by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer

(Feb. 15, 2008) The five year waiting period before opening a cause for beatification has been waived for Sister Lucia de Jesus dos Santos, the last of the three shepherd children to whom Our Lady appeared at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917.

Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, C.M.F., the president of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, made the announcement after presiding at a Mass marking the third anniversary of Sister Lucia’s death on Feb. 13. Cardinal Saraiva said that Pope Benedict XVI had accepted a request made by Bishop Albino Mamede Cleto of Coimbra and many of the faithful to waive the waiting period and proceed with the diocesan stage of the cause for her beatification.

Almost a century has passed since that spring day in the Cova da Iria when Our Lady first appeared to the 10 year old Lucia dos Santos and her two cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto on May 13, 1917.

Francisco and Jacinta died in the Spanish influenza outbreak in 1919 and 1920 respectively, an event predicted by Our Lady during the apparitions and which caused Lucia much grief. “Must I stay here all alone?” she had sadly asked, and Our Lady told her, “I will not leave you alone. My

Immaculate Heart will be your safe refuge and the way that will lead you to God.” Several years after the apparitions, Lucia accepted an offer to go to a private school run by the Dorothean nuns. In 1934 she took her final vows as a nun, becoming Sister Maria Lucia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart. She later transferred to the Carmelite order and lived at Carmels Santa
Theresa in Coimbra, Portugal for the rest of her life.

During this time she faithfully executed the mission given to her by Our Lady of making known devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart. Our Lady appeared several more times to the seer, including shortly after she entered the Order of St. Dorothy in 1925, when Our Lady appeared with the Christ Child and requested the Five First Saturday devotions.

Weeks later, on Feb. 15, 1926, while Lucia was sitting in the convent garden, a 12 year old boy approached and asked, “What is being done to establish devotion to the Heart of my Mother?”

Her eyes were suddenly opened and she realized she was speaking to the child Jesus. One of her most celebrated apparitions occurred on June 13, 1929 while praying in her cell when she received a vision of the Holy Trinity, an image that has been immortalized in numerous paintings. It was during this vision that Sister Lucia was instructed to tell the Holy Father that if he consecrated Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the country would be converted and halt
the advance of communism throughout the world.

Sister Lucia immediately embarked on a letter writing campaign to her bishop and the pope, a crusade that culminated on March 25, 1984, when Pope John Paul II consecrated Russia and the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Within a year the President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, visited Rome to pay his respects to the Holy Father, and by 1989, communism had fallen. Sister Lucia was finally able to write: “The terms for the conversion of Russia have been
met. God will not let us down.”

Sister Lucia was also the recipient of another fulfilled prophecy when she saw the “unknown light” in the sky that Our Lady said would herald a great punishment from God. This sign occurred on the night of Jan. 25, 1938, appearing as a vast and terrifying display of the Aurora Borealis which was seen all over the northern hemisphere and struck fear in the hearts of
millions. World War II started a few years later.

Sister Lucia kept the famous third secret of Fatima until the year 2000 when it was finally revealed to the world. This secret revealed various calamities that would befall the world and the Church and also predicted the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981.

Although she might have chosen to enjoy the notoriety of being one of the few to have ever gazed upon the face of the Mother of God, Sister Lucia chose the obscurity of the convent instead, devoting herself to spreading Our Lady’s call to repentance and conversion to a world that desperately needs to hear it.

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