Bl. Hendrina Stenmanns

Hendrina Stenmanns was born in Issum, Germany, in 1852, the eldest of seven children. She worked as a silk weaver to help the family and joined the Franciscan Third Order, a branch for lay people. The Kulturkampf, Bismarck's campaign to put the Church under state control, made religious life almost impossible in Germany. When her mother was dying, Hendrina promised to raise her younger siblings.

When she was almost thirty-two, she went to Steyl in the Netherlands. There Father Arnold Janssen had opened a mission house to train priests. She took a job as a kitchen maid, hoping a women's community would follow. After five years of hard work, in 1889 she became one of the first members of the Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit, and later their first superior. She died in 1903 and was beatified in 2008.

For years it seemed her family duties and the political situation had closed the door on religious life. She took the lowest job available and waited.

Hendrina Stenmanns was beatified in 2008.

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