At Córdoba in Argentina, Blessed Mary of the Transit of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, virgin, who devoted the greatest effort to the Christian education of poor and abandoned children and founded the Missionary Sisters of the Third Order of Saint Francis in Argentina.
Lifespan: 1821–1885
Beatified: 14 April 2002 by Pope John Paul II
Memoria liturgica: 25 August
“She undertook a path of poverty, humility, patience, and charity, giving life to a new religious Family.”
— John Paul II
Dolores Cabanillas was born at Santa Leocadia, present-day Carlos Paz, in the province of Córdoba, Argentina, on 15 August 1821. Her father Felipe descended from a family of Valencia, Spain, that had emigrated to Argentina in the second half of the 17th century. In their new homeland the Cabanillas family managed to accumulate a certain material prosperity, while distinguishing themselves above all by their deep Christian piety.
The Servant of God was the third child. Baptized in the chapel of San Rocco by Don Mariano Aguilar on 10 January 1822, she received the names Tránsito — that is, Mary of the Assumption — and Eugenia of Sorrows. She received the sacrament of Confirmation on 4 April 1836, considerably delayed owing to the distance from the diocesan center.
After her early formation at home, Tránsito was sent to Córdoba, a city of noble cultural traditions, home to the celebrated 17th-century university founded by the Franciscan bishop Fernando Trejo y Sanabria, and the colleges of Santa Catalina (1613) and Santa Teresa (1628). She completed her formation, according to the standards of her time, at the College of Santa Teresa. From 1840, while pursuing her studies, she also cared for her younger brother, who was then preparing for the priesthood at the Seminary of Our Lady of Loreto, likewise in Córdoba.
In 1850, following the death of Señor Felipe Cabanillas, the whole family moved permanently to Córdoba. The Venerable thus found herself living with her mother, her brother — ordained to the priesthood in 1853 — her sisters, and five orphaned cousins, in a small house near the church of San Rocco. Tránsito was distinguished by her piety, especially toward the Eucharist; she engaged in intensive activity as a catechist and performed works of mercy through frequent visits to the poor and the sick, often in the company of her cousin Rosaria.
After the death of her mother (13 April 1858), the Servant of God also entered the Secular Franciscan Order and deepened her life of prayer and penance, under the spiritual direction of the Franciscan Father Buenaventura Rizo Patrón, later Bishop of Salta (1862). Her deepest aspiration, however, was for a total consecration to the Lord. And so in 1859, on the occasion of her profession in the Secular Franciscan Order, she also made the vow of perpetual virginity and began to contemplate the founding of an institute for the Christian education of poor and abandoned children.
In 1871 she met Señora Isidora Ponce de León, who had a keen interest in establishing a Carmelite monastery in Buenos Aires. A year later she followed her to that city, and on 19 March 1873 — the day of the monastery’s inauguration — she entered it with the intention of becoming a Carmelite. The ascetic demands she embraced, however, proved more than her physical strength could bear, and she fell ill; as a result, in April 1874, she was obliged to leave the cloister. In September of the same year, believing herself sufficiently recovered, she entered the Visitandines of Montevideo — but here too, after a few months, she again fell gravely ill.
The Servant of God accepted everything with admirable resignation, abandoning herself ever more completely to Divine Providence. Meanwhile the idea of a founding of her own — educational and charitable, centered on children — began once more to take shape. Several Franciscan fathers encouraged her; a certain Don Agustín Garzón offered her a house and his collaboration, and put her in contact with Father Quirico Porreca, O.F.M., of Río Cuarto.
Having obtained ecclesiastical approval for the plan of foundation and for the constitutions, and after a course of spiritual exercises preached by Father Porreca himself, Tránsito Cabanillas, with her two companions Teresa Fronteras and Brígida Moyano, officially established the Congregation of the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of Argentina on 8 December 1878, at San Vicente de Córdoba. Father Quirico Porreca, O.F.M., was appointed director of the new institute at the Foundress’s request. On 2 February 1879, Cabanillas and her first two companions made their religious profession, and on the 27th of the same month they petitioned for aggregation to the Order of Friars Minor, by a letter addressed to the Minister General, Father Bernardino da Portogruaro, who responded affirmatively on 28 January 1880.
The new congregation immediately enjoyed an abundant flowering of vocations, so that even during the Foundress’s lifetime the colleges of Saint Margaret of Cortona in San Vicente, of Our Lady of Mount Carmel at Río Cuarto, and of the Immaculate Conception at Villa Nueva were opened.
The Servant of God guided the flourishing institute with admirable wisdom, while her physical strength gradually yielded to the labors of each day and to her ascetic austerities. On 25 August 1885 she died holily, as she had lived for sixty-four years, leaving as her legacy heroic examples of humility and charity exercised above all toward children, the poor, the sick, and her sisters in religious life. Outstanding in her spiritual profile are her prudence, patience, and fortitude in facing the many trials of life; her diligent teaching of catechism and formation of abandoned children; her love of purity; and her trust in Divine Providence, which often answered her with surprising signs.
As Foundress, the Servant of God knew how to instill in her daughters a supernatural spirit, generosity, love for children, and a spirit of penance and mortification.
The heroic virtue of the Servant of God was declared by His Holiness John Paul II on 28 June 1999.