Fátima

Hystory of the City

The name of the city derives from the Arabic name Fatima (Fāţimah, Arabic: فاطمة), one of the daughters of the prophet Muhammad. There is an unconfirmed legend that the topónomo derives from a local Moorish princess of its name Fatima that, after being captured by the Christian army during the Christian Reconquista, was given in marriage to a count of Ourém. Having converted to the Christian religion, it was baptized receiving the name of Oriana in 1158. To the serranas lands, the count gave the name of Earths of Fatima, in memory of its ancestors, and to the county the name of Oriana, later called of Ourém . The history of the city of Fatima is, however, more closely associated with the phenomenon of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary. First, around the year 1758, Our Lady appeared to a silent shepherdess (in the place where the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Sorrow stands today), and later, in the twentieth century, to three other children (known as "The Three Little Shepherds"). Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, on May 13, 1917, while they were feeding their sheep in the place of the Cova da Iria, witnessed the first of several apparitions of a beautiful lady dressed in white. The Chapel of the Apparitions is currently standing on the site. The Lady, later referred to as the Lady of the Rosary, declared that she had been sent by God with a message: a call to prayer, to sacrifice and to penance. She visited the shepherds, appearing every day between the months of May and October 1917. The last apparition of this cycle occurred on October 13, and about 70,000 pilgrims witnessed and attended the so-called Miracle of the Sun. The Virgin Mary at Fatima brought a message that consisted in the call to constant prayer and asked the children to announce to all the need to pray the Rosary every day, for the conversion of sinners, for the conversion of Russia and for the Pope. Our Lady also revealed to them the so-called "Secret of Fatima", which was divided into three parts: the vision of hell where sinners fell for their lack of faith; the announcement of the beginning of a new world war (confirmed World War II); and the third part of the secret was written by the seer Sister Lucy in 1944. Finally, on 13 May 2000, during her visit to Portugal, Pope John Paul II, through the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano , released part of the content of the third part of the Secret. Lucy became a monastic cloistered nun of the Order of the Discalced Carmelites and had received, as a child, three visits from an angel together with her cousins. Between April and October 1916, the so-called Angel of Portugal (or Angel of Peace) invited them to pray and appealed to penance. The angel visited them twice in Loca do Cabeço (instead of the Valinhos) and once at the foot of the well in the garden of the house of the parents of Lucia. Francisco Marto died in 1919, at home, in the village of Aljustrel, and Jacinta Marto died in 1920 at the Dona Estefânia Hospital in Lisbon, both because of pneumonia (between 1918-1920). They were later beatified by Pope John Paul II on May 13, 2000, and canonized by Pope Francisco on May 13, 2017. In the case of Lúcia, she lived until 2005, having died as a Carmelite nun in the Carmel of Santa Teresa, in Coimbra. To mark the site of the apparitions, a wooden arch was built with a cross in the Cova da Iria. The religious (both brothers and nuns) and lay people began to travel on pilgrimage to the site of the apparitions. On August 6, 1918, with donations from the pilgrims, a small chapel was built, built with stones, limestone and clay, only 3.3 meters long by 2.8 meters wide and 2.85 meters high . Cova da Iria quickly became an important center of Marian worship. Over the years, with the consolidation of the sanctuary as an important center of Marian worship and with the increasing attention given by popes and other prominent prelates to the Message of Fatima, pilgrimages, processions and prayers on the spot would grow enormously, attracting large crowds from all over the world. In 2015, the sanctuary welcomed 6 million and 676 thousand visitors in the 9 948 celebrations held throughout the year with the largest influx of pilgrims to occur during the month of May. [4] [5] The construction of the current Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, as well as the installation of monasteries and convents of various religious orders and catholic congregations, brought a great development to the parish of Fatima and the entire surrounding region. Fátima was elevated from town to town on July 12, 1997. Today, there are thousands of annual pilgrimages, coming from various regions of Portugal and abroad, which stimulate the economic sector. Fátima is, annually, the host city of the Race and Walk for Peace.