There was a woman in our neighborhood who insulted us every time we met her. We came upon her one day as she was leaving a tavern, somewhat the worse for drink. Not satisfied with mere insults, she went still further.
When she had finished, Jacinta said to me: “We have to plead with Our Lady and offer sacrifices for the conversion of this woman. She says so many sinful things that if she doesn’t go to Confession, she’ll go to hell.”
A few days later, we were running past this woman’s door when suddenly Jacinta stopped dead, and turning around, she asked: “Listen! Is it tomorrow that we are going to see the Lady?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then let’s not play anymore. We can make this sacrifice for the conversion of sinners.”
Without realizing that someone might be watching her, she raised her hands and eyes to heaven, and made her offering. The woman, meanwhile, was peeping through a shutter in the house. She told my mother afterwards that what Jacinta did made such an impression on her that she needed no other proof to make her believe in the reality of the apparitions; henceforth, she would not only not insult us anymore, but would constantly ask us to pray to Our Lady that her sins might be forgiven.
Again, 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 sometime later to thank Our Lady for her cure.
On another occasion, there was a soldier who wept like a child. He had been ordered to leave for the front, although his wife was sick in bed and he had three small children. He pleaded that either his wife would be cured or that the order would be revoked.
Jacinta invited him to say the Rosary with her, and then said to him: “Don’t cry. Our Lady is so good! She will certainly grant the grace you are asking.”
From then on, she never forgot her soldier. At the end of the Rosary, she always said one Hail Mary for him. Some months later, he appeared with his wife and his three small children, to thank Our Lady for the two graces he had received. Having gone down with fever on the eve of his departure, he had been released from military service, and as for his wife, he said she had been miraculously cured by Our Lady.