Our Lady of Fatima presented several messages to the three Fatima children, but did you know seer Sister Lucia dos Santos experienced apparitions after 1917?
Sister Lucia was the oldest of the three Fatima seers. She outlived her two younger cousins, Jacinta and Francisco, who died within a couple of years of the 1917 apparitions.
As of June 22, Sister Lucia is now on a path to canonization after Pope Francis announced the advancement of her cause.
Sister Lucia experienced visions of both Our Lady and Our Lord in her convent for many years following the initial 1917 apparitions.
In 1948, World Apostolate of Fatima co-founder John Haffert interviewed Sister Lucia.
She told him that the most important request of Fatima is the fulfillment of one's daily duties and the sacrifices required in accordance with God's law. She said praying the Rosary will help one fulfill this obligation.
Many saints also believed that the fulfillment of daily duties led to holiness.
Saint Therese of Lisieux's famous "Little Way" models this Christian obligation.
“Holiness consists simply in doing God's will and being just what God wants us to be,” she said.
Saint John Paul II also emphasized the importance of daily duties in his encyclical, Christifideles Laici, when he cites Pope Paul VI:
"The lay faithful, in fact, 'are called by God so that they, led by the spirit of the Gospel, might contribute to the sanctification of the world, as from within like leaven, by fulfilling their own particular duties.'"
The Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Our Lord and Our Lady also requested that we devote ourselves to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart:
"Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation." (Jesus to Sister Lucia in 1939)
Therefore, Our Lady and Our Lord provided the Five First Saturdays Devotion, which consoles the Immaculate Heart of Mary and makes reparation for the blasphemies committed against her.
This devotion also helps "free oneself from sin and reawakens the commitment to fulfill one’s daily duties."
Let us respond to Our Lady of Fatima's call to fulfill our daily duties, pray the Rosary daily, and practice her Five First Saturdays devotion.