“My God, I believe, I adore, I hope...”
In his first apparition, the Angel introduces the Shepherd Children to this intimate relationship with God through adoration, which is the only appropriate response to the Mystery of God who comes near.
The Angel's Apparitions also introduce the Shepherd Children to the mystery of God's Love for them and how living out that love must manifest in their love for humanity. Sister Lucia expressed it this way: “These words of the Angel engraved themselves in our spirits like a light that made us understand who God was, how He loved us and wanted to be loved, the value of sacrifice and how pleasing it was to Him, how, through it, He converted sinners.”
As we can see, the Angel’s Apparitions immediately present us with God's centrality in Fatima: the Trinity and the Eucharist, present throughout the three cycles of the Apparitions.
The Eucharist becomes a central part of the Shepherd Children’s lives in its threefold dimension:
Mystery believed: the constant profession of faith in Jesus' presence in the Eucharist.
Mystery celebrated: participation in the Eucharist whenever possible and long hours of Eucharistic adoration.
Mystery lived: the Eucharistic offering of their lives in imitation of Jesus.
In the Angel's apparitions, there is the first contact, the enchantment, the beginning of the relationship.
With Our Lady, after some time of this “experiential knowledge,” comes the invitation to commitment and total surrender, leading to true intimacy: “Do you want to offer yourselves to God to endure all the sufferings He may want to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?”
Sister Lucia tells us:
"It was upon saying these last words, 'the grace of God...' that for the first time she opened her hands, which emitted a most intense light that penetrated our breasts, reaching the innermost part of our souls and making us see ourselves in God, Who was that light, more clearly than we can see ourselves in the best of mirrors. Then, driven by a deep inspiration, we knelt down and repeated inwardly: 'O Most Holy Trinity, I adore Thee! My God, my God, I love Thee in the Most Blessed Sacrament.'”
As the Apparitions proceed and the Shepherd Children's knowledge/intimacy with Our Lady and God - who was this light - intensifies, the Trinitarian-Christological centrality also becomes progressively clearer.
Francisco became a “little theologian” without even having learned to read, through the intimate experience of God, renewed in daily encounters with Him in the Rosary prayer and Eucharistic Adoration.
Jacinta, as she experienced God’s presence in her life - “I feel Our Lord inside me.
I understand what He says to me, and I neither see nor hear Him; but it is so good to be with Him!” - moved from “shepherd” to “lamb,” imitating the One who offered Himself in sacrifice for the salvation of all. Indeed, the joy of offering herself for sinners and to repair the Immaculate Heart of Mary “was her ideal, it was what she talked about,” as Sister Lucia affirms.
Lucia “learned obedience through suffering” and thus was “brought to perfection” (cf. Hb 5,8), becoming a sentinel, prophet, and custodian of the Message entrusted to her, allowing herself to be “consumed inwardly by zeal” (Ps 69,10) for the Mission received.