Our Lady of Fátima history

On May 13, 1917, the three children took their flocks out to pasture in the small area known as the Cova da Iria (Cove of Peace). They suddenly saw a bright flash of something akin to lightning, followed quickly by another flash in the clear blue sky.

Due to the 1918 influenza epidemic, the two younger children did not live long beyond the apparition events.

On the day of his death, April 4, 1919, he received Viaticum, his first Holy Communion, besides the Precious Blood given to him by the Angel of Peace, that at this point was still unknown.

Jacinta died on February 20, 1920, at age nine after an unsuccessful operation for an abscess in her chest.

In May 1922, Bishop Correia da Silva issued a pastoral letter on the subject of Fatima, indicating that he would set up a commission of inquiry.

However, the Chapel of the Apparitions was rebuilt and functioning as a place of local mass by 1923.

On December 10, 1925, while at the Dorothean Convent in Pontevedra, Spain, Lucia had another apparition of the Blessed Mother, this time with the Child Jesus.

In 1926, the first National Council was held.

In 1927, the Bishop of Leiria gave a religious service at the site.

Fatima has become an important place of pilgrimage with five million people per year coming to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, the construction of which began in 1928.

On June 13, 1929, Our Lady returned again as Sister Lucia was praying in the convent chapel at Tuy, Spain.

During the construction, in 1930, the Catholic Church finally recognized the miracle and permitted the existence of the first cult of Our Lady of Fátima.

Starting in 1932, Lucia and all of the Portuguese lived under the fascist rule of Antonio Salazar, a staunch Catholic who was opposed to Communism and believed its fall was inevitable.

In 1936, they promised, by what was termed an anti-communist oath, to make a pilgrimage of the entire nation to Fatima if Portugal were preserved from the peril which was threatening it.

And so, in 1938, an enormous pilgrimage of a half-million faithful was on route to Fatima to thank the Virgin for her miraculous protection.

In 1940, Portugal signed with the Holy See the most perfect concordat, from the Christian point of view, ever signed in recent times.

In 1943 Lucia was ill and asked by the Bishop to reveal it, but she said God had not authorized her to do so.

The Third Part as written down by Sister Lucia on January 3, 1944:

In 1960, the Vatican issued a press release stating that the third secret would remain sealed forever.

Founded in 1967 by Jose Olivares and his son-in-law, Doctor Vicente M. Santos Sr., the university grew out of Our Lady of Fatima Hospital.

On May 13, 2000, St John Paul II, at the end of Mass in Fatima with Sister Lucia in attendance, authorized Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, to make a statement regarding the third secret of Fatima, where he related the image of a “bishop clothed in white” getting shot.

The college became a university in December 2002, with Doctor Vicente M. Santos Sr. as its founding president.

Lucia became a postulant at the convent of the Institute of the Sisters of St Dorothy at Pontevedra, Spain, but later entered the Carmelite convent in Coimbra, Portugal, where she remained until her death in 2005.

However, this process could only legally start in 2010, at least five years after her death, and is not yet finished.

That lands it somewhere in December on the Gregorian calendar (though in 2013 it fell on Thanksgiving in November, an extremely rare occurrence). Also called the Festival of Lights, Hanukkah celebrates events from more than 2,000 years ago.

In 2017, for instance, Pope Francis’ visit generated 4.5 million euros in lodgings, 1.5 million in meals and 10 million in sales in the region of the shrine and two others, according to figures provided by the Regional Tourism Board and the Business Association of Ourém-Fátima.