend time in adoration of the Lord.
On May 13, 1917, Lúcia described seeing a lady "brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal goblet filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun". Astonished they ran back to their village and told everyone. Further appearances were reported on June 13 and July 13. In these, the lady asked the children to do penance and Acts of Reparation and make personal sacrifices to save sinners. According to Lúcia's account, the lady also confided to the children three secrets, now known as the Three Secrets of Fátima.
The children subsequently wore tight cords around their waists, performed self-flagellation using stinging nettles, abstained from drinking water on hot days, and performed other works of penance.
Thousands of people flocked to Fátima and Aljustrel in the following months, drawn by reports of visions and miracles. On August 13, 1917, the provincial administrator Artur Santos (no relation to Lúcia Santos), believing that the events were politically disruptive, intercepted and jailed the children before they could reach the Cova da Iria. The administrator interrogated and threatened the children to get them to divulge the contents of the secrets. Lúcia told him everything short of the secrets, and offered to ask the Lady for permission to tell the Administrator the secrets. Prisoners held with them in the provincial jail later testified that the children led them in praying the rosary. That month, instead of the usual apparition in the Cova da Iria on the 13th, the children reported that they saw the Virgin Mary on 15 August, the Feast of the Assumption, at nearby Valinhos.
As early as July 1917 it was claimed that the Virgin Mary had promised a miracle for the last of her apparitions on October 13, so that all would believe. What happened then became known as the "Miracle of the Sun". A huge crowd, variously estimated between 30,000 and 100,000, including newspaper reporters and photographers, gathered at the Cova da Iria. The incessant rain had ceased and there was a thin layer of cloud. Lúcia called out to the crowd to look at the sun. Witnesses later spoke of the sun appearing to change colors and rotate like a wheel. Witnesses gave widely varying descriptions of the "sun's dance". Poet Afonso Lopes Vieira and schoolteacher Delfina Lopes (with her students and other witnesses in the town of Alburita), reported that the solar phenomenon was visible up to forty kilometers away.
Columnist Avelino de Almeida of O Século (Portugal's most influential newspaper, which was pro-government in policy and avowedly anti-clerical), reported the following: "Before the astonished eyes of the crowd, whose aspect was biblical as they stood bare-headed, eagerly searching the sky, the sun trembled, made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws - the sun 'danced' according to the typical expression of the people." Eye specialist Dr. Domingos Pinto Coelho, writing for the newspaper Ordem reported "The sun, at one moment surrounded with scarlet flame, at another aureoled in yellow and deep purple, seemed to be in an exceeding fast and whirling movement, at times appearing to be loosened from the sky and to be approaching the earth, strongly radiating heat". The special reporter for the October 17, 1917 edition of the Lisbon daily, O Dia, reported the following, "...the silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy purple light was seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds...The light turned a beautiful blue, as if it had come through the stained-glass windows of a cathedral, and spread itself over the people who knelt with outstretched hands...people wept and prayed with uncovered heads, in the presence of a miracle they had awaited. The seconds seemed like hours, so vivid were they."
No movement or other phenomenon of the sun was recorded by scientists at the time. Not all witnesses reported seeing the sun "dance". Some people only saw the radiant colors, and others, including some believers, saw nothing at all.
Various explanations have been advanced. Auguste Meessen, a professor at the Institute of Physics, Catholic University of Leuven, points out that looking directly at the Sun is known to cause phosphene visual artifacts and temporary partial blindness. Meessen contends that retinal after-images produced after brief periods of sun gazing are a likely cause of the "dancing" effects, and the colour changes were caused by the bleaching of photosensitive retinal cells. Meessen observes that solar miracles have been witnessed in many places where people have been encouraged to stare at the sun. He cites the apparitions at Heroldsbach, Bavaria, Germany (1949) as an example where exactly the same optical effects as at Fátima were witnessed by more than 10,000 people. Another theory is a mass hallucination stimulated by the religious fervor of the crowd.
Some onlookers reported other phenomena, including luminous mist and the showers of flower petals seen around and above the tree during previous visitations.
While the crowd was staring at the sun, Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta said later they saw images of the Holy Family, Our Lady of Sorrows with Jesus Christ, and then Our Lady of Mount Carmel. They said they saw Saint Joseph and Jesus bless the people.
They also reported that the apparition prophesied a great sign in the night sky which would precede a second great war. On January 25, 1938, bright lights, an aurora borealis appeared all over the northern hemisphere, including in places as far south as North Africa, Bermuda and California. It was the widest occurrence of the aurora since 1709 and people in Paris and elsewhere believed a great fire was burning and fire departments were called. Lúcia, the sole surviving seer at the time, indicated that it was the sign foretold and so apprised her superior and the bishop in letters the following day. Just over a month later, Hitler seized Austria and eight months later invaded Czechoslovakia.
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An estimated 70,000 people assembled to witness the last of the promised appearances of the Lady in the Cova da Iria on October 13, 1917. The widely reported miracle of the sun was a factor that led to Fátima quickly becoming a major centre of pilgrimage. Two million pilgrims visited the site in the decade following the events of 1917. A small chapel - the Capelinha - was built by local people on the site of the apparitions. The construction was neither encouraged nor hindered by the Catholic Church authorities. On May 13, 1920, pilgrims defied government troops to install a statue of the Virgin Mary in the chapel, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was first officially celebrated there in January 1924. A hostel for the sick was begun in that year. In 1927 the first rector of the sanctuary was appointed and a set of Stations of the Cross were erected on the mountain road. The foundation stone for the present basilica was laid the next year.
1930 was the year both of official church recognition of the apparition events as "worthy of belief" and the granting of a papal indulgence to pilgrims visiting Fátima. In 1935 the bodies of the visionaries Jacinta and Francisco were reinterred in the basilica. The coronation of the statue of Our Lady of Fátima there in 1946 drew such large crowds that the entrance to the site had to be barred.
Today pilgrimage to the site goes on all year round and additional chapels, hospitals and other facilities have been constructed. The principal pilgrimage festivals take place on the thirteenth day of each month, from May to October, on the anniversaries of the original appearances. The largest crowds gather on 13 May and 13 October, when up to a million pilgrims have attended to pray and witness processions of the statue of Our Lady of Fátima, both during the day and by the light of tens of thousands of candles at night.
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Private revelations do not form part of the deposit of faith of the Catholic Church, and its members are not bound to believe in any of them. However, as a matter of prudence, assent would normally be expected of a Catholic based on the discernment of the Church and its judgment that an apparition is worthy of belief. After a canonical enquiry, the visions of Fátima were officially declared "worthy of belief" in October 1930 by the Bishop of Leiria-Fátima.
At the end of the Second Vatican Council Pope Paul VI renewed the consecration of Pius XII to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and in an unusual gesture, announced his own pilgrimage to the sanctuary on the fiftieth anniversary of the first apparition. On May 13, 1967, he prayed at the shrine together with Sister Lúcia. This historic gesture further cemented the official support for Fátima. Pope John Paul II credited Our Lady of Fátima with saving his life following the assassination attempt on Wednesday, May 13, the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima, in 1981. He followed the footsteps of Paul VI, on May 12, 1987, to express his gratitude to the Virgin Mary for saving his life. The following day, he renewed the consecration of Pius XII to the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin.
