Day 4: Alcobaça -Batalha – Fatima

July 12, 2015

Alcobaça -Batalha –  Fatima 44km

The most important pilgrimage in Portugal is not to the tomb of Saint James in Santiago but to Fatima. Here pilgrims wearing yellow reflective vests walk through the street led by a singing Priest with a megaphone.  My aunt Joe, one of my most devout Catholic relatives, came here on a trip that also included a visit to Lourdes.

Fatima is where the Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children each month between May and October in 1917.  Two of the children, now beatified, died of influenza a couple of years later.  The third became a nun and lived until a decade ago.

The Sanctuary square recalls of St Peter’s square with room for several thousand.  We watched a few pilgrims approaching the Sanctuary on their knees. Most carried candles to light at the raging candle bonfire. Others carried wax replicas of feet, hands or hearts to ask for healing. Gord scattered some of his mother’s ashes and lit a candle for her. The fire is so big he singed his arm hair doing it.