| Apparitions
of Our Lady
Almost eight months had passed since the
last apparition of the Angel. Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta continued
to practice what the Angel had taught them, praying and offering
sacrifices to the Lord. Lucia was now ten years old, Francisco would
be nine in June and Jacinta had just turned seven in March, when on
May 13th, 1917, they chose to pasture their sheep in a hilly
depression owned by Lucia's father and known as the Cova da Iria, or
Cove of Irene. It was there, with one exception, that the Blessed
Virgin under the title of Our Lady of the Rosary appeared on six
occasions in 1917, and a seventh time in 1920 (to Lucia alone).
 As important as the place
and the time is the situation of the world. At that moment the First
World War raged in Europe, introducing mankind to the most savage
forms of warfare seen to that date. In far off Moscow Lenin prepared
the revolution that would overturn the Russian social order in
November 1917 and eventually engulf almost half the peoples of the
earth. It was in that context that heaven condescending to earth to
provide the antidote to the moral and social evils of the world - the
message of Fatima.
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