Fr. Stephen, MSC

Three summers ago I went on a pilgrimage to Fatima in central Portugal. The city is famous for the Marian apparations that took place there in 1917. I celebrated masses in the Basilica and in the Sanctuary with a group of Dutch-Filipino pilgrims. Aside from checking out Fatima’s shrines, museums and bookstores, I also visited nearby towns and communities.

One place that is worth mentioning is Cova da Iria. For it was there where I met an old woman sitting at a well. She claimed to be a relative of Lucia, one of the three peasant children who witnessed the apparition of the Virgin Mary. The other two were Francisco and Jacinta. The old woman explained to me that Cova da Iria was the place where the Virgin Mary first appeared to the three seers. She added that the first thing the Virgin said to the children was “Be not afraid, I will not harm you.”

She related to me many other things – the miracle of the sun, the visions of hell, the deaths of the seers, and the number of times she had to repeat all these information to a curious tourist. But the most curious thing of all is that she was talking to me in Portuguese and I understood everything she said. To think that I have not studied Portuguese at all.

I spoke to her in Italian and she seemed to have understood everything I said as well. To think that she did not know any other language except Portuguese. We were speaking in entirely different languages yet we understood each other perfectly.

The experience taught me something about understanding and being understood – that the most important thing in any communication process is not grammar, nor syntax, nor spelling, nor the language itself, but the will to understand and be understood.