Our Lady of Fatima
- Lo Palm
- Jun 19
- 7 min read
Maybe the most well-known of all Marian Apparitions, Our Lady of Fatima, appeared to three children, Lucia dos Santos, Francisco Marto, and Jacinta Marto, 6 times in the year 1917 in Portugal.
Our Lady appeared on the 13th of each month except in August when the kids were thrown in jail in an attempt to keep them from visiting the apparition site. Why the 13th? Some theologians claim that it has ties to the book of Esther where it is said that the 13th day was the day where “the Jews gained power over their foes,” Esther saved her people and they lived. Likewise, at Fatima Our Lady showed up on the 13th day to save her people and show them the way. Of course, at Fatima, Our Lady came to bring us to Jesus. One of the ways was through receiving the Holy Eucharist - a major part of the Five First Saturdays devotion. Which brings another “13” connection. May 13, the date of her first appearance, was the original feast of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. Surely this date was not randomly chosen but was purposely pointing to the Holy Eucharist.
These apparitions were approved on May 13th, 1930 by Bishop Dom Jose Alves Correia da Silva of Fatima.
In 1916, Prior to Our Lady’s apparitions, the children were first visited by an Angel while they were out tending sheep. He was transparent, they said, and shining like a crystal. He said, “Do not be afraid. I am the Angel of Peace. Pray with me.” He showed himself 2 more times to prepare the children for our Blessed Mother. On the 3rd visit, he actually brought them holy communion. He brought a sacred Host and a chalice of our Lord’s blood. He let it go and as it suspended in the air, the Angel came and knelt next to the children and they all prayed. How beautiful. He then distributed the Body and Blood to the 3 children. The visits of the Angel were not revealed until years later because Lucia’s spiritual director did not want the messages of the Angel to detract from the messages of Our Lady.
In describing Our Lady’s appearance, Lucia said that she was “a lady dressed in white, shining brighter than the sun, giving out rays of clear and intense light.” During that first May 13th apparition of Mary, when the children realized the light coming from Mary’s open hands was the light of God, they fell to their knees and prayed, “O Most Holy Trinity, I adore you! My God, my God, I love you in the Most Blessed Sacrament.”
Among many other messages, Our Lady identified herself as Our Lady of the Rosary, urging us to pray the rosary every day - she makes this request multiple times over the course of the apparitions. She also said, “And after each one of the mysteries, my children, I want you to pray in this way: 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.”
The Fatima apparitions have gotten a lot of publicity because of the 3 secrets that were given to the children. Or really just one big message that has kind of been divided into 3 parts.
The first “secret” is actually a vision of hell. The visionaries recount is as such:
“Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror. We then looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindly and so sadly: You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.”
The second secret foretells the end of World War 1 and the beginning of World War 2 and the potential for a period of peace. Our Lady said to the children:
“The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.”
The third secret is another vision described as this:
“at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!'. And we saw in an immense light that is God: something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it, a Bishop dressed in White we had the impression that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.”
Quite a bit of controversy still exists over the interpretation of the third secret and whether or not it has actually been revealed in its entirety.
Regardless, she makes it very clear what is required of us and how urgent it is to consecrate ourselves to the Immaculate Heart and to pray for the conversion of sinners.
Over seventy thousand people were witnesses to her at her last appearance, describing what they saw as the “Dancing of the Sun,” leading to many conversions. People reported seeing everything change color, discs of color shooting out of the sun, the sun spinning and moving around the sky, at one point it appeared to quickly “zoom” toward the earth as if it were going to collide causing the crowd to scream and fall to their knees. Many have tried to explain this phenomena as a meteorological event, but none have been able to account for all aspects of what was witnessed.
The Feast day of our Lady of Fatima is May 13th, and she is also remembered and celebrated on Oct 13th the day of the last apparition and the miracle of the sun.
Francisco and Jacinta died from the flu in 1919, and 1920 respectively, and were canonized by Pope Francis in 2017. Lucia became a nun and lived to be 97, spending her life establishing a devotion to the immaculate heart. She died in 2005 and is currently in the process of being canonized.
There’s this kids show on EWTN that I’ve played for my daughter before and it is a little cartoon that retells the story of Fatima- it’s cute because it’s shows the little visionaries going through their day and holding one another accountable- they ask each other if they have made any sacrifices for the conversion of sinners yet. And make sure that any free time they have is spent being offered to God through our Blessed mother in some way. I think this really accurately captures our Lady’s prime message at Fatima- through her vision of hell, she shows us that we have EVERYTHING to lose. How we spend our time on earth matters and the stakes couldn’t be higher. But the path to Heaven, the path to Jesus is simple if we just take the hand of our Lady. We can play a role in Gods plan of salvation for the human race, we can offer little sacrifices each day and they will have profound eternal effects. We have no time to waste. We will see evil infiltrate the world on a grand scale, but we KNOW how this ends. And thanks to Our Lady of Fatima, we know whose Immaculate Heart will triumph.
Watch this reflection in video form with additional images here…
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