Msgr. Beaulieu – Fatima

The Marian Apparitions & the Virgin’s Message

On May 13th, 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, with an urgent message for the world. She would appear five more times, on the thirteenth day of each month, with the final apparition taking place in October. At the first apparition, Mary appeared to three illiterate children, Lucia Santos, Francisco Marto and his sister Jacinta, who were between the ages of 10 and 13, who saw a vision of a Lady who reappeared on five subsequent occasions (June 13, July 13, August 19, September 13, and October 13). They often took their families’ few sheep to graze. Two favorite grazing areas were the hillside facing Aljustrel, near an outcropping called Loca do Cabeco (Place of the Head) and the Cova da Iria (Cove of Irene) at some distance beyond Fátima. At first one, then the other, would occur the apparitions which would eventually change the course of the children’s lives and the religious history of the 20th century.

The message of Fatima can be summarized into two essential elements and, in some way or other, all the other elements of Fatima can be related in a certain way. First and foremost is the singular role of the Immaculata in the Economy of Salvation, coupled with devotion to the Immaculate Heart for the individual life of faith and for humanity’s future. To these two elements, all the other aspects of the apparitions are linked by the spiritual practices encouraged by the Angel and by the Lady, as well as the prophetic content of the message of Fatima, upon which the fate of the world depends.

The Three Secrets of Fatima

The first secret was a vision of hell revealed on 13 July 1917. The second was that the world war that was then raging would soon end, though another world war was in the offing unless the world stopped offending God or if Russia did not convert to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These two secrets were disclosed, but the third secret Lucia did not due to her belief that the Virgin had told her not to. Yet, the third part of the secret was written down “by order of His Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and the Most Holy Mother” on January 3, 1944. Then, in June 1944, the sealed envelope containing the third secret was delivered to Bishop Silva of Leiria, where it stayed until 1957, when it was finally delivered to Rome. On May 13, 2000, 83 years after the first apparition of the Lady to the children in the Cova da Iria, the Third Secret would finally be released. The secret was about the 20th century persecution of Christians that culminated in the failed Pope John Paul II assassination attempt on May 13, 1981, the 64th anniversary of the first apparition of the Lady at Fátima. In the first apparition, the Lady of Fatima declared, “Pray the Rosary every day, in order to obtain peace for the world, and the end of the war” and at her final appearance, she revealed herself as Our Lady of the Rosary.