{"id":136373,"date":"2026-05-13T22:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T22:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/05\/13\/thousands-of-pilgrims-gather-in-fatima-to-celebrate-the-apparitions-of-our-lady\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T22:15:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T22:15:58","slug":"thousands-of-pilgrims-gather-in-fatima-to-celebrate-the-apparitions-of-our-lady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/05\/13\/thousands-of-pilgrims-gather-in-fatima-to-celebrate-the-apparitions-of-our-lady\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of pilgrims gather in Fatima to celebrate the apparitions of Our Lady"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

Pilgrims from all over the world come to the Fatima Shrine in Portugal to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Fatima. <\/p>\n

On May 12, the eve of the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, the light of thousands of candles illuminated the night at the spot where Our Lady appeared to three shepherd children 109 years ago. <\/p>\n

Devotees gathered at the temple to recite rosaries and take part in the traditional candlelight procession.<\/p>\n

‘We arrive as pilgrims and depart as missionary disciples’<\/h2>\n

Rui Manuel Sousa Valerio, Patriarch of Lisbon, Portugal, celebrated Mass on May 13. In his sermon, the bishop stressed that the pilgrimage “does not end here” but that Fatima is “a point of sending forward”.<\/p>\n

The celebration commemorates the first of six apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima to three shepherd children Lucia dos Santos, 10, and her cousins \u200b\u200bFrancisco and Jacinta Marto, 9 and 7, in 1917. <\/p>\n

The May 13 pilgrimage is the most attended, with more than 450,000 pilgrims welcomed last year. They gather in the Cova da Iria, a neighborhood that was once the area where three shepherd children tended their family’s sheep and where the Virgin Mary appeared.<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church officially recognized ghosts as worthy of belief in 1930.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe come as pilgrims and depart as missionary disciples; everything we experience here \u2013 prayer, silence, reconciliation and communion \u2013 cannot be limited to the Cova da Iria,\u201d the Bishop said.<\/p>\n

He invited believers to allow the Fatima experience to “enter our hearts” as well as into all areas of life \u2013 our homes, families, workplaces and schools \u2013 and into “the wounds and joys of daily life.”<\/p>\n

Sousa emphasized that the message of Fatima is truly embraced “when it turns into a mission, and what we receive becomes a light for others.”<\/p>\n

He further reminded that the Virgin invoked the responsibility of conversion and love in her depictions: “True devotion to Mary never closes the heart. It opens it; it never separates, it sends forth; it never sleeps, it awakens.”<\/p>\n

The Virgin Mary asked children to pray the rosary every day for the conversion of sinners and to achieve peace in the world, especially the end of the ongoing World War I. He also invited them to make personal sacrifices and offer their sufferings on behalf of sinners.<\/p>\n

She promised to return on the 13th of each month for the next six months and assured that she was back Mystery<\/a> To reveal the fate of the world.<\/p>\n

To prove that the apparitions were true, Mary promised the children that during the last of her six appearances, she would provide a sign so that people would believe in the apparitions and her message. What happened that day \u2013 October 13, 1917 \u2013 is known as the “Miracle of the Sun” or “The Day the Sun Danced”.<\/p>\n

May 13, 2026 also marks the 45th anniversary of the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square. For this reason, Mass at Fatima was celebrated using the chalice that the Polish Pope had donated during one of his visits to the site.<\/p>\n

this story was first published<\/a> By ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language affiliate of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pilgrims from all over the world come to the Fatima Shrine in Portugal to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Fatima. On May 12, the eve of the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, the light of thousands of candles illuminated the night at the spot where Our Lady appeared to three shepherd children<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":136377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[30757,5271,19874,11558,2037,9709,3056],"class_list":{"0":"post-136373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-apparitions","9":"tag-celebrate","10":"tag-fatima","11":"tag-gather","12":"tag-lady","13":"tag-pilgrims","14":"tag-thousands"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136378,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136373\/revisions\/136378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}