This week in Christian history: Fatima vision, first Chinese Protestant baptized

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, July 09, 2023

Third Fatima vision occurs – July 13, 1917

Lúcia Santos, Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto, the three children who claimed the Virgin Mary appeared in a series of visions in Fátima, Portugal, during World War I. | Public Domain

This week marks the anniversary of when three Portuguese children who claimed to have received visions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima were shown the third and final prophetic vision.

Lucia Santos, Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto had reportedly begun seeing the visions in May of that year while playing on a property located near Fatima named Cova da Iria.

According to an account by Lucia, who later became a nun, the third vision involved a scene of Hell, with the children beholding “a sea of fire” that had “demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration.”

“The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals,” Lucia continued.

“Terrified and as if to plead for succor, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly: ‘You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.’”