Blessed María Rafols Bruna

María Rafols Bruna (5 November 1781 – 30 August 1853) was a Spanish Roman Catholic nun, mystic and the co-founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Anne that she established alongside the Catholic priest Juan Bonal Cortada. María Rafols dedicated her entire life to the care of the ill working in hospitals in Zaragoza and during times of war risked her life to aid others. Internal complications and a range of outside interferences saw María Rafols be appointed to and resign from various leadership positions and she was captured – though later released – during the Carlist War. María Rafols was considered a saint after her death which led to the commencement of her canonization cause under Pope Pius XI on 6 August 1931 while being titled as Venerable under Pope John Paul II in 1991 who also beatified her on 16 October 1994 at Saint Peter's Square. María Rafols Bruna was born in Barcelona on 5 November 1781 as the sixth of ten children to the middle-class Cristóbal Rafols Cunillera and Margarita Bruna Brugol. Her father found work as a miller. In May 1873 she and her relations relocated to La Bleda where – on 27 May 1785 – she received the sacrament of Confirmation from the Carmelite Bishop of Barcelona Gabino Valladares. Bruna completed her education at a boarding school in Barcelona. In 1792 she moved once again to the town of Santa Margherita where her little brother Juan died in 1793 – five siblings of hers died sometime in their childhoods – while two uncles died sometime between 1793 and 1794. Her father died on 10 July 1794. María Rafols later joined a group of twelve women placed under the direction of Juan Bonal Cortada who administered in a small Zaragoza hospital and arrived there in December 1804 to the hospital of Nuestra Señora de Gracia. The group dedicated itself to children who were abandoned as well as the disabled and those with mental conditions.