A year of pilgrimage yields difficult answers- part 3
- sonlitknight
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A 10-part series of articles on the pilgrimages I have made this year on land and in the soul.
PART 2- Even God's miracles are unconcerned with giving us a happy earthly life.
The morning of September 24th, 2025 was the dawn of a day so different from anything I'd ever experienced that I would struggle to figure out what day would be in 2nd place. For the first time in my life, I woke up in another country but that was just the tip of the iceberg.
On this day, I would see miracles. Actual miracles that actually took place is what I'd see, and the people and places connected to them. I would also be reminded that a follower of Christ can never escape suffering.
After our croissants and scrambled eggs and coffee, we boarded our tour bus to Santarem. At some point, on this trip, I learned the croissant was actually made by devout Catholics to mock the Muslim crescent and celebrate a Catholic victory. I digress.
Santarem.
Santarem is the location of one of the most publicized Eucharistic miracles in the history of the Catholic church. That made visiting this place a priority for a young Catholic named Carlo Acutis who publicized Eucharistic miracles on a website. His picture is shown here. Just 17 days before I stood here and took this photo, this young man became Saint Carlo Acutis. Like some of the Parkland victims I honored before, he died so young. 15 years old. A miraculous kid in a miraculous place and still the pain of loss intrudes, and heaven can't be accessed by any other means.
As I said before. A Christian cannot escape suffering.
My 2nd direct connection to a saint was to stand where he stood and have my picture taken with Father Carlos. Words fail me.
In the church, however, I saw something even more stunning. They would not let us take close up pictures, but I found this one online. What you see here, pictured, is what I saw with my own eyes. You are looking at the actual blood of Jesus.
Repeat that last line to yourself a thousand times and it's still difficult to process.
This miracle was 800 years ago but that still makes it more than a millennium after He walked the earth. Jesus is still a living human being, possessing the fullness of Divinity. You are looking at the blood of God, still living, still flowing for you and me.
In every Mass I had ever attended, every consecrated host contained Our Lord's blood. To see it is something different. To receive Our Lord, in this place. How do I express that?
This day of miraculous things, places and people was just beginning. Strangely, so was the long chain of people who died young.
Aljustrel
I have known about the miraculous events of Fatima for at least 45 years. I have seen this picture of the 3 visionaries many times. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I would have my picture taken in this exact spot. Months later, it is still hard to process. I have always been struck by how deeply troubled they all 3 look in this photo. They must have felt a great burden. Remember, these children saw hell. You don't shake off something like that easily. This is especially true when you are 10, 9 and 7.
Within about 3 years, the two youngest in the photo would die at age 10 (Francisco) and 9 Jacinta). Thy would become the 2 youngest canonized saints in Catholic church history.
The prior day, I had encountered Saint Anthony of Padua who died at 36 years old. This day, I had encountered 4 more saints and 3 of them were dead before the age of 16. Only Lucia lived to be old (95). They would not be last on this pilgrimage, but they made a deep impact.
The humbleness of the shepherd children's homes struck me very deeply.
The point really set in when we reached later reached the Santa Maria hotel in Fatima. It was like a different world.
The children grew up in their humble homes in the tiny village of Aljustrel. They used to herd the sheep to a distance of about a half hour walk to an area of pasture land known as the Cova Da Iria. It would have been impossible for them to imagine a hotel like this would stand a mere 5-minute walk from the field that would change their lives and the world.
Between those 17 victims at Parkland and the 5 I'd seen so far, there are 22 people that we, by all rights, should never have heard of. Yet, we know about every one of them, in large part, because of how much they suffered and how young they died. 21 of them died before the age of 50. 20 before the age of 40. 17 of them died before the age of 20. Yet everyone them, in some way, have had more of an effect on the world than most of us living 4 times as long.
Without fully understanding God's passive will, one thing becomes very clear. It is obvious that God is far less concerned with how much we deserve a long, happy life than he is on eternal life and the betterment of mankind.
True, Francisco and Jacinta did not grow up and have long, prosperous lives with successful careers, big houses and children and grandchildren.
I stood in the church where they learned to follow and worship the true God. I saw where they were baptized.
The martyrs believed heaven was worth a horrid, bloody, agonizing death. While most of us struggle in the flesh for longs decades fighting for a happy life, we wind up at the end, in the same place- a hole dug in the ground. If heaven is the prize, maybe the special blessing of God is on the young ones who God takes early. More and more, I see that.
I am saying that we shouldn't grieve when a young one dies? Of course not. Our lives are that much harder without them around to brighten our daily routine. What I am saying is that God did not promise any of us a long and happy life on earth. In fact, the Fatima visionaries were told they would have much to suffer.
We are only pilgrims here in a place that is not our home. We should be thankful for all the young saints allowed to cut in line. They are now interceding for us from above.
