Hajja Salesjana September October 2017

30 Indeed incredible was the short life of little Francisco Marto, despite dying in 1919, just two years after the apparitions he had of Our Blessed Mother at Cova da Iria in Fatima. Francisco died a year before his younger sister Giacinta did. He was only ten years. This was a child whose spiritual maturity brought him beyond the competitions and frivolities of this passing world into a realm unseen by few others in history. For in the light shed by Mary, Francisco had been given great insight into why eternity was what truly mattered in the end. That meant not criticizing others -- “poor sinners” -- but praying for them. Like Jacinta, he was keenly focused on sacrifice however, while Jacinta seemed oriented mainly for sinners to prevent them from going to hell, Francisco’s main focus -- although he also sacrificed for fellow humans -- was to console God. For he was very aware how much God the Father was being offended then, let alone now! How the Lord Jesus too was being offended and how much the Blessed Mother felt the wounds of Her Son! Although, unlike the other two visionaries, little Francisco never heard words because he did not hear Mary or the Angel of Peace speak, though he saw them, the boy was fully aware of what was said and had seen the fantastic light of God as it was shed through the Immaculate Heart of Mary upon Earth. That light, he noted, had gone two ways: with the Blessed Mother and Lucia radiating downward, for work on Earth, and upward with him and his sister Jacinta, for, as both siblings knew, they were soon to be taken into Heaven. Like Jacinta, he had absolutely no fear of death. And his hallmark: quiet. Something which we can all learn from in this ultra busy, fast paced, rat-race life we are living were busyness is so often glorified and made to seem tantamount to efficiency on the move, when really it’s nothing more than being overcome by stress. Indeed, Francisco was a boy, truly, like no other. “Francisco spoke very little,” wrote Lucia in a series of memoirs during the 1930s and 1940s. “He usually did everything he saw us doing, and rarely suggested anything himself. During his illness, he suffered with heroic patience, without ever letting the slightest moan or the least complaint escape from his lips. One day, shortly before his death, I asked him: ‘Are you suffering a lot, Francisco?’ ‘Yes, but I suffer it all for the love of Our Lord and Our Lady.’” What courage, what stamina, what determination in a child still so young and yet so steeped in holiness! The boy showed no love for dancing, especially in light of the serious visions -- including the one of hell -- they had seen and The quiet world of the young saint, Francisco Marto (source: www.spiritdaily.com )