een10

It may surprise some that the government of 1917 Portugal was the avant-garde of the secular, anti-religious states of the world, the murderous regimes of Soviet Russia and revolutionary Mexico being just around the corner. Yet it was here in Portugal, at Fatima, that the simple, thorough faith of three children (in reality even younger than portrayed in this film) was tested by the ambitious sceptics who administered the country in the name of the "enlightenment", that goddess then dying in the trenches of France. So when the children report a vision of a lady, the order of the day is to re-educate the children. "Naturally" speaking, it is going to be easy to bully three small children into retracting their obviously false story.

But it did not turn out that way. This film succinctly and lovingly describes the (then known in 1951) events leading up to the October 13th theophany. A theophany is a miracle whose actual occurrence is seen by very large numbers of people. And by all contemporary accounts the spiralling and descending sun and instantaneous drying of the soaked earth were an amazing affirmation of God's existence witnessed by over 50,000 persons over about 400 sq mi. Given the limited budget of the film, the director wisely focuses on spiritual healings, which always ought to be of greatest consequence to the faithful.

The messages of Our Lady of Fatima (La Senora de Fatima) are now all public. It would be an interesting cinematic project to pull all this together. In the early 80's when the predicted attack on the Pope took place, the smart money was saying that it was "impossible" for the Soviet Union "ever" to collapse. But the "children" of the world were praying the rosary for the conversion of Russia. Nothing that happens is an accident. Even the location, Fatima, the name of Islam's prophet's daughter, is with time becoming more meaningful to us. For "La Senora" is strongest link between Islam and Christianity, and through her to her son, Jesus.