Prophecy and Prayers for Peace, Part I

Or, Why Tomorrow May Be a Bigger Deal Than Some are Making It, but Smaller than Others are

On May 13, 1917, three children in Fatima, Portugal claimed that a woman shining in light appeared to them and introduced herself as Our Lady of the Rosary. She would appear to them five more times, including the famous “Miracle of the Sun” on October 13, in which thousands had gathered and saw the sun zig-zag across the sky and emit different colors. She reportedly told the children to pray the rosary every day to bring peace to the world and to end the war (World War I).

Our Lady of Fatima became a Marian apparition with devotees almost immediately in Portugal and Spain and gaining more international popularity in the 1930s. In 1930, the Church recognized the apparitions as “worthy of belief,” meaning that the messages did not contradict the faith and that it was alright for people to believe in the apparitions. With Vatican approval, belief is permitted as the messages properly point to Christ, but since revelations such as these are private (compared to the public revelations/prophecies in the time before Christ), belief is not doctrine nor mandated. Still, many do believe, and millions of pilgrims travel to Fatima every year. That said, only 22 apparitions of Mary have ever been approved by the Vatican.

Even at the time, there were doubts to the children’s testimony. Their families initially asked them to recant. In August, they were taken into custody by a city bureaucrat in hopes that removing them from their village/family would lead them to recant. They didn’t. A priest who interviewed the children pointed out a discrepancy in one of the prophecies—the children claimed Mary told them the war would end on October 13, 1917—yet the war continued for another 13 months. The children were known to be highly pious and would often fast from food and water, even while working in the Portuguese summer heat watching sheep.

Even one of the children, Lucia, later wrote about doubts she had at the time: “I began then to have doubts as to whether these manifestations might be from the devil ... truly, ever since I had started seeing these things, our home was no longer the same, for joy and peace had fled.” But in adulthood, she maintained that the apparitions were genuine.

Two of the children died in 1919 and 1920 from flu. Many people reported that the children claimed that Mary had told them that the two of them would die soon. The third child, Lucia, became a nun and dedicated herself to promoting devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Over the years, she claimed to have several more visions of Mary and Christ. In 1925, she claimed that Mary appeared to her and instructed her to promote First Saturday Devotion—a practice begun in the eight century of honoring Mary on Saturdays and further developed in 1889 as a Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the first Saturday of every month. Reportedly, Mary’s instruction was: “I promise to assist at the hour of death with the grace necessary for salvation all those who, with the intention of making reparation to me, will, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, go to confession, receive Holy Communion, say five decades of the beads, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary.”

In 1929, Sister Lucia claimed Mary appeared and reiterated a request made in 1917 that Russia be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart. In 1931, Sister Lucia claimed that Jesus appeared to her, taught her two prayers, and delivered a message for her to rely to the Church’s hierarchy.  Between 1936 and 1941, Sister Lucia wrote her memoirs. She left the Dorothean order in 1947 and joined the Carmelites. She died on February 13, 2005 at the age of 97.  

I think it’s important to place the apparitions and its immediate popularity into context. Portugal had recently become an officially secular government in 1910 with the overthrow of the monarchy and establishment of the Portuguese Republic. There was a lot of tension between the religious and anticlerics, which would ultimately lead to a coup in 1926. World War I was ravaging Europe. In April of 1917, Portugal had officially joined the front lines of the fighting. The threat of Communism was on the rise; in late 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution would overthrow the Russian tsar and place Russia under Communist control. Sister Lucia first set of memoirs came out in the midst of World War II.

I think it’s reasonable to think that the tensions of the time influenced how the visions were interpreted and how much weight people put on them. The world was changing, rapidly and violently. Our Lady of Fatima offered directions—actions—to put a stop to the madness, or a least protect yourself. The daily rosary, the First Saturday Devotion, the consecration, was all something to do when you felt like everything else was spinning out of control. And she assured people that the secular, communist, or modernist ideas of the age would not win out. She was—and is—a reminder of faithfulness and victory.

Recently, her message of faithfulness and victory has made the headlines of news all around the world, because tomorrow, Pope Francis will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and bishops and priests around the world will simultaneously join. And it raises so many questions: Is it a fulfillment of Our Lady of Fatima’s prophecy? Is it simply a nice gesture for peace? Is it a political act couched in ecclesiastical language? Can it truly lead to conversion in Russia and an end to the war?

Part II tomorrow.