After a few days in Lisbon, we drove North to Porto making a stop in Fátima on the way.
I had not realized how relatively recent the “visions” had been and the subsequent construction of the Basilica, Chapel, and Church.
Right away it was clear how much of a tourist attraction Fátima is.
A statue of the Virgin Mary in the Chapel of Apparitions (1919). The statue marks the site where the visions are said to have occurred. 
A worshipper walks on her knees to the Our Lady of Fátima shrine with Robert Schad’s High Cross in the background. 
Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima (1928)
Church of the Santíssima Trindade (2007) – the eight largest Christian church in the world.
View of the Basilica from the Church. 
And in case there hadn’t been enough worship in the sanctuary, there were blocks and blocks of “holy’ tourist crap to take home with you.
Sr Lúcia Santos has just died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BAcia_Santos
ReplyDeleteAnd consider yourself darn lucky. Most of the places Mary appeared are in THE most miserable places on earth. I was dragged to Knock as a kid and the wind and rain is horrible year round. Unless it's two miles from the edge of the sun on the few days it shines. And from what I hear Lourdes and Fatima are the very same.
I like that cross. Looks like a few nails were twisted together. Only by a fellow that goes fee-fie-foe-fum
Well, as I've mentioned:), it WAS pouring down rain throughout Portugal while I was there. And Fatima was no exception. We got a bit of a break walking across the esplanade, but it was very wet while there, abnormal I think, but still.
DeleteI don't think we have any sites here, approved anyways so the idea of a pilgramage wasn't, well there wasn't an idea of it. But sightings on tortillas, garage doors, or dog bottoms...we've got plenty of those.
Poverty, bad food and an absence of vitamins can cause otherwise sane people to see lots of things.
DeleteAnd ye have a few places right enough. Actually in Ca there are a line of missions where http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jun%C3%ADpero_Serra built have become quite a thing. And you have this if ever you decide to take a special devotion, http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/resources/shrines/us.html#ca that'll keep ya goin.
Normally when people I know go to Fatima Lourdes or Medjugorje it's not rain that's the issue. Imaging that plaza in the dead heat of July. People flippen DIE there.
Had my twitter a/c hacked. Think it came in on an app for the phone. Now I have to remember a whole new lot of P/W's
Oh that candle pyre thing is pure Celtic rip off. At one point we built fires like they now do in India. The candles represent bones. :-)
I'd take cold and rainy over scorcher any day.
DeleteI was actually going to reference the Missions, but most don't necessarily visit for religious purposes. It's part of our local history and every 4th grader has to do a report on one of them. I've visited (was dragged) to most of them in SoCal but always as an education. We know so much about their treatment of Native Americans that their influence was more of a travesty than anything else. Although taking a road trip following the El Camino Real is a nice way to visit the CA coast. :)
Bones, huh?
WoW! I hope you did not buy anything big from the touristy trap :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful trip!
I did not. Not my kind of shopping.
DeleteMy favorite part of Fatima was buying candles for about one euro. Then throwing them into the open flames only to have the melted wax be collected in pots underneath to be formed into new candles and sold once again for one euro to another tourist. A great business model.
ReplyDeleteHa ha! So true!
DeleteI remember you telling me about that before we went, but I didn't remember it there.