The great influenza epidemic of 1918 stretched into the following year, bringing very harsh times for hundreds of millions around the world.

Two of its victims, a brother and sister, became the two youngest non-martyred saints in the Catholic Church — St. Francisco Marto and St. Jacinta Marto. Of course we know them as two of the three seers of Fatima. Both suffered from the influenza and died from it and (in Jacinta’s case) its complications.

Because they also were so close to Our Blessed Mother after seeing her at Fatima and then becoming so dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, what a pair of intercessors they will be for us, with her and with the “Hidden Jesus,” as Francisco love to call our Eucharistic Lord in the tabernacle!

On May 13, 2000, in Fatima, during his homily beatifying them, St. John Paul II called Jacinta and Francisco “two candles which God lit to illumine humanity in its dark and anxious hours.”

Now they can be intercessor candles for us.

With this in mind, the Children of the Eucharist were inspired to promote this prayer for the intercession of these two children saints specifically for this pandemic time, and also to create the beautiful picture of them with the Immaculate Heart that appears on the prayer card.

Father Joseph Wolfe of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word not only revised the prayer, but he used it along with the picture which he loves already a few times on EWTN, including Monday, April 27, with our Rosary for the end of COVID-19.

Briefly, before we get to the newly composed prayer for this saintly team to intercede for us, let’s recall some important background. Both of the children knew what was going to happen to them to some degree because the Blessed Mother told them that soon she would take them to heaven.

After Francisco caught the flu, he suffered at home and died there. On the other hand, his sister Jacinta, by the grace of God far beyond her years in her saintly disposition by eagerly suffering much already for the conversion of sinners, was asked by our Blessed Mother if she wanted to suffer a little longer for the conversion of even more sinners. She gladly agreed to that.

Jacinta did so in two hospitals, even knowing she was to die alone, without her parents and cousin and seer Lucia with her.

Before her cousin was taken to the second hospital in Lisbon, Lucia asked Jacinta what she was going to do in heaven.

Jacinta answered, “I’m going to love Jesus very much, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, too. I’m going to pray a lot for you, for sinners, for the Holy Father, for my parents and my brothers and sisters, and for all the people who have asked me to pray for them...”

That last part includes us today.

Already here on earth young Jacinta’s prayers were powerful. Here’s what Lucia recorded about just one of the times:

A poor woman afflicted with a terrible disease met us one day. Weeping, she knelt before Jacinta and begged her to ask Our Lady to cure her. Jacinta was distressed to see a woman kneeling before her, and caught hold of her with trembling hands to lift her up. But seeing this was beyond her strength, she, too, knelt down and said three Hail Marys with the woman. She then asked her to get up, and assured her that Our Lady would cure her. After that, she continued to pray daily for that woman, until she returned some time later to thank Our Lady for her cure.

Father John de Marchi described in his book how during the worldwide 1918 flu epidemic many made a pilgrimage to Fatima because they were already sick or frightened of catching the deadly flu. People processed with images of Our Lady of the Rosary and favorite saints. Maria, the woman who was custodian of the Fatima chapel, said the priest who gave the first sermon at the Cova “stressed the important thing to pursue was ‘amendment of life.’” Although then very ill, Jacinta was there. Maria well remembered, “[The] people were weeping in sorrow over this epidemic. Our Lady heard the prayers they offered because from that day on, we had no more cases of influenza in our district.”

During his homily in Fatima St. John Paul II said, “Francisco bore without complaining the great sufferings caused by the illness from which he died. It all seemed to him so little to console Jesus:  he died with a smile on his lips. Little Francisco had a great desire to atone for the offences of sinners by striving to be good and by offering his sacrifices and prayers. The life of Jacinta, his younger sister by almost two years, was motivated by these same sentiments.”

John Paul II repeated the words of Jesus from the gospels, connecting them to these young saints when he added, “Father, to you I offer praise, for what you have hidden from the learned and the clever you have revealed to the merest children.” 

As you’re praying to St. Jacinta and St. Francisco for their intercession during this time, also check out this World Rosary 2020, so important for our times and world, also spearheaded by the Children of the Eucharist.

 

Prayer to Sts. Jacinta and Francisco Marto for This Time

Saints Jacinta and Francisco Marto, dear shepherd children of Fatima, you were chosen by Heaven to see Our Blessed Mother and to deliver her message of conversion to a world that had strayed far from God.

You who suffered so greatly and died from the Spanish flu, the pandemic of your time, pray for us who suffer in the pandemic of our times, that God may have mercy upon us.

Pray for the children of the world.

Pray for our protection and an end to what plagues us physically, mentally and spiritually.

Pray for our world, our countries, the Church, and for the most vulnerable people who are suffering and in need of healing.

Little Shepherds of Fatima, help us to come to the refuge of Mary’s Immaculate Heart, so to receive the graces we need at this time, and to come to the beauty of the life that is to come.

We trust, as you did, in the words of our Blessed Mother who taught you to, “pray the rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, because only She can help you.” Amen.