104 years ago today, something great occurred in a sleepy Portuguese village called Fatima. Tens of thousands who had gathered pointed to something in the heavens. Though storm clouds poured down rain, the sun broke through. It lept, it spun, it changed colors and danced in the sky. When the spectacle was over and the rain ceased, the crowds marveled at the dry ground and their dry clothes. Cripples walked; the blind saw; three children and their families wept in gratitude, hugged each other, and, smiling, joyfully turned their gaze to the sun. The children’s prayer for a sign from our Lady had been answered.
But this miracle was not the first time God played with the sun. The Book of Joshua recounts:
It was then, when the Lord delivered up the Amorites to the Israelites, that Joshua prayed to the Lord, and said in the presence of Israel:
Sun, stand still at Gibeon,
Moon, in the valley of Aijalon!
The sun stood still,
the moon stayed,
while the nation took vengeance on its foes. . . .
The sun halted halfway across the heavens; not for an entire day did it press on. Never before or since was there a day like this, when the Lord obeyed the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel (Joshua 10:12-14).
The prayer of a mighty warrior had been answered. With the sun halted at Gibeon, Joshua and the Israelites defeated the powerful coalition of Amorite armies, a key step in securing peace for the People of God in their new land.
The celestial miracles of Gibeon and Fatima both reveal that the Lord hears the prayer of those who call upon him, sometimes in remarkable ways.
In Joshua’s time, the fact that God heard his petition to alter the course of the sun and the moon was exceptional. Under similar circumstances in Homer’s Iliad, Agamemnon implores Zeus to halt the sun until the Trojans are destroyed, but his prayer is not heard (Iliad II.412-418). In October 1917, many—the millions of soldiers in the trenches, Portugal’s atheistic politicians, the Bolsheviks assembling in Petrograd—wished they could control their fates, the “sun and moon” so to speak. But they couldn’t. Yet when three children prayed the Rosary at Fatima, the sun danced.
And both miracles not only involved the sun; they also involved the moon. Joshua asks that both the sun and the moon stand still, and they do. So where was the moon at Fatima?
Venerable Fulton Sheen, a great devotee of Fatima, once used a favorite image of the early Church when remarking about Mary, “The moon does not take away from the brilliance of the sun. All its light is reflected from the sun. The Blessed Mother reflects her Divine Son.” Our Lady is the moon present at Fatima: she is the other star, “the lesser one to govern the night” (Gen 1:16), who draws her light from the Son. In her account of the miracle, Lucia, the oldest of the Fatima children, notes that “as she [the Lady] ascended, the reflection of her own light continued to be projected on the sun itself.” Though an inversion, this is no contradiction: Just as all graces come from the Son and are reflected through our Lady, so are all our prayers reflected through Our Lady to her Son.
So, how shall we obtain this powerful aid? The answer lies with some of Our Lady’s last words to Lucia: “I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day.” Saturated by the Rosary, Mary’s messages at Fatima all point to the truth that, relying on ourselves, “all [our] planning comes to nothing” (Ps 146:4). Just as God ordained the sun and moon to halt for Israel, so has he providentially given us the Virgin of Fatima as an intercessor, so we may win our battles, too. Not only is Mary the sign that God “fights for Israel,” she is the means by which he chooses to triumph. In Joshua’s day, it was remarkable that “the Lord obeyed the voice of a man.” In ours, it would be remarkable if the Lord did not heed the voice of his Mother. So pray the Rosary, for whether the heavens seem still or go spinning, your victory is assured by the light of the moon.
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Image: John Martin, Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon
