Santos Francisco and Jacinta Marto

The shepherds of Fatima (1917) · First non-martyrs canonized

Two pastoral brothers, cousins of Lucia, who saw the Virgin in Fatima and died very young by offering sacrifices "for love of Jesus and for sinners"; canonized by Pope Francis in 2017.

Who were they?

Francisco Marto was born on June 11, 1908 and his sister Jacinta on March 11, 1910, in Aljustrel, in a family of poor peasants; they were cousins of Lucía dos Santos and, like her, pastoralists. Simple children, without studies, immersed in the popular religiosity of the Portuguese saw.

The apparitions

In 1916, before the Virgin, the three children received three apparitions from the "Angel of Peace," which taught them to pray and offer themselves. Then, from 13 May to 13 October 1917, they saw the Virgin six times in the Cova da Iria. Francis saw the Lady but did not hear her; Jacinta saw her and heard her, but did not speak with her: it was Lucia who spoke.

The words of the Virgin and her answer

Our Lady asked them to pray the rosary for peace and offer sacrifices for sinners. The two brothers took that request with a touching seriousness. From Francis, in a contemplative spirit, his constant desire to "comfort Jesus, who is so sad for sins" is remembered; he spent long times praying only before the sacred. Jacinta, marked by the vision of hell, repeated: "So many souls are lost! We must pray and sacrifice for sinners," and he offered with generosity how much it cost him: thirst, renunciation, disease.

Anecdotes and early death

After the apparitions they were misunderstood and even imprisoned one day by the authorities, who wanted them to say goodbye; the children did not give in. The "Spanish" flu epidemic soon took the two: Francis died at home, in Aljustrel, on 4 April 1919, at the age of ten; Jacinta, after offering long suffering in hospitals, died alone in Lisbon on 20 February 1920, at the age of nine, as the Virgin had announced. St. John Paul II beatified them in 2000 and Pope Francis canonized them on May 13, 2017, in the centenary of the apparitions: they are of the few non-martyrs raised to the altars.

Fruit

His example of child prayer and sacrifice, simple and heroic, has moved millions of faithful, and is an inseparable part of Fatima's message of conversion, rosary and repair.