Catholics are renewing Mary’s Rosary devotion as the Church commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Fatima apparitions.

“Say the Rosary every day to bring peace to the world and the end of the war.”

One hundred years ago at a field in Fatima, Portugal, the Blessed Virgin Mary spoke those words to three shepherd children. One thousand miles away, in the bloodstained fields of France, Europe’s proud empires counted hundreds of thousands of their youth killed and wounded in another battle vainly promised as the way to end the “war to end all wars.”

In 1917, meaning, purpose, value, along with transcendence, dignity, and benevolence were rapidly being shed, and this interior emptiness was fueling humanity’s ungodly rage and desire for annihilation. It was into that environment that Mary injected herself in Fatima, bringing a message of light and hope.

It’s always interesting to look at a date or a period of time and ask, “What happened on this day ten years ago? Or fifty or a hundred years ago?” Sometimes we can be surprised how quickly time has passed from a momentous event.

In 1982, the Marian shrine that St. John Paul II wanted to visit was the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, the Queen of Poland. Instead, he went to Fatima.

Burma has a long way to go. But the Church will now be an even stronger voice for justice and peace

Among the new decrees approved by the Pope was also that of an American Capuchin friar who in New York and Detroit was doing good to thousands of people from the humble place of the convent.

To the children at Fatima 100 years ago, St. Faustina and millions of Catholics worldwide, hell is real. And, scary as such visions are, they echo a positive urgency to mercy.

Catholics currently find themselves between two remarkable events on their calendars, brought to us by two extraordinary ladies in our history and hearts and minds: April 23 was Divine Mercy Sunday, granted to us by the experiences of St. Faustina Kowalska, and May 13 is the feast of Our Lady of Fatima.

Nowadays, especially in industrialized and urban societies, the figure of a shepherd is little known and appreciated. Even the idea of ​​being a shepherd does not appeals to the contemporary man, who makes freedom coincide with autonomy and is offended when called a sheep.

One of my favorite stories from the apparitions of Our Lady in Fatima a century ago this year is how Our Lady was compelled gently to correct the three shepherd children for “cheating” on how they were praying the Rosary.

The eldest, at the time ten-year-old Lucy, described in her eventual Memoires what they were doing and why.

Pope Francis has said he hoped his visit to Egypt, carried out with “God’s help,” could be “a sign of peace” for the country and the wider region suffering from “conflicts and terrorism.”

Recalling the April 28-29 visit during his May 3 weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, the Holy Father said Egypt has been a “symbol of hope, of refuge, of help.”

While conversion and prayer are at the heart of Mary's messages at Fatima, Portugal, the miracles and unexplained phenomenon that accompanied the events 100 years ago still intrigue believers and nonbelievers alike.

The apparitions of Mary at Fatima in 1917 weren't the first supernatural events reported there.