On October 13, 1917, the sky above the Portuguese hills in the village of Fátima trembled. The crowds saw the Sun move in a way that defied the geometry of heaven. They saw it shiver, whirl, descend, and return. The event later named the Miracle of the Sun marked the end of six Marian apparitions; yet, in a deeper sense, it revealed the hidden order between Light and the Mother. It was when the masculine centre of the cosmos bowed before the feminine radiance that receives and reflects it.
The Sun, symbol of intellect, clarity, and royal Spirit, trembled. The Mother, symbol of mercy, listening and gestation, became the axis of light. One hundred and eight years later, October 13 falls upon a Monday, the lunar day of Gabriel, with the Moon herself enthroned in her own sign Cancer. The Sun declines in Libra, the sign of his fall, now entering its last decan where his light is filtered through Jupiter.
The astrological heavens repeat the gesture of 1917. The Moon is reigning in her house, while the Sun dissipates in the Descendant. The calendar becomes an echo of that cosmic inversion in 1907, as if the promise once made through light continues to unfold through time.
I. The Sun that Danced
Witnesses said the Sun moved like a living being. Some thought it was falling upon them, whilst others saw it spin in colour, shedding rays of violet and rose. Many felt the chill of awe, a silence before a power that no theology could contain. The Sun, sigil of stability and command, abandoned its throne, becoming a mirror rather than a monarch. It obeyed.
The dance of the Sun points to the voluntary surrender of power. The Logos, whose light sustains the worlds, allowed itself to be reflected through the maternal veil. The masculine, which usually gives, learned to receive. The feminine, which receives, revealed that she too gives life through reflection.
The Sun moved because perception moved. Humanity, standing upon the mud of the fields, was granted the rare sight of the cosmos turning upon its other pole. The rational light of day was seen from within the mystery that precedes it. The sky became a cup and the light a liquid poured into it.
II. The Flower of the Sixth
The sequence of apparitions that began in May and ended in October completes the sacred rhythm of six. Six is the number of creation in its finished form. The world was made in six days; the hexagon shapes the snowflake, the honeycomb, the star, and the unfolding Rose.
The Rose of Fátima opens upon that geometry. The submission of the Sun to the Mother becomes the final petal of a cosmic flower. The circle of apparitions ends in a hexagonal harmony. What began with words from heaven concludes with a sign in the sky, so that speech dissolves into light.
The sixfold pattern also evokes the harmony of opposites within the Divine body. Each of the six directions – up, down, north, south, east, west – converges upon a seventh point, the hidden centre. In October 1917 that centre was revealed to be maternal. The voice of the Lady, gentle but absolute, drew the orbit of the Sun inward, as if the star itself were responding to a command that predated light. Creation turned towards its heart and the Rose unfolded in the sky.
III. The Fall of the Sun and the Throne of the Moon
On October 13, the Sun stands in Libra, the sign of the scales ruled by Venus. It is the sign of judgement, measure, symmetry restored. But it is also the sign where the Sun is weakened the most. The Sun in Libra is a king in exile. At the same time, the Moon often travels through Cancer, the sign of her own dominion. She herself is enthroned while he declines.
This astrological image contains the same mystery witnessed by the multitude in Fátima. The cosmic masculine bows to the cosmic feminine. The active light becomes passive and the receptive light becomes sovereign. The Logos stands before Sophia. The mind kneels before wisdom that feels. The rational order of day meets the luminous intuition of night, and between them the world finds equilibrium.
The Moon in her throne signifies the triumph of compassion over analysis. She rules by intimacy. Her light is borrowed but essential; it proves that reflection itself is Sacred. The Sun without her would be blind; he would shine upon a void. Through her, his light becomes meaning. The miracle of Fátima reveals that the cosmos itself obeys this law of mutual reflection.
It is no accident that Mary is profoundly tied with the Moon. In the twelfth chapter of the Revelation, she appears “clothed with the Sun, and the Moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1). The tradition recognised in this vision the completion of the lunar mystery. Mary is the speculum iustitiae, the mirror of justice, through whom divine brightness softens into mercy. She is also the vas spirituale, the vessel of the Spirit, who receives the fire of the Logos without consuming it. These invocations from the Litany of Loreto reveal functions within the cosmic order. The mirror exists in harmony with the Sun; through it, his light becomes visible to the world. The vessel receives the infinite within a form, allowing the unseen to be known.
To say that the Sun, on that October 13, was judged by the Moon is to say that consciousness was weighed by soul. The intellect, symbolised by the solar orb, must be tested within the crucible of feeling. In the highest sense, Justice is not balance between forces but harmony between seeing and being seen.
The event seals a covenant between heaven and earth, mind and heart, and Word and Silence. It teaches that obedience, in its original sense, is the highest freedom; that to incline the ear toward the divine voice is to rediscover creation’s original music. The miracle of the Sun is the gospel of hearing made visible. The sky itself performed the verb to obey. And the light listened.
Κύριε ελέησον