Where she said it
The Cova da Iria, a quiet sloping field of holm oaks and grazing sheep just outside the small village of Fatima, in central Portugal. On Friday 13 July 1917, three children were tending their families’ sheep there, as they had done since they were very small. Lucia dos Santos was ten years old. Her cousin Francisco Marto was nine. His sister Jacinta Marto was seven. The First World War was tearing across Europe, the children’s older brothers were soldiers in the Portuguese army on the Western Front, and Portugal itself had only recently become a republic that did not love the Church.
It was already the third time Our Lady had come to them. She had appeared first on 13 May 1917, gentle, beautiful, dressed all in white, standing on top of a small holm oak tree. She had asked the children to return on the thirteenth of every month for six months. The whole apparition would last until 13 October 1917, when on a wet hillside crowded with seventy thousand pilgrims and curious onlookers, the sun would seem to dance in the sky for ten minutes and dry the soaked earth in seconds, in front of believers and atheists and reporters alike.
The words on this page were spoken on the third apparition, that of 13 July 1917, the day Our Lady gave the children the great message we now call the three secrets of Fatima.
What she said
Our Lady spoke many beautiful things to the three children across the six apparitions from May to October 1917. Here are some of the most loved, in the order she said them.
Do not be afraid. I will not harm you. I come from Heaven.
13 May 1917, the first apparition
My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge, and the way that will lead you to God.
13 June 1917, the second apparition
In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.
13 July 1917, the third apparition, the day of the great message
Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners.
19 August 1917, the fourth apparition at Valinhos
Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war.
13 September 1917, the fifth apparition
I am the Lady of the Rosary.
13 October 1917, the day of the Miracle of the Sun
What she meant
The sentence is short, but it sits inside a much longer message. Our Lady was speaking to the children about the wars and the persecutions that the twentieth century was about to unleash. She told them, very gently, what would happen if the world did not turn back to God. And then, almost as the last word she said that day, came the promise that has carried Catholic families ever since.
In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.
She did not say the road would be short. She did not say there would be no suffering. She did not say the Church would be spared. She said only that, whatever came, the very last word would belong to her Heart, the heart of a mother who had been kept clean of sin from the first second of her existence so that she could love her Son and his children completely. The triumph she promised was not a battle won by force. It was a love that would simply outlast every evil.
Mary also asked the children, on that same day, to pray the rosary every day, to make small acts of sacrifice for the conversion of sinners, and to consecrate themselves to her Immaculate Heart. These three small practices, she said, would draw the world back to her Son.
Voices that came after
Francisco Marto died on 4 April 1919, aged ten, of the Spanish flu. His sister Jacinta died on 20 February 1920, aged nine, in a hospital in Lisbon, alone. Their cousin Lucia became a Discalced Carmelite nun and lived until 13 February 2005, when she died at the age of 97, the last living witness to the great apparitions of her childhood. Pope Francis canonised Francisco and Jacinta on 13 May 2017, the centenary of the first Fatima apparition. They are the youngest non-martyr saints in the entire history of the Church.
On 13 May 1981, sixty-four years to the day after the first apparition at Fatima, a Turkish gunman shot Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter’s Square. The bullet passed within a few millimetres of the central aorta. The Pope survived, and he was deeply convinced that Our Lady of Fatima had guided the bullet. A year later he travelled to Fatima to give thanks, and there he placed the bullet that had nearly killed him into the crown of Our Lady’s statue, where it remains today.
On 25 March 1984, Pope John Paul II solemnly consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in union with all the bishops of the Church, fulfilling the request Our Lady had made through the children. Sister Lucia later confirmed in writing that this consecration had been accepted by heaven.
Our Blessed Mother came from heaven, offering to implant in the hearts of all those who trust in her the Love of God burning in her own heart.
Pope Benedict XVI, Homily at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, 13 May 2010
Why it still matters
We live in an age that sometimes feels heavier than it should. The news is constant. The wars do not stop. The Church we love is criticised on every side. Our children watch us read the headlines and ask, very quietly, what is going to happen.
The answer Our Lady gave at Fatima is still the answer for our own kitchen table. She did not promise an easy century. She promised a triumph, and she promised that the triumph would belong to her Heart, which is to say, to love. It is a love that does not need to shout. It does not need to win arguments. It outlasts.
This Saturday, with the Immaculate Heart of Mary feast only a week away, you might do one of the three small things Our Lady asked the children to do at Fatima. Pray a decade of the rosary with your little ones. Make a small sacrifice of comfort. Or quietly consecrate your family to her Immaculate Heart with this prayer:
Most holy Virgin Mary, I consecrate myself and my family entirely to your Immaculate Heart. Keep us close to Jesus and bring us safely home. Amen.
A line to carry into the week
In the end, the Heart of my Mother will triumph.