Our Lady of Fatima: apparitions and Miracle of the Sun

The apparitions

On May 13, 1917, three Portuguese shepherd children were tending sheep at a depression in the hills called Cova da Iria, near the village of Fatima. Lúcia dos Santos was ten years old; her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto were nine and seven. After lunch the children saw two flashes of light and, in a small holm oak tree, a young woman more brilliant than the sun, dressed in white with a rosary in her hands.

The Blessed Virgin spoke to the children, asking them to return to the Cova on the thirteenth day of each month for six months. She instructed them to pray the rosary daily for the conversion of sinners and the end of the First World War, which was then in its third year. Five further apparitions followed:

• June 13, 1917: the Blessed Virgin foretold that Francisco and Jacinta would soon be taken to heaven, but Lúcia would remain on earth to spread devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
• July 13, 1917: the Blessed Virgin showed the children a vision of hell, and entrusted to them the Three Secrets of Fatima.
• August 13, 1917: the children were prevented from going to the Cova by the civil administrator of the district, who detained them in the town of Ourém. The Blessed Virgin appeared to them later that month at a nearby hill, Valinhos, instead.
• September 13, 1917: the Blessed Virgin promised a miracle on October 13 "so that all may believe."
• October 13, 1917: the final apparition, with the public Miracle of the Sun.

The Miracle of the Sun

On October 13, 1917, approximately seventy thousand people gathered at Cova da Iria in cold and heavy rain to witness the miracle the Blessed Virgin had promised. After Lúcia's exclamation that the Lady had appeared and was identifying herself as "Our Lady of the Rosary," the rain stopped and the sun appeared in a way that has come to be called the Miracle of the Sun.

Witness accounts describe the sun appearing as a silver disk that the eye could look at without injury, rotating, casting rays of color in all directions, and then appearing to descend toward the earth in a zigzag pattern before returning to its place in the sky. The phenomenon was witnessed by believers, skeptics, journalists, and atheists; it was photographed and reported in the Portuguese secular press (notably in the anticlerical newspaper O Século in Lisbon, whose editor, Avelino de Almeida, had attended skeptically and wrote a sympathetic account afterward).

After the miracle, the wet ground and the soaked clothing of the assembled crowd were observed to be completely dry. The Catholic Church does not require belief in the historical character of the Miracle of the Sun as a matter of faith. The Church's investigation, conducted by the Diocese of Leiria from 1922 to 1930, concluded that the events were authentic and that the apparitions were of supernatural origin.¹

The Three Secrets of Fatima

In the third apparition on July 13, 1917, the Blessed Virgin entrusted to the children three "secrets" or revelations. Sister Lúcia, the surviving seer, was permitted by the Church to disclose the first two in 1941 and to write down the third for the Holy See:

1. The vision of hell. The Blessed Virgin showed the children a vision of hell, "where the souls of poor sinners go." She instructed them to pray and make sacrifices for the conversion of sinners.
2. The Immaculate Heart of Mary and the consecration of Russia. The Blessed Virgin foretold the end of the First World War but predicted a "worse war" (which the Catholic tradition has interpreted as the Second World War) if humanity did not turn from sin. She asked for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and for the Communion of Reparation on First Saturdays. Pope Saint John Paul II made the consecration in 1984, after which Lúcia confirmed in writing that the Blessed Virgin had accepted it as fulfilled.
3. The vision of the suffering Pope. Sealed and reserved at Sister Lúcia's request until either 1960 or her death. Pope Saint John Paul II made the text public in 2000 through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The vision describes "a Bishop dressed in White" walking through a half-ruined city, falling under gunfire on a hilltop in front of a great Cross, together with bishops, priests, religious, and lay faithful. Pope John Paul II understood the vision in connection with the May 13, 1981 assassination attempt on his own life in Saint Peter's Square (on the anniversary of the first apparition). The Holy See has not closed further interpretation.²

Church investigation and approval

The local Bishop of Leiria, José Alves Correia da Silva, established a canonical commission in 1922. After eight years of testimony, examination, and study of the Miracle of the Sun, on October 13, 1930 (the thirteenth anniversary of the public miracle), Bishop Correia da Silva formally declared the apparitions worthy of belief and authorized the public cult of Our Lady of Fatima within his diocese.

Successive popes have endorsed the devotion. Pope Pius XII, on October 31, 1942, consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in fulfillment of the Fatima request, in a partial form. He repeated and refined the consecration in 1952, specifically including Russia. Pope Saint Paul VI confirmed the apparitions during his pilgrimage to Fatima in 1967, on the fiftieth anniversary. Pope Saint John Paul II made the consecration of the world and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25, 1984, the most theologically explicit form, in union with the bishops of the world. Pope Francis canonized Francisco and Jacinta Marto on May 13, 2017, the centennial of the first apparition, the youngest non-martyred saints in Catholic history.

The shrine and the feast

The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima, built around the original site of the apparitions, receives approximately six million pilgrims annually. The two major Marian pilgrimages of the year occur on May 13 (anniversary of the first apparition) and October 13 (anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun); each draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to the Cova da Iria for the Mass, the procession of the Marian image, and the candlelight vigil.

The Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Fatima is celebrated on May 13 throughout the Catholic world. The Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, closely associated with the Fatima devotion, is celebrated on the Saturday following the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The seers of Fatima:

• Saint Francisco Marto (1908-1919) died of the influenza pandemic at age ten, in fulfillment of the Blessed Virgin's June 13, 1917 prediction.
• Saint Jacinta Marto (1910-1920) died of complications of influenza at age nine, also in fulfillment of the prediction.
• Sister Lúcia of Jesus (1907-2005) lived to the age of ninety-seven, entered the Carmelite Order, and wrote four volumes of memoirs documenting the apparitions. Her cause for canonization was opened in 2008.

The Fatima devotion

The Catholic devotion to Our Lady of Fatima is structured around four principal practices the Blessed Virgin requested:

1. The daily rosary. The Blessed Virgin asked for the Holy Rosary to be prayed daily for peace and the conversion of sinners.
2. The Five First Saturdays. Receiving Communion, going to Confession, praying five decades of the rosary, and keeping fifteen minutes of meditation on the mysteries on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, in reparation for sins against the Immaculate Heart.
3. The Fatima Prayer. Inserted between decades of the rosary: "O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy." This prayer was taught by the Blessed Virgin during the July 13 apparition.
4. Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. A personal or communal act of entrustment to Mary's maternal solicitude.

For the rosary mysteries that Fatima specifically encourages, see the Marian Glorious Mysteries (the Assumption and the Coronation of Mary) and the Hail Holy Queen prayed at the conclusion of every rosary.

Connection to the broader Marian tradition

Fatima is the most recent of the principal Marian apparitions approved by the Catholic Church, following Our Lady of Guadalupe (1531), the Miraculous Medal apparitions (1830, Paris), Our Lady of Lourdes (1858), and Our Lady of Knock (1879). For the broader Catholic theology of Marian intercession, see Why do Catholics pray to Mary? and What are the four Marian dogmas?.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Lúcia dos Santos, Memoirs of Sister Lúcia, vols. I-IV (Postulação Centre, Fatima). For the canonical investigation, see the decree of Bishop José Alves Correia da Silva (October 13, 1930). ↩

2. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, The Message of Fatima (June 26, 2000), with theological commentary by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and the official text of the Third Secret. The consecration of the world and Russia by Pope Saint John Paul II on March 25, 1984 is documented in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. ↩