Fátima ao detalhe | 19 agosto 1917 | Aliança de Santa Maria

AUGUST 19TH, 1917
FÁTIMA IN DETAIL

Sr. Maria Benedita Costa, asm
Sister of the Covenant of St. Mary

The events surrounding August 13, 1917, much more than the experience of a trauma - which could have occurred because they were removed, against their will and that of their parents, from the safety of their family environment - left the Three Little Shepherds with the sadness of those who, hoping to see someone they love, feel their expectations dashed by the impossibility of meeting them, a sadness that is intensified by the idea that their loved one could also experience that same sadness.

An example of this is Sr. Lucia's account of how Francisco lived through these moments, a clear expression of his hierarchy of values and priorities, which by now was well established:

"When, in prison, we saw that it was past midday and they wouldn't let us go to the Cova da Iria, Francisco said:

- Perhaps Our Lady will appear to us here.

But the next day, he was very sorry and said, almost tearfully:

- Our Lady might have been sad that we didn't go to the Cova da Iria and that she wouldn't appear to us again. And I'd love to see her!

When Jacinta cried in jail, missing her mother and her family, he would try to cheer her up and say:

- Mother, if we don't see her again, patience! We offer for the conversion of sinners. The worst thing is if Our Lady never comes back! That's what pains me the most! But I also offer it for sinners.

Then he asked me:

- Look: will Our Lady never appear to us again?

- I don't know. I think I do.

- I miss her so much!

The apparition in Valinhos was therefore a source of double joy for him. He felt tortured by the fear that she wouldn't come back"[1].

Turning our gaze to the Apparition that took place "outside the calendar", we once again dispense with the account recorded in the Memories of Sister Lucia[2] to take into account the not-so-widely-known details that were recorded in the sources of the time. Lucia tells us in her first account of the Apparitions:

"When we arrived at our house, we immediately went to graze the sheep at a place called Valinho; we were walking in the company of Francisco and João; Jacinta had stayed at home; so I suspected that Our Lady was paying us a visit and, inspired by Our Lady, I asked João to go home and call Jacinta and, as he didn't want to go, I promised to give him a penny I had; so he went; when Jacinta arrived, there was a flash of lightning and Our Lady appeared on top of a bog.

"So what do you want from me today?" "I want you to continue going to the Cova da Iria for the rest of the months; if you hadn't gone, the miracle wouldn't be so well known." "The woman who has the money sends to ask what she wants done with that money." "I want two floats to be made on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary; one will be carried by Francisco with three other boys, the other by the girls with two more." "I want to ask you for some people who have asked me for the Lady to heal them"; "in a year's time, some of them will be healed". And so she went up like every other month, leaning towards the east"[3].

A curious fact about this Apparition is told to us years later by Francisco and Jacinta's father, to whom we give the floor:

"It was Sunday. I didn't get home until the afternoon. As I was getting close, I ran into my neighbor Augusto's father, who said to me: "Hey, Marto! So the miracle has been approved?" [...]. "Our Lady appeared again to her bunch of children, a while ago, in Valinhos". [...] Then I see Jacinta on the road, jumping up and down, very happy, with a sprig of carrasqueira in her hand and, as she enters the house, I smell a perfume as fine as I've ever smelled in my life. "Jacinta, what are you carrying?" I asked her. "It's a branch of the Valinhos birch tree, where Our Lady appeared a while ago!" "Let's see!" I took the branch, smelled it, but nothing: the perfume had disappeared!"[4].

[1] JESUS, Lúcia de, Memories of Sister Lucia IFátima, Secretariat of the Little Shepherds, 2007, 13th edition, p. 147.

[2] JESUS, Lúcia de, Memories... p. 178-179.

[3] DOCUMENTATION Critical of Fatima: Selection of Documents (1917-1930). Text setting, introductions and notes by Luciano Coelho Cristino. Fatima: Shrine of Fatima, 2013, Doc. 65, p. 233.

[4] CRISTINO, L. C., The Apparitions..., p. 69.

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