After the last apparition on October 13, 1917, Lucía retired to the Vilar Asylum, on the advice of the Bishop of Leiria (Portugal), Bishop José Alves Correia da Silva, thus beginning a life retired from the world.
On January 5, 1922, he wrote the first account of the apparitions, and on July 8, 1924, he responded, in Porto, to the official interrogation of the Diocesan Canonical Commission appointed by Bishop José Alves Correia da Silva about the events of Fátima.
Later, in 1925, Lucía entered the Congregation of Santa Doroteia, in Spain, where the apparitions of Tuy and Pontevedra, the apparitions of the Holy Trinity, Our Lady and the Child Jesus took place.
Desiring a life of greater recollection to respond to the message that the Lady had entrusted to her, she entered the Carmel of Coimbra (Portugal) in 1948, where she gave herself more deeply to prayer and sacrifice and took the name of María Lucía de Jesús and the Immaculate Heart.