Marian apparitions or Marianophanies always create some discomfort for theologians who, for this reason, generally don’t pay particular attention to them. Even in the field of theological reflection on Mary, there is often a lack of theological reflection on this phenomenon. This distrust is due to the prejudice that such phenomena distract us from the essentials of the Christian faith, dwelling on what is secondary. However, this is a prejudice that does not stand up to objective evaluation.
In the specific case of Fatima, its message leads precisely to the essentials of the Christian faith; “it reflects, from different points of view, the very heart of revelation.” 1 In the message of Fatima and in the testimonies of the three seers, there is a “nexus mysteriorum”: there, the fundamental dimensions of the self-communication of the One and Triune God and of man and woman’s free response of faith to it intersect 2. The message of Fatima leads us to the essentials of the Christian faith and “allows us to deepen the most radical logic of the revelation of God the Trinity: the love of God that manifests itself as mercy to overcome, from within, the dramas of human history” 3.
In this brief presentation, we will begin with the history of Fatima: the event and its interpretations. Secondly, we will focus on the content of the message and the spirituality that emerges from it.
As far as history is concerned, it is important to start with the events that gave rise to the Fatima phenomenon.
The fundamental sources for understanding the apparitions are as follows:
A useful tool for anyone wishing to get to know the event of each of the apparitions, compiling and critically comparing the Memoirs of Sister Lucia and the interrogations, as well as other relevant documentation, is the work of the former head of the Shrine’s Studies Department Luciano Coelho Cristino: The apparitions of Fatima: reconstruction from the documents, (2nd edition, 2022) 4.
The Shrine of Fatima was born out of a supernatural phenomenon – this is how it was understood by those involved and recognized as such by the competent ecclesiastical authority – made up of a series of hierophanies. The seers of Fatima were three children in 1917: Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta. Lucia was the cousin of the two brothers Francisco and Jacinta. They were from the village of Aljustrel, in the parish of Fátima, and were shepherds of their family’s flock of sheep.
It’s important to state the obvious, because we often take for granted what is not.
In the history of Fatima we find three cycles of apparitions:
In 1916 there were three apparitions of the Angel, who introduced himself as the “Angel of Peace” and later also as the “Angel of Portugal”. The first apparition took place in the spring, on an unknown date, and in this apparition, the Angel taught the Little Shepherds a prayer. Months later, in the summer, the second apparition took place, in which the Angel exhorted the seers to prayer and reparation. In the fall, the Angel appeared a third time, bringing the seers Eucharistic communion. He taught them a second Trinitarian prayer of adoration.
The following year, in 1917, there were six apparitions of Our Lady, one in each month, from May to October.
The first apparition took place on May 13, in the place called Cova da Iria, where the Shrine of Fatima now stands. In this apparition, the Virgin Mary states that she comes from Heaven and says to the little shepherds: “I have come to ask you to come here for six months at a time, on the 13th at the same time, and then I will tell you who I am and what I want” 5. She asks them to pray the Rosary every day and this will be the request she makes most often, repeated in each of the six apparitions.
In the second apparition, on June 13, Our Lady promised to take the seers Francisco and Jacinta to heaven soon, but told Lucia that she should stay longer and entrusted her with a mission: “Jesus wants to use you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish devotion to my Immaculate Heart in the world” 6.
The third apparition, in July, is the famous apparition of the so-called “secret of Fatima”, the third part of which, which speaks of the persecution of the Church, was not known until the year 2000.
The fourth apparition was the only one that didn’t take place on August 13, because the Municipal Administrator – Vila Nova de Ourém – had taken the little shepherds, preventing them from being in Cova da Iria on the 13th, to convince them to reveal the secret to him. The apparition took place in Valinhos, near Aljustrel, on August 19th.
The fifth apparition took place on September 13, again in the Cova da Iria.
Finally, the sixth apparition, on October 13, is the apparition of the miracle of the sun, seen by a crowd of between 50,000 and 70,000 people. In this apparition, Our Lady introduced herself as the Lady of the Rosary and asked: “I want to tell you to build a chapel here in my honor” 7. The Shrine of Fatima was born from this request from Our Lady: first, in 1919, the little chapel of the Apparitions was built, then the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, the large prayer area and, finally, the Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity.
There was also a seventh apparition, but it was personal and should not be confused with these: it was an apparition of Our Lady to Lucia, after the death of Francisco and Jacinta, on June 15, 1921. Lucia was preparing to leave Fatima for good.
Finally, we have the Cordimarian cycle, from 1925 to 1929, when Lucia was already a Dorothean nun and was in Spain.
In 1925, in Pontevedra, Our Lady spoke of the devotion of the first Saturdays of each month.
In 1929, in Tuy, a new apparition asked for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
When we speak of the “message of Fatima”, we are referring first and foremost to the content of these apparitions, but also to the life witness of the seers, two of whom were canonized.
Ever since Our Lady’s apparitions, crowds have flocked to Fatima. The period from 1919 to 1930 saw the construction of the Shrine, the configuration of cult practices and the disciplining and organization of pilgrimages.
But let’s also taLuke about the history of the interpretation of Fatima. Trying to simplify a complex process, we can identify five phases in the study and interpretation of the Fatima event 8. The first phase marks, immediately after the apparitions, the period of inquiries and the canonical process of recognizing the authenticity of the apparitions, which concluded in October 1930.
The second, apologetic phase began in 1923, when the canonical process was still underway, and lasted until the 1960s. It was during this period that the first documents on Fatima were published, such as the Memoirs of Sister Lucia and other relevant texts. This apologetic phase produced a catechetical reading of the message of Fatima, framing it within the universe of Catholic doctrine, but not yet a specifically theological reading.
The third phase is characterized by a theological-pastoral approach, in order to achieve a doctrinal systematization of the major Fatima themes, and by historiographical rigour in the critical treatment of the sources. The symbolic start of this phase was marked by the Spanish Claretian José Maria Alonso being given the task of preparing a rigorous history of Fatima, based on the documentation collected. It was during this phase that the foundations were laid for the publication and critical treatment of the sources.
The next phase marked the beginning of the regular collaboration of the Portuguese Catholic University with the Shrine, both in the processing of the documentation for publication and in the organization of congresses, which allowed us to delve deeper into the various dimensions of the message of Fatima. It was during this phase that the publication of the Critical Documentation of Fatima began, which started in 1992 and was completed in 2013. In the same year, 1992, on the occasion of the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the apparitions, two international congresses were held; and after that, many other congresses allowed us to deepen various aspects and dimensions of the message of Fatima, creating the conditions for a richer theological reading of the message.
We are currently in the fifth period: the phase of critical synthesis of Fatima and its message. We can say that this phase began with the celebration of the 90th anniversary of the apparitions, in 2007, with a congress with the theme “Fatima for the 21st Century”, which aimed to present a global reading of the history and message of Fatima 9. That same year, another work of synthesis was published: the Encyclopedia of Fatima 10. This period, which lasts until today, is characterized by the passage “from the gradual abandonment of the political discourse on Fatima to the gradual emergence of interpretative syntheses of the phenomenon” 11.
The Centenary of the Apparitions offered the opportunity to assess the status quaestionis of research on Fatima in its various dimensions, and the years that followed have allowed this work to continue. I recall two international congresses on Fatima, on the occasion of the Centenary of the Apparitions, whose proceedings have been published:
Leaving the historical part, let’s look at the fundamental contents of the message of Fatima.
At the heart of the Fatima message is the “Gospel of the Trinity” 14. In the gestures and words of both the Angel of Peace and Our Lady,
“God reveals himself in his Trinitarian mystery, arousing a generous response of adoration, self-giving and reparation on the part of the little shepherds […] The event of Fatima emphasizes the representation of God as the light that illuminates all realities, as the Trinity that we must adore and love” 15.
Thus, the essence of the message of Fatima is “the awakening to the urgency of radically centering our lives on God, as the only one who must be loved and adored” 16. The way to speak to us about God, the Holy Trinity, and to lead us to him is not theological concepts or speculative discourse, but the path of intense spiritual experience 17.
At the time of the Apparitions, ideologies and political regimes were flourishing, bent on removing God from humanity’s horizon once and for all, in a militant and combative atheism. Today, more insidious than this declared fight against God is religious indifference, the tendency to live as if God didn’t exist. In a more or less discreet way, there is an attempt to “erase” any sign of God in the public space, to drive him underground. In this context in which we live, the clear and unequivocal affirmation of the primacy of God, the Holy Trinity, in the lives of believers remains relevant and urgent.
Because the Paschal Mystery is the culminating event in the history of revelation and salvation, the event in which God’s fatherhood of his only Son is fully realized in the world and revealed, and from which the Spirit of divine filiation flows out into the world 18, it is important to highlight the “Paschal horizon of the Message of Fatima”, as Eloy Bueno de la Fuente does:
“Although this perspective has not been highlighted in the publications on Fatima, the Easter melody resounds clearly: light, beauty, joy accompany the presence of the Lady. She allows herself to be seen and heard from the glory of the Risen Lord, to which she has acceded in body and soul” 19.
The paschal character of the message of Fatima underlines the centrality of Jesus Christ, especially in his Eucharistic presence. But this Christocentric character of the message is also evident in the prayer of the rosary, which leads us to meditate on the mysteries of Christ, which have their center and full meaning in the paschal mystery.
Still within this Trinitarian horizon of the Fatima message, it is important to emphasize a pneumatological and ecclesial dimension. Shortly after his pilgrimage to the Cova da Iria Shrine, Pope Benedict XVI said:
“There is no Church without Pentecost. And I would like to add: there is no Pentecost without the Virgin Mary. It was like that at the beginning, in the Upper Room […] And it is always like that, in every place and time. I too witnessed this a few days ago in Fatima. What did that immense crowd experience on the esplanade of the Shrine, where we were all truly one heart and one soul? It was a renewed Pentecost. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was in our midst. This is the typical experience of the great Marian Shrines: wherever Christians gather in prayer with Mary, the Lord gives his Spirit” 20.
The ecclesial dimension is evident in a very explicit way in the so-called “Secret”, in the reference to the “Bishop dressed in white” and to the pilgrim and martyr Church; and it is implicit in Our Lady’s request to build a chapel in the Cova da Iria, since the church building is always a symbol of the Church of living stones that gathers there to celebrate the presence of Jesus Christ; and it is expressed in the participation in sacramental celebrations, always expressions par excellence of the Church.
The message of Fatima also has a clear sacramental dimension, centered above all on the Eucharist. The message of Fatima is profoundly Eucharistic. If the angelic cycle in 1916 was the “Eucharistic prelude” to the message, the Cordimarian cycle, especially in the apparition of Tui in 1929, constitutes its “Eucharistic epilogue” 21.
It is significant to note that it is within the Trinitarian horizon that the Eucharistic dimension of the Message of Fatima is set. The Eucharist is an effective sacrament not only of the living presence of Christ, but also of the Holy Trinity and of our incorporation into this mystery of saving communion. The Holy Trinity is the origin and goal of the Eucharist: in the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit is the true source and culmination of the whole Eucharistic mystery 22. This is what the Message of Fatima emphasizes with particular vehemence.
In addition to the Eucharist, the celebration of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation is also of fundamental importance in the message of Fatima. In the apparitions of the Angel and Our Lady, conversion occupies a fundamental place. Of course, conversion is not reduced to the celebration of the sacrament of Penance, but it finds its most important expression and sacramental fulfillment there. The pilgrimage to Fatima itself is marked by this sacramental dimension relating to Penance: every authentic pilgrimage is a journey of conversion, which points towards the celebration of the sacrament of Penance.
Finally, the Marian dimension of Fatima is evident. According to the testimony of the seers, Mary presented herself as the “Lady of the Rosary”, she showed herself clothed in light and spreading the light of God, and she revealed the mystery of her Immaculate Heart. Fr. Alonso, a great Fatima scholar, considered the revelation of Mary’s Immaculate Heart to be the “soul of the Fatima message” 23.
Since the apparitions of the Angel in 1916, the reference to the Immaculate Heart of Mary has accompanied all the apparitions of Fatima. From Our Lady’s apparition in June 1917, it became a fundamental element of the message. In the June apparition, Our Lady gave the seer Lucia a mission: “Jesus wants to use you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish devotion to my Immaculate Heart in the world”. And he makes her a promise: “My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the path that will lead you to God” 24. This promise sums up the two most important aspects of the spirituality of the Immaculate Heart of Mary: Mary’s intercession and her exemplarity. In Our Lady’s apparition in July, the revelation deepens and, in the context of the Secret, the final triumph of her Immaculate Heart is announced. In this apparition, Our Lady promises to return again to ask for communion of reparation on First Saturdays and the consecration of Russia. The first request was made in the apparition of Pontevedra (Spain) in 1925; the second in the apparition of Tui (Spain) in 1929.
The invocation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is understood in the light of the biblical meaning of “heart”. In the Bible, the heart is the “sacrament” of the person, who manifests their most intimate and absolute uniqueness before God and before each other. In the Immaculate Heart of Mary, it is her whole being and mystery that is addressed. The heart designates the very person of the Virgin Mary; her intimate and unique “being”; the center and source of her inner life: intelligence and memory, will and love. In his theological commentary on the third part of the Secret of Fatima, the then Cardinal J. Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, says:
“The term “heart”, in the language of the Bible, means the center of human existence, a confluence of reason, will, temperament and sensibility, where the person finds his unity and inner orientation. The “immaculate heart” is, according to Matthew 5:8, a heart that, starting from God, has reached perfect inner unity and consequently “sees God”. Therefore, “devotion” to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is to approach this attitude of the heart, in which the fiat – “your will be done” – becomes the conforming center of all existence.” 25
The various dimensions listed – trinitarian, Christological and paschal, pneumatological and ecclesiastical, sacramental and Marian – are constitutive of all true Christian spirituality and are found in the message of Fátima, allowing us to speak of a true spirituality of Fátima.
Stefano De Fiores, distinguished Professor of Spiritual Theology and Mariology, comparing Fátima with the message of other apparitions, highlighted as a mark of Fátima’s originality and specificity, among other aspects, spirituality: “the recommendations of practices of piety, prayer and conversion , Our Lady of Fátima passes to an authentic spirituality, condensed in devotion or consecration to her Immaculate Heart” 26.
According to this author, Fátima presents other original characteristics, such as the historical and political perspective in which it is placed, the “concern for the future” and not just for the present of the life of the Church and the world, the “universal influence on the piety of the faithful and even bishops and popes” 27; but it is above all at the level of spirituality that Fátima stands out: “Fátima is more than a simply devotional project, because the Blessed Virgin is interested in embracing an authentic “Marian spirituality”, expressed in consecration to God through the Immaculate Heart”. 28
The spirituality of Fátima is a Marian spirituality 29, whose most characteristic feature is devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, an element that unites the different dimensions of the message.
From the dimensions listed, attitudes emerge, which mark the spiritual experience that the message of Fátima challenges. We will briefly highlight some of them.
Worship is the fundamental religious attitude. As a specifically Christian believing attitude, worship is always welcoming of the revelation of God as the Holy Trinity. The Christian does not worship any indeterminate cosmic force, any impersonal divinity: he worships the unitary God, who comes to meet him, who reveals himself to him, manifesting his love.
In the message of Fátima, adoration occupies a particularly important place and is directly linked to the Trinitarian and Eucharistic dimension of the message. The three appearances of the Angel focus on the revelation of the trinitarian face of God, not in a speculative way, but in a doxological way 30, through worship. There, believing, hoping and loving are the form par excellence of worship, which “concentrates the three virtues within itself” 31. Also in the apparitions of Our Lady, adoration appears as a fundamental attitude. In the light that radiates from Our Lady’s hands, the Little Shepherds experience the presence of God, the Holy Trinity, which completely surrounds them, and they respond with adoration.
The worship of God indelibly marks the lives of visionaries, not only as a gesture of prayer, but also as an existential attitude of giving God the central place in their lives.
Another fundamental attitude in the spirituality of Fátima is that of reparation: the message of Fátima challenges the experience of a reparative spirituality. The reparation appears, from the outset, in the angelic apparitions of 1916, takes on a prominent place in the apparitions of Our Lady and is materialized in the vital response given by the Little Shepherds of Fátima 32.
Reparation, which runs through the entire message of Fátima and indelibly marks its spirituality, is theocentric and trinitarian, as it appears explicitly in the prayers taught by the Angel, but it is equally Christological and eucharistic; and it is also explicitly Marian: the attitude of reparation is closely linked to the fundamental place of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the spirituality of Fátima. The devotion of the first Saturdays 33, specifically Fatimite and which “can be considered a compendium of the entire message” 34 of Fátima, is a concretization of this reparative attitude towards Mary.
Reparation, in the message of Fatima, is deeply linked to worship. Adoration and reparation appear united and inseparable in the spirituality of Fátima.
The spirituality of Fátima is still deeply marked by the vehement call to conversion and penance. The repeated request that men no longer offend God, Our Lady’s sadness as an expression of non-indifference towards the sins committed, the call to prayer and sacrifices for sinners mark the message of Fatima from the first to the last moment. In the lives of the little visionaries, not only is there an authentic movement of conversion, which allows a different portrait to be created before and after the apparitions 35, but also the concern for the conversion of sinners will accompany them permanently.
In his theological commentary on the third part of the Secret, the then Cardinal J. Ratzinger said: “The key word of this (third) part of the “secret” is the threefold cry: “Penance, Penance, Penance!” The beginning of the Gospel comes to mind: “Pænitemini et credite evangelio” (Mc 1, 15)”. 36
On another level, the spirituality of Fátima is also expressed in the commitment to the brothers, as an expression of love. The encounter with God, who is Love, awakens in the Little Shepherds their own capacity to love 37. Eloy Bueno de la Fuente recalls, in this regard, that St. John of the Cross said that it seems little to the blessed to go to Heaven alone. Jacinta expresses this in her simple language, in dialogue with Lúcia: when she reminded her that she would go to Heaven, as Our Lady had promised, Jacinta replied: “Yes, I will […] but I wanted all those people to there it would be too” 38. Sr. Lúcia will later comment that, precisely because God is Love, and because only love can unite us to God, “this love is not content with being happy; He wants to lead others to share the same happiness with him” 39.
A spirituality that draws its inspiration from the message of Fátima necessarily has this dimension of solidarity and commitment to our brothers and sisters. Pope Benedict XVI stated that Fátima “is a school of faith and hope, because it is also a school of charity and service to our brothers and sisters” 40.
More than a century after the apparitions of Fátima, the question about the relevance of her message arises. After, in 2000, Pope John Paul II decided to reveal the third and final part of the so-called Secret of Fátima, many announced the end of interest in Fátima, as they understood that it was curiosity about the content of that document that kept people connected to Fátima. On the other hand, it seemed that the prophecy contained in the Secret was already fully realized, meaning that the question of the interest of those contents became inevitable.
During his pilgrimage to this Sanctuary, in 2010, in his homily at Mass on May 13, Pope Benedict XVI stated:
“Anyone who thought that the prophetic mission of Fátima was completed would be deluded. Here revives that plan of God that has questioned humanity since its beginnings: «Where is Abel, your brother? […] The voice of your brother’s blood cries out from the earth to Me” (Gen4, 9). Man could trigger a cycle of death and terror, but he cannot interrupt it… In Sacred Scripture, God often appears looking for the righteous to save the human city and he does the same here, in Fátima, when Our Lady asks: « Do you want to offer yourselves to God to endure all the sufferings that He wants to send you, in an act of reparation for the sins with which He Himself is offended and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?» (Memoirs of Sister Lúcia, I, 162)” 41.
Just think about the theme of peace, central to the message of Fatima and dramatically present in our lives today; instead the importance of prayer, which Pope Francis chose as the theme of this year of preparation for the Jubilee and which is at the heart of the message of Fatima; or in the place of God in our lives, in this time when so many of our contemporaries live as if God did not exist… to realize the relevance of Fatima and its message.
1 Eloy BUENO DE LA FUENTE, The Message of Fatima. The mercy of God: the triumph of love in the dramas of history, 3rd edition, Fátima, Santuário de Fátima, 2018, p. 17.
2 Cf. Salvatore M. PERRELLA, Impronte di Dio nella storia. Apparizioni and Mariofanie, Padova, Edizioni Messaggero di Padova, 2011, p. 20.
3 BUENO DE LA FUENTE, The Message of Fatima, p. 17.
4 Luciano Coelho CRISTINO, The apparitions of Fátima: reconstruction from documents, Org. André Melícias – Marco Daniel Duarte – Sónia Vazão, Santuário de Fátima, 2nd edition, 2022.
5 LÚCIA DE JESUS, Memoirs: Fourth Memory, p. 229.
6 LÚCIA DE JESUS, Memoirs: Fourth Memory, p. 231.
7 LÚCIA DE JESUS, Memoirs: Fourth Memory, p. 235.
8 José Eduardo FRANCO, «Fátima, the miracle of interpretation – I: phases of gnoseological approach», Brotéria 165 (2007) 345-356; José Eduardo FRANCO, «Fátima: the miracle of interpretation. The miracle of the Sun: critical analysis of the documentation”, in Fátima International Congress for the 21st Century, Fátima 2008, 389-435 (here, 389-403); for a critical approach to the various periodization proposals, cf. Marco Daniel DUARTE, «Epistemology of Fátima: listening, narrating, reading and interpreting Fátima over a century», in Stefano M. CECHIN (Coord.), Fatimensis eventus centum post anos. History, Nuntius et Praesentia. Acta Congressus Mariologici-Mariani Internationalis in civitate Fatima anno 2016 celebrati, Pontificia Academia Mariana Internationalis, Città del Vaticano 2021, pp. 79-113; Marco Daniel DUARTE, «History and historiography of Fátima: one hundred years of translation of a historical event», in Marco Daniel DUARTE – Pedro Valinho GOMES (Coord.), Pensar Fátima. Interdisciplinary readings. Proceedings of the International Congress of the Centenary of Fátima, Vol. I, Sanctuary of Fátima, Fátima 2021, pp. 19-38.
9 Fátima International Congress for the 21st Century, Fátima 2008.
10 Carlos M. AZEVEDO – L. CRISTINO (Coord.), Enciclopédia de Fátima, Estoril 2007.
11 Marco Daniel DUARTE, «History and historiography of Fátima: one hundred years of translation of a historical event», p. 35.
12 Stefano M. CECHIN (Coord.), Fatimensis eventus centum post anos. History, Nuntius et Praesentia. Acta Congressus Mariologici-Mariani Internationalis in civitate Fatima anno 2016 celebrati, Pontificia Academia Mariana Internationalis, Città del Vaticano 2021
13 Marco Daniel DUARTE – Pedro Valinho GOMES (Coord.), Pensar Fátima. Interdisciplinary readings. Proceedings of the International Congress of the Centenary of Fátima, Vol. I and II, Sanctuary of Fátima, Fátima 2021.
14 Bruno FORTE, «The Message of Fátima and the Revelation», in A Pastoral de Fátima. Proceedings of the 1st International Meeting on the Pastoral Care of Fátima, Fátima, Sanctuary of Fátima 1993, p. 97.
15 Stefano DE FIORES, The Secret of Fátima. A light on the future of the world, Apelação, 2008, p. 31.
16 José Jacinto F. FARIAS, A fire that burns, but does not burn. A theological essay on the Message of Fátima, as a contribution to understanding it and living it today in Portugal, Prior Velho, 2010, p. 69.
17 Cf. António MARTO, The beauty of the trinitarian face of God in the Message of Fátima, Coimbra, 2007, p. 16.
18 Cf. François-Xavier DURRWELL, Our Father, God in his mystery, Salamanca, Sígueme, 1992, p. 9.
19 BUENO DE LA FUENTE, The Message of Fatima, p. 154.
20 Regina Caeli speech, May 23, 2010: http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/pt/angelus/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_reg_20100523_pentecoste.html (accessed on 04/10/2024).
21 Cf. R. Schulte STAADE, «Adoration», in A Pastoral de Fátima. Proceedings of the 1st International Meeting on the Pastoral Care of Fátima on the 75th Anniversary of the Apparitions, Fátima, Sanctuary of Fátima, 1993, p. 111 (German original: p. 465-471). The expressions are the author’s, but not the periodization.
22 Cf. Manuel GESTEIRA GARZA, La Eucaristia, misterio de comunión, 5th edition, Salamanca, Sígueme, 2006, p. 675.
23 Cf. Joaquín Maria ALONSO, «The Immaculate Heart of Mary, soul of Fatima’s message», Ephemerides Mariologicae, 22, 1972, pp. 240-303.
24 LÚCIA DE JESUS, Memoirs: Fourth Memory, p. 231.
