In the years 1916 and 1917 a series of apparitions were seen by three young children that were to profoundly alter both their own lives and the atmosphere of the peasant village.
Most textual sources describing the Fatima events mention only the Marian apparitions that occurred in 1917. However, the girl Lucia Santos, the primary recipient of the apparitions, revealed some years later that three other apparitions in 1916, of a male figure, in fact preceded the Marian apparitions of 1917. The story begins early in 1916 when the nine-year old Lucia was sent by her parents to tend the family's sheep in the hills near the village of Fatima. She was accompanied by her cousins Francisco Marto, aged eight, and his six-year old sister, Jacinta. The children were on a hillside when they saw a vision of human figure. Writing many years later of the event, Lucia tells, "It was a figure like a statue..a young man, about fourteen or fifteen, whiter than snow". The figure spoke to the children, directing them to pray three times with him, "My God, I believe, I adore."Later that same year a second apparition occurred, this time when the children were playing near a well by Lucia's house. The white angel again directed the children to pray with him and told them also that Jesus and Mary had plans for them. A third apparition of this male angel soon followed, near the location of the first apparition, and more lengthy prayers were given to the children. Lucia tells that the angel held some sort of chalice in his hand that he held this in the air as he knelt to pray with the children. The locations of the first and third angelic apparitions, much visited by pilgrims today, are near the path leading from the basilica of Fatima to the hamlet of Aljestrel where the children lived.
The apparitions for which Fatima is known around the world began on May 13, 1917 and continued each month through October, always on the 13th. The first vision came to Lucia and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco as they tended sheep in an isolated ravine called Cova da Iria. The children first saw two flashes of lightening and then a 'Lady, brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light' who said she was from heaven. Lucia - the only one of the three children who ever spoke to the visions - asked, 'What do you want of me?' The Lady answered, 'I want you to come here for sixth months in succession. Then I will tell you who I am and what I want'. The Lady also directed the children to pray every day for peace and for the end of the war that was then destroying Europe, and then she disappeared in a blinding light. The children, unsure of what had happened to them, promised each other to keep quiet but later Jacinta let the matter slip when talking with her parents. Soon the entire village knew of the supposed apparitions and was making fun of the children.
Nonetheless, on the day of the second apparition, on June 17, approximately 60 villagers accompanied the children to the Cova da Iris ravine. The angel, visible only to the three children, again told them to pray and also predicted the deaths of Jacinta and Francisco. As she departed, the villagers saw a cloud rising and the branches of a tree leaning toward the cloud. Following this apparition, the civil authorities of Fatima put pressure on the three children, telling them to deny what they had seen.
Undeterred, the children again went to Cova da Iris on July 13, accompanied by several hundred peasants from the local area. Disturbed by the ridicule of the villagers, Lucia asked that a divine sign be shown. In response, the angel promised that in October she would reveal her identity and she also told the children three secrets. The first was a vision of hell "like a sea of fire" to which sinners would go; the second was a prophecy that the people of Russia would be converted if the people prayed; and the third, another prophecy, was kept a secret by Lucia for many years. ... Read More ...