Sister Lucia

It has become customary in many places for churchmen to force laymen to stand while receiving Holy Communion and even touch the Blessed Sacrament with their own hands. This is an example of how our behavior determines and indicates what we actually believe, regardless of what we profess to believe. One does not kneel before an equal, much less before a piece of food. One kneels before somebody of greater dignity, professing reverence and submission.

Sister Lucia describes one of the visitations of the angel, one of the events that prepared the children for the apparitions of Our Lady the following year:

We saw the angel again, who had in his left hand a Chalice above which was suspended a Host from which some drops of Blood fell into the Chalice.

Leaving the Chalice and the Host suspended in the air, he came near us and prostrated himself down to the earth and repeated three times this prayer:

“Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly, and I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference by which He Himself is offended. And by the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.”

The Angel Administered Holy Communion

[The angel then administered Communion to the three children, placing the Sacred Host on Lucy’s tongue and sharing the Blood of the Chalice between Francisco and Jacinta, saying,]

“Eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Make reparation for their crimes and console your God.”

[He] prostrated himself again down to the ground and repeated with us three times the same prayer: “Most Holy Trinity, etc.” Then he disappeared.