The three Fatima Visionaries: The young visionaries of Fatima (from left) -Sister Lucia, Blessed Francisco and Blessed Jacinta-in 1917. Public domain

Fatima, Portugal–The Church celebrated yesterday, the twentieth of February, the liturgical feast of the beatified, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the three visionaries of Our Lady in 1917. The date coincides with the death of the blessed Jacinta Marto.

For the rector of the Fatima Shrine, (Portugal), in words offered in the homily at mass celebrated yesterday morning in the Basilica of the Holy Trinity, the “Great mistake” is to think that the two small visionaries were beatified for having seen Our Lady.

“They were not beatified for having seen Our Lady: the Church proclaimed them beatified because, after the apparitions, they transformed their lives, orienting them totally to God. They did not do any extraordinary acts: they lived radically centered on God in their childhood condition,” said Fr. Carlos Cabecinhas.

In Lent, the rector stressed the witness of the Blesseds that he said, should “strongly challenge” Christians to live this time of conversion that precedes Easter.

In the shepherd children, we encounter a model for our lenten living. We ask their intercession in order that our living of Lent, as a more intense time of prayer, listening more frequently to the Word of God, Penance and love of neighbor, may be fruitful and brings us to celebrate and live festively Easter that draws near, in order that one day, we may be able to life with the Blesseds Francisco and Jacinta the Eternal Easter joined to God,” he affirmed.

The mass ended with the blessing of the children present in the celebration.

The official program that the Fatima Shrine proposes for the celebration of the feast begins the night before in the Chapel of Apparitions, with the recitation of the Rosary, continuing with a prayer vigil in the Basilica of Our Lady of the rosary.

In this Basilica, on the place where the three visionaries of Fatima are buried, the prayer was enriched with the evocation and contemplation of the moments and gestures of the short lives of the Blesseds Francisco and Jacinta, through the reading of the “Memórias da Irmã Lúcia” [Memories of Sister Lucia].

LeopolDina Simões

translated from Portuguese