Next year, I suspect there will be a lot of people talking about the one hundredth anniversary of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Fatima. That is because what happened there is so extraordinary. Beginning on May 13, 1917, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto had monthly meetings with the Mother of God.
At six years old, Jacinta couldn’t keep herself from spilling the beans. Some believed the children right away. Many, including Lucia’s mother, did not. For months the little village was the center of speculation. The children were hounded continually with questions from believers and skeptics alike. They were threatened and jailed by the mayor of a nearby town. Someone even cut Lucia’s braids off as she walked to the Cova da Iria.
The visions culminated on October 13, as over 70,000 people witnessed what has come to be known as the “miracle of the sun.” Because of that very public sign, many doubters found faith, sinners turned to God, and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Our Lady of the Rosary spread around the world. Strangely, the young visionaries never saw the sun dance.
There’s always a backstory. Always. It’s just that we don’t always hear it. A whole year before the Blessed Mother came to the three shepherds of Fatima, an angel was sent to them. In fact, the three children saw the Angel of Peace—the Angel of Portugal—three times. He was the first to instruct them in prayer, to lead them in adoration of the Body and Blood of Christ, and to encourage them to offer small sacrifices to God. It was the angel who told them, moreover, that the hearts of Jesus and Mary were listening to them.
None of the children told anyone about what they had encountered for that entire year. They just followed the angel’s instruction, and did what he told them. In other words, ninety-nine years ago, three kids under ten decided to live their very simple faith more deeply. The entire world has been enriched by the choice they made.
Big things start in small an unnoticeable ways. The things that amaze us about our faith and astound us about the lives of the saints often have hidden histories that reach much further back than we’d expect. God’s grace rarely comes in a big bang or a flash of light, at least not at first. It almost always grows from something most of us easily overlook or disregard.
As we approach the Feasts of the Angels (September 29 and October 2) and the Feast of the Holy Rosary (October 7), we ought to take a good look around and inside us. If we do, we may discover that God has sent us messages we haven’t gotten around to hearing just yet. And, we may well recognize graces we haven’t noticed before—graces that are gifts from a God who always promises much more to come.
© Jaymie Stuart Wolfe, 2016
Jaymie Stuart Wolfe
Author of Adoption: Room for One More? (2015), Jaymie Stuart Wolfe is a Catholic convert, wife, and mother of eight mostly-grown children. She has written and edited numerous books for both adults and kids, and works for Our Sunday Visitor as an Acquisitions Editor. Under Loaves and Fishes Ministry, Jaymie reaches out through word and song as an author, columnist, speaker, and musician. She is a co-founder of Live + Jesus, a group embracing the spirituality of Saint Francis de Sales and promoting the Works of Mercy in daily life. A graduate of Harvard University, Jaymie also holds a Master of Arts in Ministry degree from St. John's Seminary in Boston. Jaymie lives in Massachusetts with her husband and family (and a continually evolving menagerie of exotic and ordinary animals). Follow Jaymie @YouFeedThem or connect on FB, Amazon, Goodreads.
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