St Joseph’s Mablethorpe was the first church in the UK to have a chapel dedicated to our Lady of Fatima
The Story On 13 May 1917, ten year old Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco
Marto were herding sheep at a location known as the Cova da Iria near their home village
of Fátima in Portugal. Lúcia described seeing a woman "brighter than the sun,
shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal ball filled with the most
sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun." Further appearances
were reported to have taken place on the thirteenth day of the month in June and
July.In these, the woman exhorted the children to do penance and Acts of Reparation,
and to make sacrifices to save sinners. The children subsequently wore tight cords
around their waists to cause themselves pain, performed self-flagellation using stinging nettles,
abstained from drinking water on hot days, and performed other works of penance.
According to Lúcia's account, in the course of her appearances,
the woman confided to the children three secrets, now known as the Three Secrets of Fátima.
Lúcia dos Santos her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto
Thousands of people flocked to Fátima and Aljustrel in the following months,
drawn by reports of visions and miracles. On 13 August 1917, the provincial
administrator and anticlerical Freemason, Artur Santos (no relation to Lúcia Santos),
believing that the events were politically disruptive, intercepted and jailed the children
before they could reach the Cova da Iria that day. Prisoners held with them in the provincial jail
later testified that the children, while upset,were first consoled by the inmates, and later
led them in praying the rosary. The administrator interrogated the children and tried unsuccessfully
to get them to divulge the contents of the secrets. In the process, he threatened the children,
saying he would boil them in a pot of oil, one by one unless they confessed.
The children refused, but Lúcia told him everything short of the secrets,
and offered to ask the Lady for permission to tell the Administrator the secrets.
That month, instead of the usual apparition in the Cova da Iria on the 13th,
the children reported that they saw the Virgin Mary on 15 August, the Feast of the Assumption, at nearby Valinhos.
As early as July 1917 it was claimed that the Virgin Mary had promised a miracle for the last
of her apparitions on 13 October, so that all would believe. What happened then became known
as "Miracle of the Sun". A crowd believed to number approximately 70,000,
including newspaper reporters and photographers, gathered at the Cova da Iria.
The incessant rain had finally ceased and a thin layer of clouds cloaked the silver disc of the sun.
Witnesses said later it could be looked upon without hurting the eyes. Lúcia, moved by what she said was an interior impulse,
called out to the crowd to look at the sun. Witnesses later spoke of the sun appearing to change colors and rotate like a wheel.
Not everyone saw the same things, and witnesses gave widely varying descriptions of the "sun's dance".
The phenomenon is claimed to have been witnessed by most people in the crowd as well as people many miles away.
While the crowd was staring at the sun, Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta said later they were seeing lovely images of the Holy Family,
Our Lady of Sorrows with Jesus Christ, and then Our Lady of Mount Carmel. They said they saw Saint Joseph and Jesus bless the people.
The children were aged 10, 9, and 7 at the time.
Columnist Avelino de Almeida of O Século (Portugal's most influential newspaper, which was pro-government
in policy and avowedly anti-clerical), reported the following: "Before the astonished eyes of the crowd,
whose aspect was biblical as they stood bare-headed, eagerly searching the sky, the sun trembled,
made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws - the sun 'danced' according to the typical
expression of the people." Eye specialist Dr. Domingos Pinto Coelho, writing for the newspaper
Ordem reported "The sun, at one moment surrounded with scarlet flame, at another aureoled in
yellow and deep purple, seemed to be in an exceeding fast and whirling movement,
at times appearing to be loosened from the sky and to be approaching the earth, strongly radiating heat".
The special reporter for the 17 October 1917 edition of the Lisbon daily, O Dia, reported the following,
"...the silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy purple light was seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds...
The light turned a beautiful blue, as if it had come through the stained-glass windows of a cathedral, and spread itself over the people who knelt
with outstretched hands...people wept and prayed with uncovered heads,
in the presence of a miracle they had awaited. The seconds seemed like hours, so vivid were they.
"No movement or other phenomenon of the sun was registered by scientists at the time.
According to contemporary reports from poet Afonso Lopes Vieira and schoolteacher Delfina Lopes with her students
and other witnesses in the town of Alburita, the solar phenomenon was visible from up to forty kilometers away.
Not all witnesses reported seeing the sun "dance".
Some people only saw the radiant colors, and others, including some believers, saw nothing at all.Since no scientifically
verifiable physical cause can be adduced to support the phenomenon of the sun, various explanations have been
advanced to explain the descriptions given by numerous witnesses. A leading conjecture is a mass hallucination possibly
stimulated by the religious fervor of the crowds expectantly waiting for a predicted sign. Another conjecture is a possible visual
artifact caused by looking at the sun for a prolonged period. As noted by Professor Auguste Meessen of the Institute of Physics,
Catholic University of Leuven, looking directly at the Sun can cause phosphene visual artifacts and temporary partial blindness.
He has proposed that the reported observations were optical effects caused by prolonged staring at the sun.
Meessen contends that retinal after-images produced after brief periods
of sun gazing are a likely cause of the observed dancing effects.
Similarly Meessen states that the colour changes witnessed were most likely caused by the bleaching of photosensitive retinal cells.
Meessen observes that solar miracles have been witnessed in many places where religiously
charged pilgrims have been encouraged to stare at the sun.
He cites the apparitions at Heroldsbach,
Germany (1949) as an example, where exactly the same optical effects as at Fatima were witnessed by more than 10,000 people.
There is no evidence that people who came to Fátima, even those expecting a miracle, were staring at the sun before Lúcia spoke.
Most would have been focused on the tree where the children said the lady appeared.
Some onlookers reported other phenomena, including luminous mist and the showers of flower petals
seen around and above the tree during previous visitations.In addition to the Miracle of the Sun,
the seers at Fátima indicated that the lady prophesied a great sign in the night sky which would precede a second great war.
On January 25, 1938, bright lights, an aurora borealis appeared all over the northern hemisphere,
including in places as far south as North Africa, Bermuda and California.
It was the widest occurrence of the aurora since 1709 and people in Paris
and elsewhere believed a great fire was burning and fire departments were called.
Lúcia, the sole surviving seer at the time, indicated that it was the sign foretold and so apprised
her superior and the bishop in letters the following day.
Just over a month later, Hitler seized Austria and eight months later invaded Czechoslovakia.
A Brief History of the Catholic Church in MablethorpeThe first Catholic church in Mablethorpe is believed to have been converted from a carpenter‘s workshop in Gibraltar Road (now Queen’s Park Close). This belonged to the Rev Father Bull who moved to this area for health reasons. He left the area a few years later when he had recovered. Father Bull died in 1937 and left a legacy in his will for the building of a permanent church as he had always loved the little seaside town of Mablethorpe. The legacy covered half the cost of building the church. The parishioners worked very hard to clear the debt. The present church was built in 1938 and was consecrated and opened on Sunday 29th January 1939. The statue of St Joseph above the entrance was made in France. It was a gift from a Catholic family from Louth. The original building was of handmade red brick made by the Skegness Brick Company. The narthex was added in 2001. The two holy water stoups have the inscription: ‘This stoups originally formed part of the Louth Abbey AD 1139’. Inside the church on the right hand side is the Baptistery. This contains a carved stone ambry and a font which was a gift from Father Murray of Coatbridge Scotland. The benches are of Kambala teak and were made in Belgium. The floor of the church is polished oak. The Lady Chapel is situated on the right hand side of the church and was the first chapel to be dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima. This remarkable statue was made close to Fatima and there is a detailed history of the statue which all are encouraged to read. On the sanctuary the stonework of the high altar, ambry piscine and altar table are all of Monks Park stone. The altar was a gift of from Mr A Ingram a member of the Louth firm that built the church.The original doors were of solid oak and with a cross of contrasting darker oak. The pulpit was made of Australian Walnut and inlaid ebony cross. Unfortunately these were destroyed by the East Coast Floods in 1953 which also claimed a number of lives in Mablethorpe and Sutton on Sea
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