The Appearances of the Guardian Angel of Portugal
The incredible events that occurred in Fátima began around the year 1915. Three shepherd children, Lúcia dos Santos, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, on a couple of different occasions, saw an angel who called himself the “Angel of Peace.” He instructed them in believing in God and the value of making sacrifices for unbelievers:
In everything you can, offer a sacrifice as an act of reparation for sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners. Thus draw peace upon your country. I am its Guardian Angel, the Angel of Portugal. Above all accept and endure with submission the suffering which the Lord will send you.[1]
The Angel also taught them some prayers that reflect these teachings:
My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love you. I ask Your pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love You.[2]
Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore You profoundly and I offer You the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ present in all the Tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference with which He Himself is offended. And, through the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of You the conversion of poor sinners.[3]
The appearances of the Angel tended to tire out the children for a mysterious reason. He told them, however, that Jesus and Mary have “designs of mercy” for them. Little could they have known that the Angel’s appearances were a preparation for an even more monumental grace from God—to see and converse with Our Lady herself!
“Guardian Angels truly exist…they were created by God to serve, adore, praise and love Him. It is equally certain that God, in his abundant goodness and mercy[,] has given each of us an Angel to accompany us, help and guard us.” — Sr. Lúcia, “Calls” From the Message of Fatima (52-53).
The Apparitions of Our Lady (May-October, 1917)
Beginning on May 13th of 1917, Lúcia, Francisco, and Jacinta were tending the flock of sheep in a place called the Cova da Iria when they saw a light flash like lightning. Suddenly, there was a beautiful lady standing nearby on a little holm oak tree (azinheira). After reassuring the children that she meant them no harm, she requested that they come to the Cova on the 13th day of each month until October. During this time, she would continue to talk with them.
At the end of this first apparition, the lady[4] asked the children if they would be willing to: (1) Offer themselves to God, and (2) bear all the sufferings that He wills to send them. The purpose for each of these requests was also two-fold: (1) To make reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and (2) to make supplication for the conversion of sinners. The children consented and were told that they, “would have much to suffer, but the grace of God would be [their] comfort.”[5] They did indeed suffer in reparation and supplication. For example, Lúcia’s own mother, not believing her daughter’s claim, used the broomstick in an attempt to discipline her.[6]
The Three-Part “Secret” of Fátima
For the next several months, the lady continued to appear to the children. It was in July, however, that the “heart” of the message was given. During this particular apparition, the Blessed Virgin revealed a three-part secret to the children. The first part was a vision of hell, where the three children saw demons and people in torturous agony:
[Our Lady] opened her hands as she had in the two months before. The radiance seemed to penetrate the ground and we saw something like a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were the demons and the souls, as if they were red-hot coals, transparent and black or bronze-colored, with human forms, which floated about in the conflagration, borne by the flames which issued from it with clouds of smoke falling on all sides as sparks fall in great conflagrations without weight or equilibrium, among shrieks and groans of sorrow and despair that horrify and cause people to shudder with fear. The devils were distinguished by horrible and loathsome forms of animals, frightful and unknown, but transparent like black coals that have turned red-hot.[7]
The second part was about the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It contained requests that the Pope and Bishops consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart and that a new devotion called the “Five First Saturdays” be promoted.[8] Our Lady said:
You saw hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world the devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If they do what I will tell you, many souls will be saved, and there will be peace. [The] war is going to end. But if they do not stop offending God, another even worse [one] will begin in the reign of Pius XI.
When you see a night illuminated by an unknown light, know that it is the great sign that God gives you that He is going to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, hunger, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.
To prevent this I will come to ask the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays. If they listen to my requests, Russia will be converted and there will be peace. If not, she will scatter her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyr[ed], the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be annihilated. In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and it will be converted and a certain period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be kept, etc.[9]
In the next segment, we’ll talk more about the “errors” that Our Lady mentioned.
After stating these things, Our Lady then showed them the third part of the Secret:
After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’. And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.[10]
The vision is a powerful image of the sacrifice required of Christians in order to remain faithful to God in the midst of the evils outlined by Our Lady in the second part of the Secret. It is, in short, a reminder of the call of Christ in the Gospel to give up one’s life for His sake (Matthew 10:32-39).
This third part of the Secret is a bit controversial. Part of the reason why is because while the text was written down in 1944, it was not published until the year 2000. After so many years, and various speculations that had grown up around the topic, different opinions on the interpretation of the third part arose. The Vatican published a commentary and other supporting documentation when it published the text on June 26, 2000.[11]
Confirmatory Sign: The Miracle of the Sun
In order to confirm that all of these things were true, Our Lady promised to give a sign that would verify her appearances. This sign, witnessed by about 70,000 people, occurred on October 13th and is known as the “miracle of the sun.” For several minutes, the sun appeared to move around the sky in defiance of all cosmic laws—at one point even moving as if it would crash into the earth! People were terrified, screaming and even openly confessing their sins. After the sun returned to its normal position in the sky, the people looked around and saw that their clothes and the ground were completely dry. It had been raining just before the miracle.[12]
After such an extraordinary sign, the local Church began investigating the apparitions. During the investigation, two of the visionaries, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, died (April, 1919 and February, 1920 respectively), as had been prophesied by Our Lady.[13] The examination was completed, and, in October of 1930, the local Bishop, Dom José Correia da Silva, officially endorsed both the devotion to and the message of Our Lady of Fátima:
In virtue of the prior considerations and others that we omit for brevity, humbly invoking the Divine Holy Spirit and trusting in the protection of Mary Most Holy, after hearing the Reverend Consultors of our Diocese, we have for the good: 1) to declare as worthy of belief the visions of the shepherd children in the Cova da Iria, the parish of Fátima, of this Diocese, on the 13th of May to October of 1917; 2) to permit officially the cultus of Our Lady of Fátima.[14]
[1] António María Martins, S.J. (edit.), Memórias e cartas da Irmã Lúcia (Porto, Portugal: Simão Guimarães, Filhos, LDA, 1973), 109-121; 253-257; 317-329.
[2] Carmelo de Coimbra, Um caminho sob o olhar de Maria: Biografia da Irmã Maria Lúcia de Jesus e do Coração Imaculado O.C.D. (Coimbra, Portugal: Edições Carmelo, 2013), 37.
[3] Ibid., 39.
[4] The apparition did not identify herself until October.
[5] Martins, Memórias, 127; 329-333.
[6] Martins, Memórias, 43, 147.
[7] Martins, Memórias, 339-341.
[8] Martins, Memórias, 217-221; 339-343.
[9] Martins, Memórias, 341.
[10] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, The Message of Fatima (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000), 17-21. For more information as to how the third part was communicated by the visionary, Sr. Lúcia, see Carmelo de Coimbra, 262-277.
[11] The Vatican’s interpretation, as found in The Message of Fatima booklet, is not binding. We enjoy the ability to discuss and debate the interpretation, always bound to the law of charity.
[12] Martins, Memórias, 349-351; John Mathias Haffert, Meet the Witnesses (Washington, New Jersey: AMI International Press, 1961); Costa Brochado and George C.A. Boehrer (trans.), Fátima in the Light of History (Milwaukee, Wisconsin: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1955), 144-189.
[13] Martins, Memórias, 335. See also 81, 233, and 309.
[14] António María Martins, S.J. (edit.), Novos Documentos de Fátima (Porto: Livraria Apostolado da Imprensa, 1984), 131. Translation by Kevin J. Symonds.