FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH: May 13, Anno Domini 2005

The mystically inclined will be interested to learn that, in slightly more than 70 days, a most unusual Friday the Thirteenth will overtake us — May 13, 2005, the 88th anniversary of the day when the Blessed Mother is said to have appeared to three children in the town of Fatima, Portugal. The children claimed that Our Lady of Fatima appeared to them once a month, from May to October 1917, always on the 13th day of the month.

Among other things, Our Lady prophesied to the children a second World War – the first was already in progress — the fall of Communism in Russia; and a great persecution of the Church.

On May 13, 1981, on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, a Turkish assassin named Mehmet Ali Agca, widely believed to have been under the control of Soviet-bloc handlers, gunned down Pope John Paul II — but failed to kill him.

It therefore seems only fitting that the last of the three children of Fatima, Sister Lucia Marto, should have died on the thirteenth day of last month, February 13, 2005, at age 97.

What this year’s odd coincidence of Friday the Thirteenth and the feast of Our Lady of Fatima might portend lies beyond me. Perhaps it means nothing at all. Yet it seems that we ought not let this rare and peculiar day pass unmarked.

FreeRepublic Comments 02/13/05 6:46:33 PM ET