The first of the great Fatima apparitions, to three children in Portugal, occurred on May 13, 1917. There were five more apparitions, one on June 13, one on July 13, one on August 19, one on September 13 and the last one on October 13. At the last of these apparitions, 70,000 people saw the sun whirl round and round in the sky for ten or more minutes. The three children to whom Our Lady appeared at Fatima were a little ten-year-old girl named Lucia dos Santos, and her two cousins, a boy and a girl, nine and seven years old respectively, whose names were Francisco and Jacinta. All three were shepherds, in a little village north of Lisbon. Before the Fatima apparitions an angel had been sent by Our Lady with a chalice containing the Precious Blood of Jesus, to give to the two younger children, and with a consecrated Host for Lucia, the oldest child. In all the apparitions to the Fatima children, Our Lady held a rosary in her hand. She was seen with Jesus as a Child and with Saint Joseph. She was seen as Our Lady of Sorrows, with Jesus. She was seen as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, holding her Divine Child. Francisco and Jacinta died shortly after these apparitions. Lucia is now Sister Mary of the Immaculate Heart, and lives in a Carmelite convent in Coimbra, in Portugal.
