In the town of Sencelles on the island of Majorca, Blessed Frances Anne of the Sorrowful Virgin Cirer Carbonell, virgin, who, though able neither to read nor write, yet moved by divine zeal, devoted herself to works of the apostolate and of charity and established a community of Sisters of Charity.
Lifespan: 1781–1855
Beatified: 1 October 1989 by Pope John Paul II
Memoria liturgica: 27 February
She chose poverty and excluded wealth from the plan of her Christian and consecrated life, knowing that it could draw her away from God.
Francinaina Cirer Carbonell, known in religion as Francisca-Ana de los Dolores de María, was born in the municipality of Sencelles, on the island of Mallorca in the Spanish Balearic archipelago, on 1 June 1781. She was the youngest of the six children of Paulo Cirer and Giovanna Carbonell, prosperous farmers, honest and deeply devout.
When faced with the choice between wealth and poverty, Francisca-Ana chose poverty, and excluded wealth from the plan of her Christian and consecrated life, knowing it could draw her away from God. She dedicated what little her lands produced to the service of the parish and the most needy: “The Lord gives bread to the hungry… / The Lord sustains the orphan and the widow” (Ps. 145:7, 9).
Throughout her life, Francisca-Ana obeyed the will of God — a divine will that is at times difficult to discern. As a young woman she sought to enter religious life, but her father forbade it. Francisca-Ana saw in this paternal refusal the will of God: if she could not be a nun in a convent, she would be one in her own home, through a life wholly devoted to prayer, mortification, and apostolate.
When, at the age of forty, she found herself alone in the world after the deaths of her parents and all her siblings, she deferred the realization of her dream of consecrating herself to God through religious vows — both out of obedience to her spiritual director and because the socio-political circumstances of her country did not permit it — until near the very end of her life. At the age of seventy she founded a convent of charity in her own home.
Her life was full of uncertainties, but it was also a life in which no obstacle prevented her from serving God, for Francisca-Ana had given all that she possessed — and more than that: she had consecrated her very self to God in virginity.
Thus, free from everything that might bind her to this world, she fought the good fight of faith (cf. 1 Tim. 6:12), resolutely setting out on the path of Christian perfection. In the Blessed Francisca-Ana of the Sorrows of Mary, the Lord offers us a magnificent example of knowing how to place the service of God above the service of wealth and the world, and of keeping the heart free in order to consecrate and dedicate it to him alone.