Today, 15 June 2023, Feast of St. Maria Micaela, the Eucharist was celebrated and broadcasted live from the Casa of Valencia, Spain. The remains of St. Maria Micaela rests in this Spanish city.
After the recent reopening of the Museum of the foundress of the Adorers, Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament and of Charity, we wanted to continue sharing and celebrating her life with the entire Adorer Family.
At about 6:30 p.m. (Spanish time), the Eucharist began in the chapel of Mother Sacramento. Those who were not in Valencia and wished to join in the Eucharistic celebration were able to do so via Youtube. You can watch it again here.
After the Eucharistic celebration we shared an agape with all the people who accompanied us in the courtyard of the house.
Saint Mary Micaela
Maria Micaela Desmaisières y López de Dicastillo was born in Madrid in 1809 into a noble family. During a visit to the sick in the hospital of San Juan de Dios in Madrid (Spain), she discovered the problems of exploitation, loneliness and helplessness in which many young girls and women living in prostitution found themselves. This gave rise to the first idea of opening a house to take in these young women when they left hospital and help them to rebuild their lives with dignity.
In 1845, Micaela founded the first house at 8 Dos Amigos Street in Madrid. In 1850, St. Maria Micaela took over full management of the house, stayed with the girls and took the name of Mother Sacramento. She sought the collaboration of teachers to help her in the education of the women.
The work of Santa María Micaela spread to other cities in Spain: Zaragoza (1856), Valencia (1858), Barcelona (1861), Burgos (1863), Santander (1864) and Pinto (Madrid branch, 1864).
Other women (teachers at the College and young women from her social environment) joined Micaela, attracted by her way of living the love of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and her dedication to the service of women in prostitution. The Congregation of the Adorers, Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament and of Charity was born.
In 1856, the first group with ecclesiastical approval, began to live this new charism of Adoration and Liberation with their Foundress.
In August 1865, when she heard that a cholera epidemic was breaking out in Valencia, Micaela decided to travel by train to help the nuns and women of the house during the epidemic. There she became irreversibly infected with the disease. She died there, a victim of charity, on 24 August 1865.
She was canonized by Pope Pius XI on 4 March 1934.
Today, more than 165 years later, the Congregation is present in 24 countries in 4 different continents.
