One day, we were told that a priest was coming to see us who was very holy and could tell what was going on in people’s inmost hearts. This meant that he would find out whether we were telling the truth or not. Full of joy, Jacinta exclaimed: “When is this Father coming? If he can really tell, then he’ll know we’re telling the truth.”
We were playing one day at the well I have already mentioned. Close to it, there was a grape vine belonging to Jacinta’s mother. She cut a few clusters and brought them to us to eat. But Jacinta never forgot her sinners.
“We won’t eat them,” she said. “We’ll offer this sacrifice for sinners.” Then she ran out with the grapes and gave them to the other children playing on the road. She returned radiant with joy, for she had found our poor children, and given them the grapes.
Another time, my aunt called us to come and eat some figs which she had brought home, and indeed they would have given anybody an appetite. Jacinta sat down happily next to the basket, with the rest of us, and picked up the first fig.
She was just about to eat it, when she suddenly remembered, and said: “It’s true! Today we haven’t yet made a single sacrifice for sinners! We’ll have to make this one.”
She put the fig back in the basket, and made the offering; and we, too, left our figs in the basket for the conversion of sinners. Jacinta made such sacrifices over and over again, but I won’t stop to tell you any more or I shall never end.