Eureka moment: miracle of Fatima

Clive Wilkins-oppler looks for a “eureka moment”. This year is the centenary of the Miracle of the Sun which occurred at Fatima in Portugal on October, 13, 1917.

During the course of that summer there had been a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary to three young children, working as shepherds for their families.

News got out, crowds increased each month and on October 13, when a miracle had been promised, more than 70,000 people, believers and sceptics alike, had assembled at the Cova da Iria.

It had been raining for more than 24 hours, everyone was soaked, the ground was a sea of mud.

Then suddenly the clouds cleared and the sun appeared.

But in a strange guise: it could be gazed at by the naked eye without harm, turned different colours and gyrated crazily in the sky for quite a while, before seeming to plunge in a terrifying manner towards the earth. When the miracle was over, everyone found that their sodden clothing was clean and dry and that the muddy ground had dried.

This prosaic detail establishes beyond any doubt that here was no collective delusion but a genuine miracle witnessed by many thousands – a ”eureka moment” on a grand scale.

The purpose of this miracle, as we can learn from the accounts given by Lucia Dos Santos, the eldest of the three young seers and the only one to survive into adulthood, was to authenticate the warnings she was being given of the disasters that would overtake the world in the coming century.

Unless, that is, the Church fulfilled certain specific requests from heaven. But the Church failed to fulfil these requests and the disasters – the Second World War and the spread of communism – duly occurred. Dennis Whiting Gosfield Road, Herne Bay also very well looked after, with various tests being carried out. I was able to go home after a few hours.

The government cuts support to health care, schools, social services, and councils, yet it has enough to pay for nuclear weapons upgrades and supporting the arms trade.

What would people prefer our money to be spent on? Marilyn Sansom Grove Lane, Old Wives Lees