| Lúcia de Jesus dos Santos | |
|---|---|
Lúcia dos Santos (middle) with her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, 1917. |
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| Born | 28 March 1907 Aljustrel (Fátima), Kingdom of Portugal |
| Died | 13 February 2005 (aged 97) Convent of Carmelites, Coimbra, Portugal |
| Nationality | Portuguese |
| Other names | Sister Mary Lucy of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart |
| Occupation | Roman Catholic Discalced Carmelite nun |
| Known for | Visionary to the Marian apparitions at Fátima |
Lúcia de Jesus dos Santos[1] – Sister Mary Lucy of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart, better known as Sister Lúcia of Fátima – (28 March 1907 – 13 February 2005) was a Roman Catholic Discalced Carmelite nun from Portugal. She was one of three children who claimed to have witnessed a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal, in 1917.
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Lúcia's maternal grandfather, Joaquim Ferreira Rosa, was a native of Aljustrel of the parish of Fátima and born on 29 November 1823. He married Rosa da Encarnação of Perulheira, born on 21 April 1825. Together, they settled in Perulheira and had seven children. Maria Rosa was the last child, born on July 6, 1869. At the request of an aunt and uncle, Joaquim returned to Aljustrel, taking with him his wife and children, sometime between 1883 and 1884.[2]
When Maria Rosa was 21 years old she married António Santos, a native of Aljustrel, on 19 November 1890. The children of Maria Rosa and António Santos were: Maria dos Anjos, Teresa de Jesus Rosa Santos, Manuel Rosa Santos, Gloria de Jesus Rosa Santos, Carolina de Jesus Rosa Santos, Maria Rosa (died at birth), and Lúcia de Jesus dos Santos. Although peasants, the Santos family was by no means poor, owning land "in the direction of Montelo, Our Lady of Ortiga, Fátima, Valinhos, Cabeço, Charneca, and Cova da Iria."[3]
While most historical accounts correctly refer to Lúcia as Lúcia Santos, some of the more modern accounts refer to Lúcia as Lúcia dos Santos. This confusion likely arose with the publication of her first book of memoirs, wherein the editor states that the parish register lists her father's name as António dos Santos. Lúcia confirms that her family name is Santos in her fifth and sixth memoirs.[4]
Even though Lúcia's birthday is registered as March 22, 1907, her actual date of birth is March 28. In those days it was required that parents bring their children for baptism on the eighth day after birth or face a fine, and, because March 30 was a more convenient day, the 22nd was chosen as her birthday. Lucia later recalled that, at the time, no one attached much importance to one's birthday.[5]
Children loved and adored Lúcia. She was a fabulous storyteller with a "gift for narration."[6]
Maria Rosa was literate, although she never taught her children to read. She had a taste for religious literature and storytelling. She gave catechism lessons[7] to her children and the neighbor's children, if they were there, at siesta time during the summer and especially around Lent. During the winter the catechism lessons took place after supper and around the fire.[8] According to her mother, Lúcia repeated everything that she heard "like a parrot."[9]
Lucia's father António, by her report, was a hardworking and generous man. Lúcia remembered him telling fairy tales and singing folk songs, but he was also the one who first taught her to make the Sign of the Cross. Contrary to popular hagiographical accounts of the apparitions, he believed the children and there is some evidence that he conspired to make sure Lúcia got to the Cova for the visitations after her mother had forbidden it. Lúcia said that her father was not a particularly heavy drinker, but liked to socialize in the tavern. Because he did not like Father Ferreira, he went to church in a nearby town.[10]
Lúcia had a talent for composing original songs, with catchy folk-style tunes and sacred and secular lyrics. Among the songs she invented as a small child are "In Heaven, I'll Be With My Mother", "I Love God in Heaven", and "Lady of Carmel". She set to music the words of the brief prayer she said had been taught to her and her cousins by an angel; "O God, I believe, I adore..." She also wrote a poem about Jacinta which appears in her memoirs.[11]
Lúcia's First Communion occurred at six years of age despite ten being the usual minimum. Initially, the parish priest denied this to her because of her young age. However, Father Cruz, a Jesuit missionary visiting from Lisbon, interviewed Lúcia after finding her in tears that day and concluded that "she understands what she's doing better than many of the others." Because of this intervention, the parish priest admitted Lúcia to Holy Communion.[12] After her First Confession she prayed before the altar of Our Lady of the Rosary and saw the statue smile at her. Upon receiving the Eucharist, Lúcia felt "bathed in such a supernatural atmosphere that the presence of our dear Lord became as clearly perceptible to me as if I had seen and heard Him with my bodily senses." Lúcia's First Communion left a deep impact on her. "I lost the taste and attraction for the things of the world, and only felt at home in some solitary place where, all alone, I could recall the delights of my First Communion."[13]
Father De Marchi described her features in the following manner: "She was not a pretty child. The only attractions of her face — which was not on the whole repellent — were her two great black eyes which gazed out from under thick eyebrows. Her hair, thick and dark, was parted in the center over her shoulders. Her nose was rather flat, her lips thick and her mouth large."[14]
Between May and October 1917, Lúcia and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto reported visions of a luminous lady, believed to be the Virgin Mary, in the Cova da Iria fields outside the hamlet of Aljustrel, near Fátima, Portugal. The children said the visitations took place on the 13th day of each month at approximately noon, for six straight months. The only exception was August, when the children were kidnapped by the local administrator. That month they did not report a vision of the Lady until after they were released from jail, some days later.
According to Lúcia's accounts, the lady told the children to do penance and to make sacrifices to save sinners and console Jesus for the world's sins. The children wore tight cords around their waists to cause pain, abstained from drinking water on hot days, and performed other works of penance. Lúcia said that the lady stressed the importance of saying the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world. Many young Portuguese men, including relatives of the visionaries, were then fighting in World War I.[15] Lúcia heard Mary ask her to learn to read and write because Jesus wanted to employ her to convey messages to the world about Mary, particularly the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Lúcia's mother did not take kindly to the news that her youngest daughter was having visitations, believing that Lúcia was simply making up lies for attention. Heretofore the favorite, Lúcia suffered beatings and ridicule from her mother. She was especially incredulous of the idea that Lúcia had been asked to learn to read and write.[16]
On July 13, 1917, around noon, the lady is said to have entrusted the children with three secrets. Two of the secrets were revealed in 1941 in a document written by Lúcia, at the request of the Bishop of Leiria, José da Silva, partly to assist with the publication of a new edition of a book on Jacinta.[17]
On January 25, 1938, a massive aurora borealis, described variously as "a curtain of fire" and a "huge blood-red beam of light", appeared in the skies over Europe and was visible as far away as Gibraltar and even parts of the United States.[18][19] Lúcia believed this event was the "night illuminated by a strange light in the sky" which she had heard Mary speak about as part of the Second Secret, predicting the events which would lead to WWII and requesting Acts of Reparation including the First Saturday Devotions, along with the Consecration of Russia. Having already had a visitation of Jesus in which she heard Him give her permission to reveal the Second Secret, she wrote a letter about it to her confessor on February 6, 1938. The confessor sent the letter to the bishop, who sent a copy to the Vatican a year later.[20]
When asked by the Bishop of Leiria in 1943 to reveal the third secret, Lúcia struggled for a short period, being "not yet convinced that God had clearly authorized her to act."[21] She was under strict obedience in accordance with her Carmelite life, and conflicted as to whether she should obey her superiors, or the personal orders she had heard from Mary. However, in October 1943 she fell ill with influenza and pleurisy, the same illness which had killed her cousins, and for a time believed she was about to die. The bishop of Leiria then ordered her to put the third in writing.[22] Lucia then wrote down the secret and sealed it in an envelope not to be opened until either 1960, or at her death, whichever came first. She designated 1960 because she thought that "by then it will appear clearer."[23] The text of the third secret was officially released by Pope John Paul II in 2000, although some claim that it was not the real secret revealed by Lucia, despite assertions from the Vatican to the contrary.
The visions increasingly received wide publicity, and an estimated seventy thousand witnesses were reportedly present for the sixth and final apparition. Lúcia had promised for several months that the lady would perform a miracle on that day "so that all may believe." Witnesses present in the Cova da Iria that day, as well as some up to 25 miles (40 km) away,[24] reported that the sun appeared to change colors and rotate, like a fire wheel, casting off multicolored light across the landscape. The sun appeared to plunge towards the earth, frightening many into believing that it was the end of the world.[25] The popular expression, according to the O Século reporter Avelino de Almeida, was that the sun "danced."[26] The event became known as the Miracle of the Sun. The episode was widely reported by the Portuguese secular media. Some coverage appeared in a small article in the New York Times on October 17, 1917.[27] Lúcia reported that day that the Lady identified herself as "Our Lady of the Rosary." She thereafter also became known as Our Lady of Fátima.
On behalf of the Catholic Church, Dom José Alves Correia da Silva, Bishop of the Diocese of Leiria-Fátima, approved the visions as "worthy of belief" on October 13, 1930.[28] Despite these assertions, many observers, including some believers, saw nothing at all.[29][30]
Lúcia moved to Porto in 1921, and at 14 was admitted as a boarder in the school of the Sisters of St. Dorothy in Vilar, on the city's outskirts.
On October 24, 1925, she entered the Institute of the Sisters of St. Dorothy as a postulant in the convent in Tuy, Spain, just across the northern Portuguese border.
Lúcia made her first vows on October 3, 1928, and her perpetual vows on October 3, 1934, receiving the name Sister Maria das Dores (Mary of the Sorrows).
She returned to Portugal in 1946 (where she visited Fatima incognito) and in March 1948 after receiving special papal permission to be relieved of her perpetual vows, entered the Carmelite convent of St. Teresa in Coimbra, where she resided until her death. She made her profession as a Discalced Carmelite on May 31, 1949, taking the name Sister Maria Lúcia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart.
She came back to Fatima on the occasion of four pilgrimages there by a pope, all on May 13. Firstly Paul VI in 1967, and John Paul II in 1982 (in thanksgiving for surviving the assassination attempt the previous year), 1991, and 2000, when her cousins Jacinta and Francisco were beatified. On May 16, 2000, she unexpectedly returned to Fatima to visit the parish church.
Lúcia died at the age of 97 on February 13, 2005, of cardio-respiratory failure, due to her advanced age.
Lúcia wrote six memoirs during her lifetime. The first four were written between 1935 and 1941, and the English translation is published under the name Fatima in Lucia's Own Words. The fifth and six memoirs, written in 1989 and 1993, are published in English under the name Fatima in Lucia's Own Words II. These latter books were written in her own handwriting. An additional book was published in 2001, variously known as Calls from the Message of Fatima and Appeals of the Fatima Message, as announced by the Vatican on December 5, 2001. However, this book is not written in her handwriting.[31] She also wrote numerous letters to clergy and devout laypeople who were curious about the Third Secret of Fatima and about Lúcia's interpretation of what she had heard Mary request.[32]
Press releases at the time of her death report that Lúcia had been blind and deaf for some years prior to her death.[33] Lúcia was not seen in public after the Catholic Church's publication of the third secret in the year 2000. The day of her funeral, February 15, 2005, was declared a day of national mourning in Portugal; even campaigning for the national parliamentary election scheduled for Sunday, February 20, was interrupted. Sister Lucia was a registered voter, and her polling place visits were covered by the Portuguese press.
There have been accusations of a campaign to cover up the message of Fátima by ecclesiastical authorities within the Catholic Church by imposing strict silence on Sr. Lúcia. Even if there was no special order for her, Lúcia was already living the life of seclusion which is typical for a Discalced Carmelite nun.
For example, when journalists sought out Lúcia after the Vatican refused to release the Third Secret in 1960, they found it had become increasingly difficult to see her.[34] She was forbidden not only to reveal the Secret but also to speak about the apparitions at all. She could not, from 1960 forward, receive any visitors except close relatives.[35] One should consider, on the other hand, the Constitutions of her community which state that every nun of her order is expected to "converse as little as possible with persons from without, even with their nearest relatives, unless their conversation be spiritual, and even then it should be very seldom and as brief as possible."[36]
Even her confessor of many years, Father Aparício, who had been in Brazil for over twenty years, was not permitted to see her when he visited Portugal. He stated: "I have not been able to speak with Sister Lúcia because the Archbishop could not give the permission to meet her. The conditions of isolation in which she finds herself have been imposed by the Holy See. Consequently, no one may speak with her without a license from Rome."[35]
In the 1983 Code of Canon Law canons 823 to 824 state that Bishops have the duty and right to review any material concerning faith or morals before it may be published. [37] Sister Lúcia was forbidden to reveal the Fátima Secret. She remained under an order of silence until her death in February 2005, unable to speak freely about Fátima without special permission from the Vatican.[35]
However, the state of life of a Discalced Carmelite nun is not the same as a layperson—these nuns are not permitted to publish writings at will. "The nuns should have nothing to do with worldly affairs, nor speak of them..."[38]
On February 13, 2008, the third anniversary of her death, Pope Benedict XVI announced that in the case of Sister Lúcia he would waive the five year waiting period established by ecclesiastical law before opening a cause for beatification; this rule was also dispensed in the causes for Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Pope John Paul II.[39]