Rienz Tolentino ELX101

Blessed Jacinta and Francisco Marto
Shepherds of Fatima

Jacinta, a six year old girl, and his brother Francisco, who is almost two years older than her, the son and daughter of Peter and Olympia Marto. Lucia dos Santos is their cousin who is nine-years-old. The three were always together. They carried their lunches with them in a pasture land. The three shepherds always pray the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Angel of God. After lunch they would recite the rosary together. Jacinta invented that instead of saying the complete prayers, one of the three would call, “Hail Mary!” and the other would answer, “Holy Mary!” They would simply end each decade with the two words “Our Father” One Evening, as they were leading the flocks home, Jacinta dropped behind Lucia and Francisco. “What are you doing?” Lucia asked in surprise as she noticed Jacinta walking in the middle of the sheep. “I want to be like Jesus in that holy picture they gave me”, Jacinta explained, “The picture has Jesus right in the middle of all the sheep. And he`s carrying one of them in his arms”. “No lamp is as beautiful as the Lord`s!” Francisco would declare to Lucia and Jacinta. “I like our Lady`s lamp better,” Jacinta would answer, (This was her name for the moon). “It`s not hot like our Lord`s. It doesn`t burn us,” One day after the three had eaten their lunch, a strong gust of wind rattled the trees and above the olive orchard at the foot of the hill, they saw a white figure standing in mid-air. The figure was the Angel of Peace. They repeated after the angel this prayer: ”My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love you! I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love you” Only Lucia and Jacinta heard him speak.

A flash of lightning cut across the path of the three shepherd when they are going home. They saw a beautiful young lady in a small green holm oak tree with her feet just barely touching its leaves. The beautiful young lady will meet them at the same hour on the thirteenth of every month, for six months in a row, until October. They promised to each other not to tell everyone of what had happened but Jacinta betrayed them by saying it to her mother as she arrived home. The lady told Lucia that Francisco and Jacinta will come to heaven very soon but for her, she will remain on earth a longer time because Jesus wants to use her to make the Immaculate Heart of Mary better known and loved. The insults and ridicule were painful, but the lack of reverence toward the Lady was what hurt the children most.

Then Father Ferreira asked to meet the children. The mother of Lucia, Mrs. Marto, thought that it can be a trick of the devil. This possibility really disturbed Lucia. It bothered her so much that she even had a nightmare about it. Lucia thought that she would rather not go to Cova so they talk to her. Lucia change her mind and go with her cousins in the next morning. The Lady told them that she will reveal her name in October and that she would also work a miracle then.

Today we know the three part secret because God and the Blessed Virgin later permitted Lucia to reveal it. In the first part of the secret, the Virgin had shown the children a vision of hell. Buried in the flames had been ugly devils which looked like beasts. The children had also seen human forms, and had heard screams of pain and desperation that made them shiver with fear. To save them, God wants to establish devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The second part of the secret was a warning about World War II. In the third part of the secret, the children seen an angel holding a flaming sword appear to Mary`s left. But the flames had died out when they came into contact with the brilliance radiating from her. Pointing to the earth, the angel had cried, “Penance!, Penance!, Penance!” The children seen the Pope, following him had been other bishop, priests, religious and lay people. Before they had reached the top, where there was a large cross they had needed to pass through a ruined city. Many people had died while the Pope was praying for their souls. On the mountain top, the Pope had knelt at the foot of the cross and there he had been shot at and killed be soldiers. They also killed the others who had followed the Pope. But under the cross two angels had gathered up the Blood of these martyrs and sprinkled it on the souls who were making their way to God.
In the same way, Francisco, Jacinta, and Lucia responded differently to the same apparitions. Lucia was to spread devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Jacinta was to make reparation for sinners. And Francisco? He would try to console God. The three little shepherds had generous hearts and great goals: “To convert sinners, to console the Lord, and to make reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary”

The morning of Monday, August 13, 1917, the automobile of Arturo de Santos, the mayor of the nearby town of Ourem, stopped at the Father Ferreira`s house and asked him to call the three cousins. The cousins realized that the car was turning toward the mayor`s town and Lucia burst out but Mayor de Santos said that first they must go to the pastor of Ourem. They first ate their lunch. The Mayor locked them in the room and the three cousins remained locked up all night. Mayor de Santos offered gold coins for the children to reveal the secret but the three told him everything that they were free to say but not the secret. That is why they were thrown into the town prison. It was getting dark when the children remembered that they`d forgotten to say the rosary. Jacinta took off the medal that she wore around her neck and asked one of the prisoners to hang it on a nail in the wall. The three of them then knelt down to pray the rosary. The other prisoners knelt with them. Soon the gruff voices of the men joined in prayer with the silvery voices of the young shepherds. The mayor call the guard and commanded him to prepare a pot of boiling oil because he will try to use force!

In October 13, 1917, the Lady will reveal her name in the three children, and the crowd nearly 70, 000 persons anxiously awaited the hour of the Virgin`s apparition. The Lady told the shepherds that she was the lady of the Rosary and she added not to offend the Lord our God anymore, because he is already so much offended. The Lady let them understand that this was the last time they would see her on earth. The rain stopped and the clouds rolled back and scattered and the sun change its usual blinding brilliance into a cool silvery-white color. The people were able to look directly into it without being blinded. While the Virgin Mary slowly rose to the right of the sun, Saint Joseph joined her at its left holding the Infant Jesus. These visions ended just as the sun was about to repeat its swirling and dancing for the third and last time. Rotating with an ever-increasing speed, it tore itself from the sky and began a fiery plunge toward the earth. The people screamed in terror. “Lord have mercy on me!” “My God! I believe in you!” “Mary, help us!” After the miracle, many people wants to see and talk with the three shepherds.

God twice allowed Jacinta to see a vision of the Holy Father (It is Pope Pius XII, who was the Pope during World War II). The Holy Father was kneeling, outside there were crowds throwing stones, and that is why Jacinta prayed even more to the Pope. A year after the apparition, the World War I finally ended but there was a form of flu that caught Francisco and Jacinta. At that time, many of the medicines that we have today were not available, and viruses spread quickly. Francisco`s sickness developed into bronchial pneumonia. Francisco wants to take Holy Communion and to confess before he die.

April 4, 1919. Around 6:00 AM, Francisco died in a radiant smile and the Lady from heaven had come to take him home with her just as she had promised. After six months of battling the flu, Jacinta developed a severe case of pleurisy. The membrane surrounding her lungs became inflamed and she often suffered from a fever and coughing spells. Jacinta also receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation and begged to receive Jesus in Holy Communion. That same night, at 10:30, the Blessed Virgin came to bring Jacinta to heaven, just as she had come for Francisco.

At the time of this book`s printing Lucia, now over ninety years old, is still living. She is Carmelite nun in Coimbra, Portugal. On May 13, 200, Jacinta and Francisco were beatified by Pope John Paul II in Fatima. The miracle required for this beatification, complete healing of Maria Emilia Santos, a woman who had been bedridden with tuberculosis for twenty years. Maria had prayed to God for healing through the intercession of Jacinta and Francisco. She was miraculously cured in 1987.