Blessed Ángels Ginard Martí

Ángela Ginard Martí (3 April 1894 – 26 August 1936), religious name Maria de los Ángeles, was a Spanish religious sister of the Congration of the Hermanas Celadoras del Culto Eucarístico. She suffered martyrdom in 1936, when she was killed during the onslaught of the Spanish Civil War, and was beatified in 2005. Ángela Ginard Martí was born on 3 April 1894 in Llucmajor as the third of nine children to Sebastián Ginard García and Margarita Martí Canals. Her father's retirement from the Civil Guard saw the Ginard's move to Palma de Mallorca when she was sixteen where the three eldest sisters (including herself) helped around the house and learnt to embroider and make hats. It was after her First Communion on 14 April 1905 that she had the desire to consecrate herself to Jesus Christ and realized that it would be through the religious life as a nun. It was also after this experience that she made frequent visits to the tabernacle where she would kneel in reflection before Him to further discern her vocation and to strengthen her own faith. Even the example of her two maternal aunts who were nuns had a profound effect on her growing up. But she admired one of those aunts in particular due to the contemplative life she led in her convent. Her sisters often went out with friends to the cinema or other social engagements while she preferred to remain at home to instruct her other siblings in catechism and the lives of the saints. In 1914 she asked her parents for permission to enter the convent her aunt was stationed in but her parents (her father in particular) opposed the idea and advised her to wait and think more on it. Ginard entered the Hermanas Celadoras del Culto Eucarístico in Palma de Mallorca on 26 November 1921 and assumed the religious name Maria de los Ángeles; she began the postulancy in May 1922 before commencing her novitiate six months later.