Francisco and Jacinta Marto were just 8 and 6 years of age respectively when they, and cousin Lucia dos Santos, witnessed the visions of Our Lady of Fatima.
During the first vision, Lucia asked Mary if the children were going to go to Heaven.
‘Shall I go to Heaven too?’
‘Yes, you will.’
‘And Jacinta?’
‘Also.’
‘And Francisco?’
‘Also, but he will have to say many Rosaries.’
Having been reassured that they would all go to Heaven, Our Lady asked the children; ‘Are you willing to offer yourselves to God to bear all the sufferings He wants to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and for the conversion of sinners?’
‘Yes, we are willing.’
‘You are then going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.’
Indeed, Francisco and Jacinta suffered much before their deaths. Francisco was taken gravely ill in 1918 and one of his greatest miseries was that he was no longer able to pray the Rosary as he was so ill. He did not fear death however, and died peacefully on April 4, 1919.
Lucia described his death in her memoirs, “He flew away to Heaven in the arms of our Heavenly Mother.”
His sister, Jacinta, had contracted an illness a year after the apparitions that would lead to her death. First she fell ill from bronchial pneumonia, then an abscess on the lung. Both of these conditions made her suffer terribly, yet from her hospital bed she continually prayed for the conversion of sinners and for Christ’s Vicar – the Pope. In fact she told everyone, rather cheerfully, that her illness was an opportunity for her to pray for the conversion of sinners.
She spent a couple of months in hospital before she returned home where an open and ulcerous sore was discovered on her chest, and she was subsequently diagnosed with tuberculosis and suffered much over the next year. She once asked Lucy; “Will Jesus be content with the offering of my sufferings?”
She was rushed back to hospital in February 1920 and finally, on February 20, she was taken to Heaven. She and her brother are both buried in the Basilica of Our Lady of Fatima.
The children lived their lives according to the message that Our Lady of Fatima had given them: ‘Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to Hell because they have no one to make sacrifices and pray for them.’
During their lifetime the children prayed the Rosary every day, wore rough knotted rope around their waists as penance and made sacrifices each day – in summer Jacinta gave up drinking water and Francisco stopped attending classes to that he could spend time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.
Their lives should be an inspiration to us all. By following their example we too will be able to share in the eternal happiness of Heaven.
And so we are all encouraged to follow the words of Our Lady of Fatima: ‘Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to Hell because they have no one to make sacrifices and pray for them.’
All quotes are from the English translation of Lucia’s memoirs.
First published in InSight Magazine.
Originally posted 2017-02-21 00:22:05.