St. Jacinta Marto
She was nine when she died, alone in a Lisbon hospital, having asked for almost nothing except that sinners be spared.
The youngest of the shepherds of Fátima, who offered her illness for sinners and died far from home
Jacinta Marto was born in Aljustrel, outside Fátima in central Portugal, on March 11, 1910 by the date the Church keeps, and died in Lisbon on February 20, 1920, aged nine. With her older brother Francisco and their cousin Lúcia dos Santos she is one of the three shepherd children associated with the events at the Cova da Iria in 1917. She was canonized in 2017.
She was the youngest of the three, and by every account the most immediately affectionate and the most easily moved. She was seven in the summer of 1917. Reading her life requires holding two things at once: she was a small child, and she made a series of deliberate, sustained choices that a small child is not usually thought capable of making.
Where her brother turned toward consoling God, Jacinta turned outward. What fixed itself in her was the thought of sinners, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the person of the Holy Father. She took up small acts of self denial with a persistence that had to be moderated by the adults around her. This is not sentimentality about a devout child. It is a documented pattern in the witness testimony gathered at the time and afterwards.
She was caught in the influenza pandemic in October 1918 and developed pleurisy. Over the following year she was moved first to a hospital at Vila Nova de Ourém, then in January 1920 to the Hospital de Dona Estefânia in Lisbon, where she underwent surgery for a purulent pleurisy that had opened her chest wall. She died there on the evening of February 20, 1920, without her family present.
Her body was first placed in a family tomb at Vila Nova de Ourém, moved to the cemetery at Fátima on September 12, 1935, and finally to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary at the sanctuary on May 1, 1951, where her brother joined her the following year.
Jacinta is remembered for an intercessory instinct that ran ahead of her years: a child who understood that suffering could be offered for other people, and who kept doing it in a hospital ward where nobody was watching. The Church keeps her feast on the day she died.
A life, in years and approximate ages.
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1910BirthBorn at AljustrelJacinta Marto is born on March 11, 1910 in Aljustrel, in the parish of Fátima, to Manuel Pedro Marto and Olímpia de Jesus, and is baptized on March 19.
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19166The Angel of PeaceWith Francisco and Lúcia she reports three visits from an Angel of Peace: twice at the Loca do Cabeço above Aljustrel and once at the well behind the dos Santos house.
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19177The apparitions at the Cova da IriaFrom May 13, 1917 the three children report apparitions of Our Lady at the Cova da Iria. Jacinta's response fixes on prayer for sinners, on the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and on the Holy Father.
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19177Detained at Ourém, and the apparition at ValinhosOn August 13 the children are detained by the Administrator of Ourém and cannot go to the Cova. The apparition they report instead comes at Valinhos on August 19, while they are tending sheep.
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19188Illness in the influenza pandemicShe falls ill in October 1918 in the influenza pandemic that reached the village, and develops pleurisy. She is treated at home and later at Vila Nova de Ourém.
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19209Death in LisbonTaken to the Hospital de Dona Estefânia in Lisbon in January 1920, she undergoes surgery for purulent pleurisy and dies on the evening of February 20, 1920, aged nine, without her family present.
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1951After deathTranslation to the basilicaAfter burial at Vila Nova de Ourém and transfer to the cemetery at Fátima in 1935, her remains are placed in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary at the sanctuary on May 1, 1951. Her brother is brought there the following year.
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2017After deathCanonized at FátimaPope Francis canonizes Francisco and Jacinta Marto at the sanctuary on May 13, 2017, the centenary of the first reported apparition. They had been beatified there by Pope John Paul II on May 13, 2000.
Dates are approximate where the surviving record is traditional or incomplete.
6 places where this witness remains visible.
Aljustrel, homes of the shepherd children
Begin here. The Marto family house is where Jacinta was born and the house she left for the hospital she did not come back from. It is kept much as it was: small, dark, and plainly poor.
Parish Church of Fátima
A short way from the village, the parish church where Jacinta was baptized in 1910, the youngest of the three and the last to be carried here. The font is still there, and the parish is now named for Fátima and the shepherd children.
Loca do Cabeço
The rocky outcrop above the village where the first and third apparitions of the Angel of Peace are placed in 1916, and where the children reported learning the prayers of reparation Jacinta kept for the rest of her life. A short uneven climb that is not step free.
Valinhos
The one 1917 apparition reported away from the Cova, on August 19, after the children had been detained at Ourém on the appointed day. Still small agricultural ground.
Chapel of the Apparitions
The small open-sided chapel built over the place where the apparitions of 1917 were reported. Come early, before the esplanade fills.
Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary
The basilica at the head of the sanctuary esplanade holds the graves of both Marto children in its transepts, and the grave of their cousin Venerable Lúcia dos Santos, whose cause remains open.
Her tomb at Fátima
Jacinta’s grave lies in the transept opposite her brother’s, plainly marked and open to pilgrims throughout the day.
The saint is publicly venerated at a named tomb.
Tomb of Saint Jacinta Marto
The basilica at the head of the sanctuary esplanade holds the graves of both Marto children in its transepts, and the grave of their cousin Venerable Lúcia dos Santos, whose cause remains open.
- Tomb of Saint Jacinta Marto
Pray at the Chapel of the Apparitions first. The tombs mean more once the place where the children said they saw her has been given its own time.
Kindred witnesses
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Saint Francisco Marto
Her older brother, who received the same apparitions and died ten months before her. They are buried in the same basilica and share a feast. -
Saint Bernadette Soubirous
Another child to whom Our Lady appeared, and whose account the Church weighed and approved, as it later did at Fátima.
Where this leads next.
Kept on February 20.
Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto share a feast on February 20, the date of Jacinta’s death in 1920.
At Fátima the day is kept at the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, where both are buried in the transepts.
A village she never left willingly, and a city she did not come back from.
Jacinta's geography is the same two kilometers of shepherd country as her brother's, with one long and painful extension north to Lisbon.
Aljustrel gives the house and the lane. She was born there and lived there, and it is the place her life is measured against.
The hillside above the village gives the Loca do Cabeço and Valinhos, and the Cova da Iria gives the Chapel of the Apparitions. This is the whole of her world until she was nine.
Lisbon is the exception, and it matters. She was taken to the Hospital de Dona Estefânia in January 1920 and died there in February, away from her family. Her body made the return journey in stages over thirty-one years, ending in the basilica at the Cova.
Photo credits
- Saint page. Unknown photographer, 1917, via the Santuário de Fátima. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Source. Public Domain.
- Aljustrel, homes of the shepherd children. Berthold Werner / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Source. CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Parish Church of Fátima. Igreja Matriz de Fátima - Portugal (21418731630). Vitor Oliveira / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). Source. CC BY-SA 2.0.
- Loca do Cabeço. The Compass News, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Source. Public Domain.
- Valinhos. Calvario Hungaro - Fatima - Portugal (20324233439). Vitor Oliveira / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). Source. CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped from the original.
- Chapel of the Apparitions. dynamosquito / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). Source. CC BY-SA 2.0.
- Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary. PauloGarciaMartins / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Source. CC BY-SA 4.0.