At Zaragoza in Spain, Blessed Maria Rafols, virgin, who founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Anne at the hospital of that city and governed it with a brave spirit amid many hardships.
Lifespan: 1781–1853
Beatified: 16 October 1994 by Pope John Paul II
Memoria liturgica: 30 August
“Heroine of charity,” she left her home and gave “her life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45)
María Rafols Bruna
She was born on 5 November 1781 in Villafranca del Panadés (Barcelona), the sixth of ten children of the miller Cristóbal Rafols and Margherita Bruna Brugol.
She soon left her home in Villafranca del Penedés (Barcelona) and, in the company of a priest and eleven other young women, set out on a path of service to the sick, following Christ and giving, as He did, “her life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
Contemplative in action: the hours of silence and prayer in the oratory of the chapel of the Hospital of Grace in Zaragoza, known as the Domus infirmorum urbis et orbis, extended into generous service to all the sick received there — the disabled, the mentally ill, abandoned women, and children. In this way she showed that charity, true charity, has its origin in God, who is love (cf. 1 John 4:8).
After spending the greater part of her life in the mortified and hidden service of the Foundling Home, offering love, self-denial, and affection, she embraced the cross and made her final dedication to the Lord, leaving to the Church, and in particular to her Daughters, the great teaching that charity does not die, it never passes away — the great lesson of a charity without frontiers, lived in daily self-giving.
All consecrated persons will be able to see in her an expression of that perfection of charity to which they are called, and to whose deep experience the celebration of the present Synodal Assembly also wished to contribute.