Sister Lucia de Jesus de los Santos, 97

In spring and summer of 1916, a young shepherdess and her two playmates in Fatima, Portugal, were out tending flocks when they were visited by an angel. The apparition counseled prayer and reflection; on his third visit he offered one of the girls, Lucia, the Host. The next year, the three were visited by the Virgin Mary herself.

Lucia died last week as Sister Maria in the Carmelite convent, where she was cloistered for more than half a century. According to Church reports, Francisco could only see the figure and Jacinto heard the Virgin's voice; it was Lucia alone who was addressed directly. Lucia, born in 1907 the youngest of seven, was the last-living survivor of the Fatima visitation.

At first, accounts of the visitations resulted in threats, beatings, even accusations of demonic possession. It was only upon the last visitation, on October 13, 1917, that the figure revealed herself to be the Virgin, or the "Lady of the Rosary." In doing so, she performed a miracle for the 50,000 strong who had gathered.

"It might have been an eclipse which was taking place," the anti-clerical, pro-government Lisbon paper, O Seculo, reported. "Before the astonished eyes of the crowd,?the sun trembled, made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws-the sun 'danced' according to the typical expression of the people."

The Virgin imparted to the girls a prophetic trinity. It is said that the first two offered a vision of Hell, acknowledged World Wars I and II, the rise of godless Communism and Christianity's subsequent triumph thereof. The third and final part of the secret, put down on paper in 1944 when Lucia was seriously ill, was sent to Pope John XXIII in 1960 who decided that it should remain unpublished, as did his successors.

But in 2000 John Paul II, however, identified himself as the hero of the vision after beatifying Francisco and Jacinta, who had died of influenza shortly following the last visitation of 1917. The third secret concerns the assassination attempt by a Turkish gunman in the Vatican in 1981, the survival of which John Paul has always attributed to the Virgin of Fatima. Many conspiranoiacs believe the third prophecy actually speaks of grave events in the Arab world, and that the Pope was merely trying to put a damper on millennial hysteria.

Lucia, or Sister Maria de los Dolores, was never available for comment; she tended the garden in silence at her convent in Coimbra, Portugal, and wrote some books of faith that distinguish themselves by revealing absolutely nothing.