100th Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions

Timeline

  • March 22, 1907
    Birth of Lucia dos Santos.
  • June 11, 1908
    Birth of Francisco Marto.
  • March 11, 1910
    Birth of Jacinta Marto.

  • Spring, 1916
    First apparition of the angel to Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta; he teaches them the Pardon Prayer.
  • Summer, 1916
    Second apparition of the angel; he appeals to the children to pray, saying the Hearts of Jesus and Mary have “designs” on the children, and identifies himself as the “Angel of Portugal.”
  • Fall, 1916
    Third apparition of the angel; he brings them Communion and teaches them the Angel’s Prayer.
  • May 13, 1917
    First apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. Children asked to return to site of apparitions on the 13th of each month for six months at the same hour. Our Lady asks the children if they will offer all they have to suffer for poor sinners; the children say they will, to which Our Lady responds that they will have much to suffer, “but the grace of God will be with you and will strengthen you.” Our Lady further says, “Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and an end to the war.”
  • June 13, 1917
    Second apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. Request for the children to return on the 13th of each month. Giving of Fatima Prayer to be included in the Rosary. Lucia told that Francisco and Jacinta would be taken to Heaven soon, but Lucia would remain in the world to help establish devotion to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart.
  • July 13, 1917
    Third apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. Our Lady gives the children a secret in three parts. Our Lady promises a miracle in October so that all may see and believe. “Make sacrifices for sinners, and say often, especially while making a sacrifice: O Jesus, this is for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for offences committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
  • Aug. 13, 1917
    The local mayor kidnaps the child visionaries. They are held for several days, threatened with being boiled in oil if they will not tell the secret entrusted to them.
  • Aug. 15, 1917
    Children released on the Solemnity of the Assumption.
  • Aug. 19, 1917
    Fourth apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. Our Lady repeats her previous requests for the children to come to the apparition site at the same time each month, and says, “Pray, pray very much. Make sacrifices for sinners. Many souls go to hell, because no one is willing to help them with sacrifice.”
  • Sept. 13, 1917
    Fifth apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. Our Lady tells the children, “Continue the Rosary, my children. Say it every day that the war may end. In October our Lord will come, as well as Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. Saint Joseph will appear with the Child Jesus to bless the world.” She also asks them to ease their physical mortifications.
  • Oct. 13, 1917
    Sixth apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. She tells the children “I am the Lady of the Rosary. … People must amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins. They must not offend our Lord anymore, for He is already too much offended!” Though it was raining on the day of the apparition and had been doing so for more than a day before the miracle, when Lucia cries out, “Look at the sun!” the assembled crowd of around 70,000 people see the sun spinning, changing colors, and “dancing.” At one point, the sun seems to fall toward the earth, leading many to think it is the end of the world. When the miracle ceases, the ground, which had been soaked minutes earlier, is inexplicably dry. Numerous newspapers carry reports from journalists on the scene. For miles around, there are eyewitnesses to the miracle.
  • Oct. 24-25, 1917
    October Revolution in Russia. Bolsheviks take power.
  • Nov. 11, 1918
    End of World War I.
  • April 4, 1919
    Death of Francisco.
  • Feb. 20, 1920
    Death of Jacinta.
  • Dec. 10, 1925
    Apparition of Our Lady and the Christ Child to Lucia in Pontevedra, Spain. The Christ Child describes how Mary’s Heart is wounded by blasphemies and outrages against it. The Blessed Virgin requests the Five First Saturdays devotion.
  • Feb. 15, 1926
    Our Lord appears to Sr. Lucia as the Christ Child to reiterate Mary’s request for the Five First Saturdays.
  • Dec. 17, 1927
    Sister Lucia given permission by our Lord to write down the first two parts of the secret.
  • June 13, 1929
    Sister Lucia is given a vision of the Blessed Trinity and Our Lady. Our Lady asks for the consecration of Russia by the Holy Father in union with the bishops of the world.
  • May 29-30, 1930
    Our Eucharistic Lord reveals to Sr. Lucia at Tuy, Spain, five kinds of blasphemies against the Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Heart:

    First: blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception

    Second: against her Virginity

    Third: against the Divine Maternity, refusing, at the same time, to receive her as the Mother of mankin

    Fourth: those who seek publicly to implant, in the hearts of children, indifference, disrespect, and even hate for this Immaculate Mother

    Fifth: those who revile her directly in her sacred images

    [Our Lord told Lucia:] Here, dear daughter, is the motive that led the Immaculate Heart of Mary to petition Me to ask for this small act of reparation. And, out of regard for her, to move My mercy to pardon those souls who have had the misfortune to offend her. As for you, seek endlessly, with your prayers and sacrifices, to move Me to mercy in regard to these poor souls.
  • Aug. 29, 1931
    In Rianjo, Spain, our Lord communicated to Sr. Lucia His dissatisfaction with the failure of the popes and Catholic bishops to obey His command to consecrate Russia. Sister Lucia also recorded our Lord later saying: “They did not wish to heed My request. Like the King of France, they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars, and persecutions against the Church; the Holy Father will have much to suffer.” Our Lord is referring to His Sacred Heart apparitions. On June 17, 1689, the Sacred Heart of Jesus manifested to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. As relayed by St. Margaret Mary, Jesus commanded the king of France to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart. For 100 years, the kings of France did not obey. On June 17, 1789, King Louis XVI of France was stripped of his legislative authority in the course of the upheaval that came to be known as the French Revolution. This same 100 years was the time of the so-called “Enlightenment,” when humanity sought to privilege reason over revelation. For more on the consequences of the late consecration of Russia, see “Has Our Lady’s call for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart been answered?”
  • Jan. 25-26, 1938
    Strange light in the sky across Europe, identified by Sr. Lucia as the signal for a coming war that Our Lady had spoken of in the second part of the secret.
  • March 12-13, 1938
    Hitler announces Germany’s annexation of Austria.
  • Aug. 12, 1938
    German military mobilizes.
  • Oct. 15, 1938
    Germans take Sudetenland (much of Czechoslovakia).
  • March 2, 1939
    Pius XII elected.
  • Feb. 10. 1939
    Pius XI dies.
  • Sept. 1, 1939
    German invasion of Poland.
  • Oct. 31, 1942
    Pius XII consecrates the world to the Immaculate Heart.
  • Dec. 8, 1942
    Pius XII repeats the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart. Neither consecration involves the bishops of the world, so neither is the fulfillment of Our Lady’s request.
  • Spring, 1943
    Jesus appears to Sr. Lucia and expresses His joy at Pius XII’s consecration.
  • Jan. 3, 1944
    Sister Lucia writes down the third secret of Fatima on orders from her diocesan bishop, the bishop of Leiria, Portugal.
  • July 7, 1952
    Pius XII consecrates the Russian people to the Immaculate Heart, though again, without the participation of the bishops of the world.
  • April 4, 1957
    The envelope containing the third secret is placed in the Secret Archives of the Holy Office.
  • Aug. 17, 1959
    Saint John XXIII is brought the third secret of Fatima. Within the next few days, he reads the third secret and decides not to reveal it.
  • March 27, 1965
    Pope Paul VI reads the third secret of Fatima and also decides not to release it.

  • May 13, 1981
    On the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima and the anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, St. John Paul II was shot in St. Peter’s Square. During his convalescence, he sends for the third secret of Fatima and the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska. He sees in his shooting both the fulfillment of the shooting of the “bishop in white” (the Pope) in the third secret and Our Lady of Fatima’s maternal intercession to save him from death.
  • May 12-13, 1982
    Saint John Paul II goes on pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal, where he is stabbed by a Spanish cleric in a second assassination attempt. He is not seriously injured. He leaves one of the bullets that had been fired at him the year before to be made a part of the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.
  • March 25, 1984
    Saint John Paul II, in union with the bishops of the world, performs the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart.
  • March 26, 1984
    Father Luis Kondor, vice-postulator for the causes of canonization for Francisco and Jacinta Marto, tells St. John Paul II that before he’d left Portugal for Rome to be present at the consecration, Sr. Lucia had said to him that the Holy Father will now do all that is in his power.
  • Aug. 29, 1989
    Sister Lucia writes a letter to Sr. Mary of Bethlehem, saying of the 1984 consecration, “Afterward people asked me if it was made in the way our Lady wanted, and I replied, ‘Yes.’ From that time, it is made!”
  • Nov. 9, 1989
    The fall of the Berlin Wall.
  • Dec. 25-26, 1991
    The USSR is dissolved.
  • Nov. 21, 1999
    Sister Lucia writes a letter saying, “[The consecration] was later made by the present pontiff, John Paul II, on March 25, 1984, this after he wrote to all the bishops of the world … .”
  • May 13, 2000
    Beatification of Francisco and Jacinta by St. John Paul II during the Great Jubilee of the Incarnation, less than a month after the canonization of St. Faustina Kowalska, the Secretary and Apostle of Divine Mercy, as the first saint of the third millennium. Sister Lucia was present for the beatification liturgy.
  • June 26, 2000
    The Vatican publishes the third part of the secret of Fatima.
  • Feb. 13, 2005
    Death of Sr. Lucia.
  • April 2, 2005
    Death of St. John Paul II on a First Saturday and the Vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday.
  • May 13, 2013
    Cardinal Jose Polycarp, patriarch of Lisbon, Portugal, consecrates the pontificate of Pope Francis to Our Lady of Fatima at the personal request of the Holy Father.
  • Oct. 13, 2013
    Pope Francis has the original statue of Our Lady of Fatima with the assassin’s bullet in the crown brought to St. Peter’s Square and consecrates the world to the Immaculate Heart.