Sorrowful Mysteries

The Shepherd Children of Fatima and the Fate of the Twentieth Century

By: Stephen Harrigan

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall

Part memoir, part mystery: a powerful exploration of the three secrets of Fatima and a man’s journey grappling with his own faith

In 1917, in Fatima, Portugal, three shepherd children claimed that the Virgin Mary appeared before them and spoke the words, “Do not be afraid.”

Stephen Harrigan first heard the story of Our Lady of Fatima when he was a young boy attending a Catholic school in Texas in the 1950s, struggling to come to grips with a religion that simultaneously soothed and terrified him. The question of what actually happened in Fatima in the early part of the twentieth century, one of the most important, and most mysterious, events in the church’s history, captured his young imagination and has stayed with him ever since.

Sorrowful Mysteries is a detailed and extraordinarily compassionate examination of the phenomenon of Our Lady of Fatima, an attempt to unravel and put into perspective the lives of the three children, how this life-altering event changed them and the world they knew, and how it intersected with so many of the signal moments of the twentieth century—pandemics, revolutions, world wars, assassinations, and even skyjackings. It is a sweeping story, but also at its heart a very personal one, about Harrigan’s own relationship with Catholicism and his lifelong struggle to break free from a religion that in so many paradoxical ways shaped and defined him.

Critic reviews

"[A] sober and engaging history-memoir about the supposed miracles at Fatima. . . . The mystery of the Fatima Letter, also known as the Third Part of the Secret, is the anguished heart of Sorrowful Mysteries, the hinge between Harrigan’s thoughtful (and appropriately skeptical) history of the alleged miracles and his own moving recollections about the terror he felt growing up in the double shadow of nuclear and theological apocalypse." —Robert P. Baird, The New York Times Book Review

"What [the Fatima letter] sets off in Harrigan is nothing less than memorable and astonishing, a tour d’horizon not just of the Fatima spectacle and subsequent events in the last hundred years but of his own life. . . . We all know the cliché that life is about the journey and not the destination, but what Harrigan proves beautifully in Sorrowful Mysteries, as he stood near the slope where the three shepherd children once prayed, is that the destination matters. This book is its own wonder." —Jim Kelly, Air Mail

"Sorrowful Mysteries [has] an unexpectedly universal appeal: Readers simultaneously experience the wonder of childhood and the high price of unfettered belief." —Lise Olsen, Texas Observer

"Harrigan hopes to offer a clearheaded narrative of the visions and the reverberating events that followed. At the same time, the book is a work of memory, as Harrigan recounts his childhood as a devout Catholic. Well researched and beautifully written, the book concludes with a meticulously detailed account of the author's recent trip to Fatima. Sure to fascinate both the faithful and skeptical alike." —Booklist

"Harrigan looks to the story of the Fatima apparitions as a vehicle for telling his own tale of struggling with faith and especially with his Roman Catholic upbringing. . . . Well-researched and interesting. . . . A profound exploration of faith, centered on famous apparitions." —Kirkus Reviews

"A colorful account of the 1917 appearance of the biblical Mary to three young shepherds in the village of Fátima, Portugal. . . . Harrigan uses the events of Fatima to paint a vivid portrait of Catholicism as an all-consuming faith that played on 20th-century anxieties with supernatural visions, apocalyptic imagery, and tales of eternal torment for sinners. Rendered in novelistic detail, this is a fascinating history of a mysterious event and its complicated legacy." —Publishers Weekly

Portrays the experience of growing up Catholic in the 1950s and the awakening that accompanies education .

I lived in Stephen Harrigan’s mind space and held the reverence for the Blessed Virgin Mary and the children of Fatima and 100 Saints throughout elementary school under the wings of the Dominican sisters. Later I too felt more comfortable at the Episcopal church down the street but never shed the passion of the sacred drama that comes with Catholic art and ritual. Immensely enjoyed the walk down memory lane and the easy, secure time where we were One with the Holy Ghost and our guardian angel.

Our Lady of the Fatima

Very in depth explanation of the story of Fatima and secrets of the Catholic Church shrouded in mystery hidden behind doctrinal walls to protect something that could unravel what we know. Very well written and informative where seems has sparked the telling of Stephen’s own personal memoirs of Catholicism.

We’ll researched and objectively told

For anyone struggling with reconciling their discords with their catholic faith this book is enlightening and warmly familiar. A beautiful story well told, honest and vulnerable. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Entertaining and researched summary of the Fatima experience

Good summary of The Fatima Phenomenon m, both the apparitions and the unfolding aftermath. Know that it’s written by an ex Catholic who does not believe in the apparitions.

Messenger focus

Through his life, the author has focused on the teachers of doctrine and their flawed practices. His story of Fatima is a side story to his internal justification for his righteous rejection and the implication of the fools who believe the story of Fatima. He later hints there may be something there.

Attempts to portray history but his bias against believers is pervasive and detracts from the story which I assume he has historically produced.