Blessed Nazaria Ignacia

Nazaria Ignacia March Mesa (10 January 1889 – 6 July 1943) – in religious Nazaria of Saint Teresa of Jesus – was a Spanish Roman Catholic professed religious and the founder of the Missionaries of the Crusade. Mesa immigrated from Spain to Mexico where she joined a religious order that saw her minister in Bolivia where she remained for most of her life. She served brief stints in Spain to spread the religious order she founded after she left her own order and relocated to Argentina where she later died. Her beatification cause commenced under Pope Paul VI on 6 September 1966 and she was titled as a Servant of God while Pope John Paul II later confirmed her heroic virtue and named her to be Venerable on 1 September 1988; he later beatified her on 27 September 1992 in Saint Peter's Square. Pope Francis confirmed a miracle attributed to her in 2018 and she was canonized on 14 October 2018. Nazaria Ignacia March Mesa was born in 1889 in Madrid as the fourth of ten children to José Alejandro March Reus (3 April 1850–???) and Nazaria de Mesa Ramos de Peralta (28 July 1853–???). Her siblings were: Both Melchor and Delfina immigrated later in life; Melchor to El Salvador and Delfina to Guatemala. The infant was baptized the month of her birth in the local parish church of Saint Joseph and she later received her First Communion in 1898. In 1898 she heard the voice of Jesus Christ call out to her in which He said to her – "You: Nazaria – follow Me". Her parents were not pleased with her desire to enter the religious life and forbade it while also forbidding her to take the sacraments. Mesa studied in Seville where the Order of Saint Augustine oversaw her education; she resided with her maternal grandmother at this time. She returned home on 9 September 1901 and received her Confirmation in 1902 from the Archbishop of Seville Blessed Marcelo Spinola Maestre.