Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta
Due to a wrist fracture, I have not been writing for quite a while. I am very grateful to all my friends and good neighbors for their kind and generous help. I am on my way to full recovery and feel blessed.
In my first blog I talked about the apparition of Mary in 1509 in Motta di Livenza, my birth place in Italy, my mother’s devotion to Her, and my visit to the Sanctuary in 2019. Throughout the centuries, there have been many Marian apparitions in the world, of which one in PortugaI. I had the opportunity to go there when I was working as an international flight attendant in Italy. On one of my long lay over in Lisbon, I took a tour that included Fatima, the place where Mary appeared to three young shepherds in 1917.
Being raised catholic I had heard about it, but had no idea what the site would be like. When the bus arrived at the Sanctuary, I saw the enormous basilica, the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, a huge parking for buses in front of it, and many religious souvenir shops nearby. I would have preferred just a small chapel and a pastoral landscape, almost untouched! However, I understood the utmost must be done to honor the Virgin Mary and to contain the millions of devotees who come from all over the world to worship Her.
Rocco Caligari’s shrine to Our Lady of Fatima in memory of his son Otto Bono, Stanley Park, Westfield, MA
Unfortunately, I did not take pictures; however, during a recent hike in Stanley Park, Westfield, Massachusetts, I discovered a simple shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima: it was hand built (and donated to the park) by Rocco Caligari – a native Westfield resident - in memory of his son, Otto Bono, who died in the Korean Conflict in 1951. This father’s love for his son and devotion to Mary touched me; I took a picture which I am posting here.
In Fatima, I read about the Angel who appeared to the three children - Lucia dos Santos, then nine years old, her cousins, Francisco, eight, and Jacinta, six - to prepare them for the “visit” of the Virgin Mary. I felt sad that they endured ridicule from their friends, punishment from their parents and even arrest by the local authorities until the latter confirmed that the children were not making the story up; they really had seen the Virgin Mary.
People watching the Miracle of the Sun in Fatima
She appeared in 1917; at that time, WWI, which Portugal had joined, was raging; She asked the children to pray for peace and for the sinners. What struck me the most, and still does to this day, is the account of the “Miracle of the Sun”, which I found in a pamphlet near the Chapel of the Apparition. It occurred on October 13th, 1917; thousands of people were there to see it. One of the witnesses, Dr. Manuel Formigão, a professor at the seminary at Santarém and a priest, described what he saw this way: "As if like a bolt from the blue, the clouds were wrenched apart, and the sun at its zenith appeared in all its splendor. It began to revolve vertiginously on its axis, like the most magnificent fire wheel that could be imagined, taking on all the colors of the rainbow and sending forth multicolored flashes of light, producing the most astounding effect. This sublime and incomparable spectacle, which was repeated three distinct times, lasted for about ten minutes. The immense multitude, overcome by the evidence of such a tremendous prodigy, threw themselves on their knees."— [1]
What a similarity with the apparition in my native Motta di Livenza, when at sunset the blood red sun, which all people saw, was the confirmation that the Virgin Mary told Giovanni Cigana She would send; there was tragedy there too at that time, due to the plague that hit the area.
After I left Fatima I wrote my mother about my visit, knowing she would love it. Skeptics have given various explanations to this “phenomenon”, but reading about the sun swirling on itself still fills me with wonder. I wish I could have been there myself on that day of October 1917! What was the extraordinary power behind the representation of the Virgin Mary the children saw? Was it, as in Dante’s Paradise “The love that moves the sun and the other stars”?
Dante’s Paradise by Doré
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[1] https://www.ncregister.com/blog/so-that-all-may-believe-the-miracle-of-the-sun
