FÁTIMA, SANCTUARY OF. — In the diocese of Leiria, in the Serra d’Aire range, on a lofty plateau of Tertiary terrain, stands the village of F., unknown throughout the world until 1917. The name is of evident Arabic origin, owing to the Muslim invasion that devastated especially southern Portugal until 1140. There is only a legend regarding the origin of the name.
In the Cova da Iria (Cove of St Irene), on 13 May 1917, Lúcia dos Santos (10 years old), Francisco Marto (9 years old) and Jacinta Marto (7 years old) were tending their flock as on other days on property belonging to Lúcia’s father. At about midday a strong flash of lightning: a most beautiful Lady appears above a small holm oak. She recommended secrecy and enjoined prayers to hasten the end of the war. On the 13th of the following month, and so on until October, the shepherd children returned to see and speak with the apparition. In August the children were imprisoned, and the apparition took place in the locality of Valinhos, near their home. In October the vision revealed itself for what it was: the Madonna of the Rosary, who again urged prayer for the conversion of sinners and foretold another chastisement if the world did not repent. With the Madonna there appeared also the Child Jesus and St Joseph. These apparitions were confirmed by meteorological phenomena witnessed by the greater part of the 60,000 pilgrims present. No further apparitions occurred in the Cova da Iria; but after Bishop José Alves Correia da Silva, of Leiria, in whose territory Fátima with the hamlet of Cova da Iria lies, authorised in 1930 the cult of Our Lady of Fátima, the throngs of pilgrims grew year by year, not only from the Iberian peninsula but from all parts of Europe—especially Belgium and Holland—and from the United States of America.
A small chapel was built on the very spot of the apparitions; it was provided with a statue that became the traditional model of the Madonna of Fátima, solemnly crowned on 13 May 1946 by the papal legate, Cardinal Aloisi Masella, in the presence of more than 600,000 people. A great sanctuary is rising, which, together with the numerous religious houses (among them the modern seminary of the Missionaries of the Consolata of Turin), will give the Cova da Iria the aspect of a holy city like Lourdes.
Here too, in fact, miracles of both physical and supernatural order multiply; the characteristic of the message of Fátima is indeed the call to penance, and one sees nothing but crowds or individual devotees animated by this singular spirit. From the sanctuary, the Madonna began to journey throughout the world in the hands of missionaries, and all peoples of East and West vie with one another to receive her and to have her as their protectress.
Recently the process of beatification of the two siblings Francisco and Jacinta was introduced in the diocese of Leiria, while the seer Lúcia is enclosed in the Carmel of Coimbra, whence she still directs many souls to devotion to the Madonna of the Rosary. — See pl. LXXII.