Our Lady of Fátima

Our Lady of Fátima (pronounced [ˈfatimɐ]) is the title given to the vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary that was said to have appeared before three shepherd children at Fátima, Portugal on the 13th day of six consecutive months in 1917, starting on 13 May, the Fátima holiday. The three children were Lúcia Santos and her cousins, siblings Jacinta and Francisco Marto. The title of Our Lady of the Rosary is also sometimes used in reference to the same apparition (although it was first used in 1208 for the reported apparition in the church of Prouille); because the children related that the Lady in the apparition specifically identified Herself as "the Lady of the Rosary." It is also common to see a combination of these titles, i.e., Our Lady of the Rosary of Fátima (Portuguese: ''Nossa Senhora do Rosário de Fátima'').

Lúcia described seeing the lady as "brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal ball filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun."^[1] According to Lúcia's account, the lady confided to the children three secrets, known as the Three Secrets of Fátima. She exhorted the children to do penance and to make sacrifices to save sinners. The children wore tight cords around their waists to cause pain, abstained from drinking water on hot days, and performed other works of penance. Most important, Lúcia said that the lady asked them to say the Rosary every day, reiterating many times that the Rosary was the key to personal and world peace. Many young Portuguese men, including relatives of the visionaries, were then fighting in World War I.

Thousands of people flocked to Fátima and Aljustrel in the ensuing months, drawn by reports of visions and miracles. On 13 August 1917, the provincial administrator and anticlerical Freemason , Artur Santos (no relation), believing that the events were politically disruptive, intercepted and jailed the children before they could reach the Cova da Iria that day. Prisoners held with them in the provincial jail later testified that the children, while upset, were consoled by the inmates, and then led the inmates in praying the Rosary. The administrator interrogated the children and unsuccessfully attempted to get them to divulge the content of the secrets. In the process, he tried to convince the children that he would boil them one by one in a pot of oil unless they confessed the secrets. The children, however, resisted. That month, instead of the usual apparition in the Cova da Iria on the 13th, the children reported that they saw the Lady on August 19 at nearby Valinhos