Saint of the week: Jacinta Marto
- Aimee Boudreaux MacIver
- Feb 20
- 4 min read
How old must we be to become saints? How much time does sanctity take?
Jacinta Marto had only nine years. She is the youngest of all the canonized saints. Her wisp of a life challenges us to engage time as a precious treasure, not misuse or squander it, and simultaneously to live in the confidence that for God, time is nothing. He does not need time to make us saints—only hearts that say yes.
Born into a peasant family in Fatima, Portugal, Jacinta is best known as one of the three visionaries to whom Our Lady appeared in 1917. But before that, Jacinta, her older brother, Francisco, and their cousin, Lucia Santos, were average children who spent their days as shepherds. Like most Portuguese peasant children of her time, Jacinta couldn’t read or write, but she didn’t really care. The little shepherd preferred dancing and having fun.
Her family sometimes butted against the seeds of strong will in Jacinta. When Lucia, a few years older than Jacinta, first took up the job of tending sheep, Jacinta wasn’t yet old enough to go along. She sulked about not being allowed to tag along with her favorite playmate, and eventually got her way.
Yet Jacinta also showed an equally sensitive heart. She sparkled with affection for her family and even her sheep, whom she named things like Dove, Star, or Snow. She even tried to carry them over her shoulders like Jesus did on the holy cards she had seen. Other times in the meadows, Jacinta would gather wildflowers and weave garlands for Lucia or the women at home. She burst into tears the first time she heard and actually understood the story of Jesus’ Passion.
But her piety was immature. She wanted to sing and play more than she wanted to pray. In fact, Jacinta and the others found a loophole in their mother’s instructions to pray the rosary every day while out at the pasture. Instead of reciting the whole prayers, they would recite only the titles: “Our Father” followed by repeating the words “Hail Mary” ten times.
Then in May 1917, in the meadows where they tended sheep, Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia began receiving apparitions of "a Lady more brilliant than the Sun." At first, the young trio agreed not to tell anyone about the experience, but little Jacinta couldn't resist telling her mother what she'd seen. The next six months became a swirl of public scrutiny, controversy, interrogation, massive attention, and even custody battles. But the children could not be shaken from their firm faith in the beautiful Lady. As she always does, the Blessed Mother called for prayer and repentance of sins, and asked the children to promote the daily recitation of the rosary for peace in the world and the aversion of war. In October 1917, as a huge crowd gathered to witness the potential spectacle, the children went again to meet the Lady. As many as 100,000 witnesses reported seeing "the miracle of the sun," a phenomenon in which the sun appeared to zig-zag and spin across the sky while changing colors.
In the midst of the overwhelming public response, Jacinta and the others quietly but profoundly transformed—especially after a glimpse of hell that Our Lady permitted them to witness. Though so very young, they began offering whatever sacrifices they could think of to save souls.
Both Francisco and Jacinta died shortly after the apparitions in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. Francisco died in 1919 at age ten and Jacinta died in 1920 at age nine. Before she died, Jacinta endured the surgical removal of two ribs without anesthesia. Just as she had with smaller discomforts like mild thirst on a hot day or sitting on a hard chair, Jacinta now offered the unspeakable agony of her last illness for sinners and for the pope.
From her hopsital bed, she said to Lucia, "In a short time now I am going to heaven. You are to stay here and say that God wishes to establish in the world the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. . . . Tell everybody that God grants graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and that they must ask them from her. Tell them that the Heart of Jesus wishes that by His side should be venerated the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Tell them to ask peace through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; God has placed it in her hands. Oh that I could put into the heart of everybody the flame that I feel burning within my breast and which makes me love so much the Heart of Jesus and the Heart of Mary.”
The little saint's feast is February 20.
More about St Jacinta Marto
Fatima: This 2020 release retells the Fatima story in an updated feature film.
The Day the Sun Danced: A classic animated account of Fatima for children with stirring beauty for all ages.
Jacinta: The Flower of Fatima: Written shortly after the apparitions, this account draws on firsthand interviews with Lucia Santos.
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