The Peacemaker Who Went to War / John Haffert

Saint Nuño of Portugal: The Founder of the Braganza Dynasty and Father of Modern Portugal was Beatified by Pope Benedict XV in 1918 and Canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.

Don Nuño Alvarez Perreira went to war, in defense of his country. He fought, he killed, and he received many decorations. He was wounded, but he was “lucky” enough to come home.

Five hundred years after he fought his battles, the Blessed Virgin made what was perhaps her most spectacular appearance on earth—her appearance on October 13, 1917, at Fatima, on the very ground on which Nuño fought, and holding in her hands the very symbols under which Nuño led his troops in that place, five hundred years before.
This amazing Nuño—Our Lady’s Knight—led a life bridging centuries, stranger than fiction, fraught with the mystery of war and evil, gold-touched by the sun of the promise made in 1917 by Our Lady at Fatima: “In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph and there will be peace.”