The Miracle of Fatima

The Christian faith includes belief in miracles.

Miracles are extraordinary events caused by God’s intervention in the world. They can do more than merely manifest God’s goodness; miracles often help deliver a message God desires to proclaim to man.

Some miracles involve Christ or His saints speaking to people, such as when, in the Book of Acts, Saul is temporarily blinded and hears the voice of Christ. Many Catholics believe that there have been many such miraculous appearances over the centuries, particularly of Mary, the mother of Christ. Our Lady of Fatima is one of the most famous.

The apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima took place between May and October of 1917. Mary repeatedly appeared to three young shepherd children (Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco) in Portugal. It was during World War I—which was physically and spiritually devastating Europe—that she appeared. Mary appeared six times to the children, always arriving on the 13th of the month.

Mary told the children to pray the Rosary daily, particularly for the repentance of sinners. She even showed them a terrifying vision of Hell in which they could see the torment that occurs to souls who reject God’s love. At its core, the appearance of the Blessed Mother in Portugal was about her message proclaiming the need for the world to cling to God, to prayer, and to conversion from sin.

On July 13, Mary told the children that she would perform a great miracle. She said, “You must come here every month, and in October I will tell you who I am and what I want. I will then perform a miracle so that all may believe.”

On October 13, roughly 70,000 people gathered to wait and see if the children’s message received from Mary would come true. Those in attendance ran the gamut. Some were devout, some were tepid believers, some were doubters, and some were completely opposed to the idea that a woman who lived nearly 2000 years before in the Middle East was appearing to shepherd children.

As the crowds grew, so did the inclement weather. There were overcast skies and heavy rain. According to eyewitness accounts, all of a sudden the clouds broke free and the skies cleared. The sun appeared and began to act in a way that clearly defied the natural laws of physics. It was moving across the sky rapidly, spinning and changing direction. The eyewitnesses could even stare at the sun without hurting their eyes, simply feeling its warmth and light. The crowds were amazed and convinced that what they were seeing was supernatural. Since then, the event has been labeled “The Miracle of the Sun.”

While the miracle of the sun was dramatic, the apparition had a more important purpose: to share messages that have become known as the “secrets” of Fatima because the children only divulged them years later.

The first secret was the vision of Hell that the children saw.

The second secret was that the only way to prevent the spread of Russia’s power and godless philosophies was to consecrate the world to Mary. Mary explained that, if this consecration did not occur, the errors spread by Russia would bring more wreckage than the current crisis of World War I. The consecration did not occur until decades later, in 1942.

Finally, the third secret, which was unknown to the Vatican until 2000. It references a prophecy of a “bishop in white” who will walk through a large city and be shot and killed. On May 13, 1981 (the feast of Our Lady of Fatima), Pope Saint John Paul II was shot in an attempted assassination attempt in St. Peter’s Square. The pope later stated that he believed that one man shot the bullet and that another, “motherly hand,” guided it. Even some of the medical team involved in saving his life claimed that the bullet seemed to have been “deflected.”

Ultimately, the miraculous appearance of Our Lady of Fatima serves as an invitation to consider the power and relevance of the Christian message. For what was just recounted is but one iota of the evidence for and power of Jesus Christ: the way, the truth and the life.

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