A review of The Children of Fatima: Blessed Francisco and Blessed Jacinta Marto. By Leo Madigan. Gracewing.

Since the beatification of Francisco and Jacinta Marto on 13 May 2000, there has been renewed interest in these youngest beati in the history of the Church. The story of the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima in Portugal in 1917 has been told countless times. However, it is rare to find a book on this theme which combines a trenchant, humorous narrative style together with many spiritual insights which reveal the author’s own inner prayer-life.

Leo Madigan, a New Zealander resident in Fatima for many years, has clearly immersed himself in this encounter between Our Lady and three illiterate shepherd children, so that it is impossible for the reader not to be caught up in his knowledge and enthusiasm. He manages to convey the drama and supernatural significance of the apparitions in such a way as they appear both extraordinary yet somehow ordinary at the same time.

His analyses of the dialogues between the Mother of God and the children are clear but profound, guiding the reader through all the questions that might arise in the mind; but he is not afraid to use the word ‘mystery’ when the limits of human understanding are reached. As the philosopher Wittgenstein said, ‘Whereof we cannot speak, thereon we must be silent.’

Why does Our Lady appear to poor and ‘simple’ people such as Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco - or for that matter, to Bernadette or Juan Diego? Describing the Marto household, the author comments, ‘These people were living the message of Fatima, in Fatima itself, before the Blessed Virgin came to their children to ask them to deliver it to the world.’ i.e. they were already living lives of humility and interior (as well as exterior) poverty, so were receptive to the supernatural in a way in which most people would not be. It is interesting that the scoffers and sceptics of the time could not ‘see’ the candour and integrity of the children, while others ‘saw and they believed’, as in the Gospel stories.

Yet, as Leo Madigan describes, the children are charmingly human: Jacinta loves dancing and it is clear he has a soft spot for her, saying ‘the visible Jacinta, for me, is this picture of her, in love and in prison, seemingly abandoned, crushed and weeping, at the lowest part of human desolation - dancing.’ Lucia thinks the gifts of the Holy Spirit are ‘broad beans, peas and cherries’, and Francisco once stole a coin from his father to buy a music box - as the author comments, ‘… a bit of the Tom Sawyer emerging from among the candles and the incense.’

So what, after all the theological implications have been drawn by the experts, is the ‘message’ of Fatima? I chose as the title of this review the final words of this absorbing book: ‘Francisco and Jacinta offer lessons very much at variance with the spirit of the world that surrounds us, lessons we and our children can only learn where Francisco and Jacinta themselves were taught…in the School of Mary.’

In this ‘School’ - so different from the New Labour mantra of ‘education education education’ - we learn renewed adoration of the Blessed Trinity; renewed love of Christ and sorrow at the ‘outrages, sacrileges and indifference’ with which He is treated by the world; devotion to the Immaculate Heart of His Mother; the need for penance; and daily recitation of the Rosary.

It is a sobering thought: Our Lady told Jacinta, ‘Many people go to hell because of sins of the flesh’ - which the little girl thought must refer to eating meat on Friday. We know better. If the Rosary seems a difficult prayer let us say it out of obedience to our heavenly Mother, ‘Our Lady of the Rosary’ as she revealed herself to the three children, and ‘in reparation for poor sinners’, to quote their words and their constant preoccupation, after they had been shown a ‘vision’ of hell.

Two final thoughts: an index would have been helpful; and as Our Lady never appears in random places, surely the choice of ‘Fatima’ - the name of the daughter of Muhammed by his first wife - has particular significance? Islam, whether fundamentalist or otherwise, will be a powerful feature of the 21st century and it was once suggested to me that it is only recourse to Our Lady of Fatima, Mother of Muslims no less than Christians, who will solve these historical enmities and divisions.

Francis Phillips

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