(Deeptranslator) On the 13th of May 1917, towards midday, Our Lady appeared for the first time to three little shepherds - Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco - who had taken their sheep to graze in a hollow covered with holm oaks and olive trees that the locals knew as the Cova da Iria.
Our Lady asked the children to go to that same place on the thirteenth day of each month, for six consecutive months. The message that Our Lady will be giving them is a message of penance for the sins that are committed every day, the prayer of the Holy Rosary for this same intention and the consecration of the world to her Immaculate Heart. At each apparition, the sweet Lady insists on the daily recitation of the Rosary, and teaches them a prayer to repeat many times, offering their works and especially small mortifications and sacrifices: O Jesus, for your love, for the conversion of sinners and in reparation for the offences committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
In August Our Lady promised a public sign, visible to all, as proof of the truthfulness of these messages. In each apparition Our Lady encouraged children to pray for the conversion of sinners, offering sacrifices and praying the Holy Rosary. On 13th October, the so-called miracle of the sun took place. Tens of thousands of people, present in the Cova da Iria, witnessed this extraordinary event; it was even seen by those who were many kilometres away from the place of the apparitions. Our Lady then declared to the children that she was Our Lady of the Rosary. She also told them: "Men must make amends, ask for forgiveness of their sins... Let them no longer offend Our Lord, who is already too much offended.
Pope John Paul II, recalling his pilgrimage to Fatima, where he went "with the Rosary in his hand, the name of Mary on his lips and the song of mercy in his heart", to thank Our Lady for having come out alive from the attack he suffered the previous year, pointed out that "the apparitions of Fatima, confirmed by extraordinary signs, in 1917, form a point of reference and irradiation for our century. Mary, our heavenly Mother, came to shake consciences, to enlighten the true meaning of life, to stimulate conversion from sin and spiritual fervour, to inflame souls with love of God and charity towards their neighbours. Mary came to our aid because many, unfortunately, do not want to accept the invitation of the Son of God to return to the Father's house.
"From her shrine of Fatima, Mary renews even today her maternal and pressing request: conversion to Truth and Grace; the life of the sacraments, especially Penance and the Eucharist, and devotion to her Immaculate Heart, accompanied by the spirit of penance.
Today we can ask ourselves how our correspondence to the frequent inspirations of the Holy Spirit to purify our soul is going, especially in sacramental Confession, how we make reparation for past personal sins and for those of all men, how we pray the Holy Rosary-especially in this month of May-putting forward "ambitious intentions," asking that many friends and companions come once more to Christ, humbly traveling the prodigal son's road back.
"The message of Fatima is, in its fundamental core, a call to conversion and penance, as in the Gospel (...).
"The call to penance is a motherly call; and, at the same time, it is energetic and made with determination".
Throughout the Gospel the words repent and do penance resound. Jesus will begin his mission by asking for penance: do penance, because the Kingdom of Heaven is near. This word means the conversion of the sinner, and designates a whole series of interior and exterior acts aimed at making reparation for the sin committed.
Our Lady reminds us that without penance one does not receive the Kingdom of her Son; without penance one is in the kingdom of sin. Without penance, you will all likewise perish, the Lord had announced. Therefore, in the message that the Apostles spread, the newborn Church, the preaching of this virtue will occupy an essential place. The whole time of the pilgrim Church, in which we find ourselves, appears as spatium verae poenitentiae, a time of true penance granted by the Lord so that no one will perish. Penance is necessary because sin exists and we are not strangers to it, because it is necessary to make reparation for so many faults and weaknesses of ourselves and of our fellow men, and because no one, without a special and extraordinary privilege, is confirmed in grace.
The ultimate purpose of penance," Pope John Paul II teaches, "is to make us love God intensely and to consecrate ourselves to him. The holy Curé of Ars used to say that it is as necessary for the soul as breathing is for the life of the body.
The first sign of this virtue is manifested in our love for frequent confession of our present and past faults, which leads us to desire it, to care for it with care, with true contrition, and to carry out an effective apostolate among our relatives and friends to bring them closer to this sacrament of mercy and joy. The virtue of penance has to be present, in some way, in everyday actions: in "the exact fulfillment of the schedule you have set yourself, even if the body resists or the mind tries to escape with chimerical dreams. Penance is getting up on time. And also, not to leave for later, without a justified reason, that task which is more difficult or costly for you.
"Penance is in knowing how to combine your obligations with God, with others and with yourself, demanding in such a way that you manage to find the time that each thing needs. You are penitent when you lovingly submit to your plan of prayer, even if you are worn out, listless or cold.
"Penance is to always treat others with the utmost charity, beginning with your own. It is to attend with the greatest delicacy to those who suffer, to the sick, to those who are suffering. It is to answer with patience to those who are burdensome and untimely. It is to interrupt or modify our programs, when circumstances - the good and just interests of others, above all - so require.
"Penance consists in bearing with good humor the thousand little setbacks of the day; in not giving up the occupation, even if for the moment you have lost the illusion with which you began it; in eating gratefully what we are served, without importuning it with whims.
"Penance, for parents and, in general, for those who have a mission of government or education, is to correct when it is necessary to do so, according to the nature of the error and the conditions of the one who needs that help, over and above foolish and sentimental subjectivisms.
"The spirit of penance leads us not to become disorderly attached to that monumental sketch of future projects, in which we have already foreseen what our master strokes and brushstrokes will be. What joy we give to God when we allow Him to add the features and colors that are most pleasing to Him. What a good masterpiece appears then!
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