On May 13, precisely 105 years ago, at Our Blessed Mother’s first appearance to the three children — now Sts. Jacinta and Francisco and Servant of God Sister Lucia — her first words were: “Please don't be afraid of me, I'm not going to harm you.” Mary assured the children that she came for our good, for our salvation. That referred not only to that day but to our times, all times, too.

Then she also told the children, “Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and an end to the war.”

She was referring to the destruction of World War I. As if to emphasize that message, because heaven does not do anything by happenstance, Our Lady made her appearance at the Cova da Iria. The name “Cova da Iria” derives from the Greek eirene, meaning “peace.” Our Lady was underlining her words about bringing peace through the Rosary.

The connection to the Eucharist also comes in this symbolic way. It’s no coincidence that the date of our Blessed Mother’s first appearance in Fatima was May 13, celebrated then as the feast of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. That title was given to Our Lady by St. Peter Julian Eymard in May 1868. This saint, who had a strong devotion to both the Holy Eucharist and Our Lady, founded the Congregation of the Most Blessed Sacrament on May 13 in 1856.

On May 13 in 1917, at Fatima, the connection of the Rosary and the Eucharist to peace came to be.

A year earlier, heaven had prepared the children with visits from the Angel of Peace. During one visit, he held a chalice with a Host suspended in the air over it. Leaving the chalice and Host suspended in the air, the angel knelt and had the children repeat three times:

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore you profoundly, and I offer you the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which he himself is offended. And, through the infinite merits of his Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of you the conversion of poor sinners.

Then the angel gave the Host to Lucia and the Precious Blood to Jacinta and Francisco, and said:

Eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, terribly outraged by the ingratitude of men. Make reparation for their crimes and console your God.

Looking ahead from that day, we would learn that St. John Paul II, who himself had a major connection with Fatima and credited Our Lady of Fatima for saving his life, wrote in Ecclesia de Eucharistia:

Mary is a ‘woman of the Eucharist’ in her whole life. The Church, which looks to Mary as a model, is also called to imitate her in her relationship with this most holy mystery.

He also observed:

If the Church and the Eucharist are inseparably united, the same ought to be said of Mary and the Eucharist. … Mary is present … at each of our celebrations of the Eucharist.

Later in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI said in his Message for the World Day of the Sick:

There is an indissoluble link between the Mother and the Son, generated in her womb by work of the Holy Spirit, and this link we perceive, in a mysterious way, in the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Servant of God Lucia would later describe what happened on that May 13 when she wrote her memoirs. She said that Our Lady opened her hands and light streamed from them “so intense” that it penetrated their “hearts and innermost souls.” Lucia said the children realized it was God “who was that light,” and they fell to their knees “repeating in our hearts: ‘O most Holy Trinity, I adore you! My God, my God, I love you in the most Blessed Sacrament!’”

The Fatima saints would become powerful witnesses to Eucharistic devotion. Francisco would spend countless hours in church before the Blessed Sacrament to console the Lord, whom he called “the Hidden Jesus.”

Later suffering terribly from the influenza epidemic of 1918, 11-year-old Francisco died peacefully in 1919, after getting his wish to receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist the day before he died. Even though he had received from the chalice offered by the angel in 1916, this Communion was his First Holy Communion. So devoted to the Blessed Sacrament, and dying the day after he received his First Holy Communion, Francisco might even be thought of as a saint of the Eucharist.

Lucia also described in her memoirs that she brought pictures of the chalice and host while Jacinta was in the hospital, she was ecstatic, saying:

It is the Hidden Jesus. I love him so much. If only I could receive him in church. Don’t they receive Holy Communion in heaven? If they do, then I will go to Holy Communion every day. If only the angel would go to the hospital to bring me Holy Communion again, how happy I would be.

The world still needs to listen. By 2019, a Pew Research poll revealed that only 31% of Catholics believed the Eucharist is the real Body and Blood of Christ. The other 69% of Catholics said it was only a symbol.

St. Paul taught that “we should always receive Holy Communion in a worthy manner. He exhorts us that if we receive the Eucharist in an unworthy way, then we eat and drink condemnation upon ourselves” (Corinthians (11:27-32). He made clear many were physically sick because of their unworthy reception of Holy Communion. And what about peace in connection to this?

That first Fatima visit of our Blessed Mother on May 13 also established the foundation for a similar extended message two months later, during her appearance on July 13. Again she spoke of the connection between the Rosary, the Eucharist and peace.

Our Lady began:

Continue to say the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, to obtain the peace of the world and the end of the war, because only she can obtain it.

The connection continued after Our Lady answered questions from Lucia. She said:

You have seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. It is to save them that God wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If you do what I tell you, many souls will be saved, and there will be peace.

Next, she told the children:

This war will end, but if men do not refrain from offending God, another and more terrible war will begin during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night that is lit by a strange and unknown light [this occurred on January 28, 1938], you will know it is the sign God gives you that He is about to punish the world with war and with hunger, and by the persecution of the Church and the Holy Father.

Our Blessed Mother was warning her children that the lack of peace would continue if we didn’t listen, and she again drew the connection between peace, the Rosary, the Eucharist and reparation for our sins, saying:

To prevent this, I shall come to the world to ask that Russia be consecrated to my Immaculate Heart, and I shall ask that on the First Saturday of every month Communions of reparation be made in atonement for the sins of the world. If my wishes are fulfilled, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, then Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, bringing new wars and persecution of the Church; the good will be martyred and the Holy Father will have much to suffer; certain nations will be annihilated. But in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and the world will enjoy a period of peace.

This was her first mention of the First Saturday devotions, two major pillars of which are the Communion of reparation and the Rosary.

If that was the situation in 1917, then how much more do we need to listen to Our Lady of Fatima’s pleas and directions today? Through the seers, Our Lady was teaching us, her children, that our devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, the true presence of her Son Jesus in the Eucharist and the Rosary must increase.

Rosary. Eucharist. Peace. All introduced for our good and salvation on May 13, at Fatima, 105 years ago, by Our Lady of the Rosary and of the Blessed Sacrament. Will we finally listen?