Christendom marks 100th year of Fatima apparitions

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle will lead the Catholic faithful in Metro Manila in celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Marian apparitions at Fatima in Portugal on Saturday, May 13.

Tagle will preside over a Mass at the Our Lady of Fatima Parish, which is also celebrating its Silver Jubilee, in Pasay City at 6 p.m.

During the liturgical celebration, Tagle will bless and distribute 200 images of Our Lady of Fatima to different barangays and communities within the parish.

Prior to the Mass, a grand Vicariate Procession of all the images of patron saints of parishes in Pasay will be held at 2pm.

Manila archdiocese-run Radio Veritas will also take part in the celebration by promoting a community Rosary campaign.

A statue of Our Lady of Fatima will be passed on and venerated from house to house and from one family to another until October 13, 2017.

At the end of the Block Rosary, a grotto will be set up at the center of each barangay where the images will be enthroned.

Radio Veritas hopes that the campaign would “build and strengthen the baranggay community’s faith which is the building blocks of a parish community.”

The apparitions were witnessed by three children who reported that they saw visions of Mary beginning on May 13, 1917 and then again on the 13th day of five subsequent months.

In the Philippines, where its various dioceses are expected to mark the centenary of the apparitions, the Our Lady of Fatima is also known as the Queen of Peace.

In Dagupan City, a Mass will be presided by Archbishop Socrates Villegas at St. John the Evangelist Cathedral and will be followed with a procession at 5:39 a.m.

In Portugal the celebration will be highlighted with the canonization by Pope Francis of the two of the three Fatima visionaries, brother and sister Francesco and Jacinta Marto.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, appeared 6 times to three shepherd children; Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta; between May 13 and October 13, 1917.

She came to the little village of Fatima which had remained faithful to the Catholic Church during the recent persecutions by the government.

Our Lady came with a message from God to every man, woman, and child of our century. Our Lady of Fatima promised that the whole world would be in peace, and that many souls would go to Heaven if Her requests were listened to and obeyed.

She told us that war is a punishment for sin; that God would punish the world for its sins in our time by means of war, hunger, persecution of the Church and persecution of the Holy Father, the Pope, unless we listened to and obeyed the command of God.

At Fatima, Pope John Paul II said on May 13; " the message of Fatima is more relevant and more urgent " then when Our Lady first appeared. The message is an anguished appeal of our Heavenly Mother, Who sees us in great danger and Who comes to offer Her help and advice.

Her message is also a prophesy, a clear indication of what was about to transpire in the 20th century, and what is still going to happen infallibly in the near future, depending on our response to Her requests. -

In 1952, a full-length film entitled "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima" was released by Warner Bros in the US. It also received an Academy Award nomination for musical score by Max Steiner. CBCP/OURLADYOFFATIMA.ORG


TAGS: apparitions, Cardinal Luis Tagle, catholic church, Holy Rosary, Our Lady of Fatima, Pope Francis, Portugal, Radio Veritas