“I am the Lady of the Rosary,” Our Lady tells Fátima's children

FÁTIMA, Portugal, October 13, 1917 AD — Our Lady today kept a promise she had made in July to three shepherd children at the Cova da Iria, a hollow outside the village of Fátima, and told them who she was. It was the sixth and last of the monthly visits she had asked them to make. She also asked for a chapel to be built there, told the children to keep praying the Rosary every day, and said the war would end.

The children are Venerable Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins, Saint Francisco Marto and Saint Jacinta Marto, between seven and ten years old. They had been promised a miracle for today, and their families had been warned of what would happen to them if it did not come. Lúcia’s family kept hearing that their house would be bombed if the miracle failed.

Our Lady first appeared to the three children here on May 13. She asked them to come back to the same place at the same hour on the 13th of each month for six months. Our Lady told them: “Later on, I will tell you who I am and what I want.” She also asked them to pray the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war. When the three said they were willing to bear whatever sufferings God sent them, Our Lady answered: “Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.”

On July 13 Lúcia asked her outright: “I would like to ask you to tell us who you are, and to work a miracle so that everybody will believe that you are appearing to us.” Our Lady answered: “Continue to come here every month. In October, I will tell you who I am and what I want, and I will perform a miracle for all to see and believe.” She asked them to go on praying the Rosary every day “in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary.” That day she also told the children a secret.

In August the children never reached the Cova. On the morning of August 13 the mayor of Ourém took them away in his carriage to Ourém and demanded that they tell him the secret. They would not. He threatened to have Lúcia killed and put the three children in the public jail. He told them they would be thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil as soon as it was ready. On the morning of August 15 he gave up and sent them back by carriage to the parish priest of Fátima.

Our Lady appeared to them again on August 19, at Valinhos. People had begun leaving money at the Cova, and Lúcia asked what to do with it. Our Lady said the money was for the festa (feast) of Our Lady of the Rosary, “and what is left over will help towards the construction of a chapel that is to be built here.”

In September Our Lady told the children that she would not come alone in October. Our Lord would come too, and Our Lady of Sorrows, Our Lady of Carmel, and St. Joseph with the Child Jesus, “to bless the world.”

It rained through last night and all this morning, and the roads to the Cova were ankle-deep in mud. Lúcia wrote that they “left home quite early, expecting that we would be delayed along the way.” Her mother, Maria Rosa, went with her. “If my daughter is going to die,” Maria Rosa said, “I want to die with her.” People had come by horse, by carriage and on foot to see the miracle promised for today. Lúcia wrote: “Not even the muddy roads could prevent these people from kneeling.”

At noon the three children waited beside a small oak at the Cova, in the rain, with their parents and neighbours close by and the crowd around them. Lúcia said softly to St. Jacinta: “Jacinta, kneel down.” When Our Lady appeared, Lúcia asked her: “What do you want of me?” Our Lady answered: “I want to tell you that a chapel is to be built here in my honour. I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day. The war is going to end, and the soldiers will soon return to their homes.”

Lúcia said she had many things to ask: the cure of some sick people, the conversion of sinners. Our Lady answered: “Some yes, but not others. They must amend their lives and ask forgiveness for their sins.” Then, looking very sad, Our Lady said: “Do not offend the Lord our God any more, because He is already so much offended!” Lúcia asked whether Our Lady wanted anything more. Our Lady told her: “No, I do not want anything more of you.”

Then Our Lady opened her hands, and the light from them shone onto the sun. As she rose, Lúcia wrote, “the reflection of her own light continued to be projected on the sun itself.” Lúcia cried out to the crowd: “Look at the sun!” Lúcia wrote later: “My aim was not to call their attention to the sun, because I was not even aware of their presence.” She wrote that something inside her moved her to call out.

When Our Lady had disappeared into the sky, the children saw St. Joseph with the Child Jesus beside the sun, and Our Lady with them, robed in white with a blue mantle. St. Joseph and the Child made the Sign of the Cross over the world with their hands. Then Lúcia saw Our Lord bless the world in the same way. Our Lady stood beside him as Our Lady of Sorrows. Last, Lúcia saw Our Lady once more, as Our Lady of Carmel.

St. Jacinta and St. Francisco also looked at the sun. Questioned in the days that followed, St. Jacinta said: “I saw it red and green and other colours, and I saw it going around.” St. Francisco said: “I looked and saw the sun going round; it looked like a wheel of fire.”

Sixty-five years later, on May 13, 1982 AD, Pope Saint John Paul II said Mass at the shrine built at the Cova da Iria. In his homily he said that in the message of Fátima Our Lady pointed to the Rosary. He said the Rosary could well be called a oração de Maria (the prayer of Mary), a prayer in which Our Lady prays with us.