The First World War started on 1914 and finished on 1918 did last four years, and the Mayor part took place on Europe and the Middle East, which is the region from Sudan, Egypt, Turkey, West of Iran, including the Southeast of Asia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, they are the nations which are call the Region of Middle East, or also denominated Middle Orient. 
On the middle of the horrors of the First World War, the Pope Benedict XV introduce the invocation on the Litany of Loreto. " Queen of Peace, Pray for us". This happened the 5th of May of 1917, only one week before of the first visit of Our Lady, on the grounds of Fatima.
MAY, THE MONTH OF FLOWERS follows the long April rains that wash the face of sister earth after her long winter sleep. Then God covers the world with jewels more beautiful than any precious stones. What can be more beautiful than the dainty, many-colored flowers of May? On Sunday, the thirteenth of May, in the year 1917, during the midst of the First World War, God sent to earth the loveliest flower of the ages, His own beautiful Mother, Mary, whom we address as Queen of the May. On that day the children went to early Mass.
" Heaven forbid," Senhora Marto said " that we should ever miss hearing Mass on Sundays, whether it rained or thundered or even if I were nursing my babies. Sometimes we had to go to Boleiros, Autouguia or Santa Catarina, almost six miles journey. I had to get up early and leave everything in my husband's care. He would go to a later Mass. We could not take the babies with us when they were little, for then, neither we nor anyone else in church would have been able to hear Mass. Babies look like angels, but they don't act like Angels." Returning from Mass, the mother packed the children's lunches and sent them off with the sheep....
they saw a most beautiful Lady. " It was a lady dressed all in white," Lucia records, " more brilliant than the sun, shedding rays of light, clear and stronger than a crystal glass filled with the most sparkling water, pierced by the burning rays of the sun." " Fear not ! " the lady said,
" I will not harm you."" Where are you from ? Lucia made bold to ask. " I am from Heaven," the beautiful Lady replied, gently raising her hand towards the distant horizons. " What do you want of me ?" Lucia humbly asked.
" I came to ask you to come here for six consecutive months, on the thirteenth day, at this same hour. I will tell you later who I am and what I want. And I shall return here again a seventh time." " and I, am I, too, going to go to Heaven?" Lucia asked. " Yes, you shall," the Lady assured her. " and Jacinta?" " Yes." " and Francisco ?" "He too shall go, but he must say many Rosaries, " the Lady responded. We who see things with worldly eyes are
impressed only with serious faults; we forget that before God, the slightest fault is a serious matter. Though Francisco, like Lucia and Jacinta, was immersed in the glorious light of the splendor that shone from the Lady, he was not seeing the Lady. Neither could he hear the Lady's voice, though he could hear Lucia talking. " I don't see anything, Lucia! Throw a stone at it to see if it is real! " Francisco suggested. Throw a stone at the Lady? Never! Instead, Lucia inquired of her, " So you are Our Lady and Francisco can't see you ? " Let him say the Rosary! the Lady answered,
HOME PAGE NEXT