Fátima Movie Release

Oct. 13 marks the 92nd anniversary of the famous final apparition of the Virgin Mary at Fátima, Portugal, in 1917.

This year, the date has an additional significance: It marks the formal release in the United States of a new and highly acclaimed movie about Fátima, The 13th Day.

The promotional trailer posted with this blog entry provides a glimpse of the movie’s contents. Information about local screenings of the movie is available here. DVDs of the movie, available after Dec. 1, can be ordered here through the website of Ignatius Press.

And for an independent take on this excellent new production, Register subscribers can go here to access the assessment given by the Register’s film reviewer, Steven D. Greydanus, in the Oct. 11-17 issue of our newspaper.

Greydanus’s verdict: “The 13th Day is the best movie ever made about Fátima — the most beautiful and effective, as well as one of the most historically accurate.”

Miniature from a 13th-century Passio Sancti Georgii (Verona).

St. George: A Saint to Slay Today’s Dragons

COMMENTARY: Even though we don’t know what the historical George was really like, what we are left with nevertheless teaches us that divine grace can make us saints and that heroes are very much not dead or a thing of history.