Fatima devotion at Stella Maris

Devotion to Our Lady of Fatima has always been huge since Our Lady appeared six times to three peasant children, Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta, between May 13 and October 13, 1917.

She appeared with a message from God which promised that the whole world would be in peace, and that many souls would go to Heaven but only if Her requests were heeded.

She warned, though, that war is a punishment for sin; that God would punish the world for its sins in our time by means of war, hunger, persecution of the Church and the Pope, unless we obeyed God.

Our Lady continues to work miracles today at Fatima, Portugal, where a spring of natural water is known to cure the sick and has become one of the Roman Catholic Church's most revered shrines.

Two of the three peasant girls were beatified by Pope John Paul II on his third visit to the shrine on May 12, 2000. The Pope believes that Our Lady interceded to save his life when he was shot and seriously wounded on May 13, 1981.

The Pope's assassination attempt was foretold in the third Secret of Fatima which also predicted communism's persecution of Christianity in the 20th century. The text was written in 1944 by Sr Lucia dos Santos, the other of the three peasant girls, who is still alive and in her nineties. The first two parts of the secret had been revealed earlier and concerned a vision of hell, the prediction of the outbreak of World War II and a warning that Russia would "spread her errors" in the world.

In Malta, Our Lady of Fatima gained popularity with the arrival on June 5, 1948, of the first statue of Our Lady for the Stella Maris parish church, Sliema. The statue was donated by the late Eddie Frendo, a Stella Maris parishoner, and is now looked after by his son, Noel.

The event was reported in the Times of Malta of June 7, 1948, and was described as a "plebiscite of love and devotion to the Blessed Virgin of Our Lady of Fatima".

Many still remember the day when the Maria Loreta, accompanied by a flotilla of smaller boats, entered Marsamxett Harbour on its way to The Strand, from where the statue was carried processionally to Stella Maris church through crowded streets.

Since then the procession has become an annual event at Stella Maris. This year's procession leaves the church on Friday at 7 p.m. (after the 6.30 p.m. Mass).