THE THIRD APPARITION OF THE ANGEL

Two or three months after the second apparition, the children had once more led their sheep to the hill of Cabecco.  After dinner they retired to the cave to say the Rosary and spend a part of the afternoon reciting the Angel’s prayer.  They had already, recited this prayer several times, when they were suddenly surrounded by an extraordinary light.  Rising, they saw the Angel who held in his hands a Chalice, surmounted by a Host from which drops of Blood fell into the chalice…. Leaving the chalice and Host suspended in mid-air, the Angel prostrated beside the children and made them recite three times the following prayer.  “Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore you profoundly.  I offer you the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the Tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. By the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg for the conversion of poor sinners”

  The Angel then arose, and holding the chalice and the Host again, he gave the Host to Lucia and the contents of the Chalice to Jacinta and Francisco, while he said:  “Receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ horribly outraged by ungrateful men.  Make reparation for their sins and console your God” Prostrating himself once more as if in thanksgiving, the Angel said again three times the prayer, “Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit etc…

The meaning of this vision unfolded slowly and astonishingly to their young minds.  Their whole being became absorbed by a new strange, yet happy feeling of the inward presence of God.

They kept silence for some time.  Francisco was the first to break it.  He had not heard the Angel speak and was anxious to learn everything.  “Lucia,” he said “I know that the Angel gave you Holy Communion.  But what did he give to me and Jacinta?”  “The same; it was Holy Communion” Jacinta replied at once over flowing with joy “did you not see that it was the Blood that dropped from the Host?”  “I felt that God was within me.” He agrees, “but I did not know how.”  The Children remained prostrated in adoration, repeating over and over again the inspired, heart stirring first and second prayers of the Angel.

Intimately seized by a deep supernatural recollection, they remained, thus absorbed in prayer, and strangers to the exterior world -----And during these long hours of prayer in the cave, their thirty sheep tended themselves all alone in a mysterious fashion.  At last, Francisco seeing that night was approaching invited his companions to return home with the flock.