Front fly leaf, "To Patrick (Joseph) Murphy, from Daddy, March 1938." That would have made Patrick 14 years.
From your Email, William, you give me clues to trace Stephens path, "... the small red book he always had with him when we met."
Sure enough we found his small book and so many other 'scribbles'.
Prominent was the Dailly Missal from his Daddy. The book markers told the story and chronology of of friends. First was a souvenir of a certain Br. Mark making his Solemn Profession in September 1968, and later the Ordination of Fr. Mark Caira.
Another picture, hidden among the leaves, brings a whole experience.
Two or three days before Stephen's death I had a dream, different from the usual chaotic dreams. But this 'encounter' was with an attractive and friendly young lady. The vivid face of the lassie was very familiar to me. It was the memory but no idea of the name or who she is. I Googled the PICTURES and scanned possible Saints or Blesseds, Venerables or any. Nothing turned up to suggest.
That is the surprise to find this picture in Fr. Stephen's Missal. At once seen, it was the face to recognize. And it follows the whole story is to be found in the Internet; Blessed Jacinta Marto.
Apart from memory of the face, I had never learned anything about Jacinta, the youngest of the three children of Our Lady of Fatima. For the moment, the details are on the back of the old holy card in Stephen's Missal.
Thank you for for sending your pages from Stephen's "Understanding of Love" etc. So I even browsed to see if there was any mention of the Blessed Jacinta.
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JACINTA MARTO, born at Fatima in Portugal on March 11th 1910, died in hospital at Lisbon on February 20th 1920. aged nearly 10 years.
She was perhaps the most favoured of the three young shepherds, in spite of being the youngest. With her companions, she saw
an Angel three times and Our Lady six times. But besides this she had the special privilege of seeing other appearances of the Blessed Virgin, and of the Holy Father. The theme of her life was to pray and make every possible sacrifice, for the conversion of sinners and in reparation to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Before she died, she said: “In heaven I'm going to love
Jesus very much, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary too."
God has already given many extraordinary graces through her intercession. The
Process for the Beatification of the Servant of God, Jacinta Marto, was
sent to the Sacred Congregation in Rome on the 2nd July, 1979.
PRAYER FOR JACINTA'S BEATIFICATION (For private recitation)
Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly with all the powers of my soul, and I thank Thee for the Apparitions of the Most Holy Virgin in Fatima which have made manifest to the world the treasures of her Immaculate Heart.
By the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary I implore Thee - if it should be for Thy greater glory and the good of our souls - to glorify in the sight of Thy Holy Church Jacinta the shepherdess of Fatima, granting us through her intercession the grace which we implore. Amen.
Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.
Please send deteits of any favours received through the intercession of this Servant of God, to the following address:
Vice-Postulador da Causa de Jacinta Marto - Apartado 6 P - 2496 FA TlMA Codex (Portugal).
IMPRIMATUR, Leiren, 20 Februarii 1980
+ ALBERTUS, Episcopus Leiriensis
Below also a picture of the three children of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima.
From left to right, Jacinta Marto, Lúcia dos Santos and Francisco Marto, holding their rosaries in 1917. |
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Monday, February 20, 2012
I would then recommend three books:
first, find and
OLD (1940-50s) copy of Sister Lucia’s memoirs (before all the “editing” was
done to it) and get the basic story; second I highly recommend the wonderful
little book
Jacinta: The Flower of Fatima by the
Rev. Fr. Joseph Galamba de Oliveira, the English edition of which boasts a
preface by a young Father Fulton J. Sheen;
and finally a very recent work that
deals with a lot of the controversy over the message of Fatima in the last few
years and is extremely fair and well researched:
The Fourth Secret of Fatima by Antonio Socci, a well respected Italian journalist
who works in and around Rome, and is a personal friend of our Holy Father.