Last Of 3 Fatima 'miracle' Children Is Laid To Rest - NBC News

Tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims braved cold and rainy weather on Sunday to pay their final respects to the last of three shepherd children who said they had seen the Virgin Mary in Portugal in 1917.

Sister Lucia, the last of the three, died a year ago and on Sunday her remains were moved to her last resting place in the Shrine of Fatima—where they saw visions of the Virgin which have become some of the most important in the Catholic Church.

Church officials said around 100,000 people packed the Fatima sanctuary, about 95 miles north of Portugal’s capital Lisbon. They had come from all over Portugal and the world.

Sister Lucia died a year ago, aged 97, at her Carmelite convent in Coimbra where she had been buried until now. She had wished to be buried at the convent for a year before being removed to Fatima.

“Fulfilling her profound wish we will give her body to the (Fatima) sanctuary,” said the Bishop of Coimbra, Albino Cleto, during a mass held at the local cathedral.

Sister Lucia’s remains had been driven from Coimbra and when they arrived in Fatima volunteers carried them.

“I have been here 8 hours to venerate a saint,” said Efigenia Silva as she clutched a picture of Lucia and carnations as the procession with Lucia’s remains passed by.

The coffin was buried in the Basilica next to the sepulchre of Sister Lucia’s cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto, the other two children who saw the Virgin. Jacinta died in 1919 and Francisco in 1920 in an influenza pandemic.

The two were beatified, the last stage before sainthood, in 2000.

Sunday’s ceremonies ended with a “farewell procession” with pilgrims from around the world waving white handkerchiefs.

Lucia dos Santos, who said she and her cousins first saw the Virgin on an oak tree on May 13, 1917, died on Feb. 13, 2005, at the age of 97.

The children said the Virgin appeared six times and witnesses said an estimated 50,000 people saw bright lights and rainbow colors at her last appearance.

Dos Santos, who became a nun after having the visions, also said she had a vision that foretold the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul on May 13, 1981.

Pope John Paul later placed one of the bullets that nearly killed him in the crown of the statue of Fatima.

Dos Santos was said by believers to have received prophecies from the Virgin about a vision of hell and the outbreak of World War II.

The Vatican interpreted the prophecies as foretelling Communism’s persecution of Christianity. The apparitions took place the same year as the Russian Revolution.