Venerable Julia Navarrete Guerrero

Julia Navarrete Guerrero (1 June 1881 – 21 November 1974) – in religious Julia of the Thorns of the Sacred Heart – was a Mexican Roman Catholic professed religious and the founder of the Misioneras Hijas de la Purísima Virgen María. Navarrete first felt called to promote religious education from her adolescence while still a student before moving to the national capital where she met the Jesuit priest Alberto Cuscó who formed her in the religious life. Not long after this she became a nun and set about founding schools and missions across both Mexico and the United States where she first started in Texas. Her brother Juan María Navarrete Guerrero became the Archbishop of Hermosillo and whose beatification process is ongoing. Her beatification process launched in Mexico in 1985 and Pope John Paul II later titled her as Venerable on 22 June 2004 as confirmation that Navarrete maintained heroic virtue in her life. Julia Navarrete Guerrero was born in Oaxaca on 1 June 1881 to pious parents Professor Demetrio Navarrete (who served as the director for a teacher's college) and Julia Guerrero (a music and singing teacher). Her siblings were all brothers: Francisco and Juan María (12.8.1896–21.2.1982) entered the religious life and her other brothers were Florencio, Rafael and José. From her childhood she maintained a deep devotion to the Blessed Mother and to the Sacred Heart that she went on to promote to others throughout her life. Her brother Juan María became the Archbishop of Hermosillo and whose beatification is ongoing while her brother Francisco became a priest. Navarrete made her First Communion aged seven. Her education was spent in her hometown where she was first homeschooled before entering into an all-girls school aged twelve where she became well-liked according to her peers and teachers. From age fifteen she began to feel a call to follow Jesus Christ in her life and confided this to her Jesuit confessor Fr. Antonio Repiso.