Saturday, October 13, 2007

90th Anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun


Fatima
Originally uploaded by CGoulao

I found this interesting old photo on flickr. It appears to be the gathering from one of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, though it doesn't mention which month it is (it does mention the May apparition, but certainly the May one didn't have such a crowd!).

I think these apparitions have a special place in our family for a number of reasons.

a) My grandmother was Portuguese (spoke Portuguese, worked as as translator for a time and called Portugal "The Old Country" - when showing us old pictures, she always called her aunts "Tia", etc.) She visited Fatima numerous times.

b) I grew up near Our Lady of Peace Church in Santa Clara, California, which has held annual pilgrimages commemorating each of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima for many decades. We were "regulars" at these events for years.

c) My husband visited Fatima with a tour by Fr. Fox when he was in high school.

I'm not generally a huge fan of Wikipedia, but I thought their page on the Miracle of the Sun quite interesting on the whole.

2 comments:

Simple Faith and Life said...

Thank you for reminding me! I was going to post on Fatima this morning but didn't make it to the blog to get it done. Fatima has a special meaning to me, too, as I knew a priest who, as a young boy, saw the miracle of the sun from the Azore Islands. So after reading your post I remembered to post about it! I've come back to thank you. :) Thanks. :)

love2learnmom said...

That is really neat Margaret Mary! The Azores is exactly where my grandmother's family emigrated to the United States from. :) It never occured to me that you would be able to see the Miracle of the Sun from there!