Saint Who?
Saints Who Cared for the Sick
Blessed María Dolores Rodríguez Sopeña
Foundress († 1918)Feast: January 10
María Dolores’ father held important positions as a magistrate and a judge in Spain, but she preferred visiting the poor with her mother to attending social events. While still a young woman, she cared for a leper and two women who were suffering from typhoid fever, but in secret to avoid worrying her parents.
María Dolores considered entering an active religious order, but she was turned away because of serious problems with her eyesight. She also tried to enter a contemplative order, but she quickly realized that God was calling her to a different vocation.
Strengthened in her faith by Jesuit priests and her spiritual director, María Dolores began a unique apostolate when she was still in her twenties. Going daily into poor neighborhoods that were considered too dangerous for respectable women to even enter, she began to set up centers for the poor. At her centers, the poor were able to receive religious instruction and medical care. They could also come to discuss personal issues or injustices and receive help. Eventually she established both an order of religious sisters, the Sisters of the Catechetical Institute, and a lay movement focused on serving the poor, which spread all over the world.
Heavenly Father, help us to bring justice and
truth to those who are most vulnerable.
