This year is the centenary year since the Marian apparitions in Fatima, Portugal.
Pope Francis will canonise Francisco and Jacinta Marto on 13th May during his visit to mark 100 years since the first apparition of Our Lady in Fatima.
The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, appeared six times to three shepherd children (Lucia, who became a Sister of the Discalced Carmelite Order and died aged 97 in 2005, Francisco who died aged 11 in 1919 and his sister Jacinta who died aged 9 in 1920) near the town of Fatima, Portugal on the 13th of each month between May and October 1917.
Appearing to the children, the Blessed Virgin told them that she had been sent by God with a message for every man, woman and child living in our century. Coming at a time when civilization was torn asunder by war and bloody violence, she promised that Heaven would grant peace to all the world if her requests for prayer, reparation and conversion were obeyed.
In all her appearances at Fatima, the Blessed Mother repeatedly emphasised the necessity of praying the Rosary daily, of wearing the Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel and of performing acts of reparation and sacrifice for the world. She also asked that the faithful practice a new devotion of reparation on the first Saturday of five consecutive months (“The Five First Saturdays”).
Our Lady said to Sister Lucia in December 1925, “I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who on the First Saturday of 5 consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite 5 decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for 15 minutes while meditating on the 15 mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
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