Blessed Jacinta and Francisco are well-known for being the youngest visionaries of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima. Jacinta was born on the 11 March 1910 and Francisco was born 11 June 1908. At the first appearance, Mary asked the children to return to that spot on the thirteenth of each month for the next six months. She also asked them to learn to read and write and to pray the rosary “to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war.” They were to pray for sinners and for the conversion of Russia, which had recently overthrown Czar Nicholas II and was soon to fall under communism. Up to 90,000 people gathered for Mary’s final apparition on October 13, 1917. Both Jacinta and Francisco died of Influenza and were both beatified by St John Paul II in the year 2000. They are the patron saints for sick people.
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A detailed account of the lives, illnesses and deaths of both children is given in de Marchi, John,