FATIMA, Portugal (AP) — The parents of a Brazilian boy whose recovery from a severe brain injury is being cited by the Vatican as the "miracle" needed to canonize two Portuguese children are breaking their silence to share the story.

The boy's father says his then-5-year-old son, Lucas, fell 6.5 meters (21 feet) from a window in 2013 and sustained head injuries that doctors predicted he had little chance of surviving.

Joao Baptista and his wife, Lucila Yuri, told reporters at the Catholic shrine in Fatima, Portugal, on Thursday that they and Brazilian nuns prayed to the late shepherd children who said the Virgin Mary appeared to them in "visions" in 1917.

Two of those children, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, are due to be canonized by Pope Francis in Fatima on Saturday.