The Story of Fatima

APRIL 9 THIS YEAR IN ROME will see the beatification of two of the young shepherds who, in 1917, saw a vision of Our Lady in Fatima, Portugal. They are Jacinta and Francisco Marto, the younger members of the trio, the brother and sister who died some years after the apparition, when they were respectively nine and eleven years old. The third witness, their cousin Lucia, is still alive. She is 92 years old and is a cloistered nun in the Carmel of Coimbra. She has said that, if the Pope will allow her, she would wish to be present at the solemn ceremony in Saint Peter’s Square.
The apparitions of Fatima are among the most influential religious events in the Catholic world. They are important even today, especially for the prophecies regarding the Soviet Union, which the three children made public in 1917 and which have uncannily been proved true in the last few years.

Jacinta was seven years old, Francisco 8 and Lucia 10. There were six apparitions in all: the last, on 13 October, was accompanied by a startling event, a ‘miracle’ to which the more than seven thousand people present were eyewitnesses.

The first prophecy

On their second meeting, the mysterious lady told the young shepherds that she would very soon take Francisco and Jacinta to Paradise with her, while Lucia would remain on earth for a long time to bear witness to what she had seen. Francisco would die in 1919 and Jacinta in 1920. Lucia is still alive, as had been foretold. After a long investigation, and having accepted that many people have been cured miraculously through the intercession of Francisco and Jacinta, the Church has concluded that these two children are worthy of being raised to the glory of the altars.
The news of the forthcoming beatification of the two little prophets, made public on October 13, 1999, aroused great enthusiasm in the town of Fatima. The number of pilgrims, which had always been high, grew even greater. An endless procession of people arriving from all parts of the world can be found at the tombs of the two young shepherds, located within the shrine itself.
But who were Francisco and Jacinta? What did they do during their brief time on earth? Why has the Church decided to raise them to the glory of the altars even though they died while they were still children?
To answer these questions which many people are surely now asking, and to reconstruct the extraordinary series of events of 1917 in which Francisco, Jacinta and Lucia played a fundamental role, we went to Fatima in search of documentation and witnesses accounts. During our research, we were lucky enough to obtain the services of an exceptional guide: Fr. José dos Santos Valinho, nephew of Sister Lucia and second cousin to Francisco and Jacinta. He accompanied us to visit the site of the apparitions and the relations of Francisco and Jacinta, providing us with much important information, much of which had never before been made public.

The shepherds’ brother

First of all, Fr. Valinho took us to meet João, the brother of Francisco and Jacinta, who is now 93 years old. He lives in Aljustrel, near the house where he was born and where he spent his childhood with his two siblings who are about to be beatified. He is a sprightly old man, in excellent health. He came briskly to meet us, telling us that he preferred to talk together in the open air, among the trees. We sat on a bench in a large clearing near the house.
This is where I used to play with Francisco and Jacinta, he says, smiling. We had little time to play in those days, but in the evenings, when we had put the sheep in their pen -especially in the summer when the evenings are long - we would play here with the other children.
As he smiles, the wrinkles on his sunburnt face become more apparent. He wears the cloth cap so typical of Portuguese peasant farmers. He has white whiskers and an inquiring gaze. It is 6 p.m. on a lovely cool evening. At this time of day, the pilgrims are in their guest houses or are thronging the shrine for the evening celebrations, and so there is no one on the streets.
João only speaks the local dialect, and so I ask my questions through Fr. Valinho, who translates them and relays the answers. Thus I learn that João has spent his whole life in these parts.

What were your younger brother and sister like?
They were normal children, no different from the others. They didn’t seem to have any particular gifts. Francisco was a calm and rather reserved child. He loved nature and animals. I remember he would always take some bread for the birds when he went to pasture the sheep. Once he gave a child who had caught a sparrow some money to let it go. There was an old woman, Aunt Marie, who would go to pasture her sheep, and when they went too far away, she had great difficulty fetching them again. Francisco would always go to help her get the flock back.
Jacinta, however, was very lively. She, too, had a great love for nature and animals. She would always stand in the middle of the flock, and knew every one of the sheep. She would call them by name. During the journey to and from pasture, she would carry the smallest lambs in her arms so they wouldn’t get tired. And when there were many of them, she would carry them in turns.

I have read that Francisco liked to play the flute.
Yes, he did, and so did Jacinta. We children used to make flutes from the branches of a plant similar to bamboo. My little brother and sister also liked to sing, and Jacinta loved to dance. They were happy children, like the rest of us.

What did they say in your house when Jacinta and Francisco talked of the apparition?
No one believed them. We thought it was impossible, and that Francisco, Jacinta and Lucia had made the whole thing up.

What did you think about the change in your brother?
I was sorry for him. I thought he had been afflicted by some illness or was the victim of some kind of witchcraft.

What did your parents say?
They were both very worried. Aunt Maria Rosa, Lucia’s mother, would get very angry with her daughter. My parents were more understanding. They didn’t believe in the apparitions, but they didn’t scold Francisco or Jacinta.

Tell us about the famous ‘miracle of the sun’ which took place at the last apparition on October 13, 1917.
I didn’t go to Cova de Iria on that day and so I didn’t see anything. I heard of what had happened because the whole town was talking about it. Even at home the event aroused a lot of interest. On that day, 70,000 people were gathered at Cova de Iria. They had arrived from all parts, even from abroad. It had rained all night, and was still raining. The people’s clothes were soaked and muddy because Cova de Iria was surrounded by fields. But notwithstanding the dreadful weather, a huge crowd waited there, rooted to the spot. At a certain point during the apparition Lucia had said: ‘Look at the sun.’ And in that instant, the clouds divided and the sun came out. It wasn’t still in the sky, it was moving, dancing, pirouetting, dropping through the sky as though it were about to fall on the crowd itself. The people shouted out in fear. The phenomenon continued for some minutes, then everything went back to normal. Everyone realised that their clothes were now completely dry. Even the newspapers wrote of the unprecedented event, and many people who had previously been sceptical became believers. But I wasn’t there that day, and so I continued to be one of the sceptics.

Everything happened as Jacinta said it would. She got ill with pneumonia which was deadly in those days. We looked after as well as we could at home. My parents cried, and Jacinta continued to repeat that her hour was near. She was sent away from the hospital of Vila Nova de Ourém, where she underwent treatment for two months, because doctors were unable to do anything for her. Later, relatives and friends convinced my parents to send her to another large hospital in Lisbon. They took her, but it was a wasted journey. She died on the night of February 20, 1920.
When I realised that everything my brother and sister had said had come true, I realised that something extraordinary had really happened.

How did your brother and sister behave when they were ill?
I remember it very well. They never complained, and they weren’t afraid of suffering. They continued to pray, and to offer their lives to God for the conversion of sinners. My mother remembered that, when the end came, Francisco, looking out of the window, said: ‘Mother, look at that beautiful light.’ He was smiling as though he had recognised someone.
Jacinta’s illness lasted three months. She suffered a lot, although she didn’t let anyone see it. When Lucia came to visit, Jacinta would tell her: ‘Don’t let anyone know that I’m suffering, not even my mother. I don’t want her to worry.’ When the pain was too much she would say: ‘Oh Jesus, now you can convert many sinners because this sacrifice is very great.’ Both of them accepted their illness and suffering with joy, something very unusual for such small children.

Were there solemn funeral celebrations?
No, both funerals were very low-key affairs. When Francisco died we and a few other relatives were the only people present. It was the same for Jacinta. This was also because there was a conspicuous number of funerals in that period. People were dying in continuation from pneumonia, Spanish ‘flu and other lethal ailments. In that period, two other sisters of mine, Teresa and Florinda, both died from pneumonia.

had to recite so many rosaries to get to heaven, what penance would I, a sinner, have to do? What penance would they have to do? My question was greeted by a deafening silence.

João Marto smiles mischievously. He rises, since it is getting late. He waves a friendly goodbye and heads off for his home, accompanied by Fr. Valinho. Every so often, he turns and waves.