I will not delay now describing the Apparition of May 13th. It is well known to Your Excellency, and it would therefore be a waste of time for me to go into it here. You also know how my mother came to be aware of what happened and how she spared no efforts to make me admit that I had lied. We agreed never to reveal to anyone the words Our Lady spoke to us that day. After having promised to take us to Heaven, she asked:
“Are you willing to offer yourselves to God to bear all the sufferings He will send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?”
“Yes we are willing,” was our reply.
“Then, you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.”
The 13th of June, Feast of St Anthony, was always a day of great festivals in our parish. On that day, we usually let out the flocks very early in the morning, and at nine o’clock we shut them up in their pens again, and went off to the festa. My mother and my sisters, who knew how much I loved a festa, kept saying to me: “We’ve yet to see if you’ll leave the festa just to go to the Cova da Iria, and talk to that Lady!” On the day itself nobody said a single word to me. Insofar as I was concerned, they acted as if they were saying: “Leave her alone; and we’ll soon see what she’ll do!”
I let out my flock at daybreak, intending to put them back in the pen at nine, go to Mass at ten, and after that go to the Cova da Iria. But the sun was no sooner up than my brother came to call me. He told me to go back home, as there were several people there wanting to speak to me. He himself stayed with the flock, and I went to see what they wanted. I found some women, and men too, who had come from such places as Minde, from around Tomar, Carrascos, Boleiros, etc. They wished to accompany me to the Cova da Iria. I told them that it was early yet and invited them to the eight ‘o clock Mass. After that, I returned home. These good people waited for me out in the yard, in the shade of our fig trees. My mother and my sisters persisted in their contemptuous attitude, and this cut me to the heart, and was indeed as hurtful to me as insults. Around eleven o’clock, I left home and called at my uncle’s house, where Jacinta and Francisco were waiting for me. Then we sent off for the Cova da Iria, in expectation for the longed-for moment. All those people followed us, asking a thousand questions. On that day, I was overwhelmed with bitterness. I could see that my mother was deeply distressed, and that she wanted at all costs to compel me, as she put it, to admit that I had lied. I wanted so much to do as she wished, but the only way I could do so was to tell a lie. From the cradle, she had instilled into her children a great horror of lying, and she used to chastise severely anyone of us who told an untruth.
“I have seen to it,” she often said, “that my children always told the truth, and am I now to let the youngest get away with a thing like this? If it were a small just a small thing…! But a lie of such proportions, deceiving so many people and bringing them all the way here!” After these bitter complaints, she would turn to me, saying: “Make up your mind which you want! Either undo all this deception by telling these people that you’ve lied, or I’ll lock you up in a dark room where you won’t even see the light of the sun. After all the troubles I’ve been through, and now a thing like this to happen!” My sisters all sided with my mother, and all around me the atmosphere was one of utter scorn and contempt.
Then I would remember the old days, and ask myself: “Where is all that affection now, that my family had for me just such a short while ago?” My one relief was to weep before the Lord, as I offered Him this sacrifice. It was on this very day that in addition to what I have already narrated, Our Lady, as though guessing what was going on, said to me: “Are you suffering a great deal? Don’t lose heart. I will never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.”
When Jacinta saw me in tears, she tried to console me, saying: “Don’t cry. Surely, these are the sacrifices which the Angel said that God was going to send us. That’s why you are suffering, so that you can make reparation to Him and convert sinners.”