Bl. María del Tránsito Cabanillas

María del Tránsito Cabanillas was born in 1821 near Córdoba, Argentina, the third of eleven children. She taught the faith to children and visited the poor and sick, and joined the Secular Franciscans.

She tried twice to become an enclosed nun, with the Carmelites in Buenos Aires and the Visitation nuns in Montevideo, but both times her health broke down. Instead, in 1878 she founded the Franciscan Tertiary Missionary Sisters of Argentina, who taught poor girls and cared for orphans. She died in 1885 and was beatified in 2002.

Twice she left home to enter a cloister, and twice illness sent her back. She took this as a sign that God wanted something else from her.

María del Tránsito Cabanillas was beatified in 2002 by John Paul II.

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