What Happened At Fatima
By CC Martindale SJ (1879-1963)
London Catholic Truth Society, Pamphlet No. B402 (16 pages)
First published in 1950. Reprinted in 1986.
(Fr Martindale also published a more detailed book titled: The Message of Fatima).
Some extracts:
He met and was “ immensely impressed “ with the parents of Jacinta and Francisco. (footnote:page5).
“ I regret that space forbids me to relate the exquisite deaths of Francisco (April 4, 1919) and Jacinta (Feb.20, 1920). The story of their spiritualisation, especially the boy’s, is, for me, almost proof positive of the authenticity of the Apparition.” (footnote: page 3).
Canon Formigao, who “quasi-officially” represented the Portuguese hierarchy was one “ to whom we owe our most reliable information about those early years.” (page 5).
On October 19, 1917, Canon Formigao asked Lucia: ‘If the people understand the “secret” would they be sad?’.
She replied: ‘ I think they would be as they are, practically the same.’ (page 8).
“The Pope did in fact consecrate the world to our Lady’s Immaculate Heart on October 31, 1942, speaking in Portuguese ‘with special reference to Russia’ (although not naming that country), which Lucia now said was just what our Lady asked for.” (page 16).
“It need hardly be recalled that the devotion to our Lady’s Heart is in no sense parallel to that of the Sacred Heart of our Lord. Because our Lord was true God and true Man, two Natures united in one Person. He is wholly adorable with divine worship. This cannot be said of our Lady, who is not divine at all, and the devotion to her ‘Heart’ is purely metaphorical. However, in each case the ‘Heart’ is meant to express the very inmost selfhood, so to say, of Him, or her, whom we are contemplating and with whom we seek, so far as possible, to unite ourselves.” (footnote: page 16).