Bl. María Pilar Izquierdo Albero

María Pilar Izquierdo was born into a poor family in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1906, and went to work in a shoe factory. In 1926 she broke her pelvis falling from a tram. The next year she became paralysed and blind. For more than ten years she lay in hospitals and in her family's attic flat, where people came to her for prayer and advice.

She began to speak of a "Work of Jesus" that would imitate Christ's active life through works of mercy. On December 8, 1939, she suddenly recovered her sight and movement. She moved to Madrid with a group of young women and began serving poor families and the sick. The community became the Missionaries of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. She died of cancer in 1945 and was beatified in 2001.

María Pilar Izquierdo Albero was beatified in 2001.

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