Santarem / Fatima / Porto

This morning we made the 3½ hour drive to Porto where we spent a couple of nights exploring the northern part of Portugal.  Along the way we stopped at a couple of religious sites that are home to some of Portugal’s most famous miracles.

Santarém is a city in Portugal about an hour northeast of Lisbon. The city was founded by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. During the Roman period it was an important commercial post and, in 61 BC, Julius Caesar established a military camp there.

After the decline of the Roman Empire in the 3^rd century, Santarém was occupied by Germanic tribes (Vandals and Alans) until 460 AD when the Visigoths conquered it. In the 8th century the city was taken over by the Moors, and it was later captured by the first King of Portugal in 1147 AD.

Santarém city centre has several monuments, including the largest and most varied collection of gothic churches in Portugal. One of the most popular churches to visit is the Church of St. Stephen – Church of the Holy Miracle (Igreja do Santíssimo Milagre) which is home to the 13th century Eucharistic Miracle of Santarém - a popular destination among Catholics worldwide.
The story of the Miracle involved a poor housewife who, suffering from her husband’s constant affairs, consulted a Jewish witch.The witch promised a cure for the payment of a Consecrated Host. The next time the housewife attended Mass she took the consecrated wafer from her mouth, wrapped it in a veil and left.

Immediately the Host began to bleed. Panic stricken, the woman ran home and hid the Host in a cedar trunk where she kept her clean linens. That night, the couple was awoken by a mysterious light and a spectacular vision of angels. At dawn, the couple confessed to the Priest who took the Host back to the Church where it bled for three days. It was decided to encase the bleeding Host in a reliquary made from melted bees wax candles. The Host remained in the wax container for about a hundred years until a second miracle occurred.  The box containing the reliquary was opened to find that the wax container had shattered and the Host was now contained in a crystal container which can still be seen today.

After leisurely driving through the winding streets of the town, we parked and wandered through some narrow laneways to arrive at the Church of the Holy Miracle only to find that it was still closed. We decided the miracle would have to wait and we carried on with our journey.

Our next stop was Fátima which is famous for the Apparitions of Our Lady of the Rosary (also known as Our Lady of Fatima). The Apparitions appeared to three shepherd children of Fatima; Lucia dos Santos and her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta. Between May and October of 1917, the three children witnessed several apparitions. The last one, on October 13th, was confirmed by a miracle witnessed by 60,000 people and is known in the Catholic world as “the day the sun danced.” A small chapel, now known as the Chapel of the Apparitions, was built at the site of the alleged events and a statue of Our Lady of Fátima installed.

Growing up, I had heard about the miracle and was excited to be able to visit the actual site. I was expecting a small church or sanctuary and was surprised at the scale of the complex. The Sanctuary of Fátima is a group of Catholic religious buildings and structures built at the site, including the large Basilica of the Holy Trinity. The complex was built to handle the approximately 5 million annual visitors and pilgrims. By comparison, its central courtyard is twice as large as St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The plaza is about 500 meters long and as many as 1 million pilgrims congregate there during celebrations.

The first place we stopped was at the Chapel of the Apparitions which is a small chapel that was constructed in the 1920s to mark the exact location where the three shepherd children reported receiving the famous apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The marble base of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima marks the site of the small oak tree on which the Lady of the Rosary appeared.

Our second stop was at the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary (Basílica de Nossa Senhora do Rosário). This large church was built between 1928 and 1953 and is topped a 65 metre-high bell tower.

Inside the Basilica there are 15 altars corresponding to the Mysteries of The Rosary and an organ which has around 12,000 pipes.  The apparitions and events surrounding them are illustrated in the Basilica’s stained glass windows.  Statues of four saints associated with the rosary stand at the four corners of the church.  Within the Basilica complex is a small chapel where the three shepherd children, Lucia dos Santos, and Jacinta and Francisco Marto, are buried.

Across the square from the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary is the Basilica of the Holy Trinity (Basílica da Santíssima Trindade). This relatively plain, modern structure was built between 2004 and 2007 to accommodate the crowds who flock there on the anniversaries of the apparitions.  Capable of seating nearly 8,700, this is one of the biggest Catholic churches in the world.

As it was getting later in the day, we decided to get back to the car and continue our drive to Porto to meet our hosts. Nearing Porto, you can see the beauty of the churches and buildings in the old town surrounded by more modern suburbs. Our Airbnb was a 20 minute walk from the historic center. Our host was a delightful young lady who took the time to show us around the large apartment and shared details on what we should include in our visit to Porto and surrounding area.