Posted on 02/22/2005 1:09:05 PM PST by nickcarraway
COIMBRA, Portugal, FEB. 21, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Sister Lucia was the "jewel" of the Carmelite convent of Coimbra, but within its walls she lived exactly like the other women religious, says the prioress.
"Age had made her very frail and the doctor advised her not to catch cold, so she heard Mass from her cell and we took her Holy Communion," said the prioress, Sister Maria Celina of Jesus Crucified, in an interview on the program "Ecclesia" broadcasted by the agency of the same name.
Sister Maria Lucia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart, the last witness of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in 1917, died Feb. 13 in St. Teresa's Carmelite convent in Coimbra, where she had lived since 1948. She was 97.
According to the prioress, "In these last days, especially since June 15, one of us was always with her, 24 hours a day. She became much more intimate, from this point of view," something that "occurs with all sisters who are dying, because -- none has yet died suddenly -- when they are in need of our help, there is a greater bond."
"Since November 21, when her health conditions worsened, she became more dependent on us," continued the prioress.
Sister Maria Celina noted Sister Lucia's simplicity, saying that not even the "burden" of the Fatima secret, which the visionary kept for decades, affected her humility.
The prioress, who lived in the same convent with Sister Lucia for 28 years, also recalled the "normality" of her conversations, adding that the other nuns "did not ask questions."
The visionary's lack of prominence was such that when Sister Maria Celina arrived at the Carmel convent, she went "eight days without knowing that it was Lucia of Fatima."
With the passing of the years a close bond was established between them, so much so that the prioress said she saw Sister Lucia "as a niece."
The death of the witness of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin caused great sadness among the religious of her community, the prioress said. "She was part of our lives and, as you can well understand, in a Carmelite convent, in a cloistered life, one is in contact 24 hours a day."
Regarding the mission entrusted to the then little shepherdess of Fatima, the prioress said: "It was not Sister Lucia who wanted to give that message; she was entrusted with giving it to others."
Speaking about the future without the visionary's presence, Sister Maria Celina expressed the certainty that "she is with us in another way."
"Passing by her cell, one feels like going in, but she is no longer there," she said. She is "not there at the sensible level understood by our nature, but we know in faith that she is with us."
The prioress sees as possible an eventual flowering of vocations to the contemplative life, motivated by the example of the little shepherdess' life. "It might happen. God makes use of everything. It is he who calls.
"It was no accident that my vocation was born when I heard talk about the house where the little shepherdess lived only to pray, and I said: "I also want to be like that."
ping
I am curious about one thing. Sr Lucia entered the convent when she was 41, a good three decades after her visions. That is a rather late age to enter a convent. Does anyone know what Lucia was doing for those 31 years before she became a nun?
No, she was transferred to that convent in Coimbra in 1948. She was a nun before that, but she was assigned to other places. She had already been a nun for 20 years by then, because she took her final vows in 1928. She entered the novitiate in Spain in 1925, and was in a convent school before that.
very interesting, thank you
However, prior to that she was also a professed nun. After the early death of her two cousins in 1919 and 1920. Lucia went to a boarding school in Oporto run by the Dorothen Sisters. In 1925 she entered their Novitiate in Spain as there were no schools of formation in Portugal at the time following an era of religious persecution. She made her final profession in 1928 and remained in Spain until 1946 when she returned to Portugal.
Although professed a Dorothean Sister, in 1948, through the intervention of Pope Pius Xll, Lucia transferred to the discalced Carmelites in Coimbra.
Whist in Spain, she received apparitions of Our Lady, in 1925 in the convent of Pontevedra and in 1929 at Tuy. I think that's right. Someone will set me straight if it's not.
Hope this helps.
thank you marshmallow
What I am wondering ,did anyone know what SR. Lucia thought of the Church changes of Vatican ll? Being one who was blessed to see and converse with the Mother of Christ,she never would have taken Communion in the hand, and she wore the full habit of a carmelite Nun, not the Novus Ordo "new civy' religious look.
At her funeral,there were some priests who wore the Traditional BLACK requiem vestment,in the cloister,was the Latin Mass said???? What is the answer to these ,reasonable questions?
She was a contemplative nun, not given to expressing herself about contemporary events.
One thing's for sure: she received John Paul II when he visited the convent and said that he had consecrated Russia to the Immaculate Heart.
True, but I am without a doubt ,sure Our Lady told her what was to happen to the Church, the clergy and ect.
P.S. The Pope is said to have say the Latin Mass everyday in
the Vatican.
If she did, Lucia never said anything about it. Lucia was 10. She thought Russia was a woman who needed to be converted.
P.S. The Pope is said to have say the Latin Mass everyday in the Vatican.
The Novus Ordo Latin Mass. And he has concelebrants.
No the Old Latin Tridentine Latin Mass facing the Tabernacle not the people!
My source ... knows sooooo.
She Knew,Our Lady would not leave her in the dark.
You can believe whatever you want.
So can you.
Sr. Lucia loved and promoted the rosary,she was contemplative,which means for her, who saw and conversed with the Mother of God..she lacked no knowledge of the spiritual sense of things going on both in the Church and in the world...remember she was also told to pray for the Conversion of sinners...and was shown Hell,where the souls of sinners unrepented go.
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