Saint of the day August 26: Saint Teresa of Jesús Jornet e Ibars. Catholic Saints

Every August 26, the Church celebrates Saint Teresa of Jesús Jornet e Ibars, a Spanish nun who sanctified herself in service to the elderly in a state of abandonment. In 1873 she founded – together with Father Saturnino López Novoa – the religious congregation of the Little Sisters of the Helpless Elderly, in the city of Barbastro, Huesca (Spain).

Their work spread quickly, flourishing and bearing abundant fruit, to the point that at the death of Mother Teresa the congregation was in charge of 103 nursing homes, distributed between Spain and America.

Good is diffuse

Teresa Jornet was born in Aitona, Lérida (Spain), on January 9, 1843, into a deeply Catholic family. As proof of this are the numerous vocations that flourished within her family. Two of her sisters were also religious: one of them, Josefa, joined the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul and served for many years in a hospital in Havana (Cuba); the other joined the Congregation that Teresa founded. Finally, three of her brother’s daughters were also part of her community.

Initially Teresa studied to be a teacher in the city of Lérida. Upon graduating she was invited by an uncle of hers, Blessed Father Francisco Palau y Quer – an exclaustrated Discalced Carmelite – to work at the Institute of the Carmelite Tertiary Sisters, which he had founded. Teresa worked there diligently, but without yet considering religious life as an option for her life.

“What do you want me to do for you? (Mk 10, 51-52)

The vocational call came later. Teresa discovered herself called to the contemplative life and requested entry to the monastery of the Poor Clares of Briviesca in Burgos (Spain) in 1872. However, she did not make her vows and she returned to her family home. After these events, she reconsiders her path and decides to become a tertiary Carmelite to dedicate herself to teaching.

In June of that same year, Teresa took a trip with her mother to the hot springs of Estadilla, Huesca. During the return trip, Teresa stopped in Barbastro, a town where she met Blessed Saturnino López Novoa who, with a group of priest friends, was dedicated to caring for abandoned elderly people.

Teresa saw in that noble work a sign, something that showed her the route she had been looking for. Perhaps, for the first time, the future seemed clearer and brighter. She perceived that it was Christ himself who asked her to give herself to others in this way.

Welfare charity and its meaning

Shortly after, on October 11, 1872, Teresa would return to Barbastro, this time to stay. She arrived accompanied by her sister María de ella and their friend, Mercedes Calzada. Her purpose was to join the group of the first aspirants, led by Father Saturnino. Teresa would be named superior of that first female community.

Then the saint officially receives, from the hands of Blessed Saturninus, the constitutions that would govern the lives of those women. A few months later, on January 27, 1873, the foundation of the Congregation of Little Sisters of the Helpless Elderly took place.

By May 1873, the little sisters arrived in Valencia, always accompanied by Father Saturnino, at the request of the city’s Catholic Association. The idea was to begin the work of helping abandoned elderly people.

The spirituality of this Congregation, conceived and forged by its holy founders, consists of welcoming the poorest elderly and integrating them into a family environment, attending to their material and spiritual needs. In Teresa’s words, it is about: “Taking care of bodies to save souls.”

Teresa de Jesús Jornet e Ibars was general superior of her congregation until the day of her death, which occurred in Liria, Valencia, on August 26, 1897. She was 54 years old.

The path of love for the most fragile

Teresa de Jesús Jornet e Ibars was beatified on April 27, 1958 by Pope Pius XII, just fifty years after her death.

Pope Saint Paul VI canonized her on January 27, 1974. In the homily at the canonization Mass, the Pope noted: “Therese Jornet had something, mysterious if you will, that attracts us. Next to her one feels that ineffable presence of her Life that sustained her and encouraged her in her efforts to consecrate herself to God and her neighbor, guiding her towards the concrete path of charitable care. The fruit of the enormous work carried out by such a humble nun took shape in an admirable way, but without external clamor. “The work of grace will always be something mysterious.”

Currently, the Little Sisters of the Homeless Elderly have 204 homes distributed in 19 countries, including Germany, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Philippines, Guatemala, Mexico, Mozambique, Peru and Paraguay.