Fatima is a village in the center of Portugal about 70 miles north of Lisbon. It was there in 1915 that three humble peasant children began having a series of apparitions of angels and, later, the "Virgin Mary." The children were: Lucia Santos and her two cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto. At the time, the Portuguese government was secular and antagonistic towards religion, which led them to treat the children very harshly -- even placing them in prison with the threat of boiling them in oil unless they confessed to having made up their story. In spite of this, the children never wavered.
The first apparition occurred on an unnamed day in 1915 when Lucia, together with her friends, sat down in the fields close to their hamlet of Aljustrel at midday to eat their lunch. They were interrupted by the sudden appearance of a cloud in the form of a man above some foliage. Lucia later described it as like a cloud, whiter than snow, slightly transparent, with a human outline. According to Lucia, it was the form of a...
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