Evidence of the holiness of the life of Sr. Lucia, one of the three children who received messages from Our Lady at Fatima, Portugal nearly 100 years ago, was formally presented by church officials this week.

CNA/EWTN News is reporting on the collection of 15,000 letters, testimonies and other documentation about the heroic virtue of Sr. Lucia that has been gathered over the last eight years. The pages were presented during a church ceremony at Sr. Lucia’s convent in Coimbra and will also be sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints for review and approval by Pope Francis.

During the ceremony, Bishop Virgilio Antunes of Coimbra said that the documentation consists of personal letters and witness statements from more than 60 people attesting to the holiness of the Fatima seer who died in 2005 at the age of 97.

Lucia, who was born Lucia dos Santos on March 22, 1907 in Aljustrel, Portugal, which is near Fatima, was 10 years old when she and her younger cousins, Blesseds Francisco and Jacinta Marto, were tending the family's sheep on May 13, 1917. The Virgin Mary appeared to them on an oak tree, telling them to return to the same spot on the same day, the 13th, of every month. They did so until October 13, after which time the visions stopped. The Church approved the apparitions in 1930.

Lucia entered the Institute of the Sisters of St. Dorothy on October 24, 1925 in Tui, Spain, and took the name Sister Maria das Dores (Mary of the Sorrows). However, she returned to Portugal in 1946 and, after receiving papal permission, entered the Carmelite convent of Santa Teresa in Coimbra in 1948 where she resided until her death on February 13, 2005. As a Carmelite, she took the name, Sister Maria Lucia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart.

Although she lived in obscurity in a cloistered order, she was known around the world as one of the few people on earth who knew the contents of the Third Secret of Fatima which was not revealed to the world until the year 2000.

Pope John Paul II was devoted to Our Lady of Fatima and credits her for saving his life after an assassination attempt that took place on May 13, 1981, the 64th anniversary of the apparitions.

Sr. Lucia spent the last years of her life blind and deaf and bedridden before dying in her room in the Coimbra convent on February 13, 2005.

She was preceded in death by both of her cousins who died at young ages and were beatified in the year 2000 by Pope John Paul II.

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Women of Grace is sponsoring a pilgrimage to Marian Shrines next month which will include stops at Fatima and Lourdes. We would be honored to bring your prayer intentions with us and lay them at the feet of our Blessed Mother. Please email your intentions to info@womenofgrace.com and list “Prayer Intentions” in the reference line.