One hundred years ago, between the months of May and October, Our Blessed Mother appeared to three young children at Fatima in Portugal.

On the 13th day of those six months, Mary asked Lucia dos Santos and her two younger cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto to come to the Cova da Iria, a place near the town. There she instructed the three children and gave them the famous messages for the modern world.

The appearances of Mary at Fatima are, of course, of the nature of private revelations. That is, they are distinct from the public revelation for the Church that ended with the death of the last Apostle.

However, the Church has accepted the authenticity of those Marian apparitions. Pope St. John Paul II explained why in 1982 when he visited Fatima on the one year anniversary of the attempt on his life in St. Peter’s Square.

He observed, “If the Church has accepted the message of Fatima, it is above all because that message contains a truth and a call whose basic content is the truth and the call of the Gospel itself.”

What is most remarkable about the message of Fatima is the completeness of motherly love exemplified by Mary.

Of course, in thinking about our own earthly mother, we often recall most readily the moments of laughter, of support and of consolation received from her. But every good mother has another role. It is that of correction, of warning and of far-sighted concern for our future and potential difficulties.

How much of growing in self-control and the embrace of good personal values, and of faith itself, are the result of the discipline established and modelled in the home by our earthly mothers?

Mary’s appearance at Fatima took place near the end of the ghastly First World War. By some estimates, about 18 million people died in that war. The horror of the trenches, the use of poison gas and the relatively new tactic of targeting civilian centers foreshadowed in some ways, the contemporary world and the violence we have come to know. Mary spoke to the children about that war, and others to come.

But most especially, Mary gave the three youngsters, and the world, a reminder about the deeper reality that brings about war, conflict and the loss of souls. She spoke of the advance of sin and the loss of spiritual life that has come to characterize much of the modern world.

Mary told the children to make prayers and sacrifices in reparation to God for the rejection of God’s love for the world that brought the Son of God among us.

While God does not need anything from us, it is part of His mysterious plan that our prayers help to change hearts and restore union with God that is broken by sin and rejection.

Mary also instructed the children to pray for sinners. As well, she asked them to make sacrifices for them. She then gave the children a remarkable understanding of the consequences of sin.

In the vision that took place on July 13, 1917, she gave the three children a view of hell itself and the eternal suffering and loss for sinners who have lived for themselves and not for God. The young seers were greatly impacted by that vision and subsequently offered to God sacrifices and their sufferings as a result.

Our modern society, especially in the developed world, is characterized by a loss of the recognition of sin. We are afraid to speak of evil directly and to identify it clearly, especially in our own lives. The modern world looks sin squarely in the eye and yet, avoids seeing its earthly consequences of unhappiness, suffering and human division.

The reminder from Mary at Fatima is that there are spiritual consequences as well. Hell does exist. And, as the three children saw, it is a place of great and unending suffering. That is why we must repent of our sins and foster our own healthy fear of hell itself.

The message of Fatima was not negative. Quite the opposite. It was a reminder of God’s love and the calling of each of us to be with God and Mary in heaven.

But our eternal salvation is not automatic. We must pray, put faith first in our lives, and deeply repent of our sins.

Use this 100th anniversary to take to heart the very modern message of Fatima. And thank Mary for, once again, fulfilling her role as our mother.