Sister Lúcia

Sister Lúcia de Jesus Rosa dos Santos was born on 28 March 1907 in the hamlet of Aljustrel, in the parish of Fátima in central Portugal, the youngest of seven children of António dos Santos and Maria Rosa Ferreira. Raised in a rural Catholic household, she and her younger cousins Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto reported apparitions of an angel in 1916 and then of the Virgin Mary at the Cova da Iria near Fátima on the thirteenth day of six consecutive months from May to October 1917. The events drew large crowds and culminated in what became known as the Miracle of the Sun on 13 October 1917, which many thousands of people claimed to have witnessed. The children said they had been asked to pray the rosary, offer sacrifices for the conversion of sinners, and foster devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; they also said they had received three secrets. Francisco died in 1919 and Jacinta in 1920, both during the influenza pandemic, leaving Lúcia as the only surviving seer.

In 1921 she was sent away from Fátima for schooling and protection, first to Porto. She later entered the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Dorothy, making first vows in 1928 and perpetual vows in 1934, and lived for years in Spain (including Pontevedra and Tuy) as well as Portugal. In this period she reported further private revelations, among them the request for the First Saturdays devotion and a vision connected with the consecration of Russia. At her bishop’s direction she wrote four memoirs between the 1930s and early 1940s that became principal narrative sources for the Fátima events, and she committed the three secrets to writing. The first two secrets were made known in the 1940s; the third was reserved by the Holy See and published in 2000.

With permission from Pope Pius XII she left the Dorotheans in 1948 and entered the Discalced Carmelite convent of Santa Teresa in Coimbra, taking the name Sister Maria Lúcia of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart and making her Carmelite profession the following year. She remained there in cloistered life for the rest of her days, continuing to write about Fátima and to correspond with Church authorities. She met Pope Paul VI at Fátima in 1967 and Pope John Paul II on several of his pilgrimages, including in 1982, 1991, and 2000. John Paul II publicly associated his survival of the assassination attempt of 13 May 1981 with the protection of Our Lady of Fátima and with the third secret. She also received Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, in connection with the interpretation of those texts.

Sister Lúcia died at the Coimbra Carmel on 13 February 2005 at the age of ninety-seven. After burial at the convent, her remains were translated on 19 February 2006 to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary in Fátima and placed near those of Francisco and Jacinta, who were beatified in 2000 and canonized in 2017. Pope Benedict XVI dispensed from the usual five-year waiting period so that her cause for beatification could begin; the diocesan process opened in 2008. On 22 June 2023 Pope Francis promulgated a decree recognizing her heroic virtues, declaring her Venerable. She has not been beatified or canonized and has no official feast day or assigned patronages.