Our Lady of Fátima

The Lady of the Rosary at the Cova da Iria

Our Lady of Fátima, formally Our Lady of the Rosary of Fátima, is a devotion under which the Virgin Mary is venerated. It originated in the testimonies of three shepherd children —Lúcia dos Santos, Francisco and Jacinta Marto— who said they had witnessed several apparitions at the Cova da Iria, in Fátima (Portugal), between 13 May and 13 October 1917. Since then this devotion has spread its renown throughout the world, and its shrine is one of the most important centres of Catholic pilgrimage.

ข้อเท็จจริงสำคัญ

Central message: the Virgin called for the praying of the Rosary, for penance and for conversion, and asked for devotion to her Immaculate Heart.

The Angel and the little shepherds

According to the testimony of those who lived it, in 1916 the three shepherd children —Lúcia dos Santos, ten years old, and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto, aged six and nine— experienced on three occasions, during the spring and summer, the presence of an angel while they tended their sheep, whom they called the Angel of Portugal or the Angel of Peace. As they recounted, the angel taught them to pray for the conversion of sinners and counselled them to practise daily sacrifice and the adoration of God in the Eucharist. The children understood this as a preparation for the apparitions of the Virgin that would take place the following year.

The six apparitions

On Sunday 13 May 1917, the three children went to graze their flock at the Cova da Iria, near Fátima. Lúcia described having seen, above a holm oak, a woman «brighter than the sun,» dressed in white, with a mantle edged in gold and a rosary in her hands, who asked them to return on the same day and at the same hour for six consecutive months, entrusting them with the praying of the Rosary. Astonished, they ran to announce it to their village, where they met with the disbelief of many of their neighbours.

The apparitions followed one another on the thirteenth day of each month. In the messages the children conveyed, the Virgin exhorted them to repentance, to conversion and to the practice of prayer and penance in reparation for sins. On 13 July 1917, according to Lúcia’s account, they were entrusted with the so-called «secret of Fátima,» made known by the Holy See during the pontificate of Saint John Paul II. On their returns, the children were followed by thousands of people; the Virgin insisted on the importance of the Rosary for the conversion of sinners and asked that a chapel be built on the spot.

Francisco and Jacinta Marto fell ill during the influenza epidemic of 1918. Francisco died on 4 April 1919 and Jacinta on 20 February 1920; both were canonized. Lúcia dos Santos lived many years as a religious sister.

The message: Rosary, penance and the Immaculate Heart

According to the children’s testimonies, the Virgin stressed three appeals that sum up the message of Fátima:

📿 The praying of the Holy Rosary each day, for the conversion of sinners and for the peace of the world.
🙏 Penance and conversion, as a path of reparation for the sins of humanity.
💗 Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which gave rise to successive consecrations by the popes.

The Miracle of the Sun (13 October 1917)

According to Lúcia’s writings, the last apparition of the Virgin to the three little shepherds took place on 13 October 1917, the day on which the so-called «Miracle of the Sun» occurred, witnessed by a great multitude —the chronicles of the time speak of tens of thousands of people—, among them journalists and public figures. The journalist Avelino de Almeida, of the newspaper O Século, reported the event, which he described as an unusual movement or «dance» of the sun.

Various researchers have proposed natural explanations of the phenomenon (optical effects from looking at the sun, atmospheric phenomena). The Church does not require belief in the apparitions as an article of faith; the discernment of their authenticity belongs to the sense of the faithful guided by the Magisterium.

Approval by the Church (1930)

On 13 October 1930, the Bishop of Leiria declared the apparitions worthy of belief and authorized the cult of Our Lady of Fátima. The later chronology records milestones such as the beginning of the construction of the Chapel of the Apparitions (1919), the first consecration of Portugal to the Immaculate Heart of Mary (1931) and the canonical coronation of the image (1946). The Church recalls that recognized private revelations do not belong to the deposit of faith, but help us to live more fully the definitive Revelation of Christ in a particular age.

Fátima and the popes

The message of Fátima has marked the magisterium of several pontiffs in a singular way. On 31 October 1942, Pius XII consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Paul VI made a pilgrimage to Fátima in 1967, on the fiftieth anniversary of the first apparition. Saint John Paul II closely linked his pontificate to Fátima: he travelled there as a pilgrim after surviving the assassination attempt of 1981 —one of whose bullets was set into the crown of the image—, renewed the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1984 and, on his visit in the year 2000, beatified Francisco and Jacinta and revealed the third part of the secret. In 2017, Pope Francis visited Fátima on the centenary of the first apparition and canonized the two little seers.

The spiritual message of Fátima

The event of Fátima still speaks to us today with simplicity:

📿 The Rosary is a path of peace. Mary presented it as a simple and powerful prayer for the world.
🙏 Conversion begins in the heart. Penance and prayer make reparation and transform.
👧 God speaks through the little ones. Three shepherd children were the bearers of a universal message.
💗 The Immaculate Heart of Mary is a refuge and a sure path to her Son.

Prayer to Our Lady of Fátima

Pray also the Litany of Our Lady of Fátima and prepare her feast with the novena to Our Lady of Fátima.