In Principio August 2017

THE CENTENARY OF THE FATIMA EVENT May 13 this year marked the 100th anniversary of the Fatima apparitions. The Virgin Mary, or Our Lady of Fatima as she became known, appeared to three Portuguese children six times fromMay to October 19 17, making a series of prophecies that a century later are still the subject of intense interest. Notre Dame’s Professor Tracey Rowland, St John Paul II Chair of Theology, recounts the story. Fatima is a town in central Portugal named after a Moorish Princess. In 1917, it came to international attention when three peasant children named Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta (the Iberian form of the name Hyacinth) claimed to have received apparitions from the VirginMary while attending grazing sheep. In all they claimed to have received six apparitions from the Virgin during the year. By the time of the sixth apparition on 13 October, they had become national celebrities. They had also suffered imprisonment and several long and intimidating interrogations. The children however persisted in their claim that a lady dressed in white had appeared to them and told them various things about heaven, hell and purgatory. Her major claim was that unless people repented of their sins “Russia would spread its errors throughout the world”, there would be a second and more terrible war and the pope would have much to suffer. On 13October, between 30,000 and 100,000 people gathered in a field where the children claimed the Virgin was to appear and perform a miracle. They then witnessed some kind of solar event. One professor who was present said: “As if like a bolt from the blue, the clouds were wrenched apart, and the sun at its zenith appeared in all its splendour. It began to revolve vertiginously on its axis, like the most magnificent fire wheel that could be imagined, taking on all the colours of the rainbow and sending forth multicoloured flashes of light, producing the most astounding effect. This sublime and incomparable spectacle, which was repeated three distinct times, lasted for about ten minutes.” In his book ‘God and the Sun at Fatima’, Stanley L Jaki, a Benedictine priest and scientist, suggested that a sudden temperature inversion must have taken place. “The cold and warm air masses could conceivably propel that rotating air lens in an elliptical orbit first toward the earth, and then push it up as if it were a boomerang, back to its original position…Meanwhile the ice crystals in it acted as so many means of refraction for the sun’s rays.” Throughout much of the 20th century, the word “Fatima” was synonymous with speculation about a “third secret” communicated to the children in 1917. Lucia wrote the details in a letter that was read by several popes but its contents were not revealed until 2000. The secret contained a vision of an assassination of a pope amidst a ruined city. The fact that the assassination attempt on St John Paul II took place on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima and that the bullet strangely changed its trajectory upon entering the pope’s body, bypassing vital organs, is regarded by many as another Fatima miracle and one linked to the third secret. Francisco and Jacinta both died within three years of the apparitions, victims of influenza. Lucia became a Carmelite nun and lived until she was 98. Francisco and Jacinta were canonised as saints on May 13 this year by Pope Francis. For a Catholic University dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the canonisation of the Church’s two youngest saints (since the Holy Innocents were massacred by King Herod), is a cause for celebration. The Fatima apparitions testify to the fact that Our Lady or, as the French say, “Notre Dame”, continues to be involved in the affairs of the world and that what we make of the gift of our life matters to her for all eternity. P R O F E S S O R T R AC E Y R OW L A ND I N P R I N C I P I O | 1 7