In 1917, in the small Portuguese village of Fatima, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared six times to three shepherd children: Lucia dos Santos, age ten, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, ages nine and seven. Each time she appeared, she asked for the same thing: pray the Rosary every day for peace in the world and for the conversion of sinners.
The apparitions began on May 13, 1917, while the First World War still raged across Europe. The children were tending sheep in a field called the Cova da Iria when a brilliant light appeared above a small oak tree, and they saw a Lady “dressed all in white, more brilliant than the sun.” She told them she had come from Heaven and asked them to return to the same spot on the thirteenth of each month for six consecutive months.
At each apparition, Our Lady repeated her central request: “Pray the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war.” She also revealed three secrets to the children, which were later disclosed and confirmed by the Church. The first was a vision of Hell. The second concerned the spread of communism from Russia and the need for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The third, revealed in full in the year 2000, concerned the persecution of the Church and the attempted assassination of a pope, which Pope John Paul II identified with the attempt on his own life on May 13, 1981.
During the final apparition on October 13, 1917, Our Lady performed the Miracle of the Sun. An estimated 70,000 people, including skeptics, journalists, and atheists, gathered at the Cova da Iria despite heavy rain. Suddenly, the clouds parted, and the sun appeared to spin, change colors, and zigzag across the sky before plunging toward the earth, terrifying the crowd. The phenomenon lasted approximately ten minutes and was witnessed by people miles away from the site. Avelino de Almeida, a journalist for the secular and anticlerical newspaper O Seculo, had come to debunk the apparitions. Instead, he published a front-page account confirming what he had seen with his own eyes.
The children themselves identified Our Lady during the October apparition as “Our Lady of the Rosary,” and during the miracle, three visions appeared beside the sun: the Holy Family, Our Lady of Sorrows with Christ carrying the Cross, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
Francisco Marto died in 1919 and Jacinta Marto in 1920, both from the influenza pandemic. Both were beatified by Pope John Paul II on May 13, 2000, and canonized by Pope Francis on May 13, 2017. Sister Lucia dos Santos became a Carmelite nun and lived until February 13, 2005, at the age of ninety-seven. Her cause for canonization has been opened.
The message of Fatima is, at its heart, a message about the Rosary. Our Lady did not ask for grand theological programs or political strategies. She asked three children, and through them the entire world, to pray the Rosary every day. That request has not been rescinded, and its urgency has only grown.
Sources: “The True Story of Fatima” (EWTN); the Fatima Center (fatima.org); Britannica entry on Our Lady of Fatima; the Blue Army (bluearmy.com), “The Story of Fatima”; FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students), “What Happened at Fatima?”; and the original newspaper account by Avelino de Almeida in O Seculo, October 15, 1917.