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The Miracle of the Sun (Portuguese: O Milagre do Sol) was an event on 13 October 1917 which was attended by 30,000 to 100,000 people, who were gathered near Fátima, Portugal. Several newspaper reporters were in attendance and they took testimony from many people who claimed to have witnessed extraordinary solar activity. This recorded testimony was later added to by an Italian Catholic priest and researcher in the 1940s.

According to these reports, the event lasted approximately ten minutes. The three children who originally claimed to have seen Our Lady of Fátima also reported seeing a panorama of visions, including those of Jesus, Our Lady of Sorrows, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and of Saint Joseph blessing the people.

The event was officially accepted as a miracle by the Roman Catholic Church on 13 October 1930. On 13 October 1951, the papal legate, Cardinal Tedeschini, told the million people gathered at Fátima that on 30 October, 31 October, 1 November, and 8 November 1950, Pope Pius XII himself witnessed the miracle of the sun from the Vatican gardens.


The event

The people had gathered because three young shepherd children had predicted that at high noon the "lady" who had appeared to them several times would perform a great miracle in a field near Fátima called Cova da Iria. According to many witnesses, after a period of rain, the dark clouds broke and "the sun" appeared as an opaque, spinning disc in the sky. It was said to be significantly duller than normal, and to cast multicolored lights across the landscape, the shadows on the landscape, the people, and the surrounding clouds. The sun was then reported to have careened towards the earth in a zigzag pattern, frightening those who thought it a sign of the end of the world. Witnesses reported that their previously wet clothes became "suddenly and completely dry, as well as the wet and muddy ground that had been previously soaked because of the rain that had been falling".

Estimates of number present range from 30,000 to 40,000 by Avelino de Almeida, writing for the Portuguese newspaper O Século, to 100,000, estimated by Dr. Joseph Garrett, professor of natural sciences at the University of Coimbra, both of whom were present that day.

The event was attributed by believers to Our Lady of Fátima, a reported apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the children who had made predictions of the event on 13 July 1917, 19 August, and 13 September. The children stated that the Lady had promised them that she would on 13 October reveal her identity to them and provide a miracle "so that all may believe."




(vir slike madonnadimedju.altervista.org)