Our Lady of Fátima

Nothing like a glass of Port after being awake for most of 48 hours straight to help you get a good night's sleep.  We awoke refreshed, and soon enjoyed great cappuccino and diverse breakfast selections from the buffet at our hotel.  We then strolled down the tree-canopied sidewalk from Pombal Square to the Hard Rock Cafe to meet up with our Viator Private Tour.

On the long drive to our first stop in Fátima, our guide Nuno shared relevant information about Portugal today, its storied history and a bit of local color.  The fact that he looked like my cousin Dickie around the age when Dickie began to insist he be called Richard played to his benefit in my mind. More significantly, Nuno happened to be a very engaging speaker.

He spoke extensively about Portugal's economy, which had severely crashed in 2008 when the financial crisis hit Iberia twice as hard as it hit the United States.  Unemployment had soared to 30%, but now with renewed strength of tourism --- Portugal was Travel + Leisure's Destination of the Year in 2016 --- it is back, stronger than ever.

Portugal's biggest export is olive oil.  Nuno stressed that for the fullest flavor, you must always use fresh olive oil, so stop buying gallons at Sam's Club unless you bathe in it.  In fact, why not splurge a bit for a small bottle of carefully-havested, traditionally-crafted fresh olive oil? If nothing else, insist on cold-pressed olives.  Heat produces more oil, but it taints the delicate flavors.  Virgin and Extra Virgin Olive Oil are by definition cold-pressed and unrefined, so you know they haven't been treated by heat or chemicals.

The lower the level of oleic acid, the better the flavor. Virgin has less than 2% oleic acid, while Extra Virgin has less than 1%.  Keep in mind that Light Olive Oil is not low in calories, but rather is a euphemism for refined olive oil, which means it uses chemicals or heat to produce, even when some Virgin oil is mixed in.  By the way, if you've never dipped French bread in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, with or without vinegar, you definitely need to try it.

Delicious wine is another big product for Portugal, but they drink most of it themselves.  Their most famous export is the lush fortified wine called Port.  In most of the world, only Portuguese fortified wine can be called Port, but in the USA, you must check to be sure it is genuine Port from Portugal.

They also have produced those well-known Mediterranean ceramic roof tiles for decades, and in the countryside, tall chimneys identify older factories that have usually been abandoned and replaced by nearby modern facilities.

The most interesting product Nuno spoke about was cork, and he passed around a piece of cork bark, which for some reason I ended up holding for about an hour.  Portugal is the largest producer of cork in the world.  It's strange that it never occurred to me that this surprisingly durable, waterproof product might be a natural rather than synthetic product.  Cork grows on a special type of oak tree, the Quercus Suber, more commonly known as cork oak.  About every seven years, the cork is harvested.  We saw one such tree on the sprawling grounds of the Basilica in Fátima and could easily differentiate where the cork had been cut away.

We happened to arrive on September 13, exactly one month before the 101st Anniversary of the "Miracle of the Sun" in Fátima.

A large outdoor Mass was in progress at the Basilica.

On May 13, 1917, three shepherd children began having visions of the Virgin Mary, whom they described as being "more brilliant than the sun," calling her "Our Lady of the Rosary."  The Virgin Mary prophesied that prayer would bring an end to the war that Portugal, as a long-time ally of Great Britain, had recently entered (World War I).

The children had seen visions of angels prior to the appearance of Our Lady, beginning in spring of 1916.

On June 13, 1917, at Cova da Iria, the exact site of the May vision, the Virgin Mary again appeared to them.  Our Lady shared that the two younger children would soon go to heaven but that that Lúcia would live many more years to spread the message calling for devotion to the "Immaculate Heart of Mary."

On July 13, when the pattern continued, "Our Lady of Fátima" said she would appear on October 13 and reveal miracles so that the world may believe. Our Lady also shared three secret prophecies with the children.

When thousands of people arrived on August 13, the Mayor had the children jailed in hopes of putting an end to this madness, and probably felt he had succeeded when no visions occurred.

On August 19, however, Our Lady again appeared to the children, this time in Fátima's village of Valinhos, and told the children to continue to pray daily on their rosaries, especially for the sinners of the world.

There were a total of six visions between May 13 and October 13, with all but August occurring on the 13th of the month.

On October 13, 1917, a crowd estimated between 30,000 to 100,000 --- a considerable throng for an age before social media --- arrived to see the miracle despite it being a dark, rainy day.

According to witnesses, the clouds opened up to reveal the sun, but the sun was spinning with bright colors and continued to approach the earth.  The sun was reported to have danced around the sky before doing a zigzag in a rapid departure.  Others described the bright circular object not as the sun but rather a spinning disc.

If you're like me, your mind goes to a Spielberg-esque special effects climax as in "E.T." or "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."  Most witnesses came away believing they had seen a true miracle, one which the Catholic Church would eventually consecrate.

Other theories include a sort of mass hallucination due to the power of suggestion, a simple reaction to staring at the sun too long or some kind of natural cosmic event that just happened to take place at that time and place.  However, witnesses also said that when the event ended, their clothes which had been soaked in the rain were dry.  Some in attendance saw nothing unusual happen.

The two younger children died a short time later in an international flu pandemic.  Francisco Marta died on April 4, 1919, and Jacinta Marta died February 20, 1920.  Pope John Paul II beatified them on May 13, 2000, and Pope Francis made them saints on the 100 year anniversary, October 13, 2017.

The oldest child, Lúcia dos Santos, began training to become a nun at age 14 in Porto.  She eventually took the religious name of Sister Maria Lúcia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart, and she continued to have periodic visions of Mary and later Jesus.  Her Catholic order's vows required she speak as little as possible and not comment on the outside world at all, leading to conspiracy theories about the church concealing what had been revealed to her.

Lúcia of Fátima died on February 13, 2005, at the age of 97.  Sainthood would seem like a certainty in the future, but she has not been deceased long enough to receive that honor.

Are you curious about those three secrets Our Lady told the children in 1917? 

In 1941, Sister Lúcia revealed two of the secrets shared by Our Lady at the behest of a Bishop who wrote extensively about the Miracle of the Sun.

The first was a vision of hell, and needless to say, no one would want to go there.

The second said that the Great War (WWI) would end soon, but if people did not repent, there would be a bigger, more awful war.  She said there would be an illuminated night as a great sign that the world would be punished for not repenting.

On January 25, 1938, the largest aurora borealis since 1709 appeared in  the Northern Hemisphere skies from North Africa to at least as far west as California.  The next day, Sister Lúcia told her superior this was the awaited sign that the horrific second world war would soon begin.  On March 12, 1938, Hitler annexed Austria, and World War II officially began September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

In the second secret, Our Lady also called specifically to pray for "the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart."  If Russia did not turn to God, Russia would "spread their errors" around the world, causing wars and persecution of the church.  The Bolshevik Revolution was in full swing in the summer of 1917, even as World War I ground on.  The Communists won control of Russia but continued to send troops to fight alongside the Allies, who of course won the war. Our Lady of the Rosary promised that one day Russia would return to God, and there would be peace.

On July 7, 1952, Pope Pious XII wrote in his Apostolistic Letter, "Just as a few years ago, We consecrated the entire human race to the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, so today, We consecrate, and in a most special manner, We entrust all the peoples of Russia to this Immaculate Heart."  In 1984, Pope John Paul II consecrated the entire world to the Virgin Mary, and Sister Lúcia confirmed that this fulfilled the request of Our Lady of Fátima.

Sister Lúcia felt apprehension about public release of the third secret when asked to do so by a Bishop.  She said she was not sure God wanted it revealed yet, but when she became terribly sick with the flu, the same disease that had killed her younger cousins, she wrote it down and sealed it in an envelope with instructions that it not be released until 1960.

As you know, Sister Lúcia recovered.  When 1960 rolled around, the Vatican released a statement that most likely the third secret would never be divulged, but in 2000, it was disclosed by the church to be the apocalyptic vision of church leaders, including the Pope, being killed by soldiers.

Having read what was uncovered, I couldn't tell you what all the secrecy was about.  It seems about as specific and clear as the Book of Revelations.  That is why so many theories continue within the Catholic world around the possibility that the most significant page might have been eliminated.

What do you believe?