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Our Lady of Fatima (Portuguese: Nossa Senhora de Fátima) is one of the best known Marian apparitions in the world.
Between May and October, 1917, the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to three shepherd children in the fields outside the village of Aljustrel, very close to Fatima, Portugal. She would come and speak to them on the 13th of every month.
She exhorted the children to do penance and sacrifices to save sinners. They wore tight cords around their waists to cause pain, abstained from drinking water on hot days, and other works of penance. Most important, she asked them to say the Rosary every day. She reiterated many times that the Rosary was the key to personal and world peace. Many young Portuguese men, including relatives of the visionaries, were then fighting in World War I.
On her last visit, a crowd of 70,000 people, including reporters from sceptical, anti-religious newspapers, gathered in a torrential rainstorm to witness the great Solar Miracle of Fatima. Many people in the crowd said that the sun changed colours, began dancing around in the sky and went completely dark for several minutes before seeming to plunge toward the earth, then returning to its proper place. Reporter Avelino de Almeida, who had snarked at Fatima in previous articles, saw and reported it, while his photographer saw nothing but shot pictures of the crowd looking up.
There is no independent verification of the solar phenomenon, and no movement or other phenomenon of the sun was registered by scientists at the time. It was reportedly witnessed from up to 25 miles away, but these people did not know what to make of it and apparently most did not consider it miraculous. Not everyone in the crowd saw the "sun dance", including the children, who reported seeing Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and Saint Joseph blessing the people.
Most of the interest in Fatima, however, revolves around the famous three-part secret of Fatima, which includes remarkable visions of the future. The first part described a horrific vision of Hell, while the second foretold the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II and called for the "Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary". Many believe Pope John Paul IIJohn Paul II ne Karol Jozef Wojtyla (born May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland), is the incumbent pope ( 1978 present), the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and the first ever from a Slavic country. His crusades against political oppression have been widel fulfilled this request by giving a blessing over Russia shortly before the collapse of the Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR ( Russian: ; tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (SSSR) also called the Soviet Union ( ; tr. Sovetsky Soyuz , was a state in much of the northern region of Eurasia that existed from 1922 until 1, although others are concerned that this blessing was not enough.
The third secretFrom May to October, 1917, three young Portuguese shepherds, Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco, claimed to have witnessed an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. On July 13 Mary is supposed to have entrusted three secrets to the young visionaries, two of whi was kept under wraps by the VaticanThe term Holy See ( Latin: Sancta Sedes lit. holy seat") refers in a geographic sense to the episcopal see of Rome, of which the Pope is the ordinary i. the diocesan bishop); in canon law, the terms Holy See and Apostolic See refer to the Pope ("Roman Pon until EasterEaster is generally accounted the most important holiday of the Christian year, observed March or April each year to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead (after his death by crucifixion; see Good Friday), which Christians believe happened at 2000This page is about the year 2000. See 2000 AD for the UK comic book, Number 2000 for other uses. 2000 is a leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar), and also the International Year for a Culture of Peace''. Events Y2K passes without the seri – despite the Virgin's declaration that it could be released to the public after 1940Events January-February January 5 FM radio is demonstrated to the FCC for the first time. January 6 World War II: Mass execution of Poles, committed by Germans in the Poznan, Warthegau. January 12 World War II: Russia bombs cities in Finland. February 2 F and must be released by 1960. When 1960 passed without any such announcement, this led to immense speculation over the content of the secret. In short, people assumed that if the Popes chose to oppose the supposed will of Mary, it was because it would have been far worse to reveal the content than not to reveal it. Some cynics claim that the third secret was simply that there was only two secrets.
The officially released text of the secret was symbolic in nature and open to various interpretations. The Church's interpretation was that the subject of the prophecy was the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II by a Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca, in Saint Peter's Square, Rome. The shooting occurred on May 13, the date of the first of the reported Fatima visions. The Pope had reportedly stooped to hug a little girl wearing a Fatima Badge when the assailant fired, and the bullets struck him in the abdomen rather than in the head as planned.
John Paul credits Our Lady of Fatima with saving his life. He has said more than once that he plainly saw her actively intervening to deflect the gunman's arm. He said he maintained consciousness on the ride to the hospital by thinking of Our Lady of Fatima.
There is some controversy that the third part of the secret revealed in the year 2000 was not the real secret. The most basic argument for this revolves around the decision to release the secret much later than as specified by Our Lady. It was thought that the secret might contain condemnatory remarks about the current pope (who obviously wouldn't want to release it), or that it might contain inflammatory remarks about Russia (which would not be good to release during the Cold War). Instead, the third part of the secret as revealed was by far the most unspecific and ambiguous part (compared to earlier parts which said that if unconsecrated, "Russia will spread its errors around the world"). Previous remarks about the secret made by those who knew about it or had read it, were further reasons for doubting the authenticity of the released text. Some had said that the secret consisted almost totally of scripture, while Sr. Lucia said that its meaning as a whole was "Portugual would not lose the faith".