Versão portuguesa aqui.

“The Three Little Shepherds”

They had everything for a simple, anonymous life, but ended up going down in history, not only in the Catholic Church in Portugal and in the world, but also in humanity, as privileged witnesses of apparitions in a small place called Cova da Iria, near Fátima, in the center of the country. 

Like the little shepherds that they were, they were forever known as “the Three Little Shepherds” or “the Seers of Fatima” to whom Our Lady of the Rosary appeared six times in 1917, more than 100 years ago. 

Lúcia, aged 10 at the time, and her cousins ​​Francisco, aged 9, and Jacinta, aged 7, siblings, were chosen to receive the Message in which the “Lady brighter than the sun” asked for prayers, sacrifices and repair of offenses to her Immaculate Heart and to God.

Lucia was given to see, hear and speak during the Apparitions, while Jacinta could see and hear. Francisco could only see, so his cousin and sister would later report to him everything they had heard.

Lucia

Born in Aljustrel, like her cousins, on March 28, 1907, baptized two days later, Lúcia received her First Communion on May 30, 1913, through Fr. Cruz – according to known documentation –, impressed by his catechetical knowledge.

In her Memoirs, Lúcia reports that in 1915 she had visions for the first time of a kind of cloud, in human form, on three different occasions, when she was with other friends. It is in the following year, 1916, that the three children receive the manifestations of the Angel of Portugal, as he presented himself.

From the first apparition of Our Lady, on May 13, 1917, the life of Lucia and her cousins ​​was completely transformed: not only because they accepted the requests of the Lady, reciting the rosary daily, making sacrifices, some of them painful, for the sinners and appearing for six months, on the 13th, in that place, but above all because they are constantly questioned about what they saw and accused of lying and inventing everything.

Beginning of life withdrawn from the world

Secluded in the Vilar Asylum, in Porto, after the last apparition (which occurred on October 13, 1917), on the advice of the Bishop of Leiria, D. José Alves Correia da Silva, Lúcia de Jesus begins a life withdrawn from the world that will lead to the postulancy of the Doroteias Sisters, in Spain, at the age of 15, and, later, to the enclosure of the Carmelo de Santa Teresa, in Coimbra, where she would remain from May 17, 1946 until her death, on February 13, 2005.

Still in Vilar, on January 5, 1922, he writes the first account of the Apparitions and two and a half years later, on July 8, 1924, he responds, in Porto, to the official interrogation of the Diocesan Canonical Commission on the events of Fátima, named by D. José Alves Correia da Silva.

Following the work of the Commission, the Bishop of Leiria published, on October 13, 1930, 13 years after the Apparitions, a Pastoral Letter on the cult of Our Lady of Fatima, considering «worthy of credit the visions of children in Cova da Fátima Iria, parish of Fátima [...], from May 13 to October 1917»

Disseminator of the Message of Fatima

Chosen from the beginning to be the great disseminator of the Message of Fatima and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Lúcia left numerous writings, of which the Memoirs stand out, divided into six parts, written at the request of both the Bishop of Leiria and, more afternoon, from the Rector of the Sanctuary, Mons. Luciano Guerra (the last two).

The six parts of the Memoirs, written between December 1935 and March 1992, include the account of the Apparitions, both of the Angel of Portugal and of Senhora do Rosário (2nd and 4th), and evocations of Jacinta (1st ), Francisco (4th), his father (5th) and his mother (6th).

The 3rd Memoir, dated August 1941, includes the first two of three parts of the reserved content of the Message of Fatima that came to be known as the Secret of Fatima: the vision of Hell and the request for devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Consecration of Russia.

Third part of the Secret archived in the Vatican

The third and last part of the Secret is included in the 4th Memoir and refers to the struggle of “atheistic systems against the Church and Christians and describes the immanent suffering of the witnesses of the faith of the last century of the second millennium. It is an endless Way of the Cross, guided by the Popes of the 20th century”, as announced in Fatima, on May 13, 2000, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State of the Vatican.

The Três Pastorinhos, despite numerous threats, inviolably kept this secret, which was only later written down by Sister Lúcia, in obedience to the explicit request of the bishop of the diocese of Leiria, and was later sent to the Holy See, where it was archived.

In a letter addressed to Pope Pius XII, on December 2, 1940, Lucia insistently asks that Our Lady's request be granted, reaffirmed in later Apparitions in Spain, for the proclamation of devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the consecration of the world , and especially from Russia, to the Heart of Mary.

Consecration that Pius XII ended up making, on October 31, 1942, in Rome, renewing it in the same place on December 8.

Paul VI (November 21, 1964), John Paul II (June 7, 1981, December 8, 1981, May 13, 1982, October 16, 1983, March 25, 1984 – in communion with all the bishops world – and May 13, 1991) and Francis (October 13, 2013) also renewed the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Personal Encounters with Popes and a Future Pope

Lucia ended up meeting in person with almost all the Popes who crossed her life since the Apparitions, except with Benedict XV and Pius XII.

The first direct contact with a Pontiff took place in 1967, when he went to Fatima to meet with Paul VI, at the request of the Pope himself, during the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Apparitions.

The image of Pedro's successor next to the only living seer of Fatima traveled the world and was, for many, the first time they saw Lucia.

There was no direct contact with John Paul I during his short pontificate, but Sister Lúcia received the then Cardinal Albino Luciani, the future Pope, at the Carmel in Coimbra, after a visit by the Patriarch of Venice to Fátima. The conversation was prolonged, but there is no record of the issues addressed.

The most frequent contacts were with John Paul II, after the attack in Rome, during the visits that the Pope made to Fatima (in 1982, 1991 and 2000).

The last visit took on a special character for Sister Lúcia, as it took place in connection with the beatification of her cousins ​​Francisco and Jacinta, the other two shepherd children of Fatima, and it was the time chosen by the Pope to announce the third and final part of the Secret of Fatima , referring, in the interpretation of the Pontiff, to the prediction of the attack he had suffered in 1981.

Early beatification process

Sister Maria Lúcia de Jesus e do Coração Imaculado, the name she adopted when she professed her perpetual vows on May 31, 1949, died on February 13, 2005 and was buried in Carmelo de Santa Teresa, in Coimbra, with her mortal remains transferred to the Basilica of Nossa Senhora do Rosário de Fátima on February 19, 2006, staying beside her cousin Jacinta.

Three years after Lucia's death, on February 3, 2008, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, announces, in the Carmel of Coimbra, that Pope Benedict XVI had acceded to the requests of the Bishop of Coimbra, D. Albino Cleto, and numerous faithful throughout the world, so that the canonical waiting period of five years for the opening of the process of beatification of the seer, authorizing its anticipation, could be dispensed with.

The diocesan phase of the process was opened by Archbishop Albino Cleto, on April 30, 2008, and its conclusion was announced on January 13, 2017. The formal closing session of the process took place on February 13, 2017, nine years ago. after its inception and 12 years after the seer's death.

A long period that was justified, according to Sr. Ângela Coelho, vice-postulator of the Cause of Canonization of Sister Lúcia, by the need to analyze the numerous documentation about the seer, a large part of which exists in the Vatican, and to collect the testimonies about his reputation for sanctity and his heroic virtues, culminating in a voluminous process of 15,000 pages that now passes into the Roman phase of analysis, under the competence of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

San Francisco Marto and Santa Jacinta Marto

Of the short lives of Francisco and Jacinta Marto, «the two candles that God lit to illuminate humanity in its dark and restless hours», as John Paul II called them, there are few biographical records. The most important source for knowledge about them is your cousin's Memoirs.

Both born in Aljustrel, less than two years apart, they died shortly after the Apparitions, just as Our Lady had announced to them: «I will take Jacinta and Francisco to you shortly. But you [Lúcia] will stay here a little longer” (June 13, 1917).

Brief lives, but enough for the Catholic Church to recognize, for the first time in its 2000-year history, the “heroic virtues and maturity of faith of non-martyr children”, by decree of John Paul II, of May 13 1989, which set the precedent for the recognition of his sanctity.

Francisco Marto

Francisco Marto, whose iconography shows him wearing a hood over his head and a short lab coat, with a staff and a farnel bag around his neck, was born on June 11, 1908 and was baptized on June 20 in the Parish Church of Fátima.

At just 8 years old, he began, with his sister Jacinta, to shepherd their parents' flock around the Cova da Iria area, where, together with cousin Lúcia, they would witness the Apparitions, during which he could only see, without listening or speaking.

Driven by the intimate desire to console the heart of Jesus, because – he said – he wanted to give joy to a God who was saddened by the grievances to His heart, Francis lived contemplative prayer intensely. For this, he spent hours in prayer in front of the tabernacle in the Parish Church of Fátima.

This desire to make amends for the heart of Jesus and to dedicate himself entirely to prayer led him to give up going to school, despite the fact that, in the Apparitions, Our Lady of Fatima asked them to learn to read and write.

On October 18, 1918, just over a year after the last Apparition, Francisco fell ill, a victim of the pneumonic flu epidemic that devastated the country. Also known as Spanish flu, the disease arrived in Portugal in the middle of that year and in a short time caused the death of tens of thousands of people.

On the 2nd of April of the following year, he confesses and receives Communion for the last time "with great lucidity and piety", as the parish priest of Fatima writes in the Book of Deaths, when registering his death on April 4th, adding : «And he confirmed that he had seen a Lady in Cova da Iria and Valinho».

He was buried in the Fátima cemetery, from where his remains were exhumed, on February 17, 1952, and transferred to the Basilica of Nossa Senhora do Rosário de Fátima, on March 13, 1952, resting in the right arm of the transept.

Jacinta Marto

Shy but serene, Jacinta Marto had an even shorter life than that of her brother Francisco.

Born on March 11, 1910, also in Aljustrel, she did not reach the age of 10 when she died in Lisbon, also a victim of pneumonia, on February 20, 1920, far from her family, “but consoled with the certainty that go to Heaven” (Sister Lucia).

In the Apparitions, Jacinta saw and heard, but did not speak. According to Cousin Lúcia, Jacinta was afflicted with the suffering of sinners that she saw in the vision of Hell (Apparition of July 13, 1917) and her heart was filled with compassion for them and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

This deep devotion led her to intense prayer and to bear sacrifices for sinners, Lucia also recalled in her writings, in which she recalls that her cousin suffered from being away from her family, missing her mother, crying with hunger during periods when she was fasting out of compassion for sinners.

Jacinta said that she had several apparitions of Our Lady during her illness, at home, in the Church of Fátima, in the orphanage where she was, in Lisbon, before being hospitalized and, later, in the Hospital of D. Estefânia.

Like her brother, she fell ill with pneumonia (Spanish flu) in October 1918, having been hospitalized for the first time in the hospital in Vila Nova de Ourém, from 1 July to 31 August 1919, already after Francisco's death.

The following year, the year of her death, she was hospitalized again, this time at the Hospital de D. Estefânia, in Lisbon, on 2 February. She was operated on, but ended up dying on February 20th, «with the greatest tranquility, without having received Communion», despite having insistently asked that they give her Communion, as, she said, she would die soon, according to the report of the doctor who accompanied by Eurico Lisboa.

His body was taken to Vila Nova de Ourém, in whose cemetery he was buried on February 24, in the tomb of the counts of Alvaiázere.

On April 30, 1951, his remains were identified and transferred to the left arm of the transept of the Basilica of Nossa Senhora do Rosário de Fátima the following day, May 1, 1951.

Canonization process comes to an end, 65 years later

Precisely one year later, on April 30, 1952, the Bishop of Leiria, D. José Alves Correia da Silva, opens the two diocesan processes on the fame of sanctity and the virtues of the two brothers.

Following parallel paths, the diocesan phase of Jacinta's process ended on July 2, 1979, containing 77 sessions and 27 testimonies. Francisco's process ended a month later, on August 1, with 63 sessions and 25 testimonies.

Ten years later, on May 13, 1989, John Paul II decrees the heroic virtues of Francisco and Jacinta and the two little shepherds are now considered venerable, which happens for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church with non-martyr children.

From here the two processes are merged into one.

Beatification in Fatima

The next step in the beatification process of Francisco and Jacinta took place ten years later, on June 28, 1999, when Pope John Paul II promulgated the decree on the miracle of the healing of Emília Santos, obtained through the intercession of the two little shepherds, opening the path to beatification, whose celebration took place, in Fatima, the following year, on May 13th.

The beatification was being prepared to take place in Rome, but at the will of the Polish Pope, the celebration was transferred to Fatima, where John Paul II beatifies Francisco and Jacinta Marto, presenting them to the Church and the world as "two lamps that God lit to illuminate humanity in its dark and restless hours".

The pontifical decree grants that the venerable Francisco and Jacinta be considered beatified, with a liturgical feast on February 20th.

Sister Lúcia was present at the celebration of the beatification of her cousins ​​and had her last meeting with John Paul II at that time.

Canonization in Fátima, at 10:26 am on May 13, 2017

Francisco and Jacinta Marto were canonized at the Sanctuary of Fatima, on May 13, during the Mass of the first International Anniversary Pilgrimage of the Centenary of the Apparitions, presided over by Pope Francis.

They thus became the youngest non-martyr saints in the history of the Catholic Church.

The decision on the place and date of the canonization was announced today by Pope Francis at the public meeting of the Consistory, on April 20, held in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican.

The Sanctuary of Fátima was once again the stage for a ceremony in the process of canonization of Francisco and Jacinta, after, on 13 May 2000, John Paul II presided over the beatification of the two seers there.

The canonization was approved on March 23, when the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had recognized the miracle attributed to Francisco and Jacinta, the last stage of the process, which began 65 years ago.

Recognition of a miracle performed through her intercession after beatification is a process within the competence of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, regulated by the Apostolic Constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister, promulgated by John Paul II in 1983.

In the process of Francisco and Jacinta Marto, the miraculous healing of Lucas, a five-year-old Brazilian child, who had fallen from a window at a height of 6.5 meters on March 3, 2013, was accepted as a miracle, leaving him in coma, with loss of brain tissue in the right frontal lobe.

The prayers of the family and sisters of Carmelo de Campo Mourão, in Brazil, asking for the intercession of Francisco and Jacinta, resulted in Lucas' total healing, a fact that the doctors are unable to explain.

The decision of the expert or scientific commission on accepting the miracle was later analyzed by a commission of theologians, who recommended acceptance to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

The decree issued by the Congregation, declaring the two blessed saints, was then submitted to Pope Francis for approval, which took place on March 23 of this year.

Canonization is the confirmation, by the Catholic Church, that someone is worthy of universal public worship, and can be presented to the faithful as an intercessor and model of holiness.

The liturgical feast of Francisco and Jacinta, until now only at the diocesan level, takes place on February 20, the day of Jacinta's death.

Versão portuguesa aqui.

“The Three Little Shepherds”

They had everything for a simple, anonymous life, but ended up going down in history, not only in the Catholic Church in Portugal and in the world, but also in humanity, as privileged witnesses of apparitions in a small place called Cova da Iria, near Fátima, in the center of the country. 

Like the little shepherds that they were, they were forever known as “the Three Little Shepherds” or “the Seers of Fatima” to whom Our Lady of the Rosary appeared six times in 1917, more than 100 years ago. 

Lúcia, aged 10 at the time, and her cousins ​​Francisco, aged 9, and Jacinta, aged 7, siblings, were chosen to receive the Message in which the “Lady brighter than the sun” asked for prayers, sacrifices and repair of offenses to her Immaculate Heart and to God.

Lucia was given to see, hear and speak during the Apparitions, while Jacinta could see and hear. Francisco could only see, so his cousin and sister would later report to him everything they had heard.

Lucia

Born in Aljustrel, like her cousins, on March 28, 1907, baptized two days later, Lúcia received her First Communion on May 30, 1913, through Fr. Cruz – according to known documentation –, impressed by his catechetical knowledge.

In her Memoirs, Lúcia reports that in 1915 she had visions for the first time of a kind of cloud, in human form, on three different occasions, when she was with other friends. It is in the following year, 1916, that the three children receive the manifestations of the Angel of Portugal, as he presented himself.

From the first apparition of Our Lady, on May 13, 1917, the life of Lucia and her cousins ​​was completely transformed: not only because they accepted the requests of the Lady, reciting the rosary daily, making sacrifices, some of them painful, for the sinners and appearing for six months, on the 13th, in that place, but above all because they are constantly questioned about what they saw and accused of lying and inventing everything.

Beginning of life withdrawn from the world

Secluded in the Vilar Asylum, in Porto, after the last apparition (which occurred on October 13, 1917), on the advice of the Bishop of Leiria, D. José Alves Correia da Silva, Lúcia de Jesus begins a life withdrawn from the world that will lead to the postulancy of the Doroteias Sisters, in Spain, at the age of 15, and, later, to the enclosure of the Carmelo de Santa Teresa, in Coimbra, where she would remain from May 17, 1946 until her death, on February 13, 2005.

Still in Vilar, on January 5, 1922, he writes the first account of the Apparitions and two and a half years later, on July 8, 1924, he responds, in Porto, to the official interrogation of the Diocesan Canonical Commission on the events of Fátima, named by D. José Alves Correia da Silva.

Following the work of the Commission, the Bishop of Leiria published, on October 13, 1930, 13 years after the Apparitions, a Pastoral Letter on the cult of Our Lady of Fatima, considering «worthy of credit the visions of children in Cova da Fátima Iria, parish of Fátima [...], from May 13 to October 1917»

Disseminator of the Message of Fatima

Chosen from the beginning to be the great disseminator of the Message of Fatima and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Lúcia left numerous writings, of which the Memoirs stand out, divided into six parts, written at the request of both the Bishop of Leiria and, more afternoon, from the Rector of the Sanctuary, Mons. Luciano Guerra (the last two).

The six parts of the Memoirs, written between December 1935 and March 1992, include the account of the Apparitions, both of the Angel of Portugal and of Senhora do Rosário (2nd and 4th), and evocations of Jacinta (1st ), Francisco (4th), his father (5th) and his mother (6th).

The 3rd Memoir, dated August 1941, includes the first two of three parts of the reserved content of the Message of Fatima that came to be known as the Secret of Fatima: the vision of Hell and the request for devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Consecration of Russia.

Third part of the Secret archived in the Vatican

The third and last part of the Secret is included in the 4th Memoir and refers to the struggle of “atheistic systems against the Church and Christians and describes the immanent suffering of the witnesses of the faith of the last century of the second millennium. It is an endless Way of the Cross, guided by the Popes of the 20th century”, as announced in Fatima, on May 13, 2000, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State of the Vatican.

The Três Pastorinhos, despite numerous threats, inviolably kept this secret, which was only later written down by Sister Lúcia, in obedience to the explicit request of the bishop of the diocese of Leiria, and was later sent to the Holy See, where it was archived.

In a letter addressed to Pope Pius XII, on December 2, 1940, Lucia insistently asks that Our Lady's request be granted, reaffirmed in later Apparitions in Spain, for the proclamation of devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the consecration of the world , and especially from Russia, to the Heart of Mary.

Consecration that Pius XII ended up making, on October 31, 1942, in Rome, renewing it in the same place on December 8.

Paul VI (November 21, 1964), John Paul II (June 7, 1981, December 8, 1981, May 13, 1982, October 16, 1983, March 25, 1984 – in communion with all the bishops world – and May 13, 1991) and Francis (October 13, 2013) also renewed the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Personal Encounters with Popes and a Future Pope

Lucia ended up meeting in person with almost all the Popes who crossed her life since the Apparitions, except with Benedict XV and Pius XII.

The first direct contact with a Pontiff took place in 1967, when he went to Fatima to meet with Paul VI, at the request of the Pope himself, during the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Apparitions.

The image of Pedro's successor next to the only living seer of Fatima traveled the world and was, for many, the first time they saw Lucia.

There was no direct contact with John Paul I during his short pontificate, but Sister Lúcia received the then Cardinal Albino Luciani, the future Pope, at the Carmel in Coimbra, after a visit by the Patriarch of Venice to Fátima. The conversation was prolonged, but there is no record of the issues addressed.

The most frequent contacts were with John Paul II, after the attack in Rome, during the visits that the Pope made to Fatima (in 1982, 1991 and 2000).

The last visit took on a special character for Sister Lúcia, as it took place in connection with the beatification of her cousins ​​Francisco and Jacinta, the other two shepherd children of Fatima, and it was the time chosen by the Pope to announce the third and final part of the Secret of Fatima , referring, in the interpretation of the Pontiff, to the prediction of the attack he had suffered in 1981.

Early beatification process

Sister Maria Lúcia de Jesus e do Coração Imaculado, the name she adopted when she professed her perpetual vows on May 31, 1949, died on February 13, 2005 and was buried in Carmelo de Santa Teresa, in Coimbra, with her mortal remains transferred to the Basilica of Nossa Senhora do Rosário de Fátima on February 19, 2006, staying beside her cousin Jacinta.

Three years after Lucia's death, on February 3, 2008, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, announces, in the Carmel of Coimbra, that Pope Benedict XVI had acceded to the requests of the Bishop of Coimbra, D. Albino Cleto, and numerous faithful throughout the world, so that the canonical waiting period of five years for the opening of the process of beatification of the seer, authorizing its anticipation, could be dispensed with.

The diocesan phase of the process was opened by Archbishop Albino Cleto, on April 30, 2008, and its conclusion was announced on January 13, 2017. The formal closing session of the process took place on February 13, 2017, nine years ago. after its inception and 12 years after the seer's death.

A long period that was justified, according to Sr. Ângela Coelho, vice-postulator of the Cause of Canonization of Sister Lúcia, by the need to analyze the numerous documentation about the seer, a large part of which exists in the Vatican, and to collect the testimonies about his reputation for sanctity and his heroic virtues, culminating in a voluminous process of 15,000 pages that now passes into the Roman phase of analysis, under the competence of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

San Francisco Marto and Santa Jacinta Marto

Of the short lives of Francisco and Jacinta Marto, «the two candles that God lit to illuminate humanity in its dark and restless hours», as John Paul II called them, there are few biographical records. The most important source for knowledge about them is your cousin's Memoirs.

Both born in Aljustrel, less than two years apart, they died shortly after the Apparitions, just as Our Lady had announced to them: «I will take Jacinta and Francisco to you shortly. But you [Lúcia] will stay here a little longer” (June 13, 1917).

Brief lives, but enough for the Catholic Church to recognize, for the first time in its 2000-year history, the “heroic virtues and maturity of faith of non-martyr children”, by decree of John Paul II, of May 13 1989, which set the precedent for the recognition of his sanctity.

Francisco Marto

Francisco Marto, whose iconography shows him wearing a hood over his head and a short lab coat, with a staff and a farnel bag around his neck, was born on June 11, 1908 and was baptized on June 20 in the Parish Church of Fátima.

At just 8 years old, he began, with his sister Jacinta, to shepherd their parents' flock around the Cova da Iria area, where, together with cousin Lúcia, they would witness the Apparitions, during which he could only see, without listening or speaking.

Driven by the intimate desire to console the heart of Jesus, because – he said – he wanted to give joy to a God who was saddened by the grievances to His heart, Francis lived contemplative prayer intensely. For this, he spent hours in prayer in front of the tabernacle in the Parish Church of Fátima.

This desire to make amends for the heart of Jesus and to dedicate himself entirely to prayer led him to give up going to school, despite the fact that, in the Apparitions, Our Lady of Fatima asked them to learn to read and write.

On October 18, 1918, just over a year after the last Apparition, Francisco fell ill, a victim of the pneumonic flu epidemic that devastated the country. Also known as Spanish flu, the disease arrived in Portugal in the middle of that year and in a short time caused the death of tens of thousands of people.

On the 2nd of April of the following year, he confesses and receives Communion for the last time "with great lucidity and piety", as the parish priest of Fatima writes in the Book of Deaths, when registering his death on April 4th, adding : «And he confirmed that he had seen a Lady in Cova da Iria and Valinho».

He was buried in the Fátima cemetery, from where his remains were exhumed, on February 17, 1952, and transferred to the Basilica of Nossa Senhora do Rosário de Fátima, on March 13, 1952, resting in the right arm of the transept.

Jacinta Marto

Shy but serene, Jacinta Marto had an even shorter life than that of her brother Francisco.

Born on March 11, 1910, also in Aljustrel, she did not reach the age of 10 when she died in Lisbon, also a victim of pneumonia, on February 20, 1920, far from her family, “but consoled with the certainty that go to Heaven” (Sister Lucia).

In the Apparitions, Jacinta saw and heard, but did not speak. According to Cousin Lúcia, Jacinta was afflicted with the suffering of sinners that she saw in the vision of Hell (Apparition of July 13, 1917) and her heart was filled with compassion for them and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

This deep devotion led her to intense prayer and to bear sacrifices for sinners, Lucia also recalled in her writings, in which she recalls that her cousin suffered from being away from her family, missing her mother, crying with hunger during periods when she was fasting out of compassion for sinners.

Jacinta said that she had several apparitions of Our Lady during her illness, at home, in the Church of Fátima, in the orphanage where she was, in Lisbon, before being hospitalized and, later, in the Hospital of D. Estefânia.

Like her brother, she fell ill with pneumonia (Spanish flu) in October 1918, having been hospitalized for the first time in the hospital in Vila Nova de Ourém, from 1 July to 31 August 1919, already after Francisco's death.

The following year, the year of her death, she was hospitalized again, this time at the Hospital de D. Estefânia, in Lisbon, on 2 February. She was operated on, but ended up dying on February 20th, «with the greatest tranquility, without having received Communion», despite having insistently asked that they give her Communion, as, she said, she would die soon, according to the report of the doctor who accompanied by Eurico Lisboa.

His body was taken to Vila Nova de Ourém, in whose cemetery he was buried on February 24, in the tomb of the counts of Alvaiázere.

On April 30, 1951, his remains were identified and transferred to the left arm of the transept of the Basilica of Nossa Senhora do Rosário de Fátima the following day, May 1, 1951.

Canonization process comes to an end, 65 years later

Precisely one year later, on April 30, 1952, the Bishop of Leiria, D. José Alves Correia da Silva, opens the two diocesan processes on the fame of sanctity and the virtues of the two brothers.

Following parallel paths, the diocesan phase of Jacinta's process ended on July 2, 1979, containing 77 sessions and 27 testimonies. Francisco's process ended a month later, on August 1, with 63 sessions and 25 testimonies.

Ten years later, on May 13, 1989, John Paul II decrees the heroic virtues of Francisco and Jacinta and the two little shepherds are now considered venerable, which happens for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church with non-martyr children.

From here the two processes are merged into one.

Beatification in Fatima

The next step in the beatification process of Francisco and Jacinta took place ten years later, on June 28, 1999, when Pope John Paul II promulgated the decree on the miracle of the healing of Emília Santos, obtained through the intercession of the two little shepherds, opening the path to beatification, whose celebration took place, in Fatima, the following year, on May 13th.

The beatification was being prepared to take place in Rome, but at the will of the Polish Pope, the celebration was transferred to Fatima, where John Paul II beatifies Francisco and Jacinta Marto, presenting them to the Church and the world as "two lamps that God lit to illuminate humanity in its dark and restless hours".

The pontifical decree grants that the venerable Francisco and Jacinta be considered beatified, with a liturgical feast on February 20th.

Sister Lúcia was present at the celebration of the beatification of her cousins ​​and had her last meeting with John Paul II at that time.

Canonization in Fátima, at 10:26 am on May 13, 2017

Francisco and Jacinta Marto were canonized at the Sanctuary of Fatima, on May 13, during the Mass of the first International Anniversary Pilgrimage of the Centenary of the Apparitions, presided over by Pope Francis.

They thus became the youngest non-martyr saints in the history of the Catholic Church.

The decision on the place and date of the canonization was announced today by Pope Francis at the public meeting of the Consistory, on April 20, held in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican.

The Sanctuary of Fátima was once again the stage for a ceremony in the process of canonization of Francisco and Jacinta, after, on 13 May 2000, John Paul II presided over the beatification of the two seers there.

The canonization was approved on March 23, when the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had recognized the miracle attributed to Francisco and Jacinta, the last stage of the process, which began 65 years ago.

Recognition of a miracle performed through her intercession after beatification is a process within the competence of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, regulated by the Apostolic Constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister, promulgated by John Paul II in 1983.

In the process of Francisco and Jacinta Marto, the miraculous healing of Lucas, a five-year-old Brazilian child, who had fallen from a window at a height of 6.5 meters on March 3, 2013, was accepted as a miracle, leaving him in coma, with loss of brain tissue in the right frontal lobe.

The prayers of the family and sisters of Carmelo de Campo Mourão, in Brazil, asking for the intercession of Francisco and Jacinta, resulted in Lucas' total healing, a fact that the doctors are unable to explain.

The decision of the expert or scientific commission on accepting the miracle was later analyzed by a commission of theologians, who recommended acceptance to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

The decree issued by the Congregation, declaring the two blessed saints, was then submitted to Pope Francis for approval, which took place on March 23 of this year.

Canonization is the confirmation, by the Catholic Church, that someone is worthy of universal public worship, and can be presented to the faithful as an intercessor and model of holiness.

The liturgical feast of Francisco and Jacinta, until now only at the diocesan level, takes place on February 20, the day of Jacinta's death.