Virgin of Fátima: House museum of Sister Lucía, visionary of the apparitions in Portugal, reopens

The Sanctuary of Fátima in Portugal announced the reopening, this July 5, of the house – museum of Sister Lucía in the Portuguese town of Ajustrel, where the visionary of the Virgin of Fátima was born and lived until she was 14 years old.

After a period of closure to carry out renovation and remodeling works, the Sister Lucia’s House reopened its doors to the public today. The visit is free every day, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. and from 2:00 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. (local time).

He website of the Sanctuary of Fátima points out that Sister Lucía’s house “preserves the configuration of a rural residence from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and you can visit its different spaces: three bedrooms, a kitchen, a loom room, a warehouse and the oven area.”

Marco Daniel Duarte, director of the Museum of the Sanctuary of Fátima and coordinator of the Sor Lucía house-museum project, explains that before the work a “very in-depth study of the sources of information” was made, especially “the memories of the Sister Lucía herself, as well as some letters in which she describes, room by room, division by division, what existed in each of the spaces.

Upon arriving at the house, visitors are greeted by the best-known image of Sister Lucia, taken in 1917.

The multimedia projections in the rooms also seek to “bring his memory, his voice, a perhaps silent voice that pilgrims are invited to rediscover upon entering this new space,” said Duarte.

The furniture in the house has also been restored and an attempt has been made to show what the visionary’s mother was like. “Lucía’s mother was the local catechist and we know that there were books in this house. This place is often seen as an inhospitable place, lost in the mountains, where culture does not reach, where religious and even profane literature does not reach In reality, we know that is not the case,” says Duarte.

The architect Humberto Dias, the engineer Luís Andrade, from the Department of Construction and Maintenance of the Sanctuary of Fátima, and the conservator-restorer Ana Rita Santos, also from the Museum of the Sanctuary of Fátima, also participated in the remodeling project.

Who is Sister Lucia of Fátima?

Lucía Rosa dos Santos, better known as Sister Lucía, is one of the three visionaries of the Virgin of Fátima. The other two are the brothers and saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto, canonized by Pope Francis in Fatima in 2017.

Sister Lucia was born on March 28, 1907 and was baptized just two days later. In 1915 and 1916 she already had some visions. With Saint Francis and Saint Jacinta Marto she witnessed the apparitions of the Virgin of Fátima, which began on May 13, 2017.

In 1925 he entered the Congregation of Santa Dorotea, in Spain, where the apparitions of Tuy and Pontevedra took place, and the apparitions of the Holy Trinity, Our Lady and the Child Jesus.

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, and took the name of María Lucía de Jesús y del Inmaculada Corazón.

He died on February 13, 2005.

Beatification process of Sister Lucia

On February 3, 2008, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, then prefect of the Congregation—now the Dicastery—for the Causes of Saints, announced in the Carmel of Coimbra that Pope Benedict XVI had approved waiving the five-year waiting period. to begin the process of canonization of the visionary.

The diocesan phase concluded on February 13, 2017.

On June 22, 2023, Pope Francis recognized the heroic virtues of Sister Lucia, meaning that only one miracle, worked through her intercession, is needed to proceed with her beatification.