fatimachildren

fatimachildren

I am of heaven

Sunday, May 13, 1917:

On Sunday, May 13, 1917, the three little Shepherds has gone to chapel of Boleiros to assist the first Mass, “the Mass of souls,” as they used to say then, for it was a Mass celebrated for the souls I purgatory, which was a treasured devotion in the piety of the Portuguese. After returning home early in the morning, they left at once to feed their Flocks. As a Place of pasture, Lucy writes,we had chosen that day, by chance, or rather according to plan of Devine Providence, the property belonging to my parents, called Cova da Iria2 … For that, we had to pass through an uncultivated terrain, which doubled the length of our long our road.

After eating their meal and praying the Rosary, the children were at the point of building a wall around a bush. Suddenly, Sister Lucy relates in her fourth Memoir, we saw a kind of lightning.” It is better to return home”, I said my cousins, “for there is lightning, and there could come a storm.” – “oh yes!”

Arriving more or less half – way down the slope, at the level of the top of a large holm – oak which was situated there after walking a few more steps we saw another flash of light. On small holm-oak there stood a Lady, all dressed white, more brilliant than the sun, radiating a light clearer and more intense than a crystal glass filled with clear water pierced by the most burning rays of the sun. We stopped, surprised by this Apparition. We were so close that we found ourselves in the light which surrounded Her, or rather which emanated from Her, perhaps a mater and a half away, more or less.

Then Our Lady said us:

-Do not be afraid. I will do you on harm

– Where is your Grace from? I asked her.

– I am of Heaven.

– What does you Grace want of me?

– I have come to ask you to come here for six months in succession, on the 13th day, at this same hour. Later on, I will tell you who I am and what I want. Afterwards, I will return here yet a seventh time.

– Shall I go to Heaven too?

– Yes you will.

– And Jacinta?

– Also.

– And Francisco?

– Also, but he will have to say many Rosaries.

I remembered than to ask about two girls who had died recently. They were friends of mine and they used to come to my home to learn weaving with my eldest sister.

– Is Maria das Neves4 already in heaven?

– Yes, she is.

It seems to me that she was about sixteen years old.

– And Amelia?5

– She will be in purgatory until the end of the world.

It seems to me that she must have been between eighteen and twenty years old.

Are you willing to offer yourselves to God to bear all the sufferings He wants to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which he is offended, and for the conversion of sinners?

– Yes, We are willing.

– You are than going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.

It was in pronouncing those last words (the grace of God, etc.) that Our Lady opened Her hands for the first time, and communicated to us, as by a reflection which emanated from them, a light so intense that penetrating our heart and even to the depths of our soul, it made us she our selves in God, who was this light, more clearly than we see ourselves in the best mirrors.

Then moved by an Interior impulse which was communicated to us, we fell on our knees and we repeated: “Oh Most Holy Trinity, I adore thee. My God, my God I love thee in the Most Holy sacrament.”

The First moments passed, and Our Lady added:

– Recite the Rosary every day in order to obtain peace for the world at the end of the war.

– Can you tell me whether the war will still last a long time ,or if it will soon end?

– I can’t tell you yet I have not yet told you what I want.

Then She began to rise serenely, going up towards the east until She disappeared in the immensity of the sky. The light which surrounded Her seemed to open a path for Her among the stars, and for this reason we said sometimes that we had seen Heaven opening.

The Lady of the Apparition, Lucy affirmed, seemed not to be more than eighteen years of age. Her dress was of a very pure snow-whiteness.

Her veil which Covered Her head and most of Her body was embroidered with gold. Her face, with an incomparable nobility, had something of the supernatural and divine: She seemed serene and grave, and was shaded in sorrow. From her hands, joined at the height of the chest, was hanging a beautiful Rosary with beads like white ermine resembling pearls and terminating with a crucifix. Her whole person, surrounded by a splendor more brilliant than the sun, radiated clusters of light, and especially Her face is of a beauty impossible to describe and incomparably superior to any human beauty.