When, sometime later, we were put in prison, what made Jacinta suffer most was to feel that their parents abandoned them.
With tears streaming down her cheeks, she would say: “Neither your parents nor mine have come to see us. They don’t bother about us anymore!”
“Don’t cry,” said Francisco, “we can offer this to Jesus for sinners.”
Then, raising his eyes and his hands to heaven, he made the offering: “O my Jesus, this is for love of you, and for the conversion of sinners.”
Jacinta added: “And also for the Holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
After being separated for a while, we were re-united in one of the other rooms of the prison. When they told us they were coming soon to take us away to be fried alive, Jacinta went aside and stood by a window overlooking the cattle market. I thought at first that she was trying to distract her thoughts with the view, but I soon realized that she was crying. I went over and drew her close to me, asking her why she was crying.
“Because we are going to die,” she replied,” without ever seeing our parents again, not even our mothers!”
With tears running down her cheeks, she added: “I would like at least to see my mother.”
“Don’t you want, then, to offer this sacrifice up for the conversion of sinners?”
“I do want to, I do!”
With her face bathed with tears, she joined her hands, raised her hands to heaven and made her offering: “O my Jesus! This is for the love of you, for the conversion of sinners, for the Holy Father, and reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary!”
The prisoners who were present at this scene, sought to console us: “But all you have to do,” they said, “is to tell the Administrator the secret! What does it matter whether the Lady wants you to or not!”
“Never!” was Jacinta’s vigorous reply, “I’d rather die!”