Our Lady of Fatima

Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta

October 13, 1917 was the occasion of the last apparition of Our Lady at Fatima. The apparitions had started on May 13, to three young children Jacinta and Francisco Marto, brother and sister, and Lucia dos Santos. The children were herding sheep at a location known as the Cova da Iria near their home village of Fátima, Portugal. Lúcia described seeing a woman "brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal ball filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun.” 

The Portuguese newspaper reporting the apparitions

Of course no one would believe them at first, but by October, the whole town and region had gathered with them to witness the miracle of the dancing sun, as it was reported in the local papers, and witnessed by 70,000 people. The place of apparition became a popular place of worship, until the visions were approved by the Vatican in 1930 and a large basilica was built in that place. Jacinta and Francisco died soon after the apparitions victims of the Spanish Flu epidemic, but Lucia survived. She joined the Dorotheans, but in 1947, Sister Lúcia left the Dorothean order and joined the Discalced Carmelite order in a monastery in Coimbra, Portugal. Lúcia died on February 13, 2005, at the age of 97. 

The Basilica of Fatima, visited by thousands every year.

The children were given three secrets and were encouraged to pray the Rosary for the conversion of Russia, which had just experienced the Bolshevik revolution. Pope Paul IV visited Fatima on the 50th anniversary of the apparition in 1967, and Pope John Paul II credited Our Lady of Fátima with saving his life following the assassination attempt on Wednesday, May 13, the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima, in 1981. A year later he again visited the place in gratitude to the Blessed Mother, as did Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.