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Thursday, 28 March 2024
Fatima for October

The Miracle of the Sun
at Fatima in 1917


The Miracle of the Sun depicted
in a stained glass window.

Between May 13 and October 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary appeared six times to three poor shepherd children near the village of Fatima in west-central Portugal.

At the first apparition in May, the oldest child, Lucia, had asked the woman where she came from. The Lady pointed to the sky and said: "I come from heaven." Lucia then asked her what she wanted: "I have come to ask you to come here for six months on the 13th day of the month, at this same hour. Later I shall say who I am and what I desire."

 

Now, all too soon, it was 13th October.

"I want a chapel built here in my honour. I want you to continue saying the Rosary every day. The war will end soon, and the soldiers will return to their homes."

"Will you tell me your name?" asked Lucia.

"I am the Lady of the Rosary."

Then followed the dramatic "miracle of the sun", witnessed by an estimated crowd of 70,000 people present, and by countless people living miles beyond the apparition site.

 


Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta

Some of the vast crowd who witnessed the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima in October 1917 on the occasion of Our Lady's sixth and final apparition (Newspaper Photo of the time)

One onlooker there, Maria de Capelinha, wrote:

The sun turned everything to different colours---yellow, blue and white. Then it shook and trembled. It looked like a wheel of fire that was going to fall on the people. They began to cry out, "We shall all be killed!" Others called to our Lady to save them. They recited acts of contrition. One woman began to confess her sins aloud, advertising that she had done this and that.... When at last the sun stopped leaping and moving, we all breathed our relief. We were still alive, and the miracle which the children had foretold, had been seen by everyone.

 

Secrets of Fatima