A jubilee pilgrimage of hope through Our Lady of Fatima Shrine

The humble Riverview shrine helps continue to spread the powerful message of Fatima in southeast Michigan, volunteers say

The Archdiocese of Detroit has designated 12 local pilgrimage sites for Catholics to visit during the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope. Each month during 2025, Detroit Catholic will highlight one of these sites to encourage Catholics to take advantage of the extraordinary graces offered during the jubilee.

RIVERVIEW — In May 1917, Our Lady began to appear in the small village of Fatima, Portugal, to three shepherd children: Lucia dos Santos, age 10, and her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, ages 9 and 7. Delivering the powerful messages of world peace and reparation for sinners to these humble, young children was no accident, and Our Lady’s choice to share great promises by humble means still resonates today.

In a quiet, unassuming neighborhood in Riverview, just 30 minutes south of Detroit, Our Lady of Fatima’s request that the faithful continue to practice a first Saturday devotion is steadfastly carried out at the Our Lady of Fatima Shrine.

Our Lady of Fatima Shrine is one of the 12 pilgrimage sites designated by the Archdiocese of Detroit for the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope. Fatima devotees already faithfully fill the pews of the small blue chapel every first Friday and Saturday of the month for the devotion, which consists of making confession, receiving holy Communion, praying five decades of the rosary, 15 minutes of prayer alongside Our Lady while meditating on the mysteries of the rosary, and offering reparation for sinners.

However, being named an official pilgrimage site opens the door for even more pilgrims to discover this “hidden gem,” organizers say.

The Shrine, which consists of a chapel, community gathering space and the St. Joseph Bookstore, is entirely volunteer-run, board president Leonard St. Pierre told Detroit Catholic.

The Shrine is run by the Detroit Archdiocesan Division of the World Apostolate of Fatima, which was founded in 1947 as the Blue Army. The Detroit chapter was established in September 1955 by Fr. George Leszczynski of St. Andrew Parish in Detroit. In the 1970s, the Blue Army moved from St. Andrew to a location on Vernor Highway in Detroit.

St. Pierre grew up in southwest Detroit and, as a teenager, became a volunteer helper at the apostolate’s center.

“I would ride my bike there and knock on the door and the sisters would say, ‘Oh come in,’” St. Pierre recalled. “And before you knew it, I was putting up paneling in the kitchen for the sisters who lived there.”

St. Pierre continued to do odd jobs for the center, but said he wasn’t yet involved spiritually. Over the decades, however, St. Pierre became more invested, and in the early 2000s, he helped scout the new location in Riverview, where the apostolate renovated an old building that formerly belonged to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, opening in 2006.

Inside the building, St. Pierre proudly points to two decrees hanging framed on the wall: one from Cardinal Adam J. Maida, who designated the shrine as a private chapel on April 4, 2006, and the second from Archbishop-emeritus Allen H. Vigneron, who decreed it a shrine in 2020.

The intimate shrine is decorated with statues, stained-glass artwork and relics that St. Pierre has rescued from Detroit parishes that have shuttered or downsized. Every detail is intentional, thoughtful, and carefully curated by St. Pierre.

“Leonard is like our little St. Joseph,” Michelle St. Pierre, Leonard’s wife and a fellow board member and volunteer at the Fatima Shrine, explained to Detroit Catholic. “He’s taking care of the shrine, he’s taking care of everything that needs to get done, because we are all volunteers, and he does it because he loves the Blessed Mother.”

Fr. John Hedges, who primarily serves at St. Stephen Parish in New Boston, serves as the shrine’s spiritual director, but the Our Lady of Fatima Shrine is also frequented by visiting priests, whose flocks sometimes follow.

Alyssa Desana and her husband, James, have been regular attendees at the shrine since 2020, along with their four small children, with a fifth on the way.

“We both felt called to the first Friday and first Saturday devotion, and once we were there at the shrine, all the volunteers were just so sweet and quickly became like a second family — they knew our kids’ names and were so eager for us to be involved,” Desana said.

Desana did not have a devotion to Our Lady of Fatima before she began attending the devotions, but her love for Our Lady has blossomed from her time at the shrine.

“The fruits have grown,” Desana said. “Our kids are very close to Our Lady. I love seeing the devotion and the fruit of the shrine. We just love the small, intimate feel of the chapel. It feels more sacred. Every church is sacred, but this is a hidden gem.”

Michelle St. Pierre said those who attend — regulars or not — are drawn to Our Lady's promises and humble requests at Fatima and wish to do as she asks.

“We are fulfilling her mission,” Michelle St. Pierre said. “I think the people come, traveling from far away, and they really believe in the mission. They believe that you can change the world with prayer. We believe it. There are days when people call us out of the blue and say, ‘Will you pray for so and so? Will you pray for this?’ We get the great privilege to pray for them, and we get a lot of answered prayers.”

The Fatima Shrine is the perfect place to make a pilgrimage during the Jubilee Year of Hope or anytime, said Fr. Tony Blount, SOLT.

Fr. Blount, who serves as the vicar at Most Holy Redeemer Parish in Detroit and the vicar general of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity community, is one of the many priests who intermittently celebrate Masses and confessions at the shrine, as well as leading pilgrimages.

Fr. Blount said he has led five groups on pilgrimage to the shrine since last year, with plans to lead more.

“It’s just perfect,” Fr. Blount said. “It’s only a half-hour away, but for all of these people, it is like going far away — they’ve never heard of it, never seen it. It is a lovely little place and rather perfect for what you want to accomplish (on a pilgrimage): you have prayer, Mass, community, having lunch together, and then you have the bookstore so they can get holy things to buy and I can bless them, and books to read — that’s also good for them. It has everything you want.”

Fr. Blount said the messages of Fatima are linked to the message of hope for the jubilee year, simply because the Blessed Mother herself cannot be separated from the idea of hope.

“In the ‘Hail, Holy Queen’ we say, ‘Our life, our sweetness and our hope,’ so Our Lady is connected with hope,” Fr. Blount explained. “In fact, Pope Francis added the title, ‘Mother of Hope’ to the Litany of Our Lady.”

Fr. Blount believes those who are devoted to the Blessed Mother experience more hope in life, and he hopes more pilgrims will take advantages of the graces offered at the small, intimate chapel in Riverview.

“The message of Fatima has to do with hope,” Fr. Blount said. “Our Lady says, ‘In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph.’ A sense of hope is all about that message — it doesn’t avoid the difficult issues about the need for conversion and such things — but in Christianity, you have those two realities, and conversion and hope always go together. The need for conversion and hope are always related to each other.”

Things to See and Do at the Fatima Shrine

1. Fill out a prayer card

In the back of the chapel is a small box meant for prayer intentions, and the St. Pierres, along with the other volunteers, see it as “a privilege” to pray for each intention.

2. Attend a First Friday or Saturday devotion

While the Shrine's weekly hours are limited, pilgrims can always rely on it being open each month on First Fridays for 5 p.m. Mass, and First Saturdays for 8 a.m. Mass. Confessions and Rosary begin half an hour before Mass begins. The Shrine also holds Mass at 5 p.m. on the 13th of each month from May to October in honor of the Fatima apparitions. Regular weekday hours are Wednesday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

3. Study the artwork

The Shrine is full of artwork rescued from shuttered or downsized parishes. Spend time praying near the chapel’s beautiful stained-glass windows, which tell the story of Fatima; reflect in prayer with the countless holy relics and the one-of-a-kind painting to the left of the altar, depicting Venerable Sr. Lucia’s “Great vision of 1929.”

4. Peruse the bookstore

Spend time exploring and purchasing holy items in the St. Joseph Bookstore, including artwork, rosaries, books and more.