Blessed Nhá Chica

Francisca de Paula de Jesus (São João del-Rei, Minas Gerais, 1810 – Baependi, Minas Gerais, 14 June 1895), also known as Nhá Chica ("Aunt Francie" in Portuguese), was a formerly enslaved Afro-Brazilian Catholic laywoman known for her humble life and her dedication to God. Nhá Chica bore no surname and was an illegitimate child born to an enslaved mother; she herself was enslaved until being freed in 1820 which allowed her to dedicate herself to the plight of the region's poor and the construction of a Marian chapel near which she resided for the remainder of her life. Her beatification was celebrated in Brazil in mid-2013 and made her the first Afro-Brazilian woman to be beatified. Francisca de Paula de Jesus was born illegitimate in Santo Antônio do Rio das Mortes Pequeno, a neighborhood in São João del-Rei, in 1810 to the enslaved Brazilian woman Izabel Maria. It was there that Francisca, also enslaved, was baptized on 26 April 1810; this means her birth took place in the first quarter of 1810. Her mother decided to relocate after being freed in 1820, so the family moved to Baependi, where she lived until her death. Her maternal grandparents were also enslaved. Her half-brother, Theotonio Pereira do Armaral, came from another union. In 1820 she had dedicated her life to her faith and decided to help the poor at her mother's request, as she was on her deathbed at that time; her mother's freedom was for only a few months before she died. The girl now chose to live alone rather than with her half-brother, and refused all marriage proposals put forward to her. Her brother died in 1862 and she was designated as his sole heir; she used her newfound inheritance to increase her social work and begin construction of a Marian chapel. Donations were used as a means for her to build the "Our Lady of Conception Sanctuary". Despite being illiterate and impoverished, she welcomed the poor into her new place and became known as the "Mother of the Poor".