Inside the Light: Understanding the Message of Fatima

By Angela de Fatima Coelho

There may be no person on the globe who knows more about the story of Fatima than Sr. Angela de Fatima Coelho. As a little girl growing up in Portugal, she used to pray at the tombs of Jacinta and Francisco Marto. Many years later as a sister of the Alianca de Santa Maria, she would become the postulator for their cause of canonization. This journey would lead her to visit with Sr. Lucia several times and eventually become the vice postulator for her cause as well.

Sr. Angela brings this unique and privileged perspective to the story of Fatima, going beyond a chronicle of the events to the theological meaning of the Fatima message, as well as taking a deeper look at the lives and spiritualities of each of the three seers. Relying on her extensive research as a postulator advice postulator for their causes and on her own personal story touched early by suffering only to be healed by the embrace of Our Lady of Fatima, she helps readers discover the relevancy of this message for our post-modern world.

For many years, Sr. Angela has traveled the world and spoken to thousands of people. Now, for the first time in print, she gives her profound testimony about Fatima. Her hope is that she may take each of us inside the light—the light that is God—that washed over the three shepherd children on that miraculous spring day in 1917.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TAN Books
• Release date: Oct 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781505116090

Book preview

Fatima.

INTRODUCTION

Meeting Lucia

Some encounters permanently mark our lives, even though we do not always perceive them as such while living them. My first meeting with Sister Lucia de Jesus, one of the shepherd children of Fatima, was like that.

I like to drive. But on that day, March 28, 2001, my anxiety was greater than my fondness for driving. In the drizzling rain, the car wound its way through the streets of Coimbra toward the Carmelite Convent of Saint Therese. My heart suspected that this woman was about to change my life, though to the degree that she would change it, I did not yet know.

The previous day, Father Kondor, the vice postulator for Francisco and Jacinta Marto’s cause for canonization, had invited me to go to the convent to sing happy birthday to Sister Lucia. It was her ninety-fourth!

What Sister Lucia had witnessed in Fatima and what she had taught the world in the decades following had shaped the charism of my religious vocation and my apostolic mission. My life was mysteriously linked to hers, although she did not know it and I had not yet grasped the extent to which this would be the case. Being just hours away from seeing her, listening to her, talking to her … touching her . . . was surreal. I was so excited that I could not sleep a wink the night before.

When we arrived at the Carmelite convent where Sister Lucia lived, Father Kondor and I entered into a kind of lobby or greeting room. It was simple and austere, with light filtering in from one small window on the right. The room was full of other guests who would help celebrate Sister Lucia’s birthday. Looking them over, I wondered what each of them had in their hearts, what wish or hope they held, what words they hoped to hear from Lucia. Maybe some of them, like me, were eager to meet the woman who—over eight decades ago—had seen a bit of heaven.

Finally, Sister Lucia arrived. She was tiny and obviously very old, yet she brought so much light! Her life, which we were commemorating that day, was a bright dialogue with the Holy Trinity—Light Itself. In that dialogue, Lucia had opened herself up to grace and to be transformed by the action of the Spirit. In the more than eighty years since the apparitions, Lucia’s whole life had been an effort to become more like Christ, whom she had learned to know and love through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As all of us looked at Lucia, we saw that she had become a reflection of that divine brightness.

As she moved throughout the room, Lucia eventually came my way. When she looked at me—what a look!—I swallowed my nerves and said, Sister Lucia, I belong to a religious community, the Alliance of Holy Mary. Our charism is to continue the Little Shepherds’ mission, to share the message of Fatima, and to spread devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Sister Lucia immediately replied with an unexpected charm that captivated me, Then you have to come to the Carmelite Convent … it’s where I am.

Surprised by this good-natured response, I immediately felt more at ease. I smiled and replied, "Sister, I cannot come here to stay. I already have my vocation and I need to continue spreading the angel’s and Our Lady’s requests in Fatima."

Lucia returned my smile as she silently gazed at me then said, And Our Lady is pleased with that. I cannot express how encouraging these simple words were, and I thank the Lord for this meeting still to this day.

Over the next three years, I met Sister Lucia four more times. Although brief, our meetings always left me with a feeling of peace and a sense of her great simplicity. She was a woman completely given over to God, which has a way of ironing out the complexities of our human nature.

On one of our visits, I was touched by her lasting faithfulness to the yes she had given Our Lady on May 13, 1917. Lucia didn’t just say yes to Our Lady that day, she clearly had said it every day of her life after that.

Sometime later, several years after Lucia had died, on May 13, 2010, when Pope Benedict XVI came to Fatima, he beautifully described the meaning of Lucia’s yes: Faithfulness over time is the name of love.¹ When I heard him say these words, I immediately remembered Sister Lucia and our conversation on a pleasant spring evening in 2004. At the end of that meeting, as I was saying goodbye, I held out my hands. She squeezed them between hers and said, These hands shall enter the Carmelite Convent one day. I was silent and thought to myself, "That is never going to happen!" She only smiled in response to my dubious expression.

Years later, in June 2013, while in Rome and then serving as postulator of Francisco and Jacinta’s cause for canonization, I met Father Romano Gambalunga, general postulator of the Carmelites. We spoke of the causes of these precious saints,² the Little Shepherds of Fatima. Then the following year, in September 2014, he invited me to be vice postulator of Sister Lucia’s cause. It was a new way to meet with her, a meeting that still goes on today, mediated by her writings. These include her private diary, O Meu Caminho (My Path), her personal notes, and some letters that she wrote, as well as the testimony of those who lived with her. All of these give a fascinating insight into the inner life of Lucia de Jesus.

On February 13, 2017, at the conclusion of the diocesan stage of Sister Lucia’s beatification and canonization process, Mother Celina, prioress of the Coimbra Carmelite Convent, invited me to visit Sister Lucia’s cell. This moved me to tears! Mother Celina let me sit on Sister Lucia’s bed, and it was then that I remembered her words: These hands shall enter the Carmelite Convent one day! Sister Lucia was right. It did happen. There I was in the Carmelite Convent where the servant of God, Lucia de Jesus, lived and wrote so many of the documents that constitute today the process for her beatification and canonization.

What this woman experienced in the year 1917 constitutes the core of my dedication to the Lord. What this woman wrote until the end of her life, at ninety-seven, constitutes the living matter of my mission now that I work for her canonization. I would never have suspected this turn of events all those years ago when I first met her. Did Lucia know? Maybe, maybe not, but I suspect Jesus and his mother knew.

Since 1997, I have given lectures about the message of Fatima all over the world, including in the United States, several European countries, and in South America. In 2017, to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Fatima apparitions, the Shrine of Fatima invited me to prepare a course about the message of Fatima, one that we could give to pilgrims. This current book is derived from a vast set of theological and personal reflections that formed my lectures and courses over the last twenty years.

The objective of my talks and of this book is to help those interested in Fatima know more about the apparitions and how the message of Fatima can enrich and enhance their own lives and the life of the Church.

Where appropriate, I have cited my sources in both the text and the footnotes. I feel indebted to the many masters whom I heard and read and who helped teach me about this story. I have noted some of the writers and texts which can help others deepen their knowledge of this theme. It is possible that some passages may be found without bibliographical reference, but which were inspired there.

Of course, the primary influence on my work is Lucia, both my meetings with her and her own writings. My wish is that this book may help you come to know her and the story and message of Fatima so that you may become a greater disciple of Jesus Christ in the twenty-first century. Or perhaps said another way, my wish is that, as Lucia said, Our Lady is pleased with this.

What immense light shone from Fatima in 1917. The world, one hundred years later, needs a light like that, so let us go inside the light!

_______________

¹Benedict XVI, May 12, 2010, Fátima, Celebration of Vespers with the Priests, Religious, Seminarians and Deacons.

²Francisco and Jacinta were canonized by Pope Francis on May 13, 2017, in Fatima. As to the Servant of God Lucia de Jesus, as of the writing of this book, her process is already in the Roman stage. The author does not intend, in whatever way, to get ahead of the Church’s judgement with this expression.

CHAPTER 1

A Life Shaped by Fatima

Growing Up in Portugal

This book is not about me. It is about Our Lady and those three precious children she visited throughout the course of 1917.

However, I feel it is necessary to give you a little background about myself and my apostolate so that you can better understand the perspective from which I tell this story. After all, when you grow up in Portugal, Fatima shapes your life in unique ways.

Jesus and Mary were a constant presence in my family’s house. You might say they were living members of the family. My father, Manuel, and my mother, Maria do Céu, were married in 1968 in Porto.

After the wedding celebration, they went to Fatima. In the Chapel of the Apparitions, they prayed their first Rosary as a family and dedicated their wedding to Our Lady of Fatima. They were a Catholic couple who practiced their faith in a natural way. With much simplicity, they united what they believed in to what they lived.

They had a family business in the clothing industry. Their love for God, for Our Lady, for family, and for hard, honest work were their trademarks, and they passed this on to all their children. Our parents were charitable and keenly aware of the importance of sharing what they had with the poor and needy. This helped us to imitate their generosity and to understand that giving is a source of joy.

My father constructed a small chapel in our house where we gathered at the end of the day to pray the Rosary as a family. I remember the stained-glass with the face of Jesus, the beautiful crucifix, and, of course, Our Lady of Fatima’s statue, which rested to the left of the small altar. My father liked to kneel down before the Virgin of the Rosary’s statue. That was his place, in the family and in life: at the feet of Our Lady, his hands clutching his rosary, her rosary.

I have many memories of that time with my family. I do not know if, at that time, those of us who were the youngest actually prayed much. As soon as the prayers started, we would go to our grandmother’s lap or to one of our two aunts who lived with us. I believe that we fell asleep before getting to the second mystery, but as if by magic, we woke up at the Hail Holy Queen.

On April 1, 1978, my father and mother, with all members of the family (four children, two aunts, a cousin, and our grandmother), consecrated the family at the end of a Holy Mass, as well as our properties and time, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This was in accordance to the spirit of the message of Fatima and of the apparition of the Holy Trinity and of Our Lady to Lucia in Tui, which took place on June 13, 1929.

In my childish spirituality, I was absolutely sure that this consecration would put our whole family under the special protection of Mary and that no harm would come to any of us.

A Time of Suffering

Two years later, on January 5, 1980, my sister, Maria Goretti, not even three years old, suffered a domestic accident and died the next day. I cannot describe the sadness in my parents’ eyes, and I shall never forget her small, lifeless body. I was eight years old and this was my first contact with death.

Although I was not able to express what I was feeling, I know that it was the first time I started to doubt the absolute protection of God and Our Lady and about what it might mean to be under their care. At Christmas that year, my parents told us that my mother was pregnant. The joy of a new life helped to mitigate the loss of my little sister, but obviously, her death still hung over all of us like a storm cloud.

The following year, on February 14, 1981, my parents travelled on business to Spain. On that fateful day, my father lost his life in a terrible road accident. My mother, who returned home a widow and pregnant with my youngest sister, was never the same. The anguish, the helplessness, the doubts and fear for the future darkened her eyes and took away her joy. She was alone, still young—forty-four years old—with five children and a business with more than sixty employees. In a little more than a year, she had lost a daughter and her husband.

For the next five years, blackness covered our home and our spirits—in the clothes, in the darkness of our eyes, in the conversations, in the silences, in the absence of joy when playing, and even in praying, which we continued to do.

In order to not increase my mother’s pain, I kept my deep doubts concerning faith to myself, which became the ever-present backdrop of my spiritual life. After all, what good had come from my family’s consecration to Our Lady? Shouldn’t this consecration have put us under Jesus’s special protection? It seemed that our life had been idyllic until then. Only after the consecration did the deaths and losses begin. Fear surrounded my future and I struggled with insecurities and a deep sadness.

Since I didn’t share my doubts and problems with anyone, no one was able to explain that the consecration to Our Lady does not confer magical protection from any pain or difficulty, give the assurance of perpetual happiness, or ensure a problem-free existence. I gave no one the opportunity to explain that such a dedication does not prevent us suffering but gives us the assurance of God’s and Our Lady’s special presence with us. The consecration assures that they will accompany us, suffer with us, and help us to bear our suffering.

I was too young to understand any of this. The image of an almighty God, a Father, always and only kind, who listens to our prayers, watching over our lives and protecting us, was ruined for me. I still believed in God but felt that he did not care about us.

Only many years later, when I was already a nun, was I able to start purifying the wrong image of God that I had built up as a result of the losses and emotional wounds I suffered as a child. Only many years later, reinterpreting my life in the light of the Fatima mystery, was I able to understand the deep meaning of the losses my family had