Venerable María Francisca Ricart Olmos

María Francisca Ricart Olmos, religious name María Guadalupe, (23 February 1881 – 2 October 1936) was a Spanish nun of the Servite Order. Ricart's call to the religious life manifested at the time she made her First Communion after expressing the desire to consecrate herself to God; she entered the convent when she turned fifteen and served her convent as both a prioress and mistress of novices. Her peers held her in high regard for her dedication to helping and instructing the novices as well as for her compassionate and jovial character. Ricart's beatification process opened in the late 1950s and concluded upon her beatification itself on 11 March 2001 in which Pope John Paul II beatified her and 232 others slain during the Spanish Civil War. María Francisca Ricart Olmos was born in 1881 in Albal nine kilometers from Valencia as the second of four children to Francisco Ricart and María Olmos; she was baptized within a week following her birth. Her eldest sibling was José and the two siblings that followed her were Antonio and Filomena. Her father died in 1885 due to illness and people in their village often referred to her mother as a saint. Ricart became an active participant in parish life and later made her First Communion in 1891. Ricart was known for being exuberant in her childhood but was noted to have grown more reserved following her First Communion due to the strengthening of her faith; she still maintained a kind and amiable disposition to those around her. Vicente Garrido Pastor oversaw her and other girls' formation for First Communion and asked if some of them would be willing to dedicate themselves to God. Garrido was surprised when Ricart raised her hand at once and replied in the affirmative with a smile. The girl made frequent visits to the Pie de la Cruz convent of the Servite Order in Valencia since it was there that her mother had a friend. This made the convent recognizable for Ricart who longed to enter it as a nun.