After this, my two companions asked me to teach them the catechism. So I became their catechist, and they learned with exceptional enthusiasm. But though I could always answer any questions put to me, when it came to teaching, I could only remember a few things here and there. This led Jacinta to say to me one day: “Teach us some more things; we know all those.” I had to admit that I could remember things only when people questioned me on them, and I added: “Ask your mother to let you go to the church to learn your catechism.”. The two children, who so ardently desired to receive the ‘Hidden Jesus’ as they called Him, went to ask their mother, and my aunt agreed. But she rarely let them go there, for she said: “The church is a good way from here, and you are very small. In any case, the priest won’t give you Holy Communion before you’re ten years old.” Jacinta never stopped asking me questions about the Hidden Jesus, and I remember how, one day, she asked me: “How is it that so many people receive the little Hidden Jesus at the same time? Is there one small piece for each person?” “Not at all! Don’t you see that there are many Hosts, and that there is a Child Jesus in every one of them!” What a lot of nonsense I must have told her! 6. Jacinta, the Little Shepherdess I was old enough now to be sent out to mind our sheep, just as my mother had sent her other children at my age. My sister Carolina 9 was then thirteen, and it was time for her to go out to work. My mother, therefore, put me in charge of our flock. I passed on the news to my two companions, and told them that I would not be playing with them any more; but they could not bring themselves to accept such a separation. They went at once to ask their mother to let them come with me, but she refused. We had no alternative but to accept the separation. Nearly every day after that, they came to meet me on my way home at dusk. Then we made for the threshing floor, and ran about for a while, waiting for Our Lady and the An9
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CaroIina, died in 1994