Rally unites Utah in prayer with the world

IC photo/Laura Vallejo

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Dozens of people gather in Sandy to pray the rosary honoring Our Lady of Fatima.

DRAPER — On Oct. 14 dozens of people gathered at the intersection of 10600 South and State Street in Sandy to publicly pray the rosary in honor of Our Lady of Fatima, joining about 20,000 groups throughout the United States in a national rally titled “America Needs Fatima.”

Oct. 13 was the 100th anniversary of the final appearance of Our Lady to three children in Fatima, Portugal.

The local effort was organized by Helen Corena, who said that gathering and praying as one community despite distance or language was important because of the power of prayer.

“The goal of America Needs Fatima is to win the heart and soul of America for Mary by spreading Our Lady of Fatima’s message and promoting devotion to her Immaculate Heart,” Corena said. “We are following what Our Blessed Mother said, that the rosary can alleviate wars. It’s a very powerful prayer tool.

“Nowadays people are so busy, caught up in their lives, and they don’t realize we really need to put God first in our lives. … When we start praying, just as she said 100 years ago, we can alleviate everything,” Corena said, referring to the devastation caused by the recent hurricanes and earthquakes, “shootings like in Las Vegas, fires. … It’s just horrible. I think this is a wakeup call to say, ‘Hey, we need to put God first. We need to change our lives.’”

For her, the apparitions at Fatima mean miracles.

“Our Lady has so much love,” she said. “We, as her children, need to respond back to her call through our prayers.”

Among those who joined the group in Sandy was Annette Wilcox, a truck driver who happened to be crossing through Utah at the time. Wilcox, who became Catholic 18 years ago, looked online to find a rosary rally she could attend.

Our Lady of Fatima has been part of her life since she was young, she said.

“My dad also used to talk about her. … He wasn’t Catholic or even a Christian, but he used to talk about her, telling [the children] that there was going to be a light if the world didn’t repent, and in the late 1930s we saw a big light in the sky,” she said.

On July 13, 1917, Our Lady told the three children in Fatima that, if people didn’t stop offending God, there would be a terrible war presaged by a strange light at night. On Jan. 25, 1938, the night sky throughout most of Europe, in North Africa, the United States and Canada glowed for five hours with a red light that officially was attributed to an aurora borealis.

World War II started Sept. 1, 1939.

Wilcox hopes that Our Lady of Fatima will intercede once more for all in this world.

“We are hoping that Our Lady will intercede for us. We are getting our butt kicked in our country and we need her,” she said.

She learned about “America Needs Fatima” after her daughter told her that people were going to the border of Poland and praying the rosary, and “I wanted to be part of it, so here I am,” she said, adding that she hopes that people will start praying the rosary to Our Lady of Fatima more frequently.