Saint Jacinta Marto

Jacinta was born on March 11, 1910, the younger sister of Francisco and cousin to Lucia. Two years younger than Francisco, Jacinta was a charming, pretty and energetic girl. She took a special delight in flowers; at a First Communion, she was among the little “angels” spreading petals before the Blessed Sacrament. She had a remarkable love for Our Lord, and at the age of five she melted in tears on hearing the account of His Passion, vowing that she would never sin or offend Him anymore.

She had many friends, but mostly she loved her cousin Lucia. When Lucia turned ten, she was sent by her parents to pasture their sheep. Jacinta moped about until her mother allowed her and Francisco to accompany Lucia in the pasture. Her days were playful and happy, delighting with her brother and cousin. The children said the Rosary every day, but to make more time for play, they shortened it to the words “Our Father” at the beginning of each decade, followed by “Hail Mary” ten times.

Jacinta saw Our Lady during all six apparitions, though she did not always hear what was being said. During the first apparition in May, 1917, Jacinta stayed in the background. After the apparition, Lucia insisted that they tell no one what they had seen. Jacinta promised that she wouldn’t say a word, but later, when her parents returned home that evening she related the whole story to her family. Her mother laughed but her father believed her. Word spread quickly throughout the village, and Jacinta got the blame for breaking her promise. The news was received with skepticism by many, with mockery by some, and with anger by Lucia’s mother.

On August 13th, the mayor of the town took the children. The authorities interrogated the children, threatened to boil the children in oil, and placed them in jail. Jacinta cried because she would never see her mother again, and she was very afraid. The authorities released the children unharmed. On Sunday, August 19th, the children witnessed their fourth apparition.

Jacinta was changed by the visitations of Our Blessed Mother. Previously talkative, she became quiet and withdrawn. Jacinta was deeply affected by the terrifying vision of hell at the third apparition. She became deeply convinced of the need to save sinners through penance and sacrifice as Our Blessed Mother had asked the children to do. To rescue sinners from hell, Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia sacrificed by giving up their lunches, refusing to drink in the heat of the day, and wearing a knotted rope around their waists. Following the miracle of the sun, Jacinta complied with many requests for her intercession. On one occasion she seems to have bi-located, in order to help a wayward youth find his way home. Lost in a stormy wood, he had knelt and prayed, and Jacinta appeared and took him by the hand, while she was at home praying for him. Lucia relates in her memoirs how her little cousin said she never tired of telling Our Lord and Our Lady how much she loved them. “I have a fire in my chest but it doesn’t burn me.”

In October of 1918, Jacinta came down with influenza and was moved to a hospital a few miles away. Because the Blessed Mother told her that she would go to two hospitals, not to be cured, but to suffer for the love of God and reparation for sinners, Jacinta was at peace. She went on to develop pneumonia and then tuberculosis. An abscess in her side caused her great agony. She was taken to the hospital in Vila Nova de Ourem. On February 2, 1920, Jacinta was admitted to the Estefania hospital where she underwent surgery, and the daily dressing of the wound caused her agony. On February 20, 1920, she received the Last Rites. A priest heard her confession and promised to bring her Holy Communion the next morning, but Jacinta died peacefully that night, alone. She was nine years old.

Visitors who saw Jacinta in her open coffin exclaimed that she seemed to be alive, with the loveliest color. The unpleasant odor due to her illness was replaced by “a fragrance as of the most delicious flowers.” Jacinta’s coffin was opened on September 12, 1935, in preparation of its move to a tomb especially built at the Basilica at Fátima, and her body was seen to be perfectly incorrupt. Her relics and those of Francisco now lie in the Basilica at Fátima.

On May 13, 1989, Pope John Paul II approved the decree on the Heroic Virtues of the two Servants of God, Francisco and Jacinta, granting each of them the title of “Venerable”. Jacinta was beatified along with her brother, Francisco on May 13, 2000, at the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, Fátima, Portugal, by Pope John Paul II. Saint Jacinta Marto was canonized on May 13, 2017, at the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, Fátima, Portugal by Pope Francis.