we respond to the message of Fatima to pray, do penance, and make sacrifices for the offenses committed against God, especially in our society today, God will show His mercy to all people. At the same time, the Angel’s message instructs us not only to amend our lives, but also to forgive our brothers and sisters.
“Pray, Pray Very Much!”
Sister Lucia described the Angel’s second apparition:
The second apparition must have been at the height of summer when the heat of the day was so intense that we had to take the sheep home before noon and only let them out again in the early evening. We went to spend the siesta hours in the shade of the trees which surrounded the well that I have already mentioned several times. Suddenly, we saw the same Angel right beside us.
“What are you doing? Pray, pray very much! The Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy on you. Offer prayers and sacrifices constantly to the Most High.”
Lucia asked: “How are we to make sacrifices?”
“Make of everything you can a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners. You will thus draw down peace upon your country. I am its Angel Guardian, the Angel of Portugal. Above all, accept and bear with submission the suffering which the Lord will send you.”11
After the request from the Angel, the three shepherd children participated in these designs of mercy. They obtained abundant graces for the Church and for all humankind throughout many years of tribulation and darkness. The children gave themselves totally to the Immaculate Heart, allowing their faith to be formed by Mary and embracing fully her mission to the world. As a result, they became great channels of mercy and conversion. They have left us a wonderful — and challenging — example. To imitate it in our own lives, we must become humble and obedient like little children so that we can receive and participate in God’s merciful plan for salvation.
The lesson was not in vain, even in the short term. By autumn, when the Angel came for the last time, the children were no longer cutting their prayers short to play. Instead, they repeated the prayer which the Angel had taught them frequently, at times even lying prostrate on the ground. Francisco had not heard the Angel’s words and could only understand them with difficulty when Lucia repeated them to him. Nevertheless, he was captivated by the beauty of the Angel and the intensity of the supernatural light that accompanied him.
“Console Your God”
Sister Lucia notes the time of the third apparition of the Angel: “The third apparition must have taken place in October, or toward the end of September, as we were no longer returning for siesta.” On this day, the three shepherds had pastured their flocks at the Pregueira, a small olive grove that belonged to the dos Santos family, on the south side of the Cabeco. She continues:
After our lunch, we decided to go and pray in the hollow among the rocks on the opposite side of the hill. To get there, we went around the slope, and had to climb over some rocks above the Pregueira. The sheep could only scramble over these rocks with great difficulty. As soon as we arrived there, we knelt down with our foreheads touching the ground, and began to repeat the prayer of the Angel: “My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee.…”
I don’t know how many times we repeated this prayer, when an extraordinary light shone upon us. We sprang up to see what was happening, and beheld the Angel. He was holding a chalice in his left hand, with the Host suspended above it, from which some drops of Blood fell into the chalice. Leaving the chalice suspended in the air, the Angel knelt down beside us and made us repeat three times:
“Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the sacrileges, outrages and indifferences by which He Himself is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.”
Then, rising, he took the chalice and the Host in his hands. He gave the Sacred Host to me, and shared the Blood from the chalice between Jacinta and Francisco, saying as he did so: “Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men! Make reparation for their crimes and console your God.”
Once again, he prostrated on the ground and repeated with us, three times more, the same prayer “Most Holy Trinity …” and then disappeared.
Moved by a supernatural force which enveloped us, we had imitated the Angel in everything; that is, we prostrated as he did and repeated the prayers that he said.… We remained a long time in this position, repeating the same words over and over again. It was Francisco who realized that it was getting dark, and drew our attention to the fact, and thought we should take our flocks back home. I felt that God was in me.12
Sister Lucia later said love for the Eucharist was the most important part of the message of Fatima for the children. This drew them closer to God and instilled in their hearts the importance of the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. For us today, the entire message of the Angel contains an urgent call to prayer, sacrifice, and reparation for sin to the Most Holy Trinity and our Eucharistic Lord.
Lucia again recorded the state of physical exhaustion into which the angelic apparition plunged them:
In the third apparition, the presence of the Angel was still more intense. For several days, even Francisco did not dare to talk. He said later on: “I love to see the Angel, but the trouble is that later on, we are incapable of doing anything. I could not even walk any more. I didn’t know what was the matter!”
It was a grace so sublime, and so intimate, that Francisco, all absorbed in God, did not have a clear consciousness of the mystical grace that he had received and felt in a confused way. Once the first few days were over, and we had returned to normal, Francisco asked: “The Angel gave you Holy Communion, but what was it that he gave to Jacinta and me?” “It was Holy Communion, too,” replied Jacinta, with inexpressible joy. “Didn’t you see that it was the Blood that fell from the Host?” Francisco replied: “I felt that God was within me, but I did not know how!”
From this moment on, we had begun to offer God everything that mortified us, but without looking to impose particular penances on ourselves, except to pass entire hours prostrated on the ground, repeating the prayer which the Angel had taught us.… We remained prostrate a long time, sometimes repeating these prayers even to the point of exhaustion.
Afterwards, when we prostrated to say that prayer, Francisco was the first to feel the strain of such a posture; but he remained kneeling, or sitting, and still praying until we had finished. Later he said: “I am not able to stay like that for a long time, like you. My back aches so much that I can’t do it.”13
However, God Himself would send His willing children the most fruitful sacrifices. The trials that would overwhelm Lucia’s family coincided almost exactly with the time of the first few apparitions. Little by little, her home life grew unhappy. This was all the more painful for Lucia because, until then, she had known great joy in her family, whom she tenderly cherished and who cherished her in return.
Sister Lucia notes:
Although I was only a child, I understood perfectly the situation we were in. Then I remembered the Angel’s words: “Above all, accept submissively the sacrifices that the Lord will send you.”
At such times, I used to withdraw to a solitary place, so as not to add to my mother’s suffering by
