Marian devotion
José Prego from Moura, Portugal — CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
How this page is built
Each apparition is presented with the text of Sr. Lucia and, when it exists, the hot-made interrogation in 1917 by the parish priest of Fatima. There are two different documentary strata and here they are not mixed:
- Round, el relato de la Fourth report (8 December 1941), which is the most detailed writing the seer wrote, with its page in the official edition of the Sanctuary.
- Entre corchetes
[ ], as from of the parish priest P. Manuel Marques Ferreira or Dr. Formigão, collected in the Critical Documentation of Fatima and so cited by the Sanctuary himself in his official narrative. This is de 1917: 24 years before the Memories. - Entre llaves
{ }the text of the third part of the secretwritten separately in Tuy on 3 January 1944 and published in 2000.
This distinction is not an archive pedantry: it is the only way to know what was said when. And there's a case in which the reading of the story changes, as will be seen in July.
The numbers of attendees are those that publish the Sanctuary in its official narrative, and are horquillasIn the closed ciphers.
First apparition - May 13, 1917
Place: Iria's grave.
Kings Quarteu — CC BY-SA 4.0, see Wikimedia Commons
Sister Lucia first describes how they came: as they went down the hill, "almost by a large oak there," they saw a lightning, and a few steps forward, on a chariot, "a Lady, dressed all in white, brighter than the Sun, spreading light clearer and more intense than a glass glass full of crystalline water through the rays of the hottest sun." They were "about a mile away" (IV Memory, p. 172).
— Is it used? —pregunty.
— I'm from Heaven.
— What is used for me?
— I came to ask you to come here six months in a row, on the 13th, at this very hour. Then I'll tell you who I am and what I want. Then I'll still be back here a seventh time.
[- Can you tell me if the war is still long or if it ends soon?
- I can't tell you yet, as long as I don't tell you what I want, too.]
- And I go to Heaven too?
— Yes, you are.
- And Jacinta?
— Also.
— ¿Y Francisco?
— Also, but you have to pray a lot of rosaries.
[…]
- And Maria das Neves is already in Heaven?
— Yes, it is.
- What about Amelia?
— He'll be in purgatory until the end of the world.
[…]
— Do you want to offer yourself to God to bear all the suffering that He will send you, in an act of reparation for the sins with which He is offended and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?
- Yes, we do.
— You will therefore have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.»
And then, says Lucia, he opened his hands for the first time:
— O Most Holy Trinity, I love you. My God, my God, I love you in the Most Holy Sacrament.
After the first moments, Our Lady added:
— Pray the rosary every day, to achieve peace for the world and the end of war.»
About Maria das Neves and Amelia
Lucia herself explains who they were: two girls who had recently diedfriends of his, who were at home learning weavers with his older sister. And he adds two details that are almost never quoted and that are his, not from the Lady:
"I think I should have 18-20 years"(of Amelia).
— IV Memory, pp. 172-173.
What the text says and what it doesn't say. He says one is in Heaven and the other "will be in purgatory until the end of the world." He doesn't say why.and what they died of, or what they did. All that circulates on Amelia's sins is devotional invention: is not in any source. And the phrase itself raises a serious theological question that we are dealing with on the page. "Hell, purgatory and heaven in the message of Fatima"because purgatory, by definition, It ends; what is not known is exactly what it means "to the end of the world" in a language of vision. We don't solve it here lightly.
Second apparition - 13 June 1917
Place: Iria's grave. Persons present: 50 a 60.
It was the day of Saint Anthony, a great feast in the region: Sr. Lucia says that there were those who thought the children would not go.
— I want you to come here on the 13th of next month, to pray the rosary and to learn to read. Then I'll say what I want.
I asked for the healing of a sick man.
— If it becomes, it will be cured during the year.
- I'd like to ask you to take us to Heaven.
— Yes, I'll take Jacinta and Francisco soon. But you stay here some more time. Jesus wants to use you to make me know and love. He wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. [To those who embrace it, I promise salvation; and these souls will be loved by God, as flowers put by Me to adorn His throne.]
"Do I stay here alone?" I asked, with pity.
— No, daughter. And you suffer a lot? Don't be discouraged. I'll never leave you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.»
And the first vision of the Immaculate Heart:
Third apparition - July 13, 1917: the day of secret
Place: Iria's grave. Persons present: between 2,000-3,000 and 4,000-5,000, according to the sources.
Judah Bento Ruah - Public domain, vía Wikimedia Commons
— I want you to come here on the 13th of next month, to continue to pray the rosary every day, in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, to get peace from the world and the end of the war, for only She can be worth you.
- I'd like to ask you to tell us who you are, to do a miracle with everyone believing that you show up.
— Keep coming here every month. In October I will say who I am, what I want, and I will do a miracle that everyone will have to see, to believe.
[- I have here a request: if you convert a woman from Pedrogão and a woman from Fatima and if you improve a child from Moita.
She said she was turning them and getting better in a year.]
— Sacrificaos por los pecadores y decid muchas veces, y en especial cuando hagáis algún sacrificio: «Oh Jesús, es por vuestro amor, por la conversión de los pecadores y en reparación por los pecados cometidos contra el Inmaculado Corazón de María».»
And then he comes the secretthat this page only enunciates: the vision of hell, the request of devotion to the Immaculate Heart, the announcement of a worse war preceded by "a night illuminated by an unknown light," the future request of the consecration of Russia and of the repairing communion of the first Saturdays, and the final promise: "Finally my Immaculate Heart will triumph. "The third part - the bishop dressed in white - was written separately in 1944 and published in 2000.
The full text of the three parts, in Portuguese and Spanish, and their documentary history, are on the page "The secret of Fatima: a secret in three parts". The vision of hell, with its theological framework, in "Hell, purgatory and heaven".
The apparition ends with two phrases that should be given here, because they are the ones that entered the daily life of millions of people:
Cuando recéis el rosario, decid después de cada misterio: «Oh Jesús mío, perdónanos, líbranos del fuego del infierno, lleva todas las almas al Cielo, principalmente las más necesitadas».»
Fourth apparition - August 19, 1917, in Valinhos
On August 13 there was no apparition in the Cova da Iria: the manager of the Vila Nova Council of Ourém had taken the three children. The apparition occurred six days later, in Valinhos, y no en la Cova.
All that episode - kidnapping, interrogations, threat, and date correction - has its own page: "The kidnapping of Ourém and the apparition of Valinhos". Here's only the text:
— I want you to continue to go to the Cova da Iria on the 13th, to continue to pray the rosary every day. In the last month I'll do the miracle for everyone to believe. [If they had not left with you for the Village, it would be the best known miracle; St. Joseph and the Child Jesus should come to give peace to the world and Our Lord should come to bless the people, Our Lady of the Rosary came with an angel on each side and Our Lady with an arch of flowers around.]
- What do you want to be done with the money people leave in the Cova da Iria?
— Do two walks: you take it with Jacinta and two other girls, dressed in white; the other takes it Francis with three boys. The money of the walk is for the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary and what over is for the help of a chapel to be ordered to do.
- I'd like to ask you to heal some sick people.
— Yeah, some of them will be cured during the year.
And taking a sadder look:
— Pray, pray much and make sacrifices for sinners, who go many souls to hell for there is no one to sacrifice and ask for them.»
Fifth apparition - September 13, 1917
Place: Iria's grave. Persons present: 20.000 a 30.000.
- I've been asked to ask for many things: the healing of some sick, of a deaf-mute.
— The one heals, the other no, [For Our Lord does not want to believe in them.]. In October I'll do the miracle for everyone to believe.
[- People would really like a little captain here.
— Of the half of the money that they have gathered to this day, do two ways and give it to the Lady of the Rosary; the other half is for the help of the little captain.
I offered him two cards and a bottle of water.
— Me dieron esto, si used the quiere.
— That's not convenient for Heaven there.]»
Two things that this text teaches and that are rarely collected:
1. The rope. The children had tied a rough rope to the waist as penance, day and night. The message sends them Mothers Penance: "He doesn't want you to sleep with the rope." The mortification in Fatima has a limit, and the limit is set by the message itself.
2. The bottle of water of smell. It is the most human detail of the entire cycle: a ten-year-old girl offering a perfume. And an answer that is not a contempt, but a lesson of order: "that is not convenient there for Heaven."
Sixth apparition - 13 October 1917
Place: Iria's grave. Persons present: 50,000 to 70,000 (on these figures, and on what the witnesses who wrote that same month say, see the page of the sun miracle: the journalists present wrote 30.000-50.000).
Judah Bento Ruah - Public domain, vía Wikimedia Commons
— I want to tell you to make here a chapel in my honor, that I am the Lady of the Rosary, that they always continue to pray the rosary every day. The war is going to end [today] And the military will soon return to their homes.
- I had many things to ask you: if I would cure some sick and convert some sinners, etc.
— Some yes, some no. They must be amended, they must ask for forgiveness of their sins.
And taking a sadder look:
— Do not offend Our Lord, who is already very offended! {If people are amended, the war ends and if it is not amended, the world ends.}
[- Do you still want anything else?
— I don't want anything else.]
And, opening his hands, he made them reflect on the Sun. And as it rose, it continued to reflect its own light by projecting itself in the Sun. "
And then, final visionswhich give meaning to the three sculptural groups and so many images of the sanctuary:
Two things to say and they don't say
1. "The war is going to end today" was not fulfilled on that date. The armistice was the 11 November 191813 months later. The documentation of 1917-1918 shows that caused real credibility difficulties, and so it is recorded in the reports of the time collected in the critical edition of the Sanctuary (docs. 24, 30 and 35 Selection). It's in the official source: it's documented, not hidden.
2. The Lady identifies herself: "I am the Lady of the Rosary." It's the only name the text gives. All other titles - "Our Lady of Fatima" included - are later and are of the Church and the people, not of the apparition.
And a seventh time
In the first apparition the Lady had said, "Then I will come back here a seventh time." The official edition notes in footnote:
— Note 13 to the IV Memory, Memories, p. 172.
— Shrine of Fatima, 'Narrative of apparitions', citing the Blessed Bulletin Francis and Jacinta, Fatima, energy - March 2006.
Sources of this page
- Memories of Sister Lucia I — PDF oficial del Santuário de Fátima, ficha F002:
https://www.fatima.pt/files/upload/fontes/F002_Memorias1.pdf(HTTP 200). Páginas 172-181 y notas 13 y 14. - Shrine of Fatima, ‘Narrative of appearances’:
https://www.fatima.pt/pt/pages/narrativa-das-aparicoes(HTTP 200), que cita la 14.ª ed. de 2010 y la Critical Documentation of Fatima, vol. I (1992). - Critical Documentation of Fatima. Selection of documents (1917-1930), Santuário de Fátima, 2013 — PDF oficial, ficha F001:
https://www.fatima.pt/files/upload/fontes/F001_DCF_selecao.pdf(HTTP 200).
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