Breaking Saint News: Our Lady of Fatima Canonizations

 THERE HAS BEEN A CANONIZATION!!!!!  If you haven’t heard, Pope Francis, on May 13th, canonized Sts. Jacinta and Francisco Marto.  Who are these people?  Why were they canonized on the 13th?  Well…

Jacinta and Francisco were two of the three children that Our Lady appeared to in the town of Fatima, in Portugal.  The third was Lucia Santos, who is on the path to sainthood.  The reason she has not been beatified is because she died very recently, in 2009.  

Our Lady appeared to these three children on May 13^th, 1917, and appeared to them as a group a total of 6 times.  This makes last Saturday, May 13^th 2017, the 100^th anniversary of the apparitions in Fatima.  If this is not already cool, the fact that both Jacinta and Francisco’s canonization processes were completed by this time is even cooler.  Yes, Jacinta and Francisco were canonized on the 100^th anniversary of the day they saw Our Lady.  

I can’t fit the entire story of the Fatima apparitions into one blog, so if you want to learn more, just check it out here.  http://www.fatima.pt/en.  In the apparitions, Our Lady gave all three children visions of hell and asked them to do penances and pray for the souls of sinners.  Jacinta and Francisco lived these to the end of their very short lives.  One or two years after the apparitions, they both came down with Influenza.  They suffered through their illnesses, but were faithful, and were very motivated by the goal of heaven.  Francisco died at the age of 10, Jacinta at the age of 9, which now makes them the youngest non-martyred canonized saints ever. 

What are we to take from the lives of these wonderful saints?  We are called to pray for the souls of sinners like the children.  We are also called to be motivated.  These children did everything they could to be obedient to Our Lady, pray for sinners, and suffer so that they could one day get to heaven.  How can we be motivated by heaven?  How can we do everything we can to help others get to heaven?  How can the aspect of heaven motivate us to be radical in our faith and our belief in God?  Some meditative questions to leave you with as the celebration of Fatima continues.