Bl. Ana de Jesús

Ana de Lobera was born in 1545 in Medina del Campo, Castile, Spain. Her father died a few months later, and she could not speak for much of her early childhood until, at seven, she suddenly began to talk. Her mother died when she was nine. At ten she promised herself to God and refused every suitor her grandmothers put forward. For about ten years in Plasencia she lived in prayer and penance and nursed sick women in the hospitals at night.

Through her spiritual director she heard of St Teresa of Ávila's reform of the Carmelite order, and in 1570 she was received into its first monastery at Ávila. She made her vows at Salamanca in 1571. She founded monasteries in Spain, including Madrid, and oversaw the first edition of Teresa's writings. She defended Teresa's reform firmly, even at the price of a heavy punishment. In 1604 she went to France and founded the Carmels of Paris, Pontoise and Dijon. Then, invited by the archdukes ruling the Spanish Netherlands, she founded houses in Brussels, Leuven and Mons. After years of great inner and physical suffering she died in Brussels in 1621.

Ana de Jesús was beatified in Brussels in 2024, under Pope Francis.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.