Fatima

We decided to trade eight hours of walking in the rain in Spain for six hours of driving in the rain in Portugal. What is going on here in Iberia? Are we cursed? I have friends in Ireland and Quebec reporting out on the sunny warm weather, and here we sit with leaden gray skies and the drip, drip, drip of cool, steady rain.

OK, enough whining!

Like Lourdes, Fatima is a purpose-built site of religious pilgrimage. Otherwise, it is a tiny village which would never garner any attention. During the period May to October 1917 (notice those dates), three illiterate peasant children reported seeing visions of a woman as bright as the sun, who implored them to pray to end the Great War, to convert Russia and thus prevent more evil, and to arrange for a church to be built on the site, which was a pasture. The preposterous nature of the claims (Russia was a Christian nation, the war was several years old with no end in sight, why would anybody build a church there based on the claims of three shepherd children?) led local civic and religious authorities to reject the childrens’ claims. Still, a growing number of people joined the children on the 13th of each month, even though only the children could “see” the apparition.

All this came to a head on October 13th, when the Lady appeared one last time before a crowd of tens of thousands. Only the three peasant children saw her, but the crowd witnessed the sudden appearance of the sun on an overcast day, and the sun appeared to spin and move in irregular ways. Not all agree on what happened, but the sodden ground and damp witnesses admit they were now dry and amazed. Two of the peasant children died in the flu pandemic in 1918, as the Lady predicted, but the third, Lúcia became a nun and lived until 2005.

Much is made of the “secrets” the Lady told the children, which they only grudgingly revealed: the first was a vision of hell, which convinced the children of the necessity of leading holy lives. The second was a prediction that the Great War would soon end, but would be followed by an even worse one if people did not renounce evil, and Russia was not reconsecrated to the Sacred Heart. The third secret involved some danger to the Church, which Sister Lúcia confirmed included the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981.

Like Lourdes, the area outside the grounds of the cathedral is a garish mess of hotels, cafes, trinket stores and religious kitsch. The grounds themselves are tranquil, although we did run into an aggressive group of beggars that started telling at us when we did not respond to their entreaties! Fatima is a huge complex, and the original nature of the quiet grove where Our Lady appeared is gone. It is impressive simply for the size of the facilities, if not their architecture.

Here is the sole remaining tree, which the children stood under when they saw the apparitions.

It is next to the partially enclosed chapel of apparitions, where we attended Mass.

The complex is reminiscient of St. Peter’s square in Rome, and it stretches away from the former grove, with a neo-modern, partially underground complex of chapels on one side, and the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary on the other.

The latter has an especially dramatic altar scene:

What really happened at Fatima one-hundred and one years ago? Did the children make up a story eerily similar to Lourdes and Guadalupe? How did they know before the October Revolution that the communists would take over in Russia, that the Great War would end soon, that it would be followed by another, or that the children would soon die? Why weren’t the children more upset about their impending demise? Why did progressive, socialist reporters and Portugese government officials admit something very strange happened in the sky that day in October? Why did Pope John Paul credit Our Lady with saving his life during the assassination attempt? Was it just a coincidence that he finally, specifically consecrated Russia to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1984, and Sister Lúcia confirmed in 1989 that this met Our Lady’s guidance?

So many questions, yet here stands an immense monument to the power of faith.