Over the past 10 years the Fatima shrine has seen an uptick in the number of pilgrims who visit from all over the world, particularly from Asia.
The increase is credited to the relevance of Our Lady’s message as the centenary of her apparitions approaches.
“The last few years the number of pilgrims has increased,” Dr. Pedro Valinho Gomes, director of pilgrim services at the Fatima shrine, told CNA in an interview.
Atheists love to mock miracles, and the miracle of the sun at Fatima is one of their favorite objects of derision.
The high priest of the atheists, Richard Dawkins dismisses the miracle of the sun as a mass hallucination.
He writes in The God Delusion:
The incredible drama of Fatima — supernatural events that occurred 100 years ago — summons us to prayer, conversion, reparation and penance. The young visionaries, Servant of God Lucia dos Santos and soon-to-be saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto, decided to change their lives completely by heeding Mary’s messages. Our lives should change, as well. The Marto children will be canonized during Pope Francis’ May 13 Mass in Fatima.
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.
