Fatima

Katie and I woke up and ate breakfast at our hostel (which was amazing, bread with Nutella and cereal) Then we went to the train station where we caught our train to Fatima. So as we got off the train in”Fatima” there was the train station, one lonely street, and some goats. And we were wondering where in the world we were and how come we couldn’t see the basilica, so we went in and asked the guy working there how far it was away…and he told us that it was 25 KM away and you could only get there by taxi, or by a bus that would be coming in like 3 hours. So Katie and I set out to see where this so called location of Bus picking-up-ness was down the street of desolate goatness, and we were approached by a guy who said “You two must speak English” and we were like well, yes. And he was like “Let me ask you, what in the world are you doing here in Fatima?” we found out that his name was David he was from Ohio, studying abroad in Italy for the semester with Kent State University, and also trying the find the Basilica. So we decided that we would all just split the cost of the taxi. As we were getting into the taxi, another girl asked us if she could split the cost with us, because she was also on her way there. Her name was Bruna, and she was also our age and she was from Brazil. She had taken 2 months off to travel around Europe. She was very helpful, because she could speak both English and Portuguese, so she became our translator! The ride up to the sanctuary was a beautiful and hilly country side and our driver was explaining all the places we drove past (and Bruna translated). When we got there we decided to all stick together, so it was so fun. We spent the entire day there with these two people we had just met. It was interesting how our faith brought us together, because we were all Catholic, but we were all from different places and here we are seeing Fatima together! The Basilica was absolutely stunning. The artwork inside was so beautiful and depicted the scenes of Mary appearing to the children. These were directed by what Lucia (one of the children) recalled it looking like. There was both a Basilica, and then a chapel in the exact location the lady appeared. There were pilgrims who were walking on their knees to the chapel. It was so interesting. The other thing they have is a place to light candles for the lady, If you light one and pray for something it is supposed to be granted, though you can only light one the normal way, otherwise they have a huge fire, and if you have more than one candle, you just throw them into the big fire. They recycle the wax at the end of the day for new candles to sell.

It was funny because the entire time I was there I was like “This is just like in the cartoon movie of Fatima” Though I couldn’t remember the title, and Katie and David were like “The Day the Sun Danced”. They had both seen it. So we kept making movie references all day. We went to one of the masses there, and it was interesting, because it was in Portuguese and we couldn’t understand any of it!

Across from the Basilica they have another church which is the fourth largest church in the world. It can seat like 11,000 people, or something crazy like that. Right beside it was a building, that I thought was like the “Catholic Megaplex” It had all of these chapels with all of the sacraments going on. They had confessions going on all over the place in all these different kinds of languages and many holy water fonts and places for reflection. It was definitely interesting :)

-Our experience in Fatima was absolutely wonderful. It was such a beautiful, and holy place. It was also very special that we got to spend it with our new friends!
**By the way Katie and I are friends with Bruna and David on facebook now and we’ve been staying in touch!