Lucy, Jacinta and Francisca, three children who tended sheep near Cova da Iria, were returning home after Sunday Mass one sunny May day when they were startled by a sudden -- and apparently spiritual -- apparition of Mary the Mother of Jesus. One of the shepherd girls, who lives in a convent in this Portuguese village still, reported that a voice told them that the same vision of Mary would return to that same location for six months in succession on the 13th day at the same hour. Just as announced, subsequent apparitions were witnessed again on June, July, August, September and October.

These 'holy visions' rapidly made Fatima, once just a humble village of west-central Portugal north and east of Lisbon, a world-renowned place of pilgrimmage for Catholics the world over. They come to pay homage at a a shrine built on the spot where the children saw the first vision of Mary in 1917. The Basilic, where two of the three children would later be buried, stands at the end of an immense promenade. This neoclassical church can hold 300,000 inside. A beautiful sculpture on the grounds commemorates the three children.

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