Today marks the anniversary of Saint Jacinta Marto’s birth

Today marks the anniversary of Saint Jacinta Marto’s birth

Jacinta Marto, the youngest of the three Seers to whom Our Lady appeared in 1917, in Fatima, was born on the 5th of March 1910, in Aljustrel and was canonizes on the 13th of May 2017, in Fatima.

The date that is celebrated today, which does not match the date on the baptismal certificate, is based on the interrogation that canon Manuel Nunes Formigão made to the Seers, dated of 11th October 1917, where we can read that “Jacinta de Jesus turned 7 (years) on the 5th of March”.

Even though the birth date mentioned on the baptismal certificate is the 11th of March, it is likely that the date of birth has been changed by the parents, like it happened to Lucia, and for the same reasons. The explanation for the data change comes in a footnote on the first volume of the Critical Documentation of Fatima, where the interrogation to the Little Shepherds is published.

“The exact birth date would probably be the 5th of March of 1910. Since the baptism occurred on the 19th of March, the 11th would have been registered as the birth date to avoid the applicable fine in case of postponement, beyond eight days”, can be read on the critical source of Fatima events.

Jacinta was the seventh and last daughter of Manuel Pedro Marto and Olímpia de Jesus and was baptized on the 19th of March 1910, in the Parish Church of Fatima.

From an early age she started to shepherd the herd of her parents, along with her brother Francisco Marto and her cousin Lucia de Jesus, the two older Seers. It was in Cova de Iria, place where people use to shepherd their herd, where the three Little Shepherds saw the apparition of a Lady “brighter than the sun”, who told them that “she was from Heaven” and asked them to come back to that same place “for six consecutive months”, on the 13th at the same time”, mentioning to them that, in the final apparition, would reveal them who she was and what she wanted. In the last apparition, the Lady end up presenting herself to the Seers as the Lady of the Rosary.

Jacinta died at the age of 9 years old, in D. Estefânea Hospital in Lisbon, where she was hospitalized after she fell ill in 1918 with influenza pandemic. Her remains were buried in the Cemetery of Vila Nova de Ourém and transferred to the Cemetery of Fatima in 1935 and, ten years later, to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima.

The Seer was beatified on the 13th of May 2000 by the Pope John Paul II, in Fatima and canonized last year on the 13th of May by Pope Francis, in the Shrine of Fatima, during the jubilee year of the Centenary of the Apparitions.