The wonderful episodes of Fatima

BY THE VISCE OF MONTELLO

1921

HOME EDITOR COMPANY VERITAS

FATIMA'S APPEARANCES THE INTERVIEW OF THE LIVING THE AMAZING PHENOMENA OF OCTOBER 13, 1917 AN EXTRAORDINARY HEALING OCTOBER 13, 1919 THE DEATH OF THE LIVING JESUS ​​MARTIN THE GREAT PILGRIMAGE OF MAY 13 1920

Honorable and Reverend Mr. Bishop of the Guard Fernando Paes de Figueiredo, owner of the Veritas Company, wishing to publish a leaflet entitled “The Wonderful Episodes of Fatima” He asks you, Your Excellency, for the necessary authorization if you deem it appropriate. Guarda, May 19, 1921. Canon Fernando Paes de Figueiredo. We appoint censor MR Dr. Manuel Mendes do Carmo, Canon of Our See. Guarda, 19 May 1921. f JOSÉ, Bishop of the Guard. Dear Sir, In fulfillment of your mission, Dear Sir, I was entrusted with entrusting myself with the chapter entitled "The Wonderful Episodes of Fatima." Appreciating, in times of university camaraderie, the solid science and solid piety of its author, I found that in the aforementioned book there is nothing against the Faith or the Moral. Pass it on a sharp perfume of confidence in the Immaculate Virgin Mary, who can only do good to those who read it. Not wishing its author to say the last word. Scientific researcher about the validity or supernatural character of the facts of Fatima, nevertheless makes a conscientious statement that will help to clarify their objective nature.

Guarda, June 9, 1921. Dr. Mendes do Carmo.

Impress yourself.

Guarda, June 10, 1921. F. JOSE, Bishop of the Guard.

OUR LADY OF FATIMA - FATIMA APPEARANCES

On the morning of May thirteenth, 1917, a boy and two girls were feeding, as was their custom, a small flock of sheep, belonging to their families, on a property of the Serra de Minde, in the parish of Fátima, Vila Nova council. d'Ourem, district of Leiria.

The oldest of the three children, named Lucia de Jesus, was the daughter of Antonio dos Santos, who died the following year, and Maria Rosa dos Santos, who was ten years old. The boy and the other girl, who were brothers, were named Francisco and Jacinta, who was nine years old and seven years old. were his parents Manuel, Pedro Matto and Olympia de Jesus Marto. They were cousins ​​of Lucia. The dwellings of the two families, which, though not wealthy, nevertheless had some fortune goods, were next to each other in the place of Aljustrel, about a kilometer from the parish church of Fatima. None of the children could read or write. His religious instruction was still very rudimentary: Only Lucia had made the first communion.

At that memorable day the hour of astronomical noon was approaching. According to their custom, the three children, after having been busy for a long time in their innocent amusements, began to pray the Rosary, a very dear devotion of the inhabitants of that parish. They had just recited it, when suddenly they saw the small distance of them, the lightning flash of lightning, and almost simultaneously appearing over the canopy of a small holm oak tree, a radiant and charming woman, of extraordinary beauty. . Frightened by such an unusual and unexpected event, they considered fleeing, but soon completely reassured them of the benevolent altitude of the Apparition, which in a very sweet voice promised that it would do them no harm.

The Apparition looked no older than eighteen. The dress was of a pure whiteness of snow, as was the cloak, which was trimmed with gold, which covered her head and most of her body. His face, of a nobleness of lines that was beyond reproach, and which I did not know to be supernatural and divine, was serene and grave and as if clouded with a faint shadow of sadness. From his hands, close to his chest, hung a golden cross, topped with a beautiful rosary, whose beads, ermine-white, looked like pearls. From all its form, surrounded by a brighter splendor than the sun, they radiated beams of light, especially from the face, of a beauty that was impossible to describe and incomparably superior to any human beauty.

Between the Apparition and Lucia a dialogue was established, which lasted about ten minutes.

Jacinta saw the Apparition and distinctly heard the words she spoke to Lucia, but she never spoke to her, nor did the Apparition address her. Francisco only saw the Apparition, never listening to what she said to Lucia, despite being at the same distance and having an excellent ear.

The Apparition invited that day the three shepherds to return every month on the thirteenth, for six consecutive months, that place, commonly known by the name of Cova da Iria and located just over two kilometers from the parish church of Fatima, next to the Vila Nova d'Ourem district road to Batalha. At first no one paid credit to the claims of the children, who were called liars by everyone, even the people of their families. On June 13 some fifty people accompanied the seers to the apparition site, hoping to witness whatever was extraordinary. In the following months the contest of the curious and devout increased considerably, gathering perhaps five thousand people in July, eighteen thousand in August, and thirty thousand in September at the holy holm oak. At the time of the apparition, there were innumerable mysterious signs that many reliable people bear witness to one another in the atmosphere and in the sky.

The Apparition insistently recommended that everyone do penance and pray the rosary. He told the children a secret they could not reveal to anyone. He promised them heaven. He asked that a chapel be erected in this place in his honor and declared that on the thirteenth of October he would perform a miracle so that all the people believed that she had actually appeared there. On the thirteenth of August, moments before the time of the apparition, the children were cunningly kidnapped by the county steward, who held them at his home for two days, threatening them with death if they did not disdain or at least reveal the secret that the child was. Apparition had entrusted them.

That month the apparition took place on the nineteenth, in the place called the Valinhos, when the children no longer thought it would happen until the following month.

On the thirteenth of October, being present about seventy thousand people of all classes and social conditions and from all parts of the country, after the dialogue between Lucia and the Apparition, which declared her to be the Lady of the Rosary, the seer recommended to bystanders who looked at the sun. The sky was completely cloudy. It was raining heavily.

As if by clouds the clouds were suddenly torn, and the sun in the zenith appeared in all its splendor and spun dizzily upon itself as the most beautiful firework wheel imaginable, successively coating all the colors of the bow. and projecting beams of light to a surprising effect.

This sublime and incomparable spectacle, which was repeated three separate times, lasted about ten minutes. The immense crowd, surrendered to the evidence of such prodigy, bowed to their knees, the Creed, the Hail Mary, and the act of contrition erupted from every mouth, and the tears, tears of joy, gratitude, or repentance, watered them all. the eyes. All the press, including the mass media, referred in respectful and well-developed terms to the amazing events in Fatima.

The appreciations of these facts, even in the Catholic field, were not unanimous. The children's statements about the coming end of the Great European War contributed to this divergence of opinion. Yet, year after year, devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima is increasing and spreading everywhere. The pilgrimage competition is increasing and is taking place especially on the thirteenth of each month, on Sundays, on the days consecrated to the Blessed Virgin, and, more than ever, on the thirteenth of May and the thirteenth of October each year.

The prodigious graces and healings attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima are innumerable.

At times the representatives of the civil authority made every effort to end the torrent's torrent of torrents drawn by the humble voice of three innocent shepherds.

Intolerance and persecution had, as always, only the effect of making believers' faith and piety more alive and intense. The competition of devotees from all parts of Portugal continues to be increasing in number, more fervent, more persevering, and there seem to be no human forces capable of putting an embargo on it. The ecclesiastical authority, which has begun its inquiry, has not yet completed its work, which is difficult and time-consuming in nature, nor has it delivered its verdict, which we must abide by, whatever it may be.

While we await this verdict, let us try to live as good Christians, strictly fulfilling all our duties, do penance for our sins, and pray fervently the Rosary, this beloved devotion of all Portuguese, so that Our Lady of the Rosary, if she really appeared in Fatima, deign to dispel all doubts and make this fact superior to all contestation in good faith.

INTERVIEW OF THE LIVING ¹ (SEPTEMBER 27, 1917)

1 I reproduce this interrogation of the seers, without altering a comma. just as I wrote it, on September 29, 1917, in the face of the notes taken.

In order to complete the impressions gathered on the thirteenth of September and to provide me with the necessary elements to base as much as possible a sound judgment on the events that have taken place over the past five months, three kilometers south of the village of Fatima, in the place called Cova da Iria, went for the second time last Thursday, twenty-seven, to that picturesque village, gracefully exalted on one of the foothills of the majestic Minde mountain range.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon when I got off the train from Torres Novas that had driven me through Vila Nova d'Ourem to the humble village whose name is today pronounced as a promise of heavenly blessings and graces through tens of thousands of lips from one end to the other. Portugal. The Reverend Parish, whom I soon sought, was not at home: he had left the parish and should return only at night.

Sorry for not being able to exchange with him some words about the subject that brought me there, I decided to go to the house of the favored children with apparitions of the Blessed Virgin and to hear from their mouth the detailed narrative of the strange events, whose news has attracted Fatima day by day. countless people of all classes and social backgrounds.

At a distance of two kilometers from the parish church and the presbytery, in an insignificant village called Aljustrel, belonging to the parish, are the modest dwellings of the families of the shepherds.

The two youngest children were absent. I headed for the older house, where my mother invited me in and sit down, an invitation I came to. A question of mine about my daughter's whereabouts, which I was looking for, told me that she was harvesting on a small property that belonged to her and was two kilometers away.

Someone was quick to call her her mother's order. Meanwhile the two younger children, who had returned from the camp, knowing from the neighbors that I wanted to talk to them, came to me.

They are two brothers, a boy and a girl. First came the girl. Her name is Jacinta de Jesus, she is seven years old and is the daughter of Manuel Pedro Marto and Olympia de Jesus.

Very tall for her age, a little thin without being able to say thin, well-proportioned face, dark complexion, modestly dressed, down her skirt to the ankle, she looks like a healthy child, showing perfect normality in its physical and moral whole. Surprised by the presence of strange people who had accompanied me and did not expect to find, at first shows a great embarrassment, answering by monosyllables and in a tone of voice almost imperceptible to the questions I address you. Moments later his brother, a nine-year-old, appears, who comes into the room with a certain ease, keeping the cap on his head, certainly not remembering that he should find out. A sign that his sister made to him in this sense was not noticed by him. I invited him to sit in a chair beside me, obeying immediately and without any reluctance.

I immediately began to question him about what I had seen and heard since last May in Cova da Iria on the thirteenth of each month during the time of the apparition.

Between me and him the following short dialogue was established.

-What have you seen in Cova da Iria in recent months?

-I have seen Our Lady. Where does she show up?

- On a barbecue.

"Does she suddenly appear or do you see her come from somewhere?"

"I see it coming from the side where the sun rises and setting over the carrasqueira."

Are you coming slow or fast?

Always come fast.

"Do you hear what she says to Lucia?"

I don't hear.

"Have you ever spoken to the lady?" Has she ever spoken to you?

-No, I never asked you anything; Just talk to Lucia.

-For who looks, also for you and Jacinta or just for Lucia?

-Look at all three; but looks at Lucia longer.

Have you ever cried or smiled?

-Neither this nor that; It's always serious.

-How are you dressed?

"She has a long dress and a cloak over her head that goes down to the end of the dress."

What's the color of the dress and cloak?

-It's white, with the gilt stripe dress.

What is your attitude?

It's the one praying. Her hands are at chest level.

- Do you have any cause in your hands?

-Bring between the palm and the back of the right hand are beads that are dangling over the dress. And what about your ears?

-Ears are not seen, because they are covered with the cloak.

What color are the beads?

-They are also white.

Are you beautiful?

-Yes it is.

"More beautiful than that girl you see there?"

-More.

-But there are much prettier ladies than that girl ...

"It's prettier than anyone I saw."

After the interrogation of Francisco, I called aside Jacinta, who was playing in the street with other children, made her sit on a stool next to me and also subjected her to an interrogation, getting complete and thorough answers from her. of brother.

Have you seen Our Lady on the thirteenth of every month since May here?

-I've seen.

Where does she come from?

"It comes from the sky, from the sun."

-How are you dressed?

"She has a white dress, adorned with gold, and a white robe on her head."

What color are the hair?

"You can't see her hair, which is covered with the cloak."

-Ear earrings?

"I don't know, because you can't see her ears either."

What is the position of the hands?

- Hands are at chest level with fingers facing up.

Are the bills in the right hand or the left hand?

To this question the child answers first that they were in the right hand, but then, due to a deliberate and tricky insistence on my part, he is perplexed and confused, not knowing exactly which of his hands corresponded to the hand with which the Apparition. held the rosary.

-What did Our Lady recommend to Lucy most strongly?

"He told us to pray the rosary every day."

-And you pray it?

"I pray with Francis and Lucia every day."

Half an hour after the interrogation of Jacinta de Jesus is over, Lucia de Jesus appears. It came, as I said, from a small estate owned by his family, two kilometers away, where he had been harvesting.

Taller and more nourished than the other two children, with a lighter, more robust, and healthier complexion, she stands before me with an ease that contrasts uniquely with Jacinta's shyness and excessive shyness. Singely dressed like this, her altitude does not denote and her face reflects no sense of vanity or confusion.

Sitting, at my nod, in a chair beside me, she willingly asks to be questioned about the events of which she is the main protagonist, yet noticeably fatigued and downcast, thanks to the incessant visits. it receives and the repeated and prolonged inquiries it undergoes.

Daughter of Antonio dos Santos, fifty years old, and Maria Rosa, forty-eight, has a brother and four sisters, all older than her: Maria, twenty-six, already married, Teresa de twenty-four, Manuel, twenty-two, Gloria, twenty, and Carolina, fifteen. He was ten years old on March twenty-two of the nano stream. He was eight years old when he made his first communion. The mother, the type of the Christian woman and the good housewife, given to domestic duties, has always sought to inspire her children with the holy fear of God and bring them to the fulfillment of all their moral and religious duties. Highly concerned about the events that draw the attention of thousands of people to their poor dwellings all the time, until recently ignored from the world, it can be seen from the outset that their spirit hesitates, in restless anxiety, between the hope of let your daughter really be privileged by the apparition of the Virgin and the fear that she will be the victim of a hallucination that will bring disgust to her and ridicule her entire family. To a question of mine about her Lucia's mercy, she replies that she finds nothing extraordinary about her in this respect, seeing her pray the same way and with the same fervor as before the apparitions, just as her sisters do. I begin the interrogation of the seer.

-Is it true that Our Lady has appeared to you at the place called Cova da Iria?

-It is true.

How many times have you appeared?

-Five times, one each month.

What day of the month?

-Always on the thirteenth, except in August, when I was arrested and taken to the village (Vila Nova d'Ourem) by the administrator. That month I only saw her a few days later, at nineteen, at the Valinhos site.

"You are said to have appeared to you also last year." What is really true about this? -Last year never appeared to me, not even before May this year; neither did I say this to anyone, because it wasn't accurate.

Where's she coming from? From the nascent bands?

-Do not know; I don't see it coming from anywhere; it appears over the holm oak and when it withdraws it takes the direction of the sky where the sun rises.

How long does it take? Much or little?

-Shortly.

- Enough to recite a Our Father and a Hail Mary, or more?

- Much more, but not always the same time; maybe it would never come to pray the rosary.

"Didn't the first time you saw her get scared?"

"I was, so much so that I wanted to run away with Jacinta and Francisco, but she told us we weren't afraid, because it wouldn't hurt us."

How are you dressed?

"She has a white dress that goes almost to her feet, and her head is covered in a robe of the same color and length as the dress."

-The dress has no embellishments?

"Two golden strings come down from the front of the neck and come together in a golden tassel at mid-body level."

Do you have a belt or some tape?

-There is not.

"Your earrings?"

- Use a few small rings.

Which hand holds the bills?

-The right hand.

Was it a third or a rosary?

I didn't notice well.

Did they end up with a cross?

-They ended with a white cross, the beads also white. The chain was equally white.

"Did you ever ask him who he was?"

"I asked, but I said I would not say it until the thirteenth of October."

-You didn't ask him where he came from?

"I asked where it was from, and she told me it was." from the sky.

"And when did you ask him that question?"

-The second time, the thirteenth of June.

"Have you ever smiled or been sad?"

She never smiled or looked sad, but always serious.

"Did you and your cousins ​​recommend praying some prayers?"

He recommended that we pray the rosary in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary in order to achieve peace for the world.

"Did you wish that on the thirteenth of every month many people were present during the apparition at Cova da Iria?"

"I said nothing about that."

"Did you reveal a secret to yourself, forbidding anyone to discover it?"

-Is right.

"Does it concern only you or your companions?"

-All three.

Can't you at least manifest it to your confessor? At this question she was silent, looking a little entangled, and I thought I should not insist on repeating the question.

"Do you tell me that in order to get rid of your administrator's harassment on the day you were arrested, you told him, as if it were the secret, of a cause that was not, deceiving him and bragging after you preached that to him?" match: is it true?

-It is not; The administrator really wanted me to reveal the secret to him, but as I could not tell anyone, I did not tell him, although he insisted very much on me to do his bidding. What I did was tell everything that you told me except the secret, and perhaps for that reason the administrator was thinking that I had also revealed the secret to you. I didn't mean to fool him.

"Did you tell her to learn to read?"

"Yes, he did, the second time he showed up."

"But if she said she would take you to heaven next October, what good would you learn to read?"

"That is not true: you never said you would take me to heaven in October, and I never claimed that she told me such a cause."

"What did you say was to be made of the money that the people deposit at the holm oak in Cova da Iria?"

"He said we should put him in two stables, taking me, Jacinta and two other girls, one of them, and Francisco, with three other boys, the other, to the parish church." Part of this money would go to the worship and feast of the Lady of the Rosary and the other part to help a new chapel.

"Where do you want the chapel to be built?" In Cova da Iria?

I don't know: she didn't say it.

"Are you very glad Our Lady appeared to you?"

-I am.

-On the thirteenth of October Will Our Lady come alone?

St. Joseph also comes with the Child, and shortly afterwards peace will be granted to the world. "Has our lady made any further revelations?"

"You have declared that on the thirteenth of October you will do a miracle for all the people to believe that she really appears."

"Why do you often look down at your lady?"

-It's she sometimes blind.

Did he teach you any prayers?

"He taught, and he wants us to recite it after every mystery of the rosary."

Do you know this prayer by heart?

-Know.

-She says . . .

- O my Jesus, forgive us, deliver us from the fire of hell and relieve the souls of Purgatory, especially the most abandoned.

THE PHENOMENA OF OCTOBER 13, 1917

Numerous and interesting accounts of the so-called "miracle of Fatima" were published by the Periodical press and in leaflets in the second half of October 1917 and in the two months thereafter. Although I was fortunate enough to witness the astonishing events on October 13, 1917 and could therefore narrate them thoroughly, I prefer to reproduce here two accounts of these events written by unsuspecting writers, one of them unheard of, due to the scintillating punishment of the author. intelligent and very cultured spirit of Dr. Jose Maria de Proença de Almeida Garrett, who deigned to do so at my request two months later, and the other authored by the renowned journalist Mr. Avelino dAlmeida and published in issue 610, 2nd series , from “The Portuguese illustration”.

Mr. Almeida Garrett's report reads as follows:

"I will briefly and concisely report, with no truth-telling phrases, what I saw at Fatima on October 13, 1917.

The hours to which I will refer are those which at that time officially marked the time according to the determination of the government that had unified our time with that of the belligerent countries. I do this for the greater truth, since it was not easy for me to designate precisely when the sun reached the zenith.

Arrive at noon. The rain that had been falling since morn and persistent, touched by a harsh wind, continued irritatingly, threatening to want to liquefy everything.

The dull, heavy sky had a brownish color that was pregnant with water, a sign of abundant, long-lasting rain.

I lay on the road, under the bonnet of the car and a little over the spot that they said was the apparition, not daring to get into the muddy, sticky mire of the freshly tilled field. He would be a little over a hundred yards from the high poles that a rough cross topped, clearly seeing around them the wide circle of people who, with their umbrellas open, looked like a vast row of bouquets.

Shortly after an hour came to this place the children whom the Virgin (they assured) had set Play, day and time of the apparition. The songs were chanted by the people around them.

At one point this broad mass, confused and compact, closed the umbrellas and found itself in a gesture that should have been humble or respectful but left me surprised and amazed, because the rain, in a blind continuity, now wet heads, soaked and soaked.

I was later told that these people, who eventually knelt in the mud, had obeyed the voice of a child.

It must have been one and a half (thirteen and a half) when a slender, thin, bluish column of smoke rose straight up to two meters, perhaps above the heads, to rise at this precise spot where the children were. . This phenomenon lasted, perfectly visible to the naked eye, a few seconds. Not having timed the duration, I cannot say if it was more or less than a minute. The smoke abruptly dissipated and after a while the phenomenon was repeated a second and a third time. Of the three times, and especially the last, the slender poles stood out in the gray atmosphere.

I drove the binoculars over there. I could see nothing but the columns of smoke, but I was convinced that they were produced by some unstirred jib in which incense burned. Then people of good faith told me that it was customary to produce the event on the thirteenth of the previous five months, and that in these days, as in this day, nothing had ever been burned there nor made a fire.

Continuing to look at the Apparition Play, in a cool and serene expectation and with a curiosity that was fading, because time had passed long and slow without anything activating my attention, I heard the bruahaha of thousands of voices and saw that crowd, spread by wide field that stretched at my feet, or concentrated in compact waves around the uplifted woods, or over the low terraces that held the lands, turn your back to the point where until then the desires and cravings converged and look at the sky of the opposite side.

It was almost two o'clock.

The sun moments before had broken through the thick layer of clouds that had hidden it, to shine bright and bright. I turned to this eye-catching magnet and could see it resembling a sharp maple disc and a sharp, luminous, but sharp edge, but no hurt.

It did not seem to me the comparison, which I still heard at Fatima, of a matte silver disc. It was a lighter color, acrid and rich, and changing, with the orient of a pearl. It was nothing like the moon in a transparent, pure night, because it looked and felt like a living star.

It was not, like the moon, spherical, not the same hue nor the light-dark ones. It looked like a burnished round cut in the shell of a shell. This is not a trite comparison of cheap poetry. My eyes saw it that way. It was also not confused with the sun seen through the fog (which was not at that time}, because it was not opaque, diffuse and veiled.Fatima had light and warmth and was drawn clear and with the edge cut like an edge. game table.

The celestial vault was misty with light cirrus, with cracks of blue here and there, but the sun sometimes stood out in rips of clear skies. The clouds that ran lightly from west to east did not dim the light (which did not hurt) of the sun giving the easily understandable and explainable impression of passing behind, but sometimes these flakes that came white seemed to take, gliding before the sun, a pink or diaphanous blue tint.

It is wonderful that, for a long time, the star could be fixed with the blaze of light and hot coals, without a pain in the eyes and without a dazzling retina.

This phenomenon with two brief interruptions, in which the wild sun hurled its most corusive and effulgent rays, and which had to look away, must have lasted about ten minutes.

This pearly disk had the dizziness of movement.

It was not the flicker of a star in full life. It spun on itself at a brisk speed.

Suddenly a cry is heard, as a cry of anguish from all those people. The sun, preserving the speed of its rotation, stands out from the firmament and blood advances on the earth threatening to crush us with the weight of its igneente and grindstone. It's seconds of terrifying impression.

During the solar accident, which I have been describing in detail, there were changing colors in the atmosphere. I can't quite pinpoint the occasion because two months have gone by now and I have not taken notes. It reminds me that it was not at the very beginning and I believe it was for the end. Setting the sun, I noticed that everything was getting dark around me.

I looked around and stretched the view out to the far horizon and saw everything the color of amethyst.

The objects, the sky, and the atmospheric layer were the same color. A purplish oak tree in front of me cast a heavy shadow over the earth.

Fearing that he had suffered a retinal disorder, which is unlikely because, given this case, I should not see the things in purple, I turned, closed my eyelids, and held them with my hands to catch all the light. Still on my back, I opened my eyes and recognized that, as before, the landscape and air remained the same purple color.

The impression was not of eclipse. I saw an eclipse of the sun, which in Vizeu, where I was, was total. As the moon marches to hide the sun, the light fades to gray until everything becomes dull and black. The view reaches a small circus, beyond which objects become increasingly confused until they are lost in the blackness. It lowers the temperature considerably and it will be said that the life of the earth has been extinguished. At Fatima, the atmosphere, though purple, remained transparent to the ends of the distinguishing and clearly visible horizon, and I did not have the sensation of a halt in universal energy.

Continuing to look at the sun, I noticed that the atmosphere had cleared. A moment later I heard a redneck who was about to say in a voice of amazement, "This lady is yellow!

In fact everything had now changed, near and far, turning the color of old yellow apricots. People looked sick and jaundiced. I smiled to find them downright ugly and unkempt. There was laughter. My hand was the same yellow tone. Days later I had the experience of setting the sun a few moments. Looking away, I saw, after a few moments, yellow spots, irregular in shape.

You can not see everything of a uniform color, as if a topaz had volatilized in the air, but knots or meshes that move with the movement of the eye.

All these phenomena I quoted and described I observed them quietly and serenely without emotion or startle.

Others have to explain or interpret them.

In conclusion I must make the statement that I have never, before or after the thirteenth of October, seen the same solar or atmospheric phenomena. 1

1 Some people from Granja competed with the amount of fifty thousand réis, which was given to the Rev. "Parish of Fatima, for the construction of a chapel at the apparitions site.

The miracle of Fatima

(Letter to someone asking for unsuspected testimony)

Breaking a silence of more than twenty years and with the invocation of the distant and longing days in which we live in a fraternal camaraderie, enlightened then by the common faith and strengthened by identical purposes, you write me to tell you, honestly and thoroughly, what I saw and I heard it in the heath of Fatima, when the fame of heavenly apparitions gathered in that desolate wilderness tens of thousands, I believe, more thirsty than supernatural than driven by mere curiosity or afraid of deception. the importance and significance of what they witnessed.

Some became convinced that promises from above were fulfilled; others are still far from believing in the uncontroversial reality of a miracle. You were a believer in your youth and ceased to be. Family members dragged you to Fatima in the colossal wave of that people who joined them on 13 October.

Your rationalism has suffered a formidable clash and you want to establish a safe opinion by using unsuspecting testimonials like mine, as I was only there on a very difficult mission to report impartially to a great diary, "The Century" the facts that unfold before me, and all that is curious and enlightening to them, will not remain unfulfilled, but surely our eyes and ears have neither seen nor heard anything, and are rare. were those who were insensitive to the grandeur of such a spectacle, unique among us and from every point worthy of meditation and study ...

What did I hear and take me to Fatima?

That the Virgin Mary, after the feast of the Ascension, had appeared to three children who were herding cattle, two young women, and a swagger, recommending them to pray and promising them to appear there on an oak tree on the 13th of each month until at October would give them any sign of God's power and make revelations. The news spread over many leagues around; flew from land to land to the ends of Portugal, and the roaring of the believers increased from month to month to the point of gathering about fifty thousand people on Fatima Heath on October 13, according to the calculations of dispassionate individuals. .

In the preceding meetings of the faithful, there was no shortage of those who had supposed to see astronomical and atmospheric singularities which became evidence of immediate divine intervention.

There were those who spoke of sudden temperature drops, the twinkling of stars in midday, and beautiful clouds never seen around the sun. There were those who repeated and movingly reported that the Lady recommended penance, who intended the creation of a chapel there, which on 13 October would manifest, by means of a sensible proof to all, the infinite goodness and omnipotence of God.

That is how, on the day it is celebrated and so anxious; Fatima flocked near and far, facing all the embarrassment and all the hardships of travel, thousands and thousands of people, some of whom trodden leagues in the sun and rain, others who carried themselves in a variety of vehicles.

From the almost prehistoric to the most recent and wonderful models of cars, and still many that have endured the annoyances of the third class of trains, within which, to travel relatively short distances today, long hours and even days and nights are lost! I saw ranches of men and women, patiently, as if in a dream, heading for the famous place the night before, singing holy hymns and walking barefoot to their rhythm and to the rhythmic recitation of the Rosary without bothering them. to shake them, to despair them, the almost sudden change of time, when the waterbags turned the dusty roads into muddy bottoms and the sweetness of autumn followed for a day the harsh harshness of winter ...

I saw the crowd, now crammed around the tiny tree of the miracle and thinning it from its branches to keep them as relics, now scattered by the vast moorland that the road of Leiria crosses and dominates and that the most picturesque and heterogeneous competition of cars and people cluttered that memorable day, waiting in the best order for the supernatural manifestations, without fear that the winter might harm them, diminishing their splendor and grandeur…

I saw that discouragement did not invade souls, that confidence remained alive and burning, despite the unexpected setbacks, that the composure of the crowd in which the rednecks abounded was perfect, and that the children, in their view privileged, had received it. The demonstrations of the most intense affection on the part of the people who knelt down, discovered themselves and prayed at their command as the hour of the "miracle" approached - the hour of the sensitive signal, the mystical and sighing hour of contact between Heaven and Heaven. the land...

And when I no longer imagined that I saw anything more impressive than this noisy but peaceful crowd animated by the same obsessive idea and driven by the same powerful longing, that I still saw as truly strange in the heath of Fatima? The rain, at the anticipated hour, ceases to fall; the dense mass of clouds broke and the star-king of the frosted silver disc in the middle of the zenith appeared and began dancing in a violent and convulsive ballet, which a large number of people imagined to be a serpentine dance, so beautiful and glittering colors successively coated the surface. solar.

Miracle, as the people shouted; natural phenomenon, as wise men say? I do not heal now from knowing it, but only from telling you what I saw ... The rest is with science and with the Church.

An Extraordinary Cure

(October 13, 1917)

As a complement to these brief notes on the apparitions, I may transcribe here a letter addressed to a friend of mine and published in the October 5, 1918, issue of the newspaper “A Guarda”, the most subscribed weekly at the two Borders. Exposing in detail and with the most scrupulous accuracy the circumstances of an extraordinary cure connected with the history of the apparitions, this letter is of double importance, because of its naturalness in this winepress. It reads as follows:

The question of the origin and nature of the extraordinary events of Fatima is, as they say, a completely open question.

The Church has not yet ruled on them. The field is thus open to all discussions. Any thinker has the right to appreciate, as he pleases, these events, denying their supernatural origin, doubting it or admitting it, that no one has the right to censor it.

The Catholic has no less freedom of appreciation and criticism in examining this matter than the atheist. And since all sincere opinions deserve deference and respect, especially in a matter such as this, which no one has yet been able to satisfactorily resolve, it is only fair that everyone respects a scholar's conclusion, even those who do not, whatever it may be, in the matter. research to conscientiously proceed.

The events of Fatima are an astonishing phenomenon, undeniably worthy of study. At a time when science has reached its apogee, so to speak, it would be very regrettable that this phenomenon did not impose itself on the attention of those who, by their discretion and competence, are in a position to study properly and to appreciate properly. the origin and nature of this phenomenon, multiple and complex. I know that distinguished professors of our highest scientific institutes continue to devote their enlightened attention to the study of meteorological phenomena that have occurred on the thirteenth of each month from May to October and to the grand solar phenomenon witnessed by more than fifty thousand people on Thirteen. Last October, on one of the plateaus of the northern fringe of the Minde Mountains.

But it is absolutely essential that, in the interest of the truth, whatever it may be, everyone contributes their share to the solution of this difficult, hitherto unsolvable problem, to the deciphering of this unique, hitherto impenetrable riddle. This is what I intend to do by writing you this letter and granting you the freedom to publish as you see fit.

Having said that, it was my purpose today to begin the historical narration of the facts that occurred at Fatima, if you did not ask me in your last letter whether there had been extraordinary cures that have abounded without somehow the supernatural origin of these facts. To satisfy your legitimate curiosity I will describe one of the many cures of which I am aware, consummated and, it seems, definitely assured on the thirteenth of October, at the celebrated apparition site, where ever since, however, the brutal and sacrilegious violence of the Anti-religious fanaticism, always the enemy of true freedom of belief, is continually running hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country in a pious and harmless way that builds, moves, and delights.

Forty-seven-year-old Maria do Carmo, a native ofPlay do Amai, a parish of Maceira, a council of Leiria, married to Joaquim dos Santos, had suffered from a very serious illness for five years and had all the characteristic symptoms of tuberculosis. In the first phase of the disease, from time to time, he experienced pains, which were not very strong, in the head, stomach and intestines. At the beginning of 1916 the pains worsened in an extraordinary way. They were continuous and hard to bear. He felt them then also in the back and, even more intensely, in the chest. At the same time she began to suffer from shortness of breath. His hands, feet, and belly bulged immensely. It was suspected that he had a tumor in the womb. It withered and thinned by sight. Three months later she didn't look like the same person, since she was nourished and extremely thin.

Not for putting any object a little heavy on the torture that caused this. I often wanted to throw up, although I didn't throw up.

When I had some food and during my digestion, my headaches increased. The stomachaches almost didn't allow him to sleep.

To make matters worse, I ate very little.

It was based exclusively or almost exclusively on milk.

A deep, dry cough plagued his chest without ceasing. Saliva often knew her blood. All the neighbors were convinced that the unfortunate woman was tuberculous. She herself would not let her children approach her for fear of contagion. An individual who knew perfectly well the seriousness of the evil, one day talking to some friends and watching her pass, told them in a tone of voice that left no doubt that she was hopelessly lost, and should not live more than fifteen. days This was in mid-July of the coming year. Debalde sought relief from his discomfort in medical resources.

Poor as he was, and having no doctor but a few miles away in the Battle, only once did he go with her husband to consult with the distinguished and skilled doctor. Standard.

The remedies this faculty prescribed did not give him any relief. Under these circumstances he had no illusions about the gravity of his condition and was waiting resignedly for death. On this occasion, she was running from land to land, from one end of the country to the other, the new comforter that the Blessed Virgin since the preceding May appeared every month on the thirteenth to some humble little children who were herding cattle in a place commonly called " Cova da Iria, belonging to the parish of Fátima, municipality of Vila Nova d'Ourem, seven leagues away from Maceira.A flash of gentle hope suddenly illuminated her downcast and bitter spirit.Filled with faith, she invokes the Mother of God and in order to obtain such a sighing cure through her intercession, she promises to go to Fatima four times on foot and barefoot. She chose the thirteenth of August to begin fulfilling her promise.

But her husband, who is a God-fearing man, considering such a company a true recklessness, opposed his departure.

"We're poor," he told his wife. "We don't have the resources to rent a car where you can make the journey safe and likely to get there alive. Have patience, but I won't let you go."

In fact, his state of weakness was so great that he was tired when he walked, however small. About two hundred meters from the house has a small rustic building. It had been a long time since she had ever been there, and when she did, she needed to sit on the roadside a number of times to rest. The daughters did all the work of the house, indicating and distributing the mother the various services, unable to help them, as she wished, by weakening her strength. But she insisted so much on her husband that, seeing her unshakable confidence, she acceded to her stubborn instances and resolved to accompany her.

Finally came the thirteenth of August, so hotly awaited. At one o'clock in the morning that day, the sick woman sets out with her husband, who continued to regard such a journey as foolhardy and madness. He rested several times on the course.

It was nine o'clock in the morning when he arrived at the apparition site. She was quite exhausted, in great pain, all of it, according to her own expression, was a pain. A few moments later, with great surprise, he experienced remarkable relief.

He sat in the shade of a large, holm-covered cape, where he drank some food, and kept there until three o'clock in the afternoon, then set off again. On the way back the pain was less intense and she was not as fatigued as going.

From day to day the improvements became more and more pronounced. In the meantime he began to take solid foods, but his main food remained milk. On September thirteen he returned to Fatima for the second time, not causing him to travel as uncomfortably as on August thirteen. Each time she went there, she prayed the rosary both on the way and back, not talking or paying attention to the conversations of the people who accompanied her.

From that day on, it got even better,

I already worked a little at home and went with less difficulty to the farm. The thirteenth of October departed early in the morning as before, but before reaching Fatima she was surprised by the memorable torrential rain that marked that autumn day. Although she had gotten all wet, soaking the rain in her clothes, she felt perfectly fine at the sightings. The pains disappeared so as not to return. The swelling of the belly and upper and lower limbs also disappeared, as if by charm. Having returned home from that day to today, he eats everything at any time of the day or night, and no matter how indigestible we are, he does not experience the slightest discomfort.

He didn't feel short of breath again. He works hard and can put heavy burdens on his head as before his illness. Never had a cough again. She is fat, feels strong and enjoys excellent health. On the thirteenth of November, she went back to Fatima to thank her Virgin Mary for her healing.

This is the most accurate narration possible, without prejudice to any insignificant error of detail, the illness and the cure of Maria do Carmo, a narration written in the face of the verbal process I carried out on February 12, in Maceira, in the presence from several reliable witnesses and notably from her husband, almost all confirmed the accuracy of her statement. I do not cite names of witnesses, as long as this is authorized, because all the inhabitants of the parish are intimately convinced that the cure of that sick woman cannot be explained at all by the action of the forces of nature. Can this cure really be considered supernatural? It is not for me to say this: it is science, and especially the Church. Will it be easy to safely establish his supernatural character after so many months and probably not as thorough a medical observation as he thought fit? I ignore him, I don't even care about that. My aim is simply to draw the attention of serious and educated people, whatever their religious principles or their opinions about the nature of the Fatima events, to these and other facts that seem to me worthy of special study, because perhaps they may help to clearly determine the nature of these events. Are they the result of mere illusions of the senses, especially of fantasy? Are they a skillfully crafted mystification by the power of darkness? Is it God's work? This is what is important to ascertain, without preconceived ideas and without partipris, as befits a conscientious and impartial critic.

The 13th of October 1919

(TWO YEARS LATER)

We had already written this brief account of what happened in Fatima on the thirteenth of October 1919, and we were hesitant to publicize it when the passing of little Jacinta, one of the little shepherds of Fatima, once again brought to the discussion screen this problem that seemed a bit forgotten.

Did Our Lady really appear in Fatima?

This question cannot, of course, be given a concrete and positive answer either way.

These are issues so transcendent that it would be foolhardy for a Catholic to accept or reject, in limine, any supernatural intervention in a case such as this.

What remains for us to do is wait patiently or for the apparition to be confirmed or, on the contrary, for its impression to fade completely. However, we must pray a lot to Our Lord to shine the light of truth, and at the same time we should do the penance that you have recommended and that, although the apparition was not a reality, it is still necessary and often remembered. by God, from the famous days of Nineveh to the cave of Massabielle.

And at the same time that we are praying, it is expedient to impartially gather all facts that have occurred without concern of any kind and solely in order to clarify and substantiate an opinion whatever it may be.

So we decided to give the publicity this simple report, to which we will add some very edifying loose notes about the death of the humble and innocent Jacinta.

The Way of Fatima

The thirteenth day of October 1919 dawned.

In the village, where I had arrived the day before, the tower clock ticked on its time-blackened dial at ten thirty in the morning (official time).

Long rows of brownish clouds flowed softly across the sky, seeming to herald one of those thunderous hideous showers, accompanied by heavy showers, which are so frequent in early autumn.

Traveling at a speed of sixty kilometers per hour the distance that separated me from Vila Nova d'Ourem, I arrived at this important village of Santarém district at eleven o'clock sharp. The day before, the widely circulated newspapers, in their correspondence from the province, announced the following parody, an outlandish competition of pilgrims and onlookers to the land of apparitions, to the resort of mystery and wonder, to the famous and seductive Fatima.

Effectively this was so. It was the second anniversary of the sixth and last apparition to the little seers of Aljustrel and the astonishing solar phenomenon that they had predicted with mathematical certainty and that about sixty thousand people from all walks of life and from all parts of the country had the chance to witness.

It is still in everyone's memory the formidable echo that this unprecedented event has produced throughout the Portuguese press, which has largely occupied it.

On the road from Vila Nova d'Ourem to the village of Fatima, which is twelve kilometers away, the movement just outside the village is extraordinary. Inhabitants come to the windows or appear on the balconies or at the doors of their homes to contemplate the interesting and moving spectacle before their wondering eyes.

Numerous groups of people are seen, some on foot, others on horseback. Vehicles of all sizes and models come literally on the road. Here are men and women of the people who walk slowly and silently. Alem is a family of distinction that comes comfortably on a luxury train. Later a distinguished army officer guides a buggy leading some of his family.

Then a car goes by, which quickly climbs the slope. The groups of pilgrims on foot, the car queues, the traditional donkeys, the endless rows of bicycles, the ox carts, the trains, and the insulated cars circulate more and more as the vehicle that carries me nears. dizzily from the top of the mountain.

It's eleven-thirty when I get to the foot of the parish church of Fatima. Many pilgrims, fatigued from the path, rest by the road near the church. I still have three kilometers left to finish my trip, next to the modest capella, standing next to the sacred holm oak. The rest of the way, the movement of pedestrians, riders, trains and automobiles is astounding. Pilgrims from the nearest villages, having met the demands of their piety, are already returning to their homes to indulge in the work of the field, which is now in full swing, especially the harvest and harvesting of the fig.

Others withdraw because they are far away, having lost the night on the trip. they made their visit, kept their promises and return to their homes, because it was not curiosity, but only duty and devotion that attracted them to that privileged stay.

We are now at the top of the mountain. At this time of morning and at such a high altitude, the temperature is still, as it should be in such a season, extremely low: it feels cold. The sidecar in which I travel has difficulty making its way through the immense mole of people that fills the road. The horn blows on and on, and the hitherto dizzying speed of the vehicle slows it considerably.

It is remarkable the silence, the composure and the withdrawal of all that endless human wave.

It could be said that she has a deep and living intuition that the ground she treads is sacred and that an atmosphere of the supernatural surrounds and saturates her. From all the roads, paths and shortcuts people flock. But behold, about two hundred meters, on the right side of the road, you can see, at the bottom of a valley, a huge crowd. We are, therefore, in the celebrated place, commonly called Cova da Iria, and now known as the place of the apparitions of the Queen of Heaven. The beautiful little chapel stands, near us, next to the holm oak, where the feet of the heavenly vision, boasting its walls of pure whiteness, and raising, like an everlasting plea, its rustic but graceful red-tile roof.

Around her are kneeling in fervent prayer over five hundred people. Here and there, on either side of the road and across the vast slope, in the shadow of the oak trees, one can see only vehicles of all kinds and numerous groups of pilgrims resting or eating their farnels, in an inspired silence and gravity. for devotion and respect for the place.

Singing and praying! Blessed and praised!

It is almost noon. Through clouds, which ceaselessly pervade the heavens, the sun appears from time to time and dances upon its heads its most living rays. A group of pilgrims have been processionally approaching the site. There are about one hundred people: men, women and children. Some men wear opas, one of them leading a tassel in front of which is a panel with the image of the Virgin. As they walk, they pray devoutly the rosary, aloud. From space to space, in the intervals of the mysteries, a chorus of Argentine voices chants chanting songs in honor of Our Lady. I ask where that procession comes from and they tell me that it is from the Play of the Covas, limit of Caranguejeira, parish of Alqueidão da Serra. The procession stops by the chapel. Some pilgrims enter it and one of them prays the rosary alternately with the bystanders.

Part of the crowd is on its knees, the other part is standing. All the time people arrive. I move around the place. A little away from the crowd, a reverently looking, modestly dressed individual is sitting on the floor with his hands folded, unraveling the beads of his rosary; without paying attention to what goes on around him.

In the meantime hundreds of mouths sing the moving 'popular chant to the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, Blessed and praised.

TWO CURES

A man of the people approaches me and tells me the simple but touching story of his healing. His name is Manuel Antunes Carvalho and he is 45 years old. During his narration the commotion sometimes chokes his voice and tears, thick as fists, run down his cheeks. Before her illness she had come to Fatima four times. This is the first time you come back after your healing. He came with his wife and four children to fulfill his promise to obtain it.

Moments later a new man passes in front of me in determined ways to which I am struck. I ask you why you came to Fatima. He responds evasively, suspecting that I was interrogating him to mock him. It is going to be shaken out. Some people can convince you that I am present to gather information for advertising.

Then he comes back confidently on his steps and describes the healing of a son whom he had thought a few months before lost without medicine. Her name is Veríssimo dos Reis Ambrosio and she lives in the parish of Pedrogam, Torres Novas council. She says that since her nine-year-old son was in danger of life, only with skin and bone, for two months now, the mother and maternal grandmother promised to go to Fatima to thank the cure of the child, if Our Lady had agreed to grant it. them this grace. The child had completely healed, and there she was now very fat and breathing health on her mother's lap, which in the meantime had come to show her.

A grateful rocket!

Suddenly, about fifty meters from the chapel, a ghetto rises into the air and crumbles to a great height, producing a formidable cannon-like crack that echoes in mounds and valleys in the distance and off, listen to many leagues away. This rocket is followed by another twenty.

Around me, some people, ignoring the motive of that salvo, express their displeasure at the desecration of the apparition site with such a scene that contrasted so much with the silence and withdrawal of the crowd. They wonder and regret that the clergy are completely unaware of what is going on there, because surely under their direction such facts would not happen.

They fear that the uplifting manifestations of faith, which so often repeat themselves there, will eventually become vain and noisy revelry of the camp. If the ecclesiastical authority, they said, these people, respectfully and without criticism, had any interference in the events of Fatima, would not have allowed this unreasonable manifestation of rejoicing, which represented irreverence and contempt, or at least prevented it. that it should be so close to the revered pattern of marvelous events. With a notebook and pencil in my hand, I turn to the man who had laid the rockets and asked him his name. He stands up, changes his color, formalizes himself, and responds to me in a brief, shaken tone: "If you are an authority and come to arrest me for laying the unlicensed rockets, I don't mind paying the fine, or go to jail. I kept my promise, and now I'm all for it. ”I reassure her without delay, reassuring her that my purpose is simply to know if I had saved twenty-one shots in fulfillment of some promise. cheer, his face rejoices and illuminates and, enthusiastically, begins to narrate, in a simple but eloquent language, his touching story.

Owner of a gunpowder and fireworks factory in an important parish of the Moz Port Council, he lived with his wife and children delivered to the occupations of his profession and enjoying perfect health. At the beginning of last July, he began to suffer from a serious gastro-intestinal disease. The medical aid was of no avail to him. From day to day his condition got worse and worse. Debalde the distinguished facultative Standard, of Batalha, and Neves, of Alcobaça, lavished at his head the resources and unveils of his knowledge and experience.

Having lost all human hopes for the cure of their ills, fearing to leave their children in misery at their death, they turn with confidence to the One who is rightly called the Comforter of the afflicted and the Health of the sick and invokes her. sponsorship, promising, if he was cured, to go to Fatima instead of the apparitions, a volley of twenty-one mortar rockets, each for the price of a shield, purposely prepared for that purpose. Once the promise is made, it begins to feel better and soon after it is completely restored.

She came to Fatima with her wife, mother-in-law, son and nephew, to thank Our Lady for this grace and to fulfill her promise.

LORD GOD! ... MERCY!…

It's noon and three quarters. A woman with a head burner kneels toward the chapel. Several people surround it, which at great cost make their way through the crowds that were crowded around the popular commemorative pattern of apparitions.

Shortly afterwards a well-dressed man, with a son on his lap and followed by the woman with tears in his eyes, also heads for the chapel.

Meanwhile the procession of the Caves is reorganized and set in motion for the parish church. At the chapel a woman of the town prays the rosary alternately with the bystanders. From time to time you hear these moving pleas from the bottom of the soul: "Lord God, mercy," "Lord, hear my prayer, and my cry come to you!"

A gentleman from Marruas (Torres Novas), who looks to be in his fifties, is a short distance from where I am. I am impressed by your attitude. The statue of suffering comforted by faith would be said. People who know him tell me his painful story. At the end of January of this year an apoplectic insult numbed his lower limbs and produced a severe paralysis in his larynx, which completely extinguished his voice. Walks with difficulty and supported by a cane. He came to Fatima, waiting with living faith for his healing. I approach, ask several questions, and address a few words of comfort. The commotion seizes him and the poor old man cries loudly and convulsively like a child. The wife next to him also cries but silently, lovingly trying to cheer him up.

LUCIA THE LIVING

It's already an hour. Word of mouth spreads that Pastorinha Lucia, considered the privileged Virgin, and the main protagonist of the apparitions, is on her way to Cova da Iria and is already close. There is a strange whisper, and the crowd churns more and more. Countless people rush to meet the seer. She advances with difficulty and heads for the chapel, where she prays the rosary alternately with the people.

From time to time, in the distance, on the road, the horn of an arriving car is heard. The crowd is huge, several groups are formed, praying the rosary aloud. At the chapel a girl prays earnestly, confidently invoking the Queen of peace.

WE HAVE MAN!

At this point I hear of another extraordinary case. This is a boy who came to Fatima to thank his improvements to Our Lady. It's called Laurentino Career Pools. He is the son of Adriano Carreira Poças and Joanna Carreira Rebella Poças and is fourteen years old. A native of Reguengo do Fétal, he went to Leiria last year, where he had obtained placement as a clerk in a farm shop. With a weak complexion, he began to feel sick and his discomfort got so bad that the boss decided to send him home in order to treat himself properly. Reaching the bottom of the stairs in his house, he fainted and fell helplessly to the floor due to his weakness. The Doctor. Pereira, who had treated him during his stay in Leiria, sent him a letter to an uncle named Francisco Carreira Poças, in which he said that his nephew was tuberculous. His mother, as soon as he arrived, made the promise to go to Fatima, and to kneel around the chapel with an offer to his head if he got better. The poor boy felt a sharp twinge in his chest on his right side up to his neck. It was forbidden to make any effort. His thinness was extreme. I could not play. His only wish was to be always at rest. It doesn't feel bad at the moment. He came by bicycle from the Reguengo do Fétal; which is two leagues away, bringing a little boy before him on the handlebar of the vehicle. The day before, it had been three months since she had come home ill. A month and a half ago dr. Pereira saw him again in Leiria, where he. She went to see him, and said that she thought he was much better, uttering these textual words that expressed both surprise and satisfaction: "We have a man!"

SAVE FROM PESTE!

I meet again the small group that I had just seen entering the chapel.

They are husband, wife and son. The husband is named José Antonio Motta and is 31 years old. The woman's name is Maria do Espírito Santo Motta and is the age of her husband. They are native of the place of Vargos, parish of Paço, council of Torres Novas. The woman was very, ill with a bronchopneumonia attack for about a month in October and November last year.

Her husband saw her one day so badly that she was afraid to lose her, so she turned to Fatima, summoned Our Lady of the Rosary, and promised to go with her family to that village and give alms in harmony with her own. possessions if the woman healed.

The Blessed Virgin did this grace to him, and he came with the wife of a son and mother-in-law to fulfill the promise. I had come to Fatima two years ago today, on the day of the great prodigy.

One meter away, on the side of the road, he is advancing on his knees towards Capella, a woman of the people. It's an hour and a half: precisely astronomical noon. More than two thousand people must be present.

Beside me a woman, deeply impressed with all that she had observed, was intimately saying that even if she had to leave the country, she had to do her best to return to Fatima.

Blessed Virgin, forgive me!

At this point a well-dressed man, who has just arrived, breaks through the crowds, who crowded around the chapel, contemplates with mockery and compassion the kneeling pilgrims and stops in front of the sanctuary door. Moments later, in an intimate commotion, he falls to his knees and utters, in a sob, this plea that the onlookers distinctly heard: "Most Holy Virgin, forgive me! ... ... for a long time in deep recollection.

An officer on horseback cautiously advances among the people some distance from the chapel. I ask who it is and they tell me that it is the board administrator. Observe carefully everything that happens and constantly travel from side to side. I seem to be striving not to miss the duties that correction imposes on an intelligent and well-educated person, despite the advanced ideas they claim to possess.

DIE THE JET?

Jacinta de Jesus Marto, one of Aljustrel's seers, is accompanied by his mother. Both of them are in deep mourning because of the death of Francisco Mario, Jacinta's brother, who would also have been favored by the Virgin's vision and who until the last breath always sustained the truth of his narratives. The little one is skeletal. The arms are amazingly thin.

Since leaving the hospital of Vila Nova d'Ourem, where for two months he was being treated without result, has always been burning with fever. Your appearance inspires compassion.

Poor child! Still last year full of life and health, and today as a withered flower, hanging on the edge of the tomb. Tuberculosis after a bout of bronchopneumonia and purulent pleurisy, pitilessly undermines her weak organism. Only proper treatment in a good sanatorium could possibly save her.

But their parents, while not poor, cannot cope with the sheer expense of this treatment.

Bernadette, the humble quarterback of Lourdes, heard from the mouth of the Immaculate, who deigned to appear to her on the rocks of Massabielle, the promise that would make her happy, not in this world but in the next. Had the Virgin made the same promise to the pastor of Minde Mountain, to whom she communicated a secret that the seer can reveal to no one?

Thus the sufferings of Jacinta de Jesus, endured with Christian resignation, will be for her a source of worthiness, which will make her crown of glory in heaven brighter and more precious.

Blessed land!

Along with the pilgrimage of the Caves, returning from the parish church, comes a girl who suffered from a serious illness and whose cure, attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima, has been the subject of the conversations of all pilgrims in recent months.

Many people accompany her, hearing from her mouth the narration of the episodes of her illness and its cure.

It is already near the chapel. I approach, breaking costly through the crowd that surrounds her in a tight circle.

I will question her. Her name is Maria da Conceição, she is 21 years old, and is the daughter of Francisco Correia and Maria dos Anjos Correia. She is a native and resident of Carreirancha, a parish of Alqueidão da Serra, district of Leiria. She has two brothers and four sisters, who live with her in her paternal home. He lives at one end of the place, at the highest part.

Seven years ago she suffered from a severe flu attack and, having not treated herself properly, the general state of her health suffered greatly. A few months after he had the flu, he had cerebrospinal meningitis and was treated during this serious illness by Dr. Default, from the Battle. The medicines he took did not give him any relief. He had violent pain in his head, chest and legs. A deep, dry cough constantly tormented his chest. About three and a half years ago, he poured plenty of blood from his mouth for fifteen consecutive days. The blood stopped flowing after moments of supplication to Our Lady. Many people, seeing her state of weakness and dejection, said she was soon to die, a victim of tuberculosis. For the past seven months she has been in bed, paralyzed, barely able to move. The pains I experienced were horrible. He rested neither day nor night, because the violence of the pain did not allow him to sleep. However, in the midst of her atrocious sufferings, she had never lost confidence in the protection of the Blessed Virgin, who awaited her healing unswervingly.

On the 23rd of March this year, in the afternoon, he told his family that Our Lady had appeared to him and assured him that two days later, at 9 am, he could get up from his bed of pain, recommending that he go to Fatima. and promising him that he would heal himself with the land use of the apparition site. Against the expectation of the family, who refused to give credit to what she said, supposing her to be hallucinating, on the 25th, at the appointed time, the patient rises with great amazement, and, riding a horse , leaves for Fatima. Having returned home, after her devotions have been satisfied and given thanksgiving, a novena begins. Praying the rosary and a season each day and applying the earth from the apparition site dissolved in water as a remedy for external and internal use, one feels healed at the end of the novena. Today she walks without difficulty, does not tire of work, nor does she feel pains.

Every month since then she has been to Fatima on the thirteenth, except September, to thank Our Lady for her healing. Manuel Pastilhas and Maria de Jesus, from Boiceiros, and others accompanying her, claim to have seen her in an unfortunate, paralytic and extremely thin state.

Another cure

Around me is a huge crowd.

Everyone wants to hear Maria da Conceição's healing narration, but it is impossible. With difficulty I can break the iron circle that squeezes me. A man of the people turns to me and tells me in striking terms the interesting story of his cure. His name is Antonio d'Oliveira Dias. is 58 years old and lives in the place of Carrascos, parish of Paço, council of Torres Novas. She had been suffering for twelve years from chronic pharyngitis that was rebellious to all treatment. The doctors were of the opinion that it would never be radically cured. On the thirteenth of October, 1917 had come to Fatima and witnessed the stupendous solar phenomenon. In November of that same year he made the promise to go to Fatima to thank Our Lady for her healing, if she would deign to reach him for that grace that he was so longing for. From that date on, although he did not undergo any treatment, he gradually improved, and a year later, in November 1918, he found himself completely healed.

BAD BLOOD!

An interesting group of four people one lady and three girls catches the attention of the bystanders.

They come to thank Our Lady for the cure, to which one of them was the object. They are mother, two daughters and a goddaughter.

They reside in Lisbon, at Rua de D. Estephania at 115, 3rd. The mother's name is D. Amelia Julia dos Santos, widow of Carlos Alberto dos Santos. One of the daughters, the oldest, is the protagonist of this touching episode. Her name is Maria Manuel dos Santos and she is 25 years old. She spent four years as a student at the College of St. Peter d'Alcantara, having entered in 1910 and left in 1914. She belongs to a family roughly tested by suffering.

Many close relatives have died of tuberculosis, including a six-year-old brother. His father died madly and a brother went crazy for months, currently being in the hospital of the brothers of St. John of God, in Telhal.

When she finished her studies, she left the school and went to Alemtejo, establishing herself as a private teacher in Arraiolos, where she arrived. On the fourteenth day of October, 1914. A few days later she was attacked by an appendicitis and retired to Lisbon on the advice of her doctor. vite and four of the same month. In November of the following year she suffered a second attack and a third in March. On the twenty-eighth of May, she entered the hospital of D. Estephania in order to be operated. The operation was logged on June 11th and was done by drs. Monjardim, Pinto Coelho and Medeiros. At the end of the month, at twenty-eight, she left the hospital and was taken by train to her house. He was at home a little over a month, returning to the hospital on 15 August, because his health had deteriorated. It was there until November 14th, the day it was operated for the second time. In the meantime she began to feel a severe pain that was located in her right leg, extending from the hip to the knee.

Sometimes the violence of pain reached paroxysm, becoming unbearable. He could only settle down by injection.

There were times when I did not sleep for consecutive nights. The leg was always shrunken and bent.

He applied bandage and plaster extensions. The fever was constant but not too high.

It languished and lost weight day by day. The appetite was gone. he was prescribed various lime glycerosphosphate, iodotanic syrup and strychnine tonics, and injections of several species - herring, cocodylato and dynamol. Her illness was diagnosed with roxalgia, resulting from a fall the nurse had given as a child from a room to a third floor down the stairs; When this disaster struck, he was eleven years old. his leg was bruised and bruised, which soon faded without a trace of internal injury.

The doctors were of the opinion that the action of chloroform and ether with which she had been anesthetized during the operations had uncovered the latent disease!

PAINFUL WAY! ...

Before the second operation the pain was not so strong and the patient could walk, although with great difficulty. He then lived on Rua de Passos Manuel, near Largo de Santa Barbara. It was two hundred paces from the hospital. It was kept under observation and treatment for one year; being now three months in the hospital, now six months at home. "

When I was at home, I would go to the hospital for treatment, leaning on a parasol. He had to be admitted to the hospital about five times, sometimes by train, sometimes by stretcher. After two and a half years of treatment, on November 1, 1916, on the advice of doctors, he left D. Estephania's hospital and went to the Outão Sanatorium, near Setubal, in the hope that the sea air would bring some relief to their sufferings. It was transported to Terreiro do Paço in a Red Cross car. They passed her on her lap to the steam that made the Tagus crossing. From Barreiro she was taken under the same conditions to the train, where she went to SetubaL There was a car waiting for her, which drove her to the Sanatorium.

In the Sanctuary

In this resort was ten months. For the first month he did not get out of bed. Then, with the aid of crutches, he began to walk with his leg in a plaster device. At the end of seven months he also had a limp in his left leg. She felt a sharp pain in her thigh, her leg began to shrink, seeing the unhappy girl forced to bed. The right leg was still immobilized. in the plaster apparatus and the left leg was adapted a plaster boot. Since the doctor treating her had left for France and the doctor who succeeded her in the direction of the Sanatorium was a specialist in lung disease rather than bone disease, the patient wanted to return to Lisbon. In the meantime, his state of health has worsened due to an intestinal infection that has occurred to him.

A sick friend of hers, who had always been a patronizing nurse to her, who was sympathetic to her condition, wrote her mother a letter telling her to go get her daughter because she was dying.

The poor lady, with her soul full of pain, left without delay for Outão in order to take her daughter to the capital, but, as the doctor opposed what he considered a foolishness, gave up, then, his intention, returning alone to Lisbon. After five days, on her due diligence, a nurse from D. Estefania's hospital went to the Sanatorium to see if she could bring the patient home.

On this occasion a teacher from Lisbon used to go three times a week to teach the children of the sanatorium lavors. She took advantage of one of the days when she returned to the capital so that she could accompany the patient, who was also accompanied by the aforementioned nurse and a nurse from the Sanatorium.

FROM HERODES TO PILATES! ,,,

In the courtyard of the Sanatorium, a train received the sick woman who was carried on a board by the shoulders of two servants. On the train he always came to the lap of the teacher and the nurse. One leg was in the device and the other in the plaster boot and between splints. The pains were horrible. The weakness was extreme. Any movement made her pass out. At Setubal station her fellow travelers Ires transported her from train to train with a thousand precautions.

An individual in the same room charitably helped her to rise and settle. Along the way, he lost consciousness again and again.

The nurse, not feeling her pulse, was overwhelmed with fear that she would die during the trip. In Barreiro she was transported in arms, unconscious, from the steam train, as well as in Lisbon, from the steam to the Red Cross car, which drove her home, already on D. Estephania street. On the quay the family awaited their arrival. When he landed, his face was a corpse-pale. The people who watched her pass, pitying her sad luck.

Some said she was dead, others that she was injured, others that she was finally burned. In the small stretcher of the car was led to the bed, on a third floor.

It was the tenth of August. On the recommendation of a family relations pharmacist, Dr.. Miranda, bone disease specialist. Only eight or ten days later this doctor can visit the patient. As soon as he saw her, he advised her to go to the hospital for an appointment to get her a new device. She did so. It has been sterilized so that your legs can be conveniently extended. However, since the device was not properly placed and broken, and the leg was not as straight as needed, the doctor ordered it to be ten days long. Then he returned home. Later, on July 6, 1918, he went to Dr. Miranda, on Avenida da Liberdade, so he could put on her, as he effectively put it, another big device, from the knees to the stomach. He was on a stretcher in a Red Cross car, which waited for the device to be put on, then transported it home. It kept this device during the months of January and February. However, the nurse through the hospital staff was providing the doctor with information about her condition. At Easter he sent her to apply for another appliance because he was still in pain. The doctor told her she would always be in pain and advised her to buy the precise leather; for he was willing to make a device that she should wear all her life. Since the plaster was broken and she felt little pain when it was in good condition, she asked the doctor to replace it with another lick of plaster. The doctor granted this request. The patient therefore went to the hospital, where she was fourteen days right. It entered the twelve of March and left the twenty-eight of the same month, Good Friday. went and came in a Red Cross car, staying in bed for three months with the same device.

The Sickness of a Sister

On the occasion of the last apparition of Fatima, on the thirteenth of October 1917, his twenty-year-old sister Lucia Maria Anna dos Santos, who was spending the summer at the place of Carrascos, parish of Paço, council of Torres Novas, in The house of his cousin D. Amelia Estevam, went with several family members to that village of Minde mountain and watched the wonderful phenomena that occurred there, asking with the greatest fervor and in the greatest distress to the Blessed Virgin to deign to heal her sister. Her sister's cure was her great concern every day, every hour, every moment. It was his most ardent desire, the grace he most desired, the favor of heaven that pleaded with the most earnest and most constant commitment. Already on the thirteenth of the previous month he had gone to Fatima and begged this grace fervently.

Before that day, still in September, he had asked his cousin, Julio Netto d'Almeida, not to forget to recommend his intention to Fatima's privileged shepherds. On the thirteenth of October she herself asked the seers for the help of her prayers and promised that her sister would go to Fatima to thank the healing if Our Lady would deign to favor her with this grace. In the meantime, she continued to pray to Our Lady of Fatima, nurturing the hope of seeing her sister healed, despite the severe crises she was going through and all losing their last hopes for salvation. "An extraordinary cure!" Says the doctor ... The nurse, when passed three months in June, took off the last device, as the nurse offered to carry her to the bath, declined the offer, saying it could go by his foot. A month later, he was walking without touching anything, though with difficulty. He then went to Fanhões, near Loures, returning to Lisbon after two months. There he was leaning on a cane, walking from there and walking well. Before leaving for big fans, he went to the hospital. The doctor, seeing her, was stunned. I didn't want to believe it was the same person. he said to her, "O girl, are you ?! It seems like a miracle!" And then, as if reconsidering, he added: "A miracle, no; an extraordinary cure, a rare case. Then he watched her closely and said he thought it was good. Many people in the nurse's relations, who were unfaithful, said in amazement that their healing seemed like a miracle. People of religious sentiment who had known their pitiful state well had no doubt about the supernatural character of their healing.

I ASKED AND YOU WILL RECEIVE! ...

During the two operations, the patient received the sacraments. The sister every day or almost every day, especially after the events of Fatima, prayed the rosary and offered it for her healing. The patient, by letter that her sister wrote from Carrascos to her mother on her trip to Fatima, learned of the promise she had made and associated herself with her intentions, but resigning herself to God's will and asking Our Lady whatever was best for your soul.

HOW GOOD TO CONTINUE HERE! ...

It's three hours minus a quarter. More than a thousand people are present. The back and forth movement is extraordinary. However, I become aware of another cure. Maria José, 50, born in Ameixieira, Fatima, married to Antonio do Rosario, began to suffer severely from her eyes in July. His eyes blurred, seeing very little. I had pain and itching in the eyes. He promised, if he got better, to go to his knees by the chapel from the point he first saw it. Feels effectively better, almost completely healed. That is why he has kept his promise today.

I look around me. The show is superb. The crowd seems to be plodding with difficulty from this sacred place, to which their hearts are bound. Here we enjoy a soft and holy joy, a consolation that does not seem of this world. The supernatural is breathed with long swallows.

... but you have to leave! ...

It's time to go back. My watch says four o'clock. I leave for the parish church, which is undergoing reparations. Many pilgrims go there to visit the Sacrament Jesus and see the works. As the workers recently demolished part of the walls of the high altar, they discovered a statue of Our Lady with the child Jesus on her lap, of natural size and in perfect condition. The discovery of this image caused a sensation throughout the region and among the pilgrims, especially since everything seems to indicate that it is an image of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Back home! ...

On the roads, which I travel and are full of pilgrims returning home, the same spectacle is seen as in the morning, but perhaps even more impressive. Near and far. one hears only the rhythmic recitation of the rosary, or the chanting of the litany of the Most Holy Virgin litany, or of popular hymns in his honor. And when, at night, seven leagues from Fatima, I drove after dinner to Payalvo station to take the Lisbon express, the Avé de Lourdes, sung by the pilgrims, could be heard on the roads. or on horseback, they longed to reach their distant homes as soon as possible, where in the winter evenings, by the fireplace, they will recount to those who had remained the stupendous wonders of the mysterious Fatima. And with the poet will repeat singing full of faith and confidence in the Augusta Patroness of Portugal, the beautiful and inspired stanzas, whose sounds the hills and valleys of the mountains of Minde seem to echo in the distance:

Today ... But today is still a star

Holy Mary! ... Inda is a Mother!

Came to Nuno County

say it in Ourem's lands!

When Rome in worship raised

Don Nuno at the throne of light,

Fatima came to smile at us

the sweet mother of Jesus!

He came to tell us in the mist

of our dark afternoon,

who prays from heaven for us

Friar Nuno and Santa Maria.

The death of little Jacinta

As we have promised, we will now give readers a few notes on the passing of little Jacinta, one of the seers of Fatima, and then we will also say something about our impressions of May thirteenth 1920 that the unexpected prohibition of authority brought to an end. highlighted, producing counterproductive effect.

It is a general belief among the people that the whole family of the children, as well as the children, are doomed to disappear within a short time, and it is added that this would have been announced to them by you. Whatever the foundation of this belief, it is certain that little Francisco, Jacinta's brother, has passed away, Jacinta too, Lucia's father in the same way, and his mother was recently dead, as well as very old. barely a sister of Jacinta. 1

1 It died at the beginning of May.

Of the three children, only Lucia remains, who was the one talking to the Lady, she says.

Jacinta, who was relatively robust, had, as we said, pneumonia, resulting in a purulent pleurisy, followed by other complications.

Having come to Fatima, a distinguished expert from the capital, and having observed the little one, he made an effort to go to Lisbon to see if it could still be saved by an operation.

He was sought accommodation in a wealthy person's house, but nothing was achieved.

He went to stay in the poor abode of a modest creature, who welcomed her with great contentment from the little one, who was taken from his provincial surroundings, all of it shyness and confusion.

To perform the operation, D. Estephania's hospital was chosen.

But before the child went to the hospital, she said that the Lady had appeared to her again, assuring her that she died, so the little girl thought the operation was useless.

Despite this, and even though she insisted that everything was useless, the operation went well for her, though without success happily, as it turned out.

Four days before she died, as the child was in great pain and complaining, she told her the creature who had collected her and whom she treated as a godmother, who patiently endured her pains, that this would be very pleasing to God.

The next morning, he said to him,

Look, Godmother! I no longer complain! Our Lady appeared to me again, saying that soon she would come to me and that her pain would be taken away!

And indeed, from that day until he died, it is reported, he did not complain again or show any suffering.

Following the godmother's passing or sitting at the foot of the bed, not far from where Jacinta said she had seen the Lady - the seer exclaimed:

- Get out of there, godmother, that was the lady! ...

And the same concern presented itself when a nurse passed by the same place. Like going to the hospital some people, immodestly dressed, or seeing her or seeing other sick people, and some nurses having certain exaggerations in their attire - he said indicating these people and referring to certain ornaments and necklines:

-What is that for !? If only they knew what eternity is!

Speaking of some doctors she thought were unbelievers - she regretted them, saying:

Poor men, they hardly know what awaits them!

The seer affirmed that Our Lady had communicated to her: that the sin that leads most people to perdition was the sin of the flesh, that one had to let go of luxuries, that should not be obstinate in sin until now, that had to be done. a lot of penance. And it seems that the Lady in saying this was very dismayed, because the little one added:

-There! I am very sorry for Our Lady! I am very sorry!

While at home, before going to the hospital, she lived in the company of another little girl, whom she often recommended - to be very obedient, not to be lazy, and never to be untruthful. Just before he died wondering if he wanted to see his mother again, he said, "That her family was short-lived and would soon be in heaven. She said more than Our Lady." to her, because surely she died, she told him. She excused herself to confess, even though she had confessed and communed before entering the hospital. He went to confession with her. prior of the Angels, Dr. Pereira dos Reis, but did not have time to give him communion. She entered the hospital on February 2, and died on the 20th. After she passed away, someone came up with the idea of ​​transporting her to her native land, and she did so, promoting herself a subscription to that end.

Many of the people who had not wanted her to receive her home after the little girl died were all eager to pay homage to her, perhaps even with a little exaggeration, which caused some fair repairs from an illustrious priest. The corpse of the little girl was in the dispatch house of the Church of the Angels, awaiting the removal to the station and the necessary formalities, then leaving with great accompaniment.

Someone noticed the coincidence that, when the funeral came out, Dr. Domingos Pinio Coelho and some family members who had gone there by accident were found in the Church, and related this fact to the celebrated article written by him. in October 1917, which, although orthodox, prompted repairs to some people boiling in little water. The little girl left two secrets for a person who has been interested in this subject. In short and in conclusion:

God allow the light of truth to shine upon this case, not only for what it may be miraculous — but also for the consequences that may result for the spiritual regeneration of our beloved homeland. And in any case, however, let us fulfill the exhortation that the little one attributes to Our Lady - which is, after all, the doctrine of the Church: Let us do penance! Let us avoid the luxury and sin of the flesh! Let us not be obstinate in sin - lest it happen to us as some to whom the little one referred, when, telling her godmother that we also had to pray for them, she answered: - Yes, godmother, but these no longer have medicine!

DAY THIRTEEN AND MAY 1920

The flood

I arrived at Vila Nova de Ourem on May 13th at dawn, under a torrent of torrential water, between the flash of lightning and the roar of thunder.

As I left Lisbon, the most terrorist rumors about the Fatima case were running. saying that the trip was useless, because there were definite orders not to let anyone pass from Vila Nova de Ourem.

For this reason, many who had agreed to come with me did not come, but I persisted and came, if not, to see what was really.

At the same time as me, two ladies arrived, one still young, elegant and beautiful, with big eyes the color of myosoti, daughter of an old minister of the monarchy, and the other of a distinct appearance, already of a certain age, which I am aware of. be related to one of Beira's best-known families, and particularly Guarda.

Poor things! Under all that rain, which even reminded the Genesis verse: -Et opertae sunt cataractae aquarum et fonts abyssi magni, they did not complain, so much was their faith and enthusiasm, and only, worried the idea that they would not let them. reach the place of the apparitions! ...

Noah's Ark

At a great cost we managed to get to a small inn that is right in front of the church and named after Maria Joanna's Inn, and then we rested a little, on a flickering settee, until daybreak, because about rooms it was something that there was not. Early in the morning, when the hole barely lit up, we felt a large trolley of horses.

We ran to the window!

It was a cavalry squadron of the Republican Guard that was marching at full gallop to Fatima.

"So it would always be true?"

We inquired from the maid of the locanda what was said about there ...

-The same uncertainty ... Rumors! ... Rumors! ...

That there was infantry ... cavalry ... machine guns ... I don't know what else ...

An offensive as a rule!

But why, dear God ?!

No one could explain! ... said the little woman.

One thing they have already achieved: From Ourem no one goes to Fatima. They were all rented cars at 40,000 each. For they have all been dismissed with great anger by the alkylator who is a stricken Republican and who does not understand why a peaceful citizen can be forbidden to go for a walk where he is so pleased!

From Thomar no one comes for the same reason! In many councils, they say, the respective board administrators have banned vehicles from leaving !!

We were in this conversation when a boy from JC de Lisboa came to us, who owned a printing press on the side of Belém, and then Dr. Diniz da Fonseca had slept in the inn, as he had come here the day before to defend a defendant in a general audience. .

I ask for information. They don't know either. That even to Fatima it seems that they will let go, henceforth not ... that scolds the Father of Heaven! ...

It had raised the rain! ...

I walk down the street and start seeing cars, wagons, cars, trucks, people on foot, people on horseback, a true pilgrimage! ...

-Oh! but then what the hell was the ban for? I start to think ...

I thought I would find no one and after all I constantly see men, women and children pass by… in a real blast!

It's an endless ribbon of people!

The Herod of Ourem

It will be huge benches, pulled by guiding males, laden with people laughing down the road, laughing like lost at the figure of the manager I see now standing in the middle of the street ... straws, very blurry .. with a smirk yellow turning the corners of her lips ... flower-wreathed wagons and rattling automobiles with loud siren or raucous rustling around the auto-boxes, heavy, chuffling trucks, with their wide roofs full of crumbles, and curtains to give. .. to give…, aristocratic caleches and lanaaus, modest Carripanas, women and men on foot, soaked, muddy, with funeral umbrellas, dripping water, but satisfied, happy, with present face, all this paraded before me like a long movie tape! ...

Where did so many people come from? From many parts, but above all from Torres Novas, they say.

After all it was! ... Ourem, at least!

But what about the administrator with his straws circling around?! ...

New tape?! ... Who knows?! ...

I wanted to go to Fatima early. But the mass?

I ask what time it is in the matrix:

At 11! What's more, on such an expensive day, I would like to receive Our Lord ...

I let everyone go and wait for Mass ...

On the way to Fatima

After listening to Mass and Communion, I rush to lunch and follow the path to Fatima, up the steep slope that for a few miles meanders through Ourem's heads there.

The panorama is amazing.

The earth, full of greenery and soaked in water, shines in the light of a shy sun, making negation among clouds, still threatening with new squalls.

Everywhere on the side of the road, rustic little houses filled with pink roses, in profusion, as I have never seen.

On the wall surrounding a rippling wheat field, starry with poppies and marigolds, a ranch of petizes had the delicate idea of ​​filling with campezine flowers all the free interstices of the stones!

We always go up ...

Ourem Castle, the Castle of the Holy Constable, lifts its artistic profile to heaven, crowning the summit of the mountain on which it rests.

Here are charmingly shot, beaded, green-lined bush bollards where they run off rushing streams that the morning rain had made muddy and rushing.

It passes fast, from above, a car that allows to see on one side and other carbines, threatening ...

You're the board administrator ... and your escort! ...

It didn't come good, says a guy who follows us on a bike, pedaling ...

It's been an hour and a half since we have been rising ... Fatima is not far away! ... Dripping water again ...

In a short time we effectively entered the small square near the church.

Cars, wagons and stationary cars everywhere. A large crowd, a few thousand people filled the square and crowded the church ...

In the middle of the road infantry and cavalry forces of the Republican Guard prevent from passing on.

This is not the case!

It is still about three kilometers to reach the apparition site.

I ask bystanders if no one has passed. Until noon everyone passed, but then came the board administrator and gave the opposite order. I ask the force commander if you can't pass. Gently he informed:

- Until now I have let it pass, but the board administrator now sends the opposite; I have to follow orders.

Stepping back, I come to the foot of the huge crowd that surrounds the church and the surrounding porch, sadly comments on the case without understanding how public order is in Cova da Iria, and not three kilometers away, being we are the same! ...

It's a perfect stupidity!

Many people, not being able to follow the road, still rush through the fields, stealthily, jumping over walls, and there they can reach the place of the apparition, very happy to be able to kneel on the wet earth and devoutly recite the rosary.

Is this what endangers the regime?!…

Prayer, communion and penance!

Inside the church Dr. Cruz makes pious practices, interspersed with the recitation of the rosary and with religious chants.

There are still a lot of people who confess.

A blind lady, coming from the foot of Aveiro, with great sacrifice, walks supported by the shoulder of a relative, under an impertinent rain that is falling again.

No pity, but on the contrary, blesses God confidently and goes to the church.

A bearded man, who is told to be a doctor and very old, explains to a group around him the providential reason for the ban.

According to him, there were those who wanted to start bringing music, fungi, rockets, etc. there.

Now you don't want any of that.

She appeared in a field, precisely because she wanted to be loved and worshiped there in spirit, without any of these spectacular and noisy displays of camp.

Prayer, communion and penance.

This and only this is what she wants!

By making the ban, the authorities unconsciously fulfill the wishes of the Lady!

Rain and sword fish

The rain now fell into pots again. .

And all sought to take refuge either under the chariots or under the porch, which in the church the grip was already enormous.

In this I see the Republican guard with unsheathed swords unloading slung left and right in some peaceful peasants who with open umbrellas looked wistfully at it all ... and who, surprised by the unexpected aggression, began to run without knowing why they were beaten. .

Someone turns to the guards to ask what it is. They complain that a man of the people wanted to force their way and, as they were prevented from doing so, threatened them, and hence the uproar in which he paid the righteous for the sinner, as often happens.

Having explained the case and restored the tranquility, I talk to some peasants whom I prudently advise to refrain from passing, since obedience to even unjust orders is more meritorious as long as they do not offend our conscience than reckless resistance.

One of the Republican guards then tells me in a gesture of sincerity:

"If you only knew what it costs me to be here!"

I carry out orders and I carry them out to the letter: but believe inside, all this revolts me!

I am religious, sir, and I do not understand how useful it is to be forbidding these poor people to go praying down there!

"I have a sister, who was the Lady of Fatima who saved their lives!"

And indeed, by the shy face of the poor guard who was doing his bidding, against his will, slowly slipped a drop of water that was not positively sister to those that dripped from his oilcloth hood, for the rain continued to flow. fall stubbornly…

The forbidden fruit

I come back and go to the prior's house, whose balcony to the old Portuguese was also robbed by those who sought shelter from the rain, when I see my little, delicate, delicate, blue-eyed companion in the morning with her schismatic eyes. in a dick, sloshing in the mud, but always cheerful and carefree, as if she were comfortably seated in some elegant, well-sheltered, cramped tea, not under that flood.

And show me an engraving print of the Lady of Fatima ...

It's there! she says, and point me to the sacristy of the church!

And then, quietly, as if in secret, laughing a lot, with a hint of mischief lighting his large blue eyes like the firmament, he adds:

-And now I'm going down there! They taught me a shortcut where to go! ... Cross the field! ... But I will go!

And there it shook in the rain, soaked to the bone, splashing in the mud, but always laughing, always happy and happy to go down there and preach a little prank to the governance Herods! ...

- Oh! Women when they want!

The charcoaler's faith!

I entered the sacristy to see what was there. It was an image of the Lady of Fatima, beautiful indeed, that a devotee had purposely made. And because the intolerance of the authorities would not let her put in the niche of Cova da Iria, so he had put her there so that the faithful, parading before her, to see and admire!

And it was to see the devotion with which many of those poor people prayed to him!

I do not really know whether in the worship of the humble and ignorant people will come a little paganism or superstition, which is innate in the heart of man since the fall into the paradise of paradise, but how admirable of ingenuity and simplicity the way, for For example, these believers pray their rosary!

It was the celebrated Pasteur who said that he had the faith of a Breton, but that if he lived longer he would have the faith of a Breton, or as we say here, the faith of the charcoal!

And those who sometimes censor the materiality of popular devotions are not the same ones that fill the halls of Madame Brouillard and other more or less celebrated witches, who let themselves get drunk with two riot Bernheim songs engendered each year by our Universities. , and who bow in reverence before the pillars of the Temple, covered in aprons and triangles with ridiculous necklaces, which lose sight of the blue ribbons of the daughters of Mary?! ...

It's stupid!...

But the rain was still impertinent. . • The coachman warned that the road was not good and had to go back early ... So, made our devotions and our farewells until the first ... we went back to Ourem and then back home.

At the station, before taking the train, we met countless people from different parts of the country who were returning to their lands, like us! ...

There was Ceguinha de Aveiro accompanied by a lady from Oporto, who although both had their dresses completely wet and were both sick, had suffered nothing and kept the same good mood. Wool was a well-known goldsmith from Lisbon, there were many other people from the capital.

I never saw my blue-eyed companion again, who probably stood there walking through hills and valleys until she got where she wanted to go!

And an honorable merchant, a Republican, it seems, covered the council administrator with forceful invectives, because he hampered the progress of the land and prevented the trade from doing its business!

-It's stupid! He concluded ...

- Imagine you ... that this prohibition, only to the alkylators of Thomar, Ourem and Torres Novas, gave more than twenty contos of damage!

CONCLUSION

But the reader will ask, "Did Our Lady really appear at Fatima? We refrain from formulating our judgment on such a delicate and touchy subject. We continue to keep, as hitherto, in benevolent expectation. The facts - a part of them only and undoubtedly the least, they are narrated in all their simplicity and with the most scrupulous impartiality.Everyone, whether a believer or an unbeliever, has the right to think as he likes about the origin and nature of such extraordinary events. However no one of common sense will be sure to find the exclamation made by a distinguished lawyer, who witnessed in person the arbitrary and violent measures adapted by the administrative authority to prevent access to the place of apparitions: "Word of honor! I didn't believe it, but now, since the government forbids you to go there, I begin to believe that Our Lady actually appeared in Fatima!