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Sister Vitaline concluded that perhaps the apparition was visible only to children. She went back to her convent to get two girls who were staying there. The girls were Francoise Richer, who was eleven years old, and Jeanne-Marie Lebosse, who was nine years old. Sister Vitaline deliberately did not tell them anything about the vision, but as soon as the girls came out into the street, they started telling Sister Vitaline about the apparition. They could see a beautiful woman in the sky, wearing a blue robe with stars on it. Soon thereafter, Joseph Barbadette came over from his house, and, as previously, he also saw the vision. Other children were also brought to the scene, and they could all see the apparition, although the adults could still see nothing. The children then began to describe changes in the apparition. An oval frame with four candles appeared around the figure of the woman. Then, letter by letter, a message began to form under the woman in the sky. The final message was mais priez, Dieu vous exaucera en peu de temps mon Fils se laisse toucher , which means: “But pray, God will hear your prayers in a short time. My Son allows himself to be moved.” By the time the message was being spelled out, the children had dispersed to separate locations, and were thus out of communication with each other, but the same letters appeared to all of them.

At the same time, a messenger arrived in Pontmain, saying that the Prussians were marching in the direction of the village. After the message in the sky was spelled out, the woman in the sky, identified by the faithful Catholics of Pontmain as the Blessed Virgin Mary, raised her arms in benediction. Then the message faded, and the Virgin began to frown as a crucifix formed on her chest. Finally, after the apparition had been visible for two hours, it faded away.The Prussian armies mysteriously stopped their advance at the town of Laval, and did not proceed any further. In 1875, the Bishop of Laval attested to the reality of the Marian apparition at Pontmain and a church was erected at the place where the apparition was seen (Rogo 1982, pp. 214–217).

Fatima, in Portugal, was in 1917 the site of the most famous of Marian apparitions. The apparition was seen several times by three children: Lucia dos Santos (nine years old), Francisco Marto (eight years old), and Jacinta Marto (six years old). All three were shepherds, and would take out their flocks together. They were related as cousins.

The Marian apparitions were preceded by apparitions of angels. The first angel apparition occurred to Lucia in 1915, when she was out herding sheep with three other girls. Lucia recalled: “We saw a figure poised in the air above the trees; it looked like a statue made of snow, rendered almost transparent by the rays of the sun. . . . We went on praying, with our eyes fixed on the figure before us, and as we finished our prayer, the figure disappeared” (Maria Lucia 1998, p. 61). Lucia and her friends saw the figure twice more.

By 1916, Lucia was herding sheep with Francisco and Jacinta. One day they were watching their sheep in an olive grove at the foot of a hill. After taking their lunch, they chanted their rosary prayers and then began to play a game they called “pebbles.” Then a strong wind moved the branches of the trees. The children thought this unusual, because it had been a calm day. Then the same figure Lucia saw in 1915 appeared again, but this time she could see it more clearly. It was moving toward them over the olive trees. “It was a young man,” said Lucia, “about fourteen or fifteen years old, whiter than snow, transparent as crystal when the sun shines through it, and of great beauty. On reaching us, he said, ‘Don’t be afraid, I am the Angel of Peace. Pray with me’” (Maria Lucia 1998, p. 63). Some time later, during the summer, the angel appeared again, near a well on property owned by Lucia’s family.

About these experiences, Lucia wrote (1998, pp. 161–162): “The force of the presence of God was so intense that it absorbed us and almost completely annihilated us. It seemed to deprive us even of the use of our bodily senses for a considerable length of time. During those days, we performed all our exterior actions as though guided by that same supernatural being who was impelling us thereto. The peace and happiness which we felt were great but wholly interior, for our souls were completely immersed in God. The physical exhaustion that came over us was also great.”

On May 13, 1916, the children, out with their sheep, were playing on a slope at a place called the Cova da Iria. Suddenly they saw a flash of light. “We’d better go home,” said Lucia. “That’s lightning; we may have a thunderstorm.” The children took their sheep down the slope. As they were going, they saw another flash of light near a large holmoak tree. “We had only gone a few steps further,” said Lucia, “when, there before us on a small holmoak, we beheld a Lady all dressed in white. She was more brilliant than the sun, and radiated a light more clear and intense than a crystal glass filled with sparkling water, when the rays of the burning sun shine through. We stopped, astounded before the Apparition. We were so close, just a few feet from her, that we were bathed in the light which surrounded her, or rather, which radiated from her” (Maria Lucia 1998, p. 164).

The lady said to the children, “Do not be afraid. I will do you no harm.” Lucia asked, “Where are you from?” The lady replied, “I am from heaven” (Maria Lucia 1998, pp. 165–166). She told the children she wanted them to come on the same day and hour for the next six months. She said, “Later on, I will tell you who I am and what I want.” Lucia asked if she (Lucia) would go to heaven. The lady said yes. In response to further questions from Lucia, she said Jacinta would also go, and so would Francisco. The lady asked if they were willing to offer themselves to God and, for the sake of the sinners of the world, bear all the troubles He would send to them. The children replied that they were willing. The lady said the grace of God would be their comfort. Then, said Lucia, the lady “opened her hands for the first time, communicating to us a light so intense that, as it streamed from her hands, its rays penetrated our hearts and the innermost depths of our souls, making us see ourselves in God, Who was that light, more clearly than we see ourselves in the best of mirrors” (Maria Lucia 1998, p. 166). The lady asked the children to pray the rosary every day, to end World War I and bring peace. “Then she began to rise serenely,” said Lucia, “going up towards the east, until she disappeared in the immensity of space. The light that surrounded her seemed to open up a path before her in the firmament.”

On the spot, at Lucia’s urging, the children agreed to keep silent about the apparition. But that very night Jacinta spoke about it to her family. Once the word was out, they all found themselves speaking. Lucia experienced a lot of opposition from her family, particularly her mother. Lucia said, “My mother was getting worried, and wanted at all costs to make me deny what I had said. One day, before I set out with the flock, she was determined to make me confess that I was telling lies, and to this end she spared neither caresses, nor threats, nor even the broomstick. To all this she received nothing but a mute silence, or the confirmation of all that I had already said. . . . She warned me that she would force me, that very evening, to go to those people whom I had deceived, confess that I had lied and ask their pardon” (Maria Lucia 1998, pp. 32–33).

On June 13, the children waited at the appointed time and place for the lady to appear. Once more they saw a flash of light, and then the lady appeared again in the same holmoak tree as before. This time about fifty villagers were present, but they saw nothing. Lucia said to the lady, “I would like to ask you to take us to heaven.” The lady replied, “Yes, I will take Jacinta and Francisco soon. But you are to stay here some time longer. Jesus wishes to make use of you to make me known and loved.” The lady assured Lucia that she would not be alone. Then the lady opened her hands, and light streamed forth. Lucia said, “We saw ourselves immersed in this light, as it were, immersed in God. Jacinta and Francisco seemed to be in that part of the light which rose towards heaven, and I in that which was poured out on the earth” (Maria Lucia 1998, p. 169). The revelation that Jacinta and Francisco would soon be taken to heaven was the first of three famous secrets of Fatima, later revealed by Lucia. In 1918, both Jacinta and Francisco were struck by influenza. Francisco died in 1919, and Jacinta died in 1920. Before her death, Jacinta had some personal visions of the lady.