Today is the 100th Anniversary of the Sixth Apparition of Our Lady in Fatima.
Since the 12th of October, around 50,000 people had already arrived in Fatima so that they could be close to the place of the apparition. “The whole night and morning a thin, persistent rain fell, wetting the fields, muddying the ground, and penetrating with its cold humidity the women and children, men and animals, who were hurriedly advancing along the muddy pathways towards the place of the miracle” (witness of Maria Madelana del Martel Patricio).
Meanwhile, in Aljustrel, the mother of Lucy was very disturbed at the thought of the tragedy that might follow, if the predicted miracle did not take place. Lucy didn’t succeed to calm her. Finally, Maria Rosa and her husband decided to accompany their daughter saying, “if their daughter was going to die, they wanted to die by her side” (Sr. Lucy). On the contrary, the parents of Francisco and Jacinta were not afraid at all, because they believed in the apparitions of Our Lady.
“Once we arrived at the Cova da Iria, near the holm oak,” Lucy recalls, “moved by an inner impulse, I asked the people to shut their umbrellas and say the Rosary.” Up on the road, sheltered in their automobiles, all those who did not have the courage to venture into the claylike mire of the Cova witnessed a stupefying spectacle: “at the given moment,” one of them writes, “this confused and compact mass shut the umbrellas, uncovering itself in a gesture either of humility or respect, but leaving me surprised and full of admiration, for the rain went on insistently, moistening everybody’s heads, soaking and flooding everything”.
At around one thirty in the afternoon, Lucy looked in the direction of the east and said to Jacinta: “Oh Jacinta! Get on your knees; Our Lady is coming! I already saw the lightning!” This time Lucy seemed to fall into an ecstasy: “The child’s face, a witness recalls, became more and more beautiful and took on a rosy tint, and her lips became thinner”. Jacinta gave Lucy a poke and said: “Speak, Lucy, Our Lady is already here!” Then Lucy came back to herself, breathed deeply two times like someone out of breath, and began her conversation with Our Lady.
“What does Your Grace want of me?
I want a chapel to be built here in My honor. I am Our Lady of the Rosary. Continue to say the Rosary every day. The war will end soon and the soldiers will return to their homes.
I have many things to ask you: to heal some sick people and to convert some sinners, etc.
Some, yes, others, no. People must amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins. They must not offend Our Lord any more for He is already too much offended.
Do you want anything more?
Nothing more.
Then neither will I ask anything more from You.”
During the apparition, the crowd could see just as on 13 September, the same cloud forming around the holm oak, going up in the air before it disappeared. Then Lucy shouted: “Look at the sun!” It was at this precise moment that the crowds could contemplate the extraordinary spectacle of the “dance of the sun”. The rain had suddenly stopped, the clouds were quickly dispersed, and the sky was clear. “We looked easily at the sun which did not blind us… Everything was still and quiet; everyone was looking upwards. At a certain moment, the sun seemed to stop, and then began to move and to dance until it seemed that it was being detached from the sky and was falling on us. It was a terrible moment” (Witness of Ti Sarto, the father of Francisco and Jacinta). The promise of Our Lady had been fulfilled to the letter: all had seen it (see in the next text a detailed account of the miracle — we will publish this text tomorrow).
During the ten minutes that the crowd witnessed the spectacular cosmic miracle, the three children enjoyed a still more beautiful spectacle. The Blessed Virgin fulfilled before their eyes Her promises of 19 August and 13 September. It was given them to admire, right in the sky, three successive pictures:
The Vision of the Holy Family: “After Our Lady had disappeared into the immense distance of the firmament, we beheld St. Joseph with the Child Jesus, and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun. St. Joseph and the Child Jesus appeared to bless the world, for they traced the Sign of the Cross with their hands.”
The Vision of Our Lady of Sorrows: “When, a little later, this apparition disappeared, I saw Our Lord and Our Lady; it seemed to me that it was Our Lady of Sorrows. Our Lord appeared to bless the world in the same manner as St. Joseph had done.”
The Vision of Our Lady of Mount Carmel: “This apparition also vanished, and I saw Our Lady once more, this time resembling Our Lady of Carmel.”
