Shrine of Fatima will mark the centenary of the death of Saint Jacinta

Shrine of Fatima will mark the centenary of the death of Saint Jacinta

In the celebration programme there are moments of prayer in Fatima and Lisbon

The Shrine of Fatima is preparing a celebratory programme to mark the centenary of the death of Saint Jacinta Marto.

Celebrations start on February 16 with the VI Evocative Concert of the Three Little Shepherds of Fatima in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima. On February 19, at 9h30 pm, there will be a prayer vigil, with rosary, procession and veneration of the tombs, at the Little Chapel of the Apparitions and the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima.

The Liturgical feast of Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto will be celebrated on February 20, at 10 am, with a rosary at the Little Chapel of the Apparitions, followed by a procession with the icons of Saints Francisco and Jacinta to the Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity, where a mass will take place at 11 am. Between 2 pm and 4 pm, there will be several activities for children. At 5:30 pm there will be a Vespers service at the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary.

In Lisbon, the centenary of the death of Jacinta Marto will be marked on this same day with a conference at 3 pm at Hospital D. Estefânia, where the Little Shepherdess died. In that same place, by 4:30 pm, there will be a mass presided over by the Cardinal-Patriarch Manuel Clemente.

Jacinta de Jesus Marto died at the age of 9 on 20 February 1920. The youngest daughter of Manuel Pedro Marto and his wife Olímpia de Jesus dos Santos, Jacinta was baptised at the Parish Church of Fatima on 19 march 1910. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 13 May 2000 and canonised by Pope Francis on 13 May 2017.

During her short life, she felt impressed by the suffering of sinners. In her daily life, prayer and sacrifice for conversion, for peace in the world and for the Holy Priest were recurrent.

The attitude of compassion was also a distinctive sign of Jacinta, who dedicated her whole existence to the mission that the Lady from Heaven entrusted her: “If I could only put into the hearts of all the fire that is burning within my own heart, and that makes me love the Hearts of Jesus and Mary so very much!”

The love for Our Lady and this desire for her existence to conform with the Heart of Jesus made Jacinta wish to follow Him, walking the same pathway as the Master. And not even in the solitude of the disease, when she was denied the Communion or when the wound penetrating her chest made her suffer, did she lose the serenity characteristic of those who trust and love, in Mary’s way, her teacher in the School of Holiness, as Pope Saint John Paul II declared. During her imprisonment in Ourém, when Lúcia asks her to choose an intention for which to offer her sacrifices – the poor sinners, the Holy Father or in reparation for the Immaculate Heart of Mary –, Jacinta does not hesitate to answer: “I’m making the offering for all the intentions, because I love them all”.

“Time of Grace and Mercy: to give thanks for living in God” is the theme of the new pastoral year at the Shrine of Fatima, the last one of the first post-Centenary cycle of the Apparitions. The Shrine has prepared this pastoral year centred in that universal call to holiness stated in the documents of the Magisterium and that, in Cova da Iria, materializes in a call to life in God, according to the example of the seers of Fatima, especially Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto. This year’s pastoral dynamics has as reference the centenaries of the first sculpture of Our Lady of Fatima and of the episcopal ordination of Bishop José Alves Correia da Silva – the first Bishop of the newly restored (at that time) Diocese of Leiria, as well as the event of the centenary of Saint Jacinta’s death.