Saint Who?
Saints Who Achieved Sanctity Young
Saint Teresa of the Andes
Religious († 1920) Feast: April 12
The full name of this saint from Chile is Juana Enriqueta Josefina de los Sagrados Corazones Fernández Solar, but everyone called her Juanita. She grew up in a comfortable household with a large extended family and was educated by French nuns.
Juanita was a loving and intelligent child, but she also struggled with anger and vanity. She was six years old when a severe earthquake killed thousands of people in her area. Soon after this calamity she wrote in her diary, “Jesus began to take my heart for himself.” She particularly strove to overcome her faults before receiving her First Holy Communion at the age of ten, and thereafter our Lord often spoke to her in her heart at Mass. When she was fourteen, Jesus told her that he wanted her to become a Carmelite nun and to become holy. As her spiritual life deepened, she reached a high degree of union with God while still a teenager.
At the same time, she had many friends, who enjoyed being around the attractive, cheerful young woman. At the age of nineteen, she entered the Carmelite novitiate at Los Andes and began to wear the Carmelite habit. Then, suddenly, she contracted typhus and died while still a novice. Her letters and holy example ultimately led to her canonization, making her the first Chilean saint.
Lord Jesus Christ, speak to us in our hearts.
