Fatima. I should have visited when I was in my 30s or 40s. Unfortunately, cynicism is one of the by-products of age and experience. I watched a woman of about 40 circumnavigating the Shrine of the Apparition on her knees yesterday, with a friend walking beside her to offer aid if needed. There was also an area where there are so many candles and wax body parts burning that it smelled like a holiday cook off at the beach. At one time, I might have been one of the supplicants — buying indulgences (and a wax f
I took this morning to take the local tourist tram around to the various sites, including he birth places of Lucia, Francisco, and his sister Jacinto. Of the three, Lucia was the only one who lived to adulthood; but Francisco is the one that fascinates me. I want to know why. Why Fatima? Why these three illiterate children? I want to understand how these little children from simple families in what was a remote village came to create such notoriety.
I don’t accept mystery anymore. It is a lazy way to explain faith. A cop out.