The dawn of the 20th Century was a troubled time. By 1914, war had officially broken out in Europe and, before its conclusion, the bloody violence of World War I had claimed nearly nine million lives. The most savage and destructive forms of warfare to date escalated the death toll. The evils of Communism were beginning to spread. Into this morally and socially disturbed world stepped a woman with a solution to the problems afflicting mankind.

“Say the Rosary every day to bring peace to the world and an end to the war.” (May 13th 1917) “Pray, pray very much. Make sacrifices for sinners.. Many souls go to hell, because no one is willing to help them with sacrifice.” (August 13th 1917)

From May to October 1917, on the 13th day of each month, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to three children – Jacinta, Lucia, and Francisco – in Fatima, Portugal. She appeared under the title Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. She offered a message of hope and conversion to the hurting world. This message was both beautiful and simple: “Continue to pray the Rosary every day.” Only by daily prayer could the world be converted and the advances of evil forced to retreat. It is such a simple answer, yet it carries so much hope! Lucia, one of the three children to whom Mary appeared, said the following about the Rosary:

“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.”

To enforce the need for and the power of this simple solution, Mary promised that there would be a wondrous miracle when she appeared on the 13th of October. Thousands of people traveled to the site of the apparition to see the promised miracle. It had rained throughout the night of October 12, and the ground and many of the people were soaked. As Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco knelt in the front of a crowd of more than 70,000 people, Our Lady appeared to them and said: “People must amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins. They must not offend our Lord any more, for He is already too much offended!”

As Our Lady left, Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco saw the following vision:

“We beheld St. Joseph with the Child Jesus and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun. St. Joseph and the Child Jesus seemed to bless the world, for they traced the Sign of the Cross with their hands. When, a little later, this apparition disappeared, I saw Our Lord and Our Lady; it seemed to me to that it was Our Lady of Sorrows. Our Lord appeared to bless the world in the same manner as St. Joseph had done.”

As the three children were witnessing this vision, the crowd of people also witnessed an amazing sight. The sun left its position in the sky and “danced” as many eyewitnesses later stated. The sun hurled towards the earth, leading many people to fear the world was ending. Then, suddenly, the sun returned to its position. The people, their clothes, the ground, everything which had been soaked by the rainfall, were completely dry.

Many eyewitness accounts are available. They vary somewhat, but all testify to the miracle:

Maria de Capelinha (one of the earliest believers):

The sun turned everything to different colours—yellow, blue and white. Then it shook and trembled. It looked like a wheel of fire that was going to fall on the people. They began to cry out, “We shall all be killed!” Others called to our Lady to save them. They recited acts of contrition. One woman began to confess her sins aloud, advertising that she had done this and that…. When at last the sun stopped leaping and moving, we all breathed our relief. We were still alive, and the miracle which the children had foretold, had been seen by everyone.

Dr. Domingos Coelho (reported in the newspaper Ordem):

The sun, at one moment surrounded with scarlet flame, at another aureoled in yellow and deep purple, seemed to be in an exceedingly fast and whirling movement, at times appearing to be loosened from the sky and to be approaching the earth, strongly radiating heat.

Ti Marto (father of Jacinta and Francisco)

We looked easily at the sun, which for some reason did not blind us. It seemed to flicker on and off, first one way, then another. It cast its rays in many directions and painted everything in different colors— the trees, the people, the air and the ground. But what was most extraordinary, I thought, was that the sun did not hurt our eyes. Everything was still and quiet, and everyone was looking up. Then at a certain moment, the sun appeared to stop spinning. It then began to move and to dance in the sky until it seemed to detach itself from its place and fall upon us. It was a terrible moment.

Such a wonderful miracle undoubtedly proves the power of Our Lady’s call for prayer and penance for this hurting world. Prayer and penance would have a direct effect on the state of the world, as Mary said to Lucia: “The war [World War I] is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI.”

Only three years after Mary came with a solution to the world’s problems, in 1920, a baby boy was born in Wadowice, Poland. As this boy grew up, he suffered firsthand from the evils of the world. The second war, the “worse one” that Mary had spoken of at Fatima, came to be during his young life. When he was nineteen, the Nazi forces invaded his country. At the age of 21, he was the only surviving member of his family, having lost a brother, mother, and father. On August 6, 1944, he escaped the German Gestapo by hiding in his uncle’s basement and then escaping to the archbishop’s house. In spite of the terrible sufferings of his youth, he continued to live a holy life and eventually became a priest, then a bishop, and then a cardinal. He was known for his love and joy. His holiness and joy and optimism is apparent in his words: “There is no evil to be faced that Christ does not face with us. There is no enemy that Christ has not already conquered. There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and does not now bear with us.” On October 16, 1978, this man was elected Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, taking the name Pope John Paul II. He took as his papal motto “Totus tuus” which means “Totally yours, Mary.” Here lies the key to what allowed him to overcome all the evil in his life: his total consecration to Mary, his mother.

On May 13, 1981, sixty-four years after Our Lady first apparition at Fatima, Pope John Paul II was riding through St. Peter’s Square when he was shot by Mehmet Ali Agca. He was rushed to the hospital, lost ¾ of his blood, and underwent 5 hours of surgery. On the way to the hospital, he kept repeating the words, “Mary, My Mother.” He survived and later said of his recovery: “I myself experienced her [Our Lady of Fatima’s] protection” and “At that time I experienced mortal danger and suffering, but also the great mercy of God. By the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima my life was given back to me.”

On Dec. 27, 1983, when Pope John Paul II visited Mehmet Ali Agca in prison, he asked him: “Why didn’t you die? I know that my aim was true and I know that the bullet was very powerful and mortal.” The Pope responded: “One hand fired the shot. Another (the hand of the Virgin Mary) guided it.”

As a sign of his gratitude, Pope John Paul II gave the bullet that was used in his assassination attempt to the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima. The bullet was a perfect fit in the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima at the shrine in Portugal.

Two amazing stories that convey the power of prayer come together and meet in one tiny space. A bullet fits inside a crown. The bullets of the world – wars, oppression, violence, evil, sin – are subject to Mary, the Queen of Heaven and Earth and her Son Jesus Christ, the King of all Nations. The perfect fit of the bullet in the crown witnesses to one message: that prayer, sacrifice, and above all devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ, whose only goal is to bring us closer to her Son, are the most powerful ways to overcome evil in the world.

“From Mary we learn to surrender to God’s Will in all things. From Mary we learn to trust even when all hope seems gone. From Mary we learn to love Christ her Son and the Son of God!” -Pope John Paul II