Miracles and Suffering in Fatima
by Stephanie Anderson and Mia Burke
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Mia: Hi, welcome to B+PC today. Today, my friend Stefanie and I, who is a pastor in Hawaii, will be talking about the movie Fatima (2020). She was watching Amazon Prime a couple of weeks ago and she came across this movie and just said, “There are some amazing things that we need to unpack in it.” So, welcome Stefanie, I’m excited to talk to you today.
Stefanie: I am so happy to be here, Mia. Thank you so much, this is awesome!
Mia: Thank you, thank you! So, tell me a little bit about how you came across Fatima.
Stefanie: You know what, I think I was actually scrolling through my Instagram and you know how they have movie highlights in there. When I saw it, it captured me right away for a number of reasons. One, it was gonna be a religious movie and it was filmed beautifully, Another one was that the acting seemed like it was gonna be fantastic- and it’s just so rare that Christian movies have those components in them. Where the acting is good, the cinematography is good, the script writing is good- and that was just from the trailer. So I came home and I watched it and I I think there’s so many things that we can unpack from that movie.
Mia: Yeah, definitely. Stefanie mentioned it to me last week and I jumped on and watched it and kind of felt the same way she did. I kind of went into it very skeptical, skeptical of Christian movies, unfortunately that’s my background, so I’m a little critical. But also because I was raised Catholic I just kind of skeptical about the whole idea of miracles and that recently the children were canonized as saints by Pope Francis. Skeptical about how you could weave this into something for today, kind of skeptical about where they are going to go with this. Are they going to over emphasize certain elements…
Stefanie: I guess we should probably unpack what the movie’s about literally a little bit so people who haven’t seen it can understand it. Because not everybody knows about Fatima, right? I think like you said, it comes mostly people from a Catholic background would know it.
But essentially these three little Shepherd children have a vision. (Fatima story) And it said, the Virgin Mary actually appears to them, and she gives them very specific things. The first thing, an angel appears to one of them and teaches her how to pray and I was so intrigued by the prayer that she felt like she was given. Because it was a very simple prayer, she’s like, “You must pray and this is how you pray: My God I believe. My God I adore, I hope, and I love you.”
And then the next part of it was for other people, is I beg pardon for those who do not believe. So, I looked it up just to make sure that really happened. Because in the movie they just showed, “I believe. I have hope. And I love you.” And that was such a simple prayer- and I thought, wow! For me, let’s just start with that. Let’s just start with that simple prayer. If nothing else from the entire movie, can we just keep that idea of keeping our prayers that simple? “I believe you God, I adore you, I love you, and I have hope.” I think even in the midst of Covid and everything that we’re going, through, to actually say, “I believe, I have hope,” it's an important prayer for us to have right now. Do you know what I mean?
Mia: Definitely. And I think it’s so interesting that the children were 7, 8 and 10. They’re these young kids from Portugal, from Fatima, Portugal, and Christian children who just came from salt of the earth families. They said a messenger of peace, an Angel of Peace came to her. And then when the three were together, they were visited by the Virgin Mary and then just kind of the whole exploration. And I found it super interesting that it’s framed in you know you open with Lucia the oldest of the three children years later. I think it was in like 1989, as an older nun. And she had dedicated her life to the Lord and she’s visited by this writer, who’s like, I want to understand what this is about. I don’t believe it, but I want to hear your story. And so it's her telling her story years later. Even years later, never changing the story, and she never changed that simplicity of prayer, like you said. She said, this is just what happened to me. I don’t have the answers, I don’t know everything, but it's just what happened.
Stefanie: And that’s what makes it so credible, unbelievable, right? That she still, all these years later, she’s giving her entire life to the Lord. And there were three things the angel and later the Virgin- so I was different, the angel the beginning and then eventually the Blessed Virgin- and I don’t know if that’s because they were Catholic. Like, why did God choose to reveal himself in this way to them? Do you know what I mean? Those are the things that you think about, right? To these kids - did they just make it up or do we even believe in miracles anymore? Can we look at that and say this happened or it didn’t? This is her experience. And that’s where the guy’s trying to go, “Oh you were just kids. Did you want the attention? But what really impacted her and I think it gives credibility to how she ended up living her life was that she was given a vision of hell. And of people in hell. And changed how she, I mean in her little teeny life, how she prayed and how she interceded for other folks.
And there were three, I think, three different -they called them secrets, that will reveal to the children, that only later came out and one of them was at the bishops and the popes were going to be martyred, that they were going to be killed. I researched it, just because that’s how I am. In World War II there were actually bishops that were murdered. There were a lot of clergy that were actually taken out in World War II. And the warning came during World War I for her. Yeah, like if this doesn’t change it’s only gonna get worse. And I think we can see the proof of that, even now, looking back at it from then til now. And see what’s happening. And I don’t know, I think all of us need that revelation of hell to get us to that place of willing to be on our knees.
I don’t know, did you mention this earlier when we were talking, the suffering part of what the children were told?
Mia: Yeah, I think for me, that was the part I struggled with the most. Is, that you expect this interaction or connection with God, through Mary. I didn’t expect it to go the way of suffering. I really had to sit with that for a little bit and take it apart, why suffering? What is it that suffering does for us? It seems cruel, unfair, or unjust. But what actually happens in suffering? I think this movie is a great exploration. I don’t think the purpose of life is comfort. I don’t think the purpose of life is not feeling pain or avoidance of pain. Or getting to the next thing. I think there’s a beauty to suffering. I know there’s this idea out there of Transformational Suffering- don’t waste the suffering, let it transform you for the better. I don’t know, what are your thoughts? Did you wrestle with the fact that the very first thing they were told is that, “You are going to suffer”?
Stefanie: You’re going to suffer. And I think, I mean Paul tells us that in the Book of Romans, right? That suffering produces something in us. That it actually produces perseverance- if we allow it to we will develop perseverance. It will deal with our character. And in the end it will leave us with hope. So I think our whole culture has sort of been programmed into not suffering. You shouldn’t suffer. You’re not meant to suffer. I think you and I have talked about this as parents- maybe we have protected our children so much because we didn’t want them to suffer. And it's actually in that very suffering, that things are produced in them that will actually help them later in life. We actually have kids that are so anxious, that are on all types of medications for their anxiety, for all the things that they’re dealing with. And when you look at- did they really suffer- like, was there any suffering? It reminds me of that scripture, if you run with the footmen, and they’ve wearied you, how are you going to keep up with the chariots? We’ve raised a generation that can’t even keep up with the footmen right now because they’re so overwhelmed with their anxiety and their unwillingness to feel pain or to suffer. I have regrets as a parent, I have to tell you.
Mia: Someone told me once of this analogy. Don’t cut a butterfly out of its cocoon as it’s working through things, and breaking things off, as it's scraping things off their bodies, their limbs, their wings. And it actually said, if you help a butterfly out of its cocoon, it actually handicaps the butterfly. So I really thought that was a great analogy from nature of just allowing our children, or our friends- be in the suffering with them- like Job’s friends kind of were- though they weren’t the most helpful people in it.
Stefanie: But they were quiet for seven days. They didn’t say anything, so I’ll give them that. That they just sat with him for those seven days. I heard the most powerful, sorry, because we're suffering right now, but Leo Buscaglia, he was a writer. But he was giving away an award for the person who loved the most. And this four year old boy won it. What happened was, their next door neighbor lost his wife of fifty years and he was sobbing. And the little boy went and crawled up into the old man’s lap and sat with him. And later, when the mom asked, “What did you say to him?” He said, “I didn’t say anything, I just helped him cry.” I just thought, what a powerful picture of how to be with those that are suffering. Sometimes there’s nothing that we need to say, nothing that we have to do. But just like that little boy but that we would just sit with someone in the midst of their suffering. But I think, like I said, that as a momma we just try to keep our kids from suffering- and sometimes it's the very suffering that they need to do.
When we think of these kids from Fatima and their willingness to, I mean, they would crawl on their knees to get to the place where they saw...I mean that outward forcing yourself to suffer, I don’t know if that’s what God is really after.
Mia: I mean, Mary even corrected her when she was putting that rope around herself in some type of self-flagellation kind of thing. She said, “Don’t do that anymore. That’s not what we’re doing here.”
Stefanie: It’s not that kind of suffering. You can’t inflict it on yourself. It's just that suffering of the world and to get that picture of what that looks like and to give it to them. It turns out that the two younger ones, spoiler alert, ended up passing away young. She told them, “I’m coming back for you quickly. I’ll be back for you, but not for the other one.” Not for the older one.
Mia: Lucia.
Stefanie: Yeah, Lucia was going to have to wait.
Mia: For me, in life, there are two questions as a believer. Who is he? Is he your God, your Jesus? But the bigger question that I think we spend more of our time, after we make the decision for the first one, is, is he good? And suffering is an amazing opportunity, I know at least two times in my life, where I’ve had really traumatic experiences, I had to really wrestle with that. You know, is he good? Is he for me? Even when I don’t see it, or feel it, or taste it or smell it right now? You know, is he good? I love, love the scene where she’s talking to the author at the beginning, as an older woman. And she says, “My only regret, is that I didn’t do more.” Because she answered the question- God is good. In spite of everything that they went through as kids, I’m sure she was harassed for the rest of her life- people asking: Is this real? Did it really happen? I mean come on, is this really a lie? I mean, the church didn’t even believe her at the beginning. I think to me, that’s the biggest question out of suffering. In spite of the trauma and the loss, in spite of that it feels like it's all falling apart, is he good? And hanging on to that- if you can answer yes.
Stefanie: Yeah, no, that’s so good- so right on point. You know it is interesting that the church didn't believe the children. I think it's so fascinating, because the bishops or whoever they were, the upper echelons of the clergy were like,”Why’s he speaking to you children and not speaking to...why did she reveal herself to you and not to us who pray and are so pious?” And the kids were just like, “I don’t know!” I think it's just that purity of heart, when you seek God you will find him. And when you seek him with all of your heart- and he knew their hearts were looking for him- literally seeking after. I think that’s in the church even now. When people have miracles, how do we process someone who’s actually declared that we had a miracle? And we have modern day people who say they’ve had visions and they’ve had all these things.
But how are we to process that and look at it and make sure that it's not crazy antics or shenanigans, but it's actually a true encounter? And what I think, when we actually look at this movie and see what these kids said, it came back to the simplicity of “I believe, I have hope, and I love you. And it wasn’t about becoming a celebrity or being famous, it was, “We saw hell and we don’t want anyone to go there.” It’s so much different than I’m going to be the next so and so, or I’m going to be the biggest influencer. No, these kids were like, “No, hell is real and its a place and we don’t want anyone to go there. So we need to pray.” I don't know, those were the things I was thinking about in terms of miracles today and how we see them. Or do we treat them lightly or do they even affect us at all? Because the clergy was absolutely ready to dismiss what happened with these kids. And we wouldn’t even have it today, I think if they had their way, they would have put them away and shut it down. They almost demanded that they recant everything they said. And the kids wouldn’t do it.
Mia: Yeah, and I think it goes back to almost the same conversation they had at the beginning of the movie- that writer asks, in a cynical way, he’s asking, “Well tell me this. Why is it these iterations, these miracles always happen in the same iconography of the culture that it occurs in?” He kind of calls them out- in yours it shows up as Mary. And the stigmata, who gets it wrong- where it shows up in their palm when we know that Jesus was crucified through the wrist? I think you’re right on. Can we hold space for- is God still working miracles, first of all? And then can we hold space to just appreciate the person’s interaction with God, and celebrate that with them?
I was talking to another girlfriend, right before we met today. And that’s what she was saying. Isn’t that great that He is gracious to show up in the way that we could handle it? You know, if he showed up burning bush like with Moses. Yes, it was odd and it was out of the ordinary, but Moses could handle that. I don’t know that we could handle him in that iteration. Could it be- however it shows up- in a healing, a changed life, wherever we are. Then there’s the whole conversation of things that are happening in Africa, the Middle East, in China- the miracles that are happening there, to them are commonplace. Where to Americans, “I need the logic, I need reasoning, show me the proof first.” Does it have to do, I don’t remember the little boy’s name, but they said, you have to believe- the one that experienced being able to walk again. Mary told the littlest girl to say, “When he believes, then he’ll get his healing.” And he did. Then they tried to reason away- “Well the doctors did say that he may eventually begin to walk again one day.” So, can we hold space for the fact that the little boy did walk again?
Stefanie: Right? And don’t we do that? And don’t you wonder, Mia, how often we actually witness miracles, and we do that all the time, “Oh, he was going to walk anyway. Oh, that was going to happen anyway. Oh, it was because of the medicine.” And we reason away the power of God moving amongst us to the point that we’re so dull to it that we’re not even aware anymore. We don’t even see it any more.
Mia: Yeah, definitely. And I think being academic and being very logical and reasonable that I am, there was a time that I had to choose. Am I going to celebrate what I don’t understand? Can I hold space for the mystery of God working- He’s God, I’m not. And would I be ok with that? I think I’ve personally gotten to a place where I would choose to celebrate it with you. I would choose to see God working- I choose it. I think that’s something we all have to work through.
Stefanie: I love that though as a picture that we all have to choose. We’re going to choose how we’re going to go out through our day. Are we going to see God in everything? Are we going to trust Him with everything? Are we going to know that we aren’t going to trust our own understanding? But we’re going to trust Him. It's a choice everyday. Even this past year of COVID has been suffering- so many people have suffered. But when I look back on it, for me, in that suffering it built my faith, Mia. You know I didn’t want to go through it. If you had said, Stefanie, your second year in business everything is going to shut down, you’re going to be forced to shut down. I would have said, “No, I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to suffer.” But looking back on it, I’m so grateful for the suffering. Because through that, I saw the faithfulness of God. I’ve seen Him moving in ways I’ve never seen Him move before. And that trust has been so powerfully built. I know that’s bad for suffering, but you know what I mean, right? So I’m grateful for it. But I have to choose it, like you said- it just goes back to choosing to see His goodness in everything that we’re going through even when it seems hard to find anything that’s good. It’s like, “Where are you God? I know you’re doing something good, because good is who you are. I know you’re full of love- because love is who you are. And making sure that I choose it. I love that you said that.
Mia: Yeah. I think that at least for my journey the last couple of years, it's realizing that I have a choice. And I think in the movies, that’s what it all came down to for Lucia. She had to choose to keep telling the truth. I love that it wasn’t, like for the youngest little girl, faith came easy. She obviously had a gift of faith. But for Lucia, it was hard. She felt like she had denied, she wasn’t as strong as the youngest one, and she had to keep making that choice. And I feel like that’s one of my big takeaways from the movie: We fail, that’s ok, and He takes account for that, but we have to keep choosing. We have to keep choosing faith, we have to keep choosing love, we have to keep choosing that’s The Way.
Stefanie: Yeah, that’s so good. I love that, that’s a great takeaway. And I’m excited that Christian movie-makers are making movies that have a spirit of excellence in them and that are done well. I think that in looking at this movie and then checking the facts, fact-check it, that I was really impressed that they stuck to the story- like it or not, here’s our presentation of it. And it did have some slow parts, even with Lucia when she’s older with the guy, there’s some slow moments in there that just kinda creeped by. But overall I think it's well worth watching and gleaning from.
And I think there’s much to glean-things that we’ve talked about and I think there are more questions than that we were able to cover than in this short amount of time. I hope that people that are engaging with this will engage more and keep the conversation going. I’d love to hear what other people got from this as well because I think it sort of hits you where you are. For me, its in that place of prayer and intercession. And wow, it's going these three little kids could dedicate their lives to this, its just that simple intercession, that simple devotion, that simple prayer- then I can be doing a lot more of that than I’ve been doing lately.
Mia: Yeah, that’s really, really good. So thank you so much Stef for taking your afternoon to break this down with us and share with our community what we gleaned from it. And like Stef said, we’d love to see in the comments what you got from it- if it’s totally different from ours or if you have questions and seeing where you’re being hit- share that with us. But thanks so much Stef, we really appreciate you.
Stefanie: It's an honor. So fun.
Mia: Yes, well, we look forward to seeing you next conversation! Thanks Stef!
Stefanie: Thanks Mia, have a great day!
Mia: You too!
Stefanie: Bye!
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