Our Lady of Fatima - May 13th, 2025

This year, we lift up the world, so in need of peace, to Our Sweet Mother, Our Lady of Fatima, who appeared then in a time of war - and reminded us that in the end Her Immaculate Heart will triumph, and that we must do penance, pray the Rosary, and save souls!

We commemorate this day because it is the first time Our Lady appeared to the three shepherd children at Fatima, Portugal.  She made five more appearances over the rest of the year until the Miracle of the Sun occurred on October 13, 1917, just as she had promised.  The children were Lucia dos Santos and her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto. The emphasis Our Lady placed on prayer and the triumph of Her Immaculate Heart has great importance in our community, for we join with Her in prayer every time we pray the Rosary.  A brief three-point summary of the Fatima message is: 1) each follower of Jesus should be permanently converted to Him, 2) all are called to prayer, especially using the Rosary, 3) His followers have a collective responsibility and should offer sacrifices of reparation.

Additionally, little Francisco developed a strong habit of praying the Rosary and seeking contemplation as a very young boy.  Following are details and reflections from last year’s pilgrimage to Fatima.

The children had a year of preparation before meeting Our Lady, during which an angel who told them he was the Angel of Peace appeared to them and taught them several prayers.  The most commonly known one is the prayer of reparation:

O Lord, I believe, I hope, I adore, and I love You.  I beg your pardon for those who do not believe, do not hope, do not adore and do not love you.

At Fatima, this statue reminds us of that event.  The children felt called to prayer and were still in the angel’s presence as Lucía's posture attests in the sculpture.  We are invited to be still in several places in the Bible, such as Exodus 14:14 and Psalm 46:10. Certainly, Jesus taught stillness in prayer, as evidenced by the times the Gospels recount the disciples finding Him in prayer.

Our Lady taught the children the famous Fatima prayer that has become a part of most Catholics' practice of reciting the Rosary:

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of your most Infinite Mercy

Today, Our Lady is sheltered in the place of her original Chapel, wearing a crown given in gratitude by Portuguese women since Portugal was kept out of WWI, thereby sparing their husbands and sons.  The bullet Our Lady diverted from Pope St. John Paul II’s heart has been set into the crown to thank her for that signal grace.  

The impact of Our Lady’s six apparitions continues to this day, even though all three visionaries have passed away.  The prayer she taught was accompanied by requests to pray the Rosary and to make reparation for sinners who had no one to pray for them.  Each one of the two younger children in the time between the apparitions and their deaths, developed specific characteristics as their prayer life increased.  Francisco, who died in 1919, was known for wishing to be in prayer, contemplating in quiet the mysteries of the Rosary.  To this day, you hear about him climbing trees to be up high and in peace.  At his parish, they stress this habit of contemplation by marking his statue - Contemplate with Francisco:

His sister, Jacinta, who died in 1920, was known for her gift of hospitality.  Lucia eventually became a Carmelite nun, and received several more apparitions from Our Lady as well as corresponded with several Popes. She was named a Blessed in her canonization process in June of 2023.

These three children have impacted their local parish as well as the world, and their parish has a lovely painting of them. It emphasizes the prayer life they were called to by Our Lady of Fatima, because it shows the result of prayer:  closeness with Her Son.  The quote by Jacinta under it declares: “My God, I love You!”  When we spend time in mental prayer listening to Him, what better phrase to have on our hearts than that one?  Pope St. John Paul II is there because of his connection with the secrets revealed at Fatima that predicted the assassination attempt on his life in 1981.

To this day, the number of pilgrims visiting the Shrine rises to the millions, with several hundred thousand on the nights of May 12, May 13, and October 12, October 13.  Every night,  the Shrine at Fatima hosts evening Rosaries in many languages that show the worldwide effect of Our Lady’s call to pray the Rosary.

The thousands of participants seen at the bottom of this photo join their voices in prayer. Yet, it is not loud. Holding individual candles deepens Our Lady’s call to prayer within participants as they pray together and process around the plaza of the Sanctuary.  As they pray, it seems clouds of angels surround them, and it becomes very clear that prayer is the most powerful action we can take in our lives.  The peace amid so many people is an experience that cannot be equaled in any worldly gathering of great numbers.  At times, even if pilgrims know the language being prayed, the power of peace overwhelms them, and they are drawn to silence in the crowd, contemplating the mystery of the power of the Rosary, and the generosity of the Lord our God to have given us His very Mother as our Mother as She stood at the foot of the Cross.

Let us honor Her on this, Her Feast Day by reciting the full Rosary of all four Mystery sets if your station in life allows, and if not as much as possible.  Take all of those you know of who have no one to pray for them and make reparation for sins as She wished.  In this way, we console Her Immaculate Heart and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Her Son.

--a pilgrim from the AV Fatima pilgrimage

From a 2023 post about the publishing of the Third Secret of Fatima:

We humans have an itch for knowledge and power. It seems to be in our DNA. In many areas of life, we are well-served by the restless striving for a better handle on things, all sorts of things--career choices, professional advancement, family relationships, concord with the neighbors, right down to eliminating weeds in the garden and getting better gas mileage. Knowledge and power, in themselves, are good, like all of God’s creation. But they often are denied to us. When the third secret of Fatima was published in June 2000, many hoped for stunning revelations about humanity’s future and cosmic destiny. Would there be prophecies about the end of the world? Would the antichrist be identified? We Catholics could only hope. After all, we frequently feel outnumbered and outgunned in a world increasingly hostile to the one true faith. It would be nice to get the drop on our adversaries for a change. What we got was a straightforward account of the visions received by Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Martos at the Cova da Iria in 1917, and written down by Lucia decades later. There were prophecies, but most of them had already taken place by 2000. The full text of the third secret was released, along with a Theological Commentary by then-Prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, future Pope Benedict XVI of blessed memory. The Cardinal opened with words clearly intended to dispel any apocalyptic fervor: A careful reading of the text of the so-called third “secret” of Fatima, published here in its entirety long after the fact and by decision of the Holy Father, will probably prove disappointing or surprising after all the speculation it has stirred. No great mystery is
revealed; nor is the future unveiled. So much for special knowledge and power. But then we see the wisdom of the man, a good and wise shepherd, and never one to shy away from difficult questions. He immediately posed the plaintive questions that doubtless rose in many hearts: “Is this what the Mother of the Lord wished to communicate to Christianity and to humanity at a time of great difficulty and distress? Is it of any help to us at the beginning of the new millennium?” Cardinal Ratzinger carefully explained and interpreted the symbolism in the messages. Perhaps more important, he told us what we are to do with this knowledge: “To save souls” has emerged as the key word of the first and second parts of the “secret”, and the key word of this third part is the threefold cry: “Penance, Penance, Penance!” The beginning of the Gospel comes to mind: “Repent and believe the Good News” (Mk 1:15). To understand the signs of the times means to accept the urgency of penance - of conversion - of faith. This is the correct response to this moment of history. … Allow me to add here a personal recollection: in a conversation with me Sister Lucia said that it appeared ever more clearly to her that the purpose of all the apparitions was to help people to grow more and more in faith, hope and love - everything else was intended to lead to this.

Our enemy the devil would like to annex the world to his own kingdom of misery. This he cannot do, of course, so he tries instead to promote excessive focus on the evil in the world. Maybe he can convince us that the world is inexorably turning into a kind of hell. Maybe he can aggravate our itch for knowledge and power, until we fall into anxiety’s dark labyrinth, and waste our energy in anger and ambition, or in timidity and trivial acts of service. If the enemy can’t destroy us, he will try at least to distract and disarm us. When I was in college, I had a philosophy professor who was a good man but an atheist. He found religion unconvincing because of the presence of evil in the world. He commented to me once, “I know Christians believe God uses evil to bring about good. But does he have to allow so much evil?” Years later, I realized the answer to his question. You might as well ask, “Why does He allow so much good? Have you ever considered the beauty around us, the glories of roses, and music, and friends?” And once you allow for the possibility of supernatural creation, the beauty and the glory is
overwhelming. My former professor no doubt wanted the world to be a better place. Perhaps he thought that, with a little more knowledge and power, with the right political allies and financial backing, we humans could solve our problems by ourselves, without any supernatural assistance. It isn’t only atheists whose thoughts tend in this direction. No doubt there are partisans within the Church who give the nod to Heaven and then forge ahead with their own battle plans. The unhealthy desire for knowledge and power is all around us, as is evidence of its effects. There is perhaps one Fatima prophecy that has not yet come to pass. On July 13, 1917, the three
children endured terrible sorrow and fear when they received a vision of hell, and of the souls suffering in torment. It lasted only a moment. Afterwards, they found Our Lady looking at them with kindness and sorrow. Her message included these words: “God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. … In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” We have that much power and that much knowledge. God willing, it will be enough.

-Glenn Dickinson