Our Lady's Heroic Child Warriors
by Fr. Roger Landry - May 15, 2009
I spent the summer of 1996 in Portugal, where Bishop O'Malley sent me to study Portuguese at the University of Lisbon. Among the many highlights and memories from that time was the privilege I had to travel to Fatima almost every Saturday. I would hop on the public bus, introduce myself to a passenger who looked friendly, and ask whether he or she would mind serving as my Portuguese tutor and conversation partner for the ninety-minute ride. Most turned out to be gracious and good teachers!
When I arrived at the sanctuary, I would spend most of the day praying and reading Portuguese books about our Lady's apparitions to the three shepherd children and the message she gave the world through them. I loved to pray in the Capelinha, the outdoor covered chapel enclosing the place where the Blessed Mother normally appeared. Since Mass, however, was held there almost continuously, and the Portuguese summer could be scorching, I eventually gravitated into the relatively cool Basilica. There I would plant myself to meditate in a pew coincidentally near the tombs of Francisco and Jacinta Marto, the two seers who died as children within a few years of the appearances.
The first couple of Saturdays, I focused mainly on the objective history of the appearances, what Mary revealed, how incredulous the people were, the impact of the great miracle of the Sun in the presence of 70,000, and other parts of the message. Then I moved onto the subjective experience of the apparitions with the help of the Memorias or recollections of Sr. Lúcia, the third seer who lived until 2004.
Toward the end of the summer, however, I began to be drawn to the response to the apparitions that occurred in the lives of the two Marto children buried next to where I was praying. Since Francisco had died at 10 in 1919 and Jacinta at 9 in 1920, I had not really given them that much attention, figuring that they, as children, probably had little to teach; they were, after all, far less famous than Sr. Lúcia, who for nine decades was the living memory of the apparitions and whose writings were so central to the propagation of the Fatima message. But because their mortal remains were beside me, I began to be filled with a desire at least to get to know them better. I'm glad I did. After hitting the bookstores to find works devoted to them, I soon discovered how mature these children were in faith and virtue.
When Our Lady appeared to the three kids, she asked them to assume what most of us would presume to be grown-up responsibilities: to pray the Rosary and to offer themselves as victims of reparation for the conversion of sinners and the forgiveness of the sins of the world. Despite Francisco's being only 9 and Jacinta 7, they responded with childlike trust and total dedication to this charge.
Mary showed them three images to convince them of the stakes of what she was asking them to do.
The first vision was of hell, where Mary told them "the souls of poor sinners go." They saw, as Lúcia recounted, "a great sea of fire" with "demons and souls in human form amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair," which made them tremble with horror. Had Mary not promised them that she would help them get to heaven, Lűcia said, she thinks they would have died of fear and terror.
The second image conveyed to them that World War I would soon end, but Mary said that if people did not stop offending God a worse one would erupt in which God would "punish the world for its crimes." She warned that unless Russia were converted, the communists would spread their errors throughout the world, causing war, annihilating nations, persecuting the Church and martyring millions. To avoid these ills, she asked that Russia be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart and that people receive Holy Communion in reparation on first Saturdays.
The third was a prophetic vision. An angel with a flaming sword cried out "Penance, Penance Penance!" as the children beheld a steep way of the Cross through a city laden with the corpses of martyred bishops, priests, religious and lay people, at the top of which was a "bishop in white" who likewise was shot and killed.
By means of the three visions, the children saw the real consequences of sin — hell, a world through in total turmoil, and a Church persecuted to the point of martyrdom. They also saw the remedy for sin and all its effects: consecration to Mary's Immaculate Heart. They learned that a pure heart which "sees God" in all situations, says "fiat" to Him at all times, treasures His word and acts on it, is a stronger weapon that all the earth's bullets, bombs and hijacked airplanes put together. The children took up the arms of prayer and sacrifice and heroically put them to use.
From that point forward, Francisco began to pray almost constantly to "console Jesus for the sins of the world." One night, when his father discovered him sobbing in his room, Francisco gave the reason: "I was thinking of Jesus who is so sad because of the sins that are committed against him." Jacinta was so convinced by the vision of the reality of Hell of the importance of saving sinners from it that she began to pour herself into prayer and practice various corporal mortifications. "Pray, pray much and make sacrifices for sinners," Mary had told her. "Many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them." Jacinta responded, as did her brother, by prostrating themselves in prayer for hours, kneeling with their heads humbly bowed to the ground.
When both caught the terrible 1918 flu that took the lives of tens of thousands, they offered all of their sufferings for sinners. Having been told by Our Lady that she would take him to heaven soon, Francisco declined hospital treatment, bearing enormous pain with a smile and without complaint. Our Lady appeared to Jacinta and asked if she wanted to stay on earth a little longer to convert more sinners. She said yes. So the little girl allowed herself to be dragged from clinic to clinic, to have two of her ribs removed without anaesthesia, valiantly sacrificing herself as a victim for the conversion of sinners and for the Holy Father, whom she knew from the vision would suffer much.
When Pope John Paul II beatified them in Fatima nine years ago this past Wednesday, on the 83rd anniversary of Mary's first appearance to them, he lifted them up as an example to the whole world of what Christ-like and Marian love for the salvation of others looks like.
He also stressed that their lives demonstrate that children can be heroically virtuous and reach "the heights of perfection" at a very young age. Jacinta, in fact, is the youngest non-martyred saint in Church history. Echoing the words of our Lady, the Pope reminded all children, "Our Lady needs you all to console Jesus, who is sad because of the bad things done to him; he needs your prayers and your sacrifices for sinners."
As we in the month of May experience the joy of seeing so many young children between the ages of Francisco and Jacinta make their first holy Communion, it's important for us to remember that they, too, are capable of great holiness now, and not just in the future. God entrusts children, from an early age, with crucial roles for the salvation of others, because he in his wisdom knows that they are capable of it.
And what goes for them goes for all of us, no matter how young we are.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
