Saint Angela of the Cross

Angela of the Cross Guerrero y González, HCC (Spanish: Ángela de la Cruz or María de los Ángeles Guerrero González; 30 January 1846 – 2 March 1932) was a Spanish religious sister and the foundress of the Sisters of the Company of the Cross, a Catholic religious institute dedicated to helping the abandoned poor and the ill with no one to care for them. She was canonized in 2003 by Pope John Paul II. Born in Seville on 30 January 1846, at 5 Plaza de Santa Lucia, she was baptised on 2 February in the Church of Santa Lucia under the name María de los Angeles. The family was humble. Her father, Francisco Guerrero, was a wool carder from Grazalema who had moved to Seville. Her mother, Josefa González, was from Seville, a daughter of parents born in Arahal and Zafra. She was one of 14 children, of whom only six reached adulthood. Both of Guerrero's parents worked in a priory of the Trinitarian friars in Seville, her father as a cook and her mother as a laundress and seamstress. Her schooling was limited, as was typical of young girls of that social class at the time. She received her first communion when she was eight years old and confirmation when she was nine. At 12 years of age she went to work in a shoe repair shop to help the family income, and remained there almost continuously until she was 29. Guerrero's supervisor at the shoe repair shop was Antonia Maldonado, a devout lady who encouraged her employees to pray together, recite the rosary, and read about the lives of saints. Through Maldonado, when Guerrero was 16 years old, she was introduced to José Torres y Padilla, a priest from the Canary Islands with a reputation for holiness, who was Maldonado's spiritual director. He became Guerrero's spiritual guide and confessor and came to have a major influence on her. In 1865, at age 19, Guerrero applied to enter the convent of the Discalced Carmelite nuns in Seville as a lay sister.