Your Excellency,
Here I am, pen in my hand, ready to do the will of my God. Since I have no other aim but this, I begin with the maxims which my holy Foundress has handed down to me and which after her example I shall repeat many times in the course of this account: “Oh Will of God, You are my paradise.”
Allow me, Your Excellency, to sound the depths contained in this maxim. Whenever repugnance or love for my secret makes me want to keep some things hidden, then this maxim will be my norm and my guide. I had a mind to ask, what use there could possibly be in my writing an account like this, since even my handwriting is scarcely presentable. But I am asking nothing.
I know that the perfection of obedience asks no reasons. Your Excellency’s words are enough for me, since they assure me that this is for the glory of Our Blessed Mother in Heaven. In the certainty that it is so, I implore the blessing and protection of her Immaculate Heart and, humbly prostrate at her feet, I use her own most holy words to speak to my God: “I, the least of your handmaids, O my God, now come in full submission to Your Holy Will, to lift the veil from my secret, and reveal the story of Fatima just as it is. No longer will I savor the joy of sharing with You alone the secrets of Your Love; but henceforth, others too, will sing with me the greatness of Your Mercy!”