So as we remember the Miracle of the Sun today, let us also remember to pray for peace, especially with the daily Rosary. Let us remember the First Saturdays, and recommit ourselves to making that devotion, even if we’ve made it before.
By Chris Sparks
The sun danced in the sky 108 years ago today, Oct. 13, 1917. Still remembered, because who wouldn’t? How could you help remembering, and handing on the memory of the day that the order of Heaven seemed to cease, that the sun seemed ready to plunge down and consume the earth, that everything suddenly seemed possible and nothing impossible — that it became clear that the three children, little visionaries, truly had seen the Lady, truly had seen the Mother of God — because we had seen a miracle.
“We” meaning both the Church and the world, both the secular and the sacred. The Church had priests in that crowd that day at the Cova da Ira, and the secular newspapers had skeptical journalists, and by the end, all sorts of people from both camps were on their knees in the mud that had suddenly become not mud, that had suddenly, inexplicably dried out, against every reasonable expectation and normal law of science.
Miracle upon miracle
Miracle upon miracle that day — it had been raining long beforehand, and continued to rain right up until the little voice cried, “Look at the sun!” and we had. We had looked directly at the sun, without it causing damage to our eyes — “we” meaning human beings; “we” meaning the Mystical Body of Christ; “we” meaning our brethren. We had looked, we the human race, and we had seen the impossible — colors, and dancing, and moving around, and then plunging toward the earth, the sun, falling. The greatest of the natural order, we would have said, we not knowing of greater stars, we not seeing everything to scale and contrast. We would have seen the source of life and light, of heat and day, of the seasons and the times — we would have seen the greatest natural power shaken, and dropped, all on the timetable of this Our Lady who had been appearing to the children.
Her apparitions at Fatima, like Our Lady herself, were clothed with the sun. The Mother of God proved her bona fides, her good faith, with a miracle, just as the Church has been attended throughout the course of her long history with miracles; just as the coming of Christ was attended by miracles, proofs of who He was to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Just as St. Faustina’s truthfulness has been proven again and again by the miraculous spread of the Divine Mercy message and devotion; its survival in the face of the Nazis, the Communists, and an ecclesiastical ban; by the miracles, the signs, and the wonders that have attended its spread.
Credibility
The Miracle of the Sun is an enormous motive of credibility. Certainly in part because of it, Fatima has been one of the best established of Marian apparitions, on par with Lourdes, attended by so many miracles, or Guadalupe, accompanied by the ongoing miracle of the tilma, the impossibly created and enduring image.
Fatima is for today, as the excellent book by Fr. Andrew Apostoli, CFR, proclaims. Fatima is for today, and Fatima remains something of a mystery, for the consecration has been made and we await the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart. We have seen signs of its coming — the fall of the Soviet Union, for instance. But we await its fulfillment, and the promised era of peace, especially given the events of the last few years; decades; centuries.
We await the working out in history of the promise sealed for us with the Miracle of the Sun, that guarantee that at Fatima, the impossible was possible, and so the secret could be taken as a promise, as a guarantee, not merely the whispered words of little children. We await the greater miracle, the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart and peace in the world.
Pray for peace
So as we remember the Miracle of the Sun today, let us also remember to pray for peace, especially with the daily Rosary. Let us remember the First Saturdays, and recommit ourselves to making that devotion, even if we’ve made it before. Let us turn with confidence to Our Lady with her Immaculate Heart, knowing that she loves us with all the strength and protectiveness of the perfect, universal mother, and that she desires peace — true peace, the peace that attends justice and mercy — for us with all her heart.
Our Lady of the Rosary who came to us at Fatima, pray for us!
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