The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin (May 13 - October 13, 1917)

Lucia was now ten years old, Francisco would be nine in June and Jacinta had just turned seven in March, when on May 13th, 1917, they chose to pasture their sheep in a hilly depression owned by Lúcia's father and known as the Cova da Iria, or Cove of Irene. It was there, with one exception, that the Blessed Virgin under the title of Our Lady of the Rosary appeared on six occasions in 1917, and a seventh time in 1920 (to Lúcia alone).

As important as the place and the time is the situation of the world. At that moment the First World War raged in Europe, introducing mankind to the most savage forms of warfare seen to that date. In far off Moscow Lenin prepared the revolution that would overturn the Russian social order in November 1917 and eventually engulf almost half the peoples of the earth. It was in that context that heaven condescending to earth to provide the antidote to the moral and social evils of the world - the message of Fátima.