And there the children stood, in front of the little oak tree once again, before the turmoil of the waiting crowds, all soaking the rain, and standing in the mud. As the local time of noon past, the crowd became restless, and some started shouting. It seemed then that the worst was to happen...
The crowds look up at the Miracle of the Sun.
But by sun's time it is precisely noon when Lucia looks to the east. "Jacinta," she says softly, "kneel down." Then more strongly she calls, "Our Lady is coming; I have seen the lightning."
Crowds at Fatima observing the sun.
The children kneel, as do countless numbers of the faithful; but the people as yet have been stirred by no great happening. The faces of the children are mirrors of ecstasy. The children are engaged in contemplation of the Sixth Apparition and then Lucia cries out:
Look at the sun!
As eyewitness, Fr de Marchi describes it:
The rain at that moment had stopped; the sun was clearly seen. There was no cloud to obscure it, yet it did not strain the eyes of any man to look on its unveiled light. The people could see that the sun was strangely spinning. It began to revolve more rapidly, more frighteningly. It began to cast off beams of many-colored lights in all directions.
Shafts of brilliant red came from the rim of the revolving star and fell across the earth, the people and the trees; and green lights came and violet and blue in mixed array.
It is a story of wonder and of terror, too, as the great star challenges the discipline of all the ages it has known, and begins careening, trembling in the sky for seventy thousand witnesses to see.
Now, horribly, it appears to plunge from its place in the heavens and fall upon the earth. People cried out in terror.
Some said the sun began to move like a "dance". To some - a giant wheel of fire, spinning quickly. Then it seemed to fall from the sky. All this took about ten minutes. At the end of the sun span again, and then assumed its normal appearance.
