Our Lady of Fatima Free e-booklet:servi.org/eBooklets/Our_Lady_of_Fatima In centuries past, the barren uplands around the little village of Fatima, which is one hundred miles by road north of Lisbon, had seen several of the great battles in which Portugal had won its freedom from the tyranny of the Moors and the overlordship of the Spanish. Those conflicts had long passed and had been forgotten, while scarcely an echo of the Great War then devastating half Europe had reached the ears of the simple peasant folk eking out a precarious livelihood from the poor soil of these hills, in the year 1917. On May 13, 1917, three peasant children of that countryside were driving their little flock of sheep to pasture. They passed the few houses of the village, and, after some questioning among themselves, they chose to go along the northern road to the field that was owned by Lucia dos Santos, the father of one of them. Lucia was the eldest of the party. She was ten years of age, and with her were her two cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto. Jacinta, the youngest, was seven. Like Lucia, she was barefooted and dressed in poor clothing of the peasantry, with long skirts, and a shawl thrown over her head. Francisco, the man of the party, was a sturdy lad of nine, with long trousers, short jacket, and a woolen cap. He carried his horn slung over his shoulder, and his staff in his hand. The pasture the children chose for that day was a shallow depression, on which there was little grass among the many outcrops of stone, and nothing to relieve the eye except a few scattered groups of olives and evergreen oaks. The children walked slowly behind their browsing sheep. Their field was called Cova da Iria. About midday, they sat down and ate their own poor lunch. Then, according to the custom of the district, they set about the recitation of their daily Rosary. Like many other children, they found the Rosary a long prayer, but they had struck upon an easy method of shortening it. They simply said, “Our Father” and no more on the large beads, and, “Hail Mary” for the smaller ones. They were soon free to play, and, at Francisco’s suggestion, they were busy on the far side of the field building a house with some of the loose stones lying around. Suddenly there was a vivid flash of lightning. It came from the clear blue sky. At once, the children stopped their play, for sudden thunderstorms sometimes swept this district killing the sheep on the exposed fields. They ran to gather their sheep and drive them home quickly, but they were stopped by yet another vivid lightning flash. Terrified, they looked about them. To their amazement they saw to their right a Lady of the greatest beauty standing, it seemed, upon one of the low oak trees. She appeared to be a girl of fifteen or sixteen, and was clothed in a long white garment with a white mantle over her hair, and this mantle was edged with a brighter light. She had a golden cord ending in a ball about her neck. Her beautiful face was serious and rather sad. Her hands were joined before her breast and a rosary of white brilliant beads hung from her right hand. Her feet were partly hidden by the bright cloud that rested upon the tree. Free e-booklet: servi.org/eBooklets/Our_Lady_of_Fatima --- CYWBD SVMI SPPI SAG SCI SBI SMASTOU
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 15:50:22 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015