By Forrest Preece
Once during his Catholic school days, author Stephen Harrigan’s class watched a 1952 movie called The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima. The film depicts the story of three Portuguese shepherd children who supposedly witnessed a visitation by the Virgin Mary to a field near their country homes in 1917. After this first visit, the apparition began a series of communications with them.
Little did the young Harrigan know that he would one day write a book, “Sorrowful Mysteries,” about these real-life children and the immense impact their “revelations” had on pilgrims from around the world. At one point, this apparition of Mary supposedly issued a prophecy that the ringleader/oldest child, Lucia, wrote down on paper, sealed in an envelope, and inscribed on the outside that it was not to be unsealed until 1960. This envelope gained such status that it was stored at the Vatican and was not opened until that date. By then, Lucia was a nun cloistered with the Carmelites, one of the strictest orders in the religion. Let’s say that there were wildly divergent opinions within the church about this “revelation,” from its being unimportant to others thinking it was a searing commentary on world politics.
I was surprised that Harrigan would use this story for a book, but I found it to be a fascinating read. He is a brilliant writer, and the book offers incisive commentary on his spiritual journey from being a strictly taught boy who was punished for having the wrong posture during prayers to being an adult who left the faith. It also outlines the 100-year-plus journey of a delusion that gained traction and swept across a religion.
One note -- Harrigan didn’t just sit in his West Austin home, ruminate about all of these occurrences, and then write the book. He actually traveled to Fatima in Portugal, the site of the original vision, which is now visited by throngs of people every year. I love what he wrote after a carillon near the sacred site rang a hymn’s tune that he sang back in the 1950s at school. He chooses not to reject the feeling that this melody inspired in him, despite his path in life being 180 degrees from those three young shepherds in the early 20th century. “I recalled its words about an unreachable mythical someone who, even while warning us of the terrors that lay ahead, wanted above all to set our hearts on fire and sweep away our fears.”
