Saint Rafaela Porras y Ayllón

Rafaela Porras Ayllón, religious name Mary of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, (1 March 1850 – 6 January 1925) was a Spanish religious sister who established the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in conjunction with her sister Dolores. She devoted herself to the management of the congregation and resided in Rome until her death after her resignation as the congregation's superior in 1893. Pope Paul VI canonised her in 1977; she is the patron of the congregation. Rafaela Porras Ayllón was born in Pedro Abad on 1 March 1850 as the daughter of Ildefonso Porras (the mayor of Córdoba) and Rafaela Castilo as the tenth of thirteen children; she had one sole sister and eleven brothers. Her father died in 1854 while tending to victims of a cholera epidemic and her mother later followed in 1869. Her devotion to Jesus Christ during her childhood was ever so profound. She visited her parish on a frequent basis. The death of her mother served to motivate her more to devote herself to God. She made a vow of perpetual chastity on 25 March 1865 on the Feast of the Annunciation. In February 1874 she and her sister María Dolores travelled to the convent of Poor Clares in their hometown in order to discern what their vocation was. The two sisters were clothed with the religious habit on 4 June 1874 and joined a group of 21 other novices. In 1875, the two entered a religious congregation, the Sisters of Mary Reparatrix, and it was there that Ayllon assumed the religious name María of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The pair remained there when the congregation moved to Seville; with the aid of Bishop Zeferino González y Díaz Tuñón founded the Institute of Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament and Daughters of Mary Immaculate – this would be the origin of the congregation that she and her sister would establish not long after. The group went to Madrid to make their vows in 1877.