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Tue 15 Feb, 2005 04:31 pm
Portugal marks day of mourning for funeral of last Fatima witness
Tue Feb 15,11:20 AM ET
LISBON (AFP) - Flags flew at half-mast across Portugal as the nation marked a day of mourning for the funeral of Sister Lucia, the last of three shepherd children who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary during a series of apparitions in 1917 in the town of Fatima.
Thousands of faithful from across the country are expected to attend the funeral of the 97-year-old Roman Catholic nun who died on Sunday of old age at the Carmelite convent where she has lived in virtual seclusion since 1948.
The funeral services will get underway at 4 p.m. (1600 GMT) at the main cathedral in the historic centre of Coimbra and Sister Lucia will be buried, as was her wish, afterwards in the graveyard of the convent where she lived for more than five decades.
Her remains will be transferred in a year to a shrine built in nearby Fatima at the site where the visions are said to have taken place.
The shrine has become one of Catholicism's most revered sites, drawing millions of pilgrims each year, including Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II who has visited it several times.
Hundreds of people flocked to the convent on Monday, with many waiting up to two hours to pay their last respects to the nun. Many brought flowers and candles which they left by the casket.
Political parties have postponed their campaigning for this weekend's general election while President Jorge Sampaio called Sister Lucia in a letter of condolences "a symbol and a point of reference to many people around the world."
Sister Lucia and her two younger cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, said the Virgin appeared to them six times on a tree near Fatima, which was then a small farming town.
The first sighting was on May 13 and the children said the Virgin appeared to them at the same spot on the 13th of each subsequent month until October when the visions abrubtly stopped.
The descriptions of the visions, which Sister Lucia -- the only one of the clidren who could clearly hear the Virgin -- recorded years later, are believed by the faithful to have predicted the outbreak of the Second World War as well as the attemped assasination of the pope in 1981.
Pope John Paul II attributes to Our Lady of Fatima his survival of the shooting in St. Peter's Square which took place on May 13 -- the same day as the first of the reported Fatima visions in 1917.
The pontiff beatified Francisco and Jacinta, who died from influenza within three years of their visions, in May 2000 at a ceremony in Fatima attended by more than 600,000 people.
The Vatican (news - web sites) is also expected to take steps to beatify Sister Lucia, who the pope has met three times since his shooting.
Beatification is the last step to sainthood.
Born Lucia de Jesus dos Santos on March 22, 1907, the youngest of seven children in a peasant family, she was popularly known simply as Sister Lucia after she became a nun.
I can remember my mother telling me this story years ago and it has always fascinated me.
Didnt the virgin tell the children 3 things,war,assasination attempt and another thing that has never been told.
Third Vision of Fatima Revealed
On Saturday, May 13, 2000, the 83rd anniversary of the Fatima vision, the Roman Catholic Church, under the direction of the Bishop of Rome, revealed the contents of the third vision of Fatima to the world.
The startling announcement was front page news all across the world. The Los Angeles Times, for instance, wrote that the "the third secret of Fatima had become one of the most intriguing mysteries of modern times."
According to Vatican sources, the vision described a bishop in white, agonizingly making his way to the Cross through a sea of corpses of Christian martyrs, suddenly cut down by a fusilade of bullets. Together with the revelation, the Vatican gave an interpretation that applied in part, but failed to address completely major elements of the prophecy.
Vatican officials concluded that the third Fatima prophecy applied to the past, especially to the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square in 1981.
The Vatican found compelling evidence to make this association during the subsequent trial of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman. During his 1985 trial Agca made the statement that his assassination attempt was "connected to the third secret of the Madonna of Fatima." (Agca made his attack on May 13, 1981. The apparition at Fatima first occurred on May 13, 1917, exactly 64 years to the day earlier).
This is what passes nowadays as prophetic enough to become a saint? There's hope for me yet.
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