The children kept the revelation of the image of the Immaculate Heart secret for some time, until Lucia became a nun. Mary again asked the children to return on the 13th day of the next month.
The third apparition: The Great Secret is given
On July 13, Mary revealed what has been come to be known as the "Great Secret" of Fatima, a secret that Lucia divided into three parts and slowly revealed to the public over time. Two parts of the secret were revealed in 1941, when Lucia was asked to record her memoirs by the local bishop. The rest was not revealed until the year 2000, per Mary's instructions, initially, and then later instructions of the Holy See.
Mary also told the children to continue praying the rosary daily, and to come back to the same spot on the same day of the next month. When Lucia asked the lady to reveal her identity, she again promised the children that she would reveal herself fully in October, and perform a miracle on that day "for all to see and believe."
She also asked the children to help sinners: "Sacrifice yourself for sinners, and say many times, especially whenever you make some sacrifice: O my Jesus, it is for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary."
The growing crowds who came with the children to see the apparition witnessed several things during this apparition. Many were able to hear a faint, indescribable sound, believed to be Mary's voice. Witnesses also recounted a change in atmosphere - when the Lady appeared the sky darkened, and the humid, hot summer air of Portugal suddenly became cool and pleasant.
The crowd also heard a large clap of thunder that shook the ground at the time of Mary's departure.
The fourth apparition: the kidnapping
With anti-Catholic sentiment still prevalent in the country, the mayor in the district of Fatima had grown suspicious of the growingly popular apparitions, and had unsuccessfully tried to get the children to renounce their story.
Wanting to stop the children from seeing the fourth apparition, Artur Santos, an apostate Catholic and high Mason who was the local mayor, offered the children and their parents a ride in his car to the Cova on August 13. However, he devised a ruse to abandon the parents and to take the children alone to the district headquarters in Vila Nova de Ourem, about 9 miles away. Despite bribes, threats of death by burning oil, and threatening to lock them in a cell with criminals, the children never recanted their story.
Frustrated, and fearing retaliation from the faithful who had grown to love the apparitions, the mayor had the children taken back to Fatima after two days, much to the relief of their parents.
Mary then appeared briefly to the children privately a few days later, repeating her request to pray the rosary daily for the reparation of sins, and asking them to come back on the 13th of the next month.
The fifth apparition: a pillar of clouds and a shower of flowers
Rather than discourage onlookers, the kidnapping incident in August led to an even greater crowd for the September apparition. This time, the visible signs of Mary's presence became even more pronounced to the crowd. Several witnesses said they were able to see a globe of light, and then a pillar of cloud about 16 feet high by the tree where Mary always appeared.
Many onlookers also described a shower of small white objects - thought to be snowflakes or rose petals - that fell from the sky but disappeared before they touched the ground.
Mary again repeated her promise to the children that she would come again next month and tell the children who she was and what she wanted, and that she would perform a miracle "so that all may see and believe."
The final apparition: the Miracle of the Sun
On October 13, 1917, the crowds of witnesses had grown to 70,000 - faithful and skeptics alike gathered for what would be the last Marian apparition to the children in the Cova, eager to see the sign from heaven that Mary had promised.
The crowds started to gather at 11:30, not realizing that Mary would appear at solar noon, rather than at noon according to local time. The children, however, knew when to expect Mary, and arrived at 1:00 p.m., shortly before 1:30 (solar noon) when Mary would appear.
As many witnesses described, a steady rain fell on the night of October 12 through the morning of the 13th. The freshly-plowed ground of the field of the Cova was transformed into a muddy wet mess, through which the crowds plodded and waited in waning hope for something miraculous to occur.
Dr. Joseph Almeida Garrett, Professor of Natural Sciences at Coimbra University, was present for the miracle of the sun and wrote down his eyewitness account, included in the book "Fatima in Lucia's own Words: The Memoirs of Sister Lucia."
Because he had arrived too early to the scene, expecting the miracle at noon by the clock instead of by the sun, he waited in the shelter of his car, "looking rather disdainfully towards the place where they said the apparition would be seen, not daring to step on the sodden and muddy earth of the freshly-ploughed field."
Finally, at about half-past one, a pillar of smoke rose up and disappeared repeatedly at the spot where the children were. The clouds indicated Mary's arrival, and once she came, Lucia asked the lady what she wanted.
Mary again repeated her request for daily rosaries, and asked that a chapel be built at the apparition site honoring the Lady of the Rosary, which she revealed to the children as her identity. She also promised that the war would soon end and the soldiers would return home. She said she would heal some of the people the children had recommended, but said that people must "amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins."
The Lady of the Rosary then departed, Lucia recounted, and reappeared to the children, first with Joseph and the child Jesus, and then dressed as Mary under different titles – namely, Our Lady of Sorrows, and then Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.
Then, Mary "cast her own light upon the sun." The rain stopped, the clouds dispersed and the sky cleared, catching the attention of onlookers.
What happened next has been described as the "miracle of the sun" or "the time the sun danced."
"We looked easily at the sun, which did not blind us. It seemed to flicker on and off, first one way and then another. It shot rays in different directions and painted everything in different colors...What was most extraordinary is that the sun did not hurt our eyes at all. Everything was still and quiet; everyone was looking upwards…" recalled Ti Marto, the father of visionaries Jacinta and Francisco Marto.
O Dia, the newspaper in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, reported that "at midday by the sun, the rain stopped. The sky, pearly grey in color, illuminated the vast arid landscape with a strange light. The sun had a transparent gauzy veil so that the eye could easily be fixed on it. The grey mother-of-pearl tone turned into a sheet of silver which broke up as the clouds were parted and the silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy grey light, was seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds. A cry went up from every mouth and people fell on their knees in the muddy ground…"
Even O Seculo, an anti-Catholic, Masonic newspaper in Lisbon, reported the miracle of the sun from the perspective of the paper's editor-in-chief, Avelino de Almedia, who witnessed the miracle for himself.
"...one could see the immense multitude turn toward the sun, which appeared at its zenith, coming out of the clouds," he wrote.
"Before their dazzled eyes the sun trembled, the sun made unusual and brusque movements, defying all the laws of the cosmos, and according to the typical expression of the peasants, 'the sun danced'."
Dr. Garrett added that the sun seemed "to be a living body...It looked like a glazed wheel made of mother-of-pearl." He also recalled a moment when the sun whirled "wildly, seemed to loosen itself from the firmament and advance threateningly upon the earth, as if to crush us with its huge and fiery weight. The sensation during those moments was terrible."
Numerous witnesses corroborated the phenomenon of the whirling, dancing colorful sun which at one moment seemed to be terrifyingly plunging toward earth, with the crowds "expecting the end of the world to come at any moment" one witness reported. After that moment, the once-soggy and muddy crowd discovered that they were completely dry.
This is part one of a two-part series. Part two will cover the secrets of Fatima, Vatican recognition of the apparitions, and the deaths of the visionaries.
This article was originally published on CNA May 8, 2017.
Mary Farrow worked as a staff writer for Catholic News Agency until 2020. She has a degree in journalism and English education from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.