The Mediation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the lives of Bl. Francisco and Jacinta of Fatima

Jacinta: the Little Victim

Jacinta, unlike Francisco, did not have a peaceful temperament, but rather a vivacious and restless one, with a tendency to be willful and easily offended. If, on the one hand, almost nothing could disturb or offend Francisco, Jacinta on the other hand used to get upset at the tiniest things, easily grumbling and putting on a long face like an angry little goat. However, she had a very considerate character that was also a consequence of the explanation of the Lord's Passion Lucia gave her. She was greatly struck by the fact that Jesus' sufferings were our sins, and because of this she made the resolution never to sin so that Jesus would not suffer more.¹

The grace of the apparitions of Our Lady worked profoundly in this lively and passionate character, and made of Jacinta, a little seven-year-old girl, a passionate apostle, ardent with zeal for the salvation of sinners, and burning with love to repair the offenses against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Saving Sinners from Hell: Lucia left us many pages that describe Jacinta's virtues. During the first apparition, Our Lady had asked the three little shepherds, "Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?"² Already after this first apparition little Jacinta, the youngest of the three shepherds, changed completely. Her mind was always fixed on "that lovely Lady" and the request She had made: to suffer for the conversion of sinners. Lucia writes that "Jacinta took this matter of making sacrifices for the conversion of sinners so much to heart, that she never let a single opportunity escape her"³ and that her "thirst for making sacrifices seemed insatiable."⁴ She really knew how to make the most of every occasion in order to make sacrifices, working out ever new ways to do so.

Her zeal was inflamed still more, becoming almost a "torment" for her when Our Lady showed them Hell during the apparition of July 13th.⁵ Let's allow Lucia to speak: "The vision of hell filled her with horror to such a degree, that every penance and mortification was as nothing in her eyes, if only it could prevent souls from going there ...

Jacinta often sat thoughtfully on the ground or on a rock, and exclaimed:

"Oh, Hell! Hell! How sorry I am for the souls who go to hell! And the people down there, burning alive, like wood in the fire!" Then, shuddering, she knelt down with her hands joined, and recited the prayer that Our Lady had taught us ... [She] remained on her knees like this for long periods of time, saying the same prayer over and over again. From time to time, like someone awaking from sleep, she called out to her brother or myself:

"Francisco! Francisco! Are you praying with me? We must pray very much, to save souls from hell! So many go there! So many! ..."

Suddenly, she would seize hold of me and say:

"I'm going to Heaven, but you are staying here. If Our Lady lets you, tell everybody what hell is like, so that they won't commit any more sins and not go to hell ..."

If she happened to hear any of those expressions which some people make a show of uttering, she covered her face with her hands and said:

"Oh, my God, don't those people realize that they can go to hell for saying those things? My Jesus, forgive them and convert them. They certainly don't know that they are offending God by all this! What a pity, my Jesus! I'll pray for them." There and then, she repeated the prayer that Our Lady had taught us: "Oh, my Jesus, forgive us ..."⁶

Jacinta, the pure and innocent little shepherd of the Cova da Iria was truly a little "mediatrix" of forgiveness.

The Immaculate Heart: Another one of Jacinta's passions was the Immaculate Heart of Mary. During the June apparition there was the revelation of the Immaculate Heart crowned with thorns,⁷ which, according to what Sr. Lucia says, had the effect of infusing a great love for the Immaculate Heart in the three little shepherds: "As I have already written ..." recounts the seer Lucia,

Our Lady told me on June 13, 1917, that she would never forsake me, and that her Immaculate Heart would be my refuge and the way that would lead me to God. As she spoke these words, she opened her hands, and from them streamed a light that penetrated to our inmost hearts. I think that, on that day, the main purpose of the light was to infuse within us a special knowledge and love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary, just as on the other two occasions it was intended to do, as it seems to me, with regard to God and the mystery of the most Holy Trinity.

From that day onwards, our hearts were filled with a more ardent love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary.⁸

The apparition of July 13th also had the theme of devotion and consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

After these apparitions, Jacinta was completely won over by the tenderness of the Immaculate Heart and at the same time saddened by the thorns that encircled it; the acts of reparation that she offered cannot be counted. How many times, in moments of difficulty and suffering, did she lift up her hands and repeat the prayer that Our Lady had taught her: "O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary!" Lucia witnessed this great devotion of Jacinta's and she amply describes it:

From time to time, Jacinta said to me: "The Lady said that her Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God. Don't you love that? Her Heart is so good! How I love it!"

...Jacinta chose from the litany of ejaculations which Father Cruz suggested to us, this one: "Sweet Heart of Jesus, be my salvation!" After saying it, she used to add sometimes, with the simplicity that was natural to her: "I so love the Immaculate Heart of Mary! It's the heart of our dear Mother in Heaven! Don't you love saying many times over: 'Sweet Heart of Mary, Immaculate Heart of Mary'? I love it so much, so very much."

At other times, as she gathered wild flowers, she sang a little tune that she made up herself as she went along: "Sweet Heart of Mary, be my salvation! Immaculate Heart of Mary, convert sinners, save souls from Hell!"⁹

Her last words to Lucia before leaving for Lisbon-going there in order to suffer and die alone as Our Lady had told her- mainly regarded love for, and reparation to, the Immaculate Heart:

It will not be long now before I go to Heaven. You will remain here to make known that God wishes to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. When you are to say this, don't go and hide. Tell everybody that God grants us graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; that people are to ask for them; and that the Heart of Jesus wants the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be venerated at His side. Tell them also to pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace since God has entrusted it to 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! ¹⁰

These are splendid words that have the flavor of a last testament from the little shepherd girl for Lucia and for all of us!

The very last words Jacinta spoke to Lucia, while ready to leave for the hospital in Lisbon, sum up her greatest loves and contain another testament of love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary: "Love Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary very much, and make many sacrifices for sinners."¹¹

The Little "Coredemptrix": Lucia writes that "...I think myself that Jacinta was the one who received from Our Lady a greater abundance of grace, and a better knowledge of God and of virtue."¹² This would explain the extraordinary enthusiasm of love with which this girl embraced sacrifices of every kind in order to save sinners and make reparation for the offenses to the Immaculate Heart. There was a period in which the three children, on Jacinta's initiative, gave their lunch every day to some poor children who used to beg from them, and then ate bitter acorns themselves:

There were holm-oaks and oak trees nearby. The acorns were still quite green. However, I told her we could eat them. Francisco climbed up a holm-oak to fill his pockets, but Jacinta remembered that we could eat the ones on the oak trees instead, and thus make a sacrifice by eating the bitter kind. So it was there, that afternoon, that we enjoyed this delicious repast! Jacinta made this one of her usual sacrifices, and often picked the acorns off the oaks or the olives off the trees.

One day I said to her:

"Jacinta, don't eat that; it's too bitter!"

"But it's because it's bitter that I'm eating it, for the conversion of sinners."¹³

Lucia also writes that one day, after having given their food away to the poor children as usual, because it was a hot day, they felt a burning thirst, which they immediately offered for the conversion of sinners, but when, after midday, they were no longer able to resist, Lucia went to ask for some water from a nearby house. She returned with a jug of water, but when the moment came to quench their thirst, Francisco refused, and his refusal was followed by the determined refusal of Jacinta: they wanted to offer this sacrifice for the conversion of sinners. And so it was that these three children, consumed with thirst but even thirstier for souls, saw the water that they wanted so much to drink poured into a small hole so that the sheep could drink it. But the offering was still not complete, as Lucia explains:

The heat was getting more and more intense. The shrill singing of the crickets and grasshoppers coupled with the croaking of the frogs in the neighbouring pond made such an uproar that it was almost unbearable. Jacinta, frail as she was, and weakened still more by the lack of food and thirst, said to me with a simplicity that was natural to her:

"Tell the crickets and the frogs to keep quiet! I have such a terrible headache."

Then Francisco asked her:

"Don't you want to suffer this for sinners?"

The poor child, clasping her head between her two little hands, replied:

"Yes, I do, let them sing!"¹⁴

Lucia's memoirs are full of these sacrifices, but obviously we cannot present all of them here. There are also those that Lucia never even recorded, as she herself states: "Jacinta made such sacrifices over and over again, but I won't stop to tell any more, or I shall never end."¹⁵

Jacinta offered a profusion of sacrifices and tears during the persecution by the authorities because of the continuous intimidation and threats which, although would only arouse concern in adults, were terrifying for a seven-year-old girl. We find Jacinta in tears when Lucia was interrogated at the town hall and when she was made to believe that Lucia had been killed, and again when she was in prison, far from her parents who didn't come to visit them, and what is more, they had been threatened with being boiled in oil. On this occasion, she suffered terribly from the fear of never seeing her mother again, but as Lucia explains, "[w]ith her face bathed in tears, she joined her hands, raised her eyes to heaven and made her offering: 'O my Jesus! This is for love of you, for the conversion of sinners, for the Holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.' "¹⁶

The little victim reached the peak of immolation in her illness and death. She didn't consider herself excused by her illness from offering many "little"(!) sacrifices, like suffering thirst, drinking milk that disgusted her so much, not going to visit Francisco and staying by herself, suffering chest pains without saying anything, lying in the same position for the whole night and because of this, not being able to sleep even a little. During this illness, Our Lady appeared to her once more and asked if she still wanted to convert other sinners. When she replied in the affirmative, Our Lady told her that she would go to the hospital and would suffer very much. Francisco had already been taken to Heaven, but the mission to suffer more, had been reserved for Jacinta to save yet others. From July 1st to August 31, 1919, she remained in the hospital where "indeed she was to suffer a great deal."¹⁷

Jacinta then returned home once more for a short while, with a large wound in her chest, bearing the treatment for it without a complaint, without showing even the slightest sign of irritation. Then, as Our Lady had predicted in a new visit, she returned to the hospital to die there alone. It was the greatest sacrifice that Our Lady could have asked of her: just thinking about it made her tremble with fright, unable to hold back her tears. When she realized that this thought made her suffer so much, she resolved to think about it often, later accepting everything with unlimited love.

On the evening of February 20, 1920, consumed by pneumonia, Jacinta died alone in a hospital room in Lisbon: Our Lady gathered her up and brought her to Heaven-one of the flowers¹⁸ most loved by Her Immaculate Heart.

She was a dear little girl, who, taught by Our Lady, had taken upon herself the weight of a universal mission and mediation, becoming a little victim of burning love and numberless sacrifices. It's not difficult for us to see in this girl a little image of the Coredemptrix, who by her sacrifice, offered with an unlimited generosity, scattered graces in profusion over the entire Church, and particularly on the Holy Father and on sinners. On the day of her beatification, the Holy Father himself thanked her, attributing to her the grace of being saved from death in the attempt on his life: "And once again I would like to celebrate the Lord's goodness to me when I was saved from death after being gravely wounded on 13 May 1981. I also express my gratitude to Bl. Jacinta for the sacrifices and prayers offered for the Holy Father, whom she saw suffering greatly."¹⁹