Feast of Our Lady of Fatima
Yesterday, the 13th May, marks the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima.

It was on this day that the Blessed Virgin Mary started her series of apparitions to three children in the small village of Fatima in Portugal in 1917. Lucia dos Santos (aged 9) and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto (aged 8 and 6, respectively) were tending sheep, when they had a vision of a woman surrounded by light who identified herself as the Lady of the Rosary. She exhorted them to pray the rosary for world peace, as World War 1 was still raging.

Thousands of people began streaming to Cova da Iria, the site of the Virgin Mary apparitions. On Sept. 13, 30,000 people were present when dos Santos said the Virgin Mary told her, “In October I will perform a miracle so that all may believe.”

On that day, Oct. 13, 1917, the crowd of believers had swelled to 70,000. About 2 p.m., some began to see what later became known in the Catholic Church as “the Miracle of the Sun.” The rains that had plagued the day ceased, and the sun emerged from behind clouds to spin and tremble for 10 minutes.

After initially questioning the authenticity of the children's visions, the Vatican accepted them as appearances of the Virgin Mary (Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of Fátima), and Fátima became the location of one of the greatest Marian shrines in the world, visited by thousands of pilgrims each year.

Although Lucia dos Santos would later become a Carmelite nun and live to the age of 97, Francisco and Jacinta Marto died as children as a result of the influenza pandemic of 1918–19.

The pious siblings were beatified in 2000 by Pope John Paul II, making them the youngest non-martyred children to be beatified in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. They were canonized as saints by Pope Francis in 2017 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of their visions. (Taken from BNE Ways to Pray and Catholic Weekly.com)