Our Lady of Fatima

Why did our Lady appear to children? Unlike adults, who often have suffered greatly, the children had really never suffered. How could they possibly understand her requests for penance, for reparation for sins committed against the Blessed Sacrament, for the intentional offering up of suffering? And yet, without understanding fully the nature of personal suffering, they committed themselves to all our Lady asked of them. The children were not overcome by the fear of future suffering that immobilizes us as adults. They simply trusted in God, and when the suffering did come in their lives, at that moment God gave them the grace to bear it and offer it up. God never gives grace in advance, but when we are caught up in fears for the future, we expect that we will be given the grace for those future events now-in the present moment. When we see within ourselves the inability to suffer for our God, we in fear decide that because we are unable to stand, we will just go ahead and fall down right now! We turn back from the Way; we fail to trust in God Who will give us His grace when we need it.