-Brian Mendonça
It was the height of World War I. Russian forces were overrunning the world. In a small village in Fátima, Portugal, Our Lady is said to have appeared to three children tending their sheep in the countryside. It was the thirteenth of May.
Her message was simple 1) Pray the rosary daily
and 2) Do penance. Over the next six months every thirteenth in 1917, Our Lady
called the children to the same spot. Sometimes they could not – when they were
kidnapped by civil authorities fearing a disturbance to law and order. But most
of the times Lúcia (10), and her cousins Jacinta (7) and Francisco (8) did.
Fátima grew to be a site of religious pilgrimage
boosting Portugal’s dwindling economy. Last year 6.3 million people visited the
shrine. This year there were about thirty – all employees of the shrine - on
the thirteenth.
Yet, in the time history was being made, the
children and their families were the subject of ridicule. The village people felt
that the children were trying to show off. The local clergy felt that Mother
Mary should have appeared to them
rather than to the illiterate children.
Even in the face of death threats the children did
not flinch. ‘I am not afraid to die,’ says Francisco as he is being led away to
be dunked in a cauldron of boiling oil. However, the children are set free by
their civil administrators.*
The faith of the villagers grows stronger when
they find themselves being cured of their ailments.
The October apparition takes place on a rainy day.
A huge crowd gathers. Though the children believe Our Lady because they can see
her, the gathered public do not. ‘Give them a sign,’ implores Lúcia. Our Lady
nods and retreats. Soon the dark sky is animated by the brilliance of the ‘dancing’
sun which moves swiftly across the firmament. This spectacle is followed by another
which depicts hell and its fiery furnace. The people flee.
Mother Mary is believed to have to have given the
children three apocalyptic visions in 1917. The first is the vision of hell;
the second is the possibility of the Second World War, and the third is the
persecution of the Church.
Francisco and Jacinta Marto died of the Spanish
flu in 1919 and 1920 respectively. On
the hundredth anniversary of the apparitions at Fátima in 2017, they were
canonized by Pope Francis as the youngest non-martyred saints. Lúcia dos Santos
became a Carmelite nun in Coimbra. She was reunited with her cousins in 2005.
The devotion to Our Lady of Fátima continues in the shrine of Our Lady of Fátima at Don Bosco, Panjim. The statue of our Lady of Fátima was built after the Don Bosco House was canonically erected in 1953 - when Goa was under Portuguese rule.
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Published in Gomantak Times, Weekender, Panjim, Goa as 'Thirteenth of May' on Sunday, 24th May 2020.
*All references are to the English movie The 13th Day. Direction and screenplay - Ian and Dominic Higgins. Music - Andrew Guthrie. 13th Day films. 2009. Subtitled in Spanish. Black and white with colour. Postcard depicting Our Lady of Fatima, Zurich, Hermanos S.A. Early twentieth-century. Courtesy openbookpublishers(dot)com
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