Bl. María Antonia Bandrés Elósegui

María Antonia Bandrés, called Antonita, was born in 1898 in Tolosa, in the Basque Country, the second of fifteen children of a lawyer. She was often ill. She went to school with the Daughters of Jesus, a teaching congregation, and was known for her kindness to poor families.

She joined the Daughters of Jesus in 1915. She offered her life for an uncle who had lost his faith. She fell seriously ill soon afterwards and died in Salamanca in 1919, aged twenty-one. John Paul II beatified her in 1996.

The Roman Martyrology notes that she stayed at peace "even in desolation": in her last illness prayer often felt dark and empty to her.

María Antonia Bandrés Elósegui was beatified in 1996.

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