Jacinta Marto

Born March 11, 1910, in Aljustrel, near Fátima, Portugal, Jacinta de Jesus Marto was the youngest of seven children of Manuel Pedro Marto and Olímpia de Jesus. Seven years old at the time of the apparitions, she was the youngest of the three Fátima seers.

Between May 13 and October 13, 1917, Jacinta witnessed six apparitions of Our Lady at the Cova da Iria alongside her brother Francisco and cousin Lúcia dos Santos. Of the three seers she was perhaps the most visibly transformed by what she received. The Lady showed them a vision of hell and told them many souls are lost because there is no one to pray and sacrifice for them. Jacinta received this with particular urgency. In the months and years that followed, she voluntarily imposed small penances on herself — refusing water on hot days, wearing a rough cord — offering them as intercession for sinners. She was seven years old.

The Lady also told Jacinta she would suffer greatly and die alone in a hospital far from home. Jacinta accepted this without protest.

After Francisco fell ill with influenza in early 1919 and died in April, Jacinta's own illness progressed — pleuritis and tuberculosis — through the pandemic year. She was transferred first to a hospital in Vila Nova de Ourém, then to an orphanage in Lisbon, then to Dona Estefânia Hospital in the city far from home the Lady had foretold. She died there on February 20, 1920, nine years old and alone. The postmortem examination found her body in notably good condition for the severity of her illness.

Beatified by Pope John Paul II at the Sanctuary of Fátima on May 13, 2000, she was canonized by Pope Francis on the same date in 2017, one hundred years after the first apparition. Her feast day, February 20, marks the date of her death.