Lucia, Sister (1907–2005)
Lucia, Sister (1907–2005)
Portuguese nun. Name variations: Sister Lucia dos Santos; mistakenly Lucia Marto. Born Lucia Abobora dos Santos, Mar 22, 1907, in Aljustrel, near Fatima, Portugal; died Feb 13, 2005, in Coimbra; dau. of Antonio dos Santos and Maria Rosa.
With cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, apparently saw a vision of Mary the Virgin near the Portuguese town of Fatima, while tending the family's sheep (May 13, 1917); claimed that there were subsequent apparitions on the 13th of every month between May and October of that year, where the Virgin spoke of their futures and the future of the world (prophecies that were kept secret for years); after Francisco and Jacinta died in the influenza epidemic (1919), fled to a convent school in Oporto because of hostility to her accounts (1923); was ordained a nun, taking the name Maria de los Dolores (1925); moved to a convent at Pontevedra in Spain (1928); after the Roman Catholic Church declared the Fatima apparitions "worthy of belief," became one of the churches most influential women of the 20th century; transferred to the Carmelite convent in Coimbra and given the name Sister Lucia de Jesus (1948); wrote Os apelos da mensagem de Fatima (Appeals of the Fatima Message, 2000). Fatima has become a place of pilgrimage.