The Miracle of the Sun

 

Fatima is a small village in central Portugal named after a Muslim princess, called Fatima, during the presence of Muslims in Portugal and Spain. In the village, the appearance of a holy lady was claimed more than once, and her appearance was accompanied by miracles and secrets that she revealed to three children she chose from the public.

 The story began as follows:

On the thirteenth of May 1917, three village children of school age, Lucia dos Santos, and her two cousins, Francesco and Jacinta Marto, were tending their parents' flocks when the sky was lit, and in the midst of the light in a tree oaks, a girl of great beauty and splendors appeared, no more than eighteen years old, wearing a beautiful white robe, a halo of sunlight surrounded her head and a cloud of hidden pain on her face. As Lucia described her later, when the children saw her, they trembled, but she told them: “Do not be afraid, I will not hurt you.”

Lucia dos Santos (left), and her two cousins

According to Lucia - the only one who could hear what she was saying - the lady declared:

“I have come from the kingdom of heaven to ask you to come six times on the thirteenth day of every month, and then in November and you will know what I want.” Lucia asked her: “Shall I go to heaven?" She said, "Yes, you will go.”

 Then Lucia asked her: "Will Jacinta and Francesco go too?" She replied, "Yes, but Francesco must pray the holy rosary prayer a lot."

 In the third apparition of the Holy Lady, she gave the children three sacraments:

The first sacrament:

A vision of Hell

 Lucia described it as follows:

“The lady opened her hands and a ray of light appeared that seemed to penetrate the earth; we saw a sea out of ​​fire in which demons and souls in human forms floated in a great fountain of fire and fell from all sides like sparks without balance between screaming and moaning of pain and despair. We were terrified, trembling with fear, weeping and screaming, while the vision lasted for a moment, and unless our heavenly mother had promised us in her first appearance to go to heaven, we would have been eliminated for fear.”

 The second sacrament:

Russia's conversion from faith

 This sacrament was about Russia's conversion from faith and the global spread of atheism, followed by Russia's return to faith. The First World War was about to end at the time, but the lady warned of the outbreak of a second war if the world's evils did not stop.

 The third sacrament:

The deviation of believers from the belief

 This sacrament was about believers departing from the beliefs and teachings of the Bible. Lucia stated that she was not permitted to reveal the third secret, but at the Church's request and under a papal order, she wrote it down and deposited it in Rome in a sealed envelope. Based on what the lady had ordered her in her sleep, Lucia advised not to read it before 1960, and then Pope John XIII read it but did not reveal what was inside until the year 2000, when the Church permitted the publication of the content of the third secret. Part of what was said is as follows:

 “By your command, my Lord, I declare the third secret as we saw it when our holy lady appeared: We saw an angel on her left and a little higher, carrying a sword of flame in his left hand, from which sparks flew, almost destroying the world, but the lady put out the flames with a movement of her holy right hand, so the angel yelled in a loud voice: Penance ... Penance ... Penance ... Then we saw a divine light shining in the form of human beings, as if it were a Lord, saints and priests, we saw them as if they were passing in front of a mirror, ascending a steep mountain on top of which was a cross made of severed trunks as if it were from the bark of cork trees.  On the way to the summit, the Lord passed by a large city, half of which had been turned into ruins and the other was about to collapse.

 The Lord prayed for the souls of the corpses that he passed on the way, and when he reached the summit, he kneeled on his knees at the cross, so he was shot by bullets and arrows from groups of soldiers who gathered there until they killed him and all who followed him: saints, priests and multitudes of the common believers.

 Under each arm of the cross was an angel standing on a crystal baptismal basin, in which they collected the blood of the saints, then sprinkled it on the souls of the martyrs as they ascended to God.”

 These were the three secrets that the Holy Lady had taught the three children.

Only few people accompanied the children in June to the place of apparition, but thousands came in July, on both occasions no one saw anything but the three children, and so the authorities accused the Church of fabricating the miracle.

 The Church kept silent, fearing that the story was fabricated, but the children led by Lucia refused to change their words, and at the last apparition on the 13^th of November, 70,000 people gathered in Fatima from all parts of the country, religions, cultures and ages in addition to the press and the media, where they witnessed what was later called the “miracle of the sun.”

 The day was dull and cloudy, the sun was covered with a dark cloud warning of a strong storm, at ten o'clock in the morning it rained heavily, and the wind was stormy.

 At the appointed time for the appearance of the Holy Lady, nothing happened, that made the children’s parents worry about them from the anger of the crowd, which was looking for the miracle to happen. The village priest suggested that the three children leave the place, but the children insisted on staying.

 Not long after, Lucia saw the light that always precedes the appearance of the Holy Lady. At that moment the rain stopped, the sky suddenly cleared and the sun shined in the sky, and Lucia cried: “Here she comes!”, and the crowds on the other side were taken by an amazing and horrific sight: the sun had turned white like a silver-colored fireball that could be stared at without harm to the eye; then it revolved like a wheel of fire reeling around itself and began to send in all directions dazzling red, green and of every color over the huddled crowd. Then suddenly stopped sending lights and started spinning again as if "dancing".

 This was repeated three times until the crowd thought that it had lost control of itself, then it rushed like a large fireball towards the ground and it seemed as if it would fall on people's heads, so the crowd panicked and thought that it was the end of the world and cried in terror; some of them asked God for mercy, and one of the women confessed her sins publicly. Then the sun stopped its sudden movements and returned to its position in the sky.

 The miracle lasted about ten minutes: people could watch it from forty kilometers away from the crowded site. When the miracle ended, the people, whether they were in the place of the apparition or in the surrounding villages, found that everything had suddenly dried up from the rainwater that had fallen right before the miracle.

 Portuguese newspapers recorded the incident:

There were two famous secular newspapers in Portugal at that time: Daily News and O Century newspaper, each of which recorded the miracle in detail, as well as many eyewitnesses’ testimonies. In O Century newspaper, the following came:

 “The sky was a peculiar light and transparent pearly gray that filled the gloomy nature. The sun was obscured by a transparent mist that we could look at without difficulty. Then the sun was seen spinning and writhing and the people cried with one voice, raising their hands to the sky in supplication, and kneeling above the clay ground. Then the light turned faint blue, scattering its rays from the gigantic ball as if it were shining through the stained glass of a great cathedral. Then the blue color faded and disappeared and seemed to pass through yellow glass and yellow spots began to fall to the ground."

O Century newspaper report

The Church encircled the three secrets that were revealed to the children with political prophecies such as the outbreak of the Second World War after the first due to human ingratitude, and Russia’s conversion to atheism and its return to faith after that, but it hesitated a lot in publishing the third secret despite the will of Lucia, and in spite of the request of the Holy Lady to be published after 1960. This hesitation of the Church aroused doubt and controversy about the true content of this will even after its publication in 2000, and its content is still questionable until today.

 Lucia is the last of those who saw the Holy Lady in 1917; her brother and sister passed away at an early age, and the secret of her life was not revealed until after Pope Paul VI gave approval to Father Augustine, who was the spiritual father of the Great Church in the village (Fatima) in Portugal to visit her in the stronghold of her house arrest. As the Italian newspaper Rebeca says:

"Nun Lucia was holed up in a monastery, so she has no right to leave it or receive visits!"

 Father Augustine says that Lucia received him with a very sad and broken heart, saying to him:

“Father, our holy lady of glorious lights is very sad for not paying attention to the prophecy of 1917, and I am very happy in this place where I have enough time to meet my mistress spiritually and for many times even though I live in solitude from people and in a complete disconnection from the outside world, except that meeting her gives me a unique consolation that is felt only by the brilliance of her dazzling lights.”

 Father Augustine left her meeting, carrying a letter to Pope Paul VI, pontiff of the Catholic Church in Rome, and handed him the letter.

 Father Augustine says that the Pope opened the letter and began to read it, then his hands began to tremble severely, and his whole body shook. When he finished reading the letter, the Pope did not have the strength to get up and asked for water to drink. Then the Pope ordered to put the letter among the most secret documents of the Vatican, and for more than ninety years, the Church repeatedly pledged to reveal the secret of Lucia’s letter and put it in the hands of researchers but did not fulfill its promise.

 What is striking is that the Pope, after reading the letter, improved his view of the Islamic religion so much that he issued a statement explaining the Church’s position on it. On October 28, 1965, the Pope published the document of the Second Vatican Council Entitled “On the Church’s Relationships with Non-Christian Religions.” The letter was addressed to Islam, and considered it the most positive and open, saying:

 “The Church looks with appreciation for Muslims who worship the One, Living, Subsisting God, the Compassionate, the Almighty, who created the heavens and the earth and revealed his message to people through the prophets, who strived with all their souls to submit to the provisions of God. Islam recognized Ibrahim as the father of prophets, also praised the position of Jesus and his mother the Virgin Mary, as well as regarding the almost identicalness in the teachings about the Day of Resurrection of the dead and God’s judgment of people as well as the many commonalities in moral life, prayer, fasting and charity. The document called for forgetting the disputes and hostilities that occurred in the past and the consolidation of understanding for the sake of all people and to achieve social justice, spiritual values, peace and freedom.”

 The Pope also established the Pontifical Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies, which publishes a monthly Islamic-Christian magazine that issues research papers and texts prepared and written by Christian and Muslim clerics and scholars, on May 17, 1964.

 The Pope established the General Secretariat for Relations with Muslims, also known as the Secretariat for Muslims, on November 22, 1974. This secretariat arranged numerous conferences and meetings, primarily with the Al-Azhar Mosque in Egypt. However, the Pope's focus shifted towards religious bodies in Qom, Iran, during his conferences. Additionally, relations with Shiite organizations representing Islamic communities in Europe were reinvigorated. These changes in the behavior of the Roman Church were influenced by reading Lucia's letter on the three mysteries of Fatima, particularly the third one.