Our Life, Our Sweetness

In May of 1917, while World War I raged in Europe, three illiterate Portuguese children claimed that while they were tending their sheep in a pasture in the hills they were visited by a beautiful, young woman shining like the sun, who stood easily on the top of a dwarf holm oak and who ultimately identified herself as the Virgin Mary.

Scoffed at and ridiculed at first, the story spread throughout the hill country and ultimately to the large cities when the children refused to recant or admit to a hoax. From May to October the apparitions continued at the same time and place and with each appearance the crowds of followers grew larger. The children reported receiving secrets they were not permitted to divulge until permission to do so was granted and that the Lady promised a miracle in October to prove that she was truly there.

The atheistic government was furious at the thought of a religious revival and the Church, always wary of such claims, refused to get involved. The children were harassed and tormented, but refused to deny what they had seen. Their families were constantly badgered and privacy became almost nonexistent. When the two youngest predicted their own imminent deaths parental anguish became acute.

As October approached there was a fear for the lives of the children at the hands of an angry mob if the miracle failed to take place. But they, amid a crowd of seventy thousand people, went forward on the appointed day to greet the final apparition of their Lady. What happened after that is a glowing example of faith, courage, and determination that continues to resonate into our own confused and troubled time.