Maria Magdalena Trigueiros de Martel Patrício

The hamlets, the villages, the nearby towns were emptied of people.

Along the roads, already on the eve, groups of pilgrims were travelling on their way to Fátima.

Fishermen from Vieira⁴ left their houses of black wood set above the sea, and the labours of stowing away the catch. Through the pinewoods, where the crowberries look like drops of dew in the greenery, across the sands where the sails of the windmills turn, they came on foot, woollen leggings on their muscular legs, warm skirts over their shoulders, on their heads the bag with their provisions, with the short, swaying step that made the hems of their skirts swirl and set fluttering the orange kerchiefs on which their black hats sat. Workmen from Marinha⁵, farmers from Monte Real⁶, from Córtes⁷, from Marrazes⁸, hill women from far away — from the hills of Soubio⁹, of Minde¹⁰, of Lourçal¹¹, people from everywhere the voice of the miracle had reached, left their houses and fields and came along on horseback, by cart or on foot, crossing the roads, going over hills and through pinewoods, on the long trek along the roads, which for two days were enlivened by the rolling of carts, the jog-trot of donkeys and the clamour of the groups of pilgrims.

Autumn was reddening the harvested vineyards. The north-east wind, cold and cutting, heralding winter, made the transparent poplars on the riverbanks tremble as they paled, longing for the sun, in the yellow tones of old lace.

On the sands the white sails of the windmills were turning. In the pinewoods the green tops of the pines bent in the wind.

The clouds were gradually covering the sky. The mist was piling up in light, soft flakes.

The sea, in the vastness of the beach at Vieira, foamed, roared, rolled itself into high waves, and across the fields its voice could be heard in a sinister clamour!

All night, all the early morning, it rained, a fine, persistent rain that soaked the fields, that saddened the earth, that went on piercing to the bone, with a cold damp, the women, the children, the men and the animals crossing the muddy roads in their hurried march towards the Hill of the Miracle.

The rain fell and fell, soft and stubborn.

The thick skirts of serge and striped cotton dripped and weighed like lead on the waistbands. The caps and the broad hats streamed water onto the new jackets of the Sunday-best suits. The bare feet of the women and the hobnailed boots of the men splashed in the wide puddles of the muddy roads.

But the rain seemed not to wet them; it seemed they did not feel the rain!

They walked on and on, climbing the hill, lit up by faith, in eager longing for the miracle that Our Lady had promised, on the 13th, at one o'clock, by the hour of the Sun, to the simple and pure souls of three children who grazed flocks!

Left behind, lost in the mist, blurred in the transparency of the rain, were pines, poplars, oak shrubs, red patches of vineyards, farmsteads, ploughed fields of dark earth... The fields were deserted. The houses were shut!

There was a strange silence in the fields, deserted of people and flocks; there was an air of expectation and emotion in the attitude of things, of the poor houses as though asleep in the silence, their windows and doors shut to the light!

The hill was high, but it seemed to the walkers that the climb did not tire them!

The hill was sad, ever sadder, with hollowed, black stones, without the cheerfulness of a tree's greenery, but the walkers did not feel the striking and tragic torment of that landscape of sorrow!

The rain began to thin out. It was now only a very light veil of mist that was gradually dissolving, and little by little the hill was growing brighter.

A murmur was drawing near, coming down from the hill. A murmur that seemed like the distant voice of the sea, which had fallen silent in the silence of the fields...

It was hymns taking shape, sung by thousands of mouths.

On the plateau of the hill, covering the slope, filling a valley, one could see an enormous, shifting mass of thousands and thousands of God's creatures, thousands and thousands of souls in prayer!

With raised hands and eyes in ecstasy, they came in the ardent faith of belief. They came to ask Our Lady for the miracle, to ask for the redemption of sins, to ask for a blessing on the bitterness of life!

At one o'clock in the afternoon, by the hour of the sun, the rain stopped.

The sky had a greyish tone of pearl, and a strange brightness lit up the biblical and tragic vastness of the sad landscape, ever sadder...

The sun had something like a veil of transparent gauze, so that eyes could look at it. The grey tone of mother-of-pearl turned as if into a gleaming silver plate, which kept breaking open until the clouds were torn apart and the silvery sun, wrapped in the same grey lightness of gauze, was seen to rotate, spinning round within the circle of the parted clouds!

It was a single cry from every mouth; the thousands and thousands of God's creatures whom faith was lifting up to heaven fell to their knees on the soaked ground!

The light turned blue, an exquisite blue, as if it came through the stained-glass windows of an immense cathedral to spread through that gigantic nave, given its pointed arches by the hands raised in the air...

The blue slowly died away, so that the light seemed filtered through yellow stained glass.

Yellow patches now fell on faces, on white kerchiefs, on the dark, poor serge skirts. They were patches repeated endlessly on the low holm oaks, on the stones, on the hillside.

Everyone was weeping, everyone was praying, hat in hand, under the grandiose and unique impression of the awaited miracle!

They were seconds, they were instants that seemed like hours, so intensely were they lived!

Clouds passed over the vague grey brightness that veiled the sun!

The souls in prayer, whose life had been suspended for a few instants, came back to life.

The clouds were torn to shreds; blue patches of sky appeared. The sun, in the impassive serenity of all time, vaguely lit up the bare hill where Our Lady, through the mouths of three children who grazed flocks, had gathered thousands and thousands of God's creatures!

On Sunday, the 13th, it was a year since God willed to gather thousands of creatures on the hill of Fátima so that they might hear, from the mouths of three little shepherds who grazed flocks in the biblical solitude of the hollowed hill, promises of Peace, of happiness and of tranquillity for the unhappy and lovely land of Portugal!

The clouds were torn apart in the gloomy, sad sky, and the sun broke through, lighting up the hill!

It was the luminous promise of Peace amid the heavy sadness of life, and thousands of creatures, who saw in the blessed light of the sun the smile of God once more blessing the land where such sad evils had spread, fell to their knees, asking that the promise be fulfilled!

The little shepherds in grace saw the Virgin's diaphanous mantle pass by; they saw, in the dark lanes, the luminous trail of her bare feet, and the hill grow dark at the hour of bright sun, and the hill grow bright, by a miracle, on murky, dark days when noon rang out far off on the bells of the villages and towns!

The Virgin spoke to the little shepherds in grace, and their souls, pure of evil, understood the Lady's words... thus they gave hope to the mothers, to the sweethearts, to the wives of the soldiers whom the war had taken away! They promised that within a year³ the war would end, and the soldiers would return to their homes!

Along the road, in groups, with hands joined, looking at the sun that had promised Peace, came the mothers, the sweethearts, the wives to whom the sweet promise had been made. They repeated softly, in the hope that God would hear them better: "Within a year the war ends; the soldiers come back within a year!"