On May 13 in Fatima, coinciding with the centenary of the apparitions, the Holy Father Francisco will canonize the brothers Francisco and Jacinta Marto. Their fame lies in having seen the Virgin Mary, but their declaration of sanctity is not based on that argument, on their status as visionaries, but on having lived the Christian virtues in a heroic way. This is the recognition that the Pope will make next week when he elevates them to the altars for public and universal worship.

 In Fatima, the Mother of God appeared to three children, as had happened on other occasions, so the age at the time of the apparitions does not attract attention. On the other hand, the time of death of two of them does, since in the case of Francisco and Jacinta it was shortly after, after suffering a painful illness. He died before he was twelve years old and his sister before she was even ten.

This is an important novelty, because until now the processes of beatification and canonization, by requiring the declaration of heroic virtues of the servants of God, seemed to exclude that this could occur in people who had not reached adulthood. This does not mean that in the Church the sanctity of children was not recognized, but this usually came by way of martyrdom, where identification with Christ was achieved with a death like theirs.

This recognition of the holy life of the two little shepherds is also illuminated as a fulfillment of the Lord's evangelical invitation to receive the kingdom of God as a child in order to enter it (cf. Lk 18:15-17) and of the declaration of the last council on the universal call to holiness in Lumen gentium, because we are all called to be saints, now without distinction of age.

As for the concrete way in which they followed Jesus, staff , we have the data collected mainly in the Memoirs of Lucia. There she tells us that St. Mary asked them to make sacrifices for the conversion of sinners and they responded generously by offering many small mortifications in the midst of their daily occupations: a rather wide world of voluntary privations with which to imitate the model of Christ suffering for our sins.

In the homily at the beatification ceremony in 2000, Pope St. John Paul II expressed himself in the same sense: "Little Jacinta felt and lived this affliction of Our Lady as her own, offering herself heroically as a victim for sinners (...) And, as the moment of Francisco's death approached, Jacinta recommended to him: "Give many greetings from me to Our Lord and Our Lady, and tell them that I am ready to suffer all they want in order to convert sinners".