100TH Anniversary of the Apparition of Our Lady in Fatima:
In May 2017, the Catholic world will reflect on a fateful day for three young shepherds in the fields of Fatima, Portugal, who were visited for the first of many times by the Blessed Virgin Mary. The children, Lucia dos Santos, age 10, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, brother and sister, ages eight and seven, were asked by Mary to pray the rosary for world peace, for the end of World War I, for sinners and for the conversion of Russia.
In March, on May 13th, 1917, they chose to pasture their sheep in a hilly depression owned by Lucia’s father and known as the Cova da Iria, or Cove of Irene. It was there, with one exception, that the Blessed Virgin under the title of Our Lady of the Rosary appeared on six occasions in 1917, and a seventh time in 1920 (to Lucia alone).
The message of Fatima:
1. Penance – In August of 1917 Our Lady told the children, “pray much and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to hell because there is no one to make sacrifices for them.”
2. Prayer – In each of the six apparitions she asked for the daily Rosary, and especially as an instrument of world peace. As she revealed in the third apparition: “You must recite the Rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war for only she can obtain this.”
3. Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In the second apparition, Our Lady let the children know that “Tell them that the Heart of Jesus wishes that by His side should be venerated the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Tell them to ask peace through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; God has placed it in her hands”.
She also promised the children, “I promise to assist at the hour of death with the graces necessary for salvation all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, go to Confession and receive Holy Communion, recite the Rosary and keep me company for 15 minutes while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary with the intention of making reparation to me.”
