Francisco Marto

In 1916, Francisco, Jacinta, and their cousin Lúcia received three apparitions of an angel who introduced himself as the "Angel of Peace" and the "Angel of Portugal." The angel taught them a prayer of reparation and encouraged them to engage in prostrate Eucharistic adoration. The following year, starting on May 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary appeared to the three children at the Cova da Iria on six occasions, until October 13, 1917, the date of the "miracle of the sun" observed by tens of thousands of people. Among the three visionaries, Francisco occupied a unique place: he saw the Virgin but did not hear her words, unlike Lúcia and Jacinta. Our Lady announced to him that he would soon go to heaven, but that he would first have to recite many rosaries. Deeply transformed by these events, Francisco abandoned his usual games and devoted the majority of his time to prayer. He went to the parish church every day to kneel for long periods before the tabernacle, sometimes refusing to go to school in order to remain in adoration. His constant preoccupation was to console the "hidden Jesus" in the Blessed Sacrament and to offer sacrifices for the conversion of sinners, in accordance with the message received at Fátima.

What strikes the witnesses of Francisco's life most is the contrast between his young age and the maturity of his interior life. While his companions play, he isolates himself to pray his rosary while meditating: "I was thinking of God, who is so offended by the many sins that are committed," he confides to his cousin Lúcia. His contemplation is centered on reparation: he wants above all to "console Our Lord" and suffer with Him from the pain caused by human offenses. Questioned by Lúcia about his preferences, he chooses "to console God" rather than to convert sinners, grasping with a mystical intuition the priority of love over apostolic efficiency. His Eucharistic devotion is particularly notable: he spends hours prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament, in the posture that the angel taught him. When he receives his first communion shortly before his death, he expresses his joy by saying: "Today I am happier than you, for I have Jesus hidden in my heart!" At the hour of his agony, witnesses report that he saw a light and died in serenity. The cause for beatification, investigated starting in the 1940s, recognized these virtues as heroic, notably settling the theological question of whether young children can exercise Christian virtues to a heroic degree.

The instruction of the diocesan process for the beatification of Francisco and his sister Jacinta was opened in 1946 by the Bishop of Leiria. On June 28, 1999, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints recognized the first miracle attributed to their joint intercession: the healing of María Emília Santos, a paraplegic from Leiria who had been bedridden for many years, whose decisive improvement occurred on February 20, 1989, the anniversary of Jacinta's death, after a retreat for the sick and a novena at the Shrine of Fátima. Pope John Paul II beatified the two children on May 13, 2000, in Fátima, before a vast crowd gathered for the anniversary of the apparitions. In 2017, Pope Francis approved a second miracle required for canonization: the unexplained healing of Lucas Batista, a young Brazilian boy from Juranda aged about five, who fell from a window at a height of about six meters on March 3, 2013, suffered a severe traumatic brain injury with loss of brain tissue, and completely recovered his health after his family and Carmelite nuns implored the intercession of the Blessed Francisco and Jacinta. The decree recognizing this miracle was promulgated on March 23, 2017. Francisco Marto and his sister Jacinta were solemnly canonized on May 13, 2017, by Pope Francis, on the esplanade of the Shrine of Fátima, during the centenary of the apparitions, in the presence of several hundred thousand pilgrims. They are the youngest non-martyred saints in the history of the Catholic Church. Their common liturgical feast is set for February 20 in the General Roman Calendar.

The canonization of Francisco Marto in 2017, simultaneous with that of his sister Jacinta, consecrated the global spiritual influence of the message of Fátima. Pope Francis, in his homily of May 13, 2017, presented the two children as models for young generations, inviting the faithful to imitate their total abandonment to God in the midst of trials. Francisco embodies in particular the contemplative and Eucharistic dimension of the message of Fátima: his love for the "hidden Jesus" in the tabernacle reminds the Church of the importance of adoration and reparation. His remains rest in the Basilica of Our Lady of Fátima, where millions of pilgrims come to pray each year. The Sanctuary of Fátima has become one of the greatest pilgrimage sites in the Catholic world, with approximately five million visitors per year. In iconography, Francisco is generally depicted in Portuguese shepherd clothing, carrying a rosary, sometimes alongside his sister Jacinta and their cousin Lúcia dos Santos. His example, that of an ordinary child transformed by grace, nourishes catechesis on baptismal holiness and the universal call to holiness affirmed by the Second Vatican Council.