Saint of the day October 21: Saint Laura Montoya. Catholic Saints

Every October 21, the Catholic Church celebrates Saint Laura of Saint Catherine of Siena (1874-1949), better known as Saint Laura Montoya or, simply, as “Mother Laura”; a fervent woman who consecrated herself to Christ through service to the indigenous populations of her native Colombia.

Mother Laura was an educator and missionary, and also the possessor of a very particular soul that brought her closer to mysticism, as evident in certain expressions of hers: “Destroy me Lord and over my ruins, raise a monument for your glory.” Not without reason, Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) was his greatest inspiration. Mother Laura wanted to bear the name of the Italian saint as a nun and even wanted the congregation she founded to also bear the name of the famous Dominican mystic.

Today, Saint Laura Montoya is considered the patron saint of the Colombian teaching profession.

The family: formation and forgiveness

Laura Montoya Upegui is considered the first Colombian saint. He was born in 1874, in Jericó, Antioquia, a department in the northwest of the Republic of Colombia. He grew up in a Catholic family and had two brothers. When she was only two years old, her father was murdered in a tragic incident during the Colombian Civil War, leaving her orphaned and her family mired in poverty.

In the midst of that tragedy, Laura learned the importance of forgiveness. One day “Laurita” – as they called her when she was little – asked her mother who was that person they always prayed for; Then she answered him, unequivocally, that he was the man who murdered her father. The unexpected response marked Laurita’s life forever.

The experience of marginalization

Given the family’s economic precariousness, Laura’s mother was forced to leave her in an orphanage, under the care of her aunt, the Servant of God, María de Jesús Upegui, founder of the Community of Servants of the Blessed Sacrament and Charity. .

Laura began attending a school for upper-class girls, which she would leave only a year later, largely because she felt marginalized. Later, she would move to her grandfather’s farm to care for a sick aunt. This was a stage in which the saint came into contact with a set of spiritual readings that would awaken in her heart the desire to become a Carmelite nun.

Years later, with the help of her aunt María de Jesús, Laura was able to complete her pedagogy studies, thinking about working and helping her family financially. In 1893 she graduated as an elementary teacher from the Escuela Normal Superior of Medellín. Later he would dedicate many years to a teaching career, going through several schools and educational projects of a different nature. He always wanted to make his work an apostolate, although that, on more than one occasion, would cause work friction or be the target of serious slander and misunderstanding.

Discernment and personal calling

Despite those crosses, Laura was not discouraged and decided to address the concern she had within, the one that had accompanied her for years: evangelize the native peoples of her nation.

By 1908 he was already working with the natives who lived between San Pedro de Urabá and El Sarare. Meanwhile, Laura maintained her desire to become a Carmelite cloistered nun, although her desire to bring the Gospel to the indigenous people prevailed. The saint wanted to be the bearer of the Good News of a God who deeply loves all human beings, without exclusion.

In 1912, Pope Saint Pius X published the encyclical “The deplorable state of the Indians” (Lamentable state of the Indians), in which he denounced the inhuman conditions suffered by the Indians of South America, asking the bishops of the continent to take care of those groups that had been left on the margins of civilization and the Church.

Such an event meant for Laura the confirmation of the path that God had outlined for her.

The beginning of a community that integrated Colombia

Together with her companions, she founded, in 1914, the “Missionaries of Mary Immaculate and Saint Catherine of Siena.” The work of the new community focused on helping the indigenous people to be aware of their dignity as children of God and human beings. Mother Laura, in this effort, encouraged many members of the Church and the Colombian national government to contribute to the integration of these populations, with respect for their language and culture.

None of her efforts would have borne fruit if Mother Laura had not placed Jesus Christ at the center of her work. It was the thirst to make Jesus known to all people that moved her and what made it easier for the Indians to accept her teachings. Hence the depth of these, his words: “Two thirsty people, my Jesus: You for souls and I for quenching your thirst.”

After spending the last nine years of her life confined to a wheelchair, Mother Laura died on October 21, 1949, leaving a congregation in full expansion, with 90 houses in three countries and 467 nuns.

This legacy can be considered an exceptional contribution to the pastoral care of the Latin American peoples.

First Colombian at the altars

Mother Laura was canonized on May 12, 2013 in Vatican City. The canonization ceremony was attended by an important delegation of Colombian citizens, led by the president of Colombia at that time, Juan Manuel Santos, and by the doctor Carlos Eduardo Restrepo, miraculously cured of a terminal illness through the saint’s intercession. ​During the ceremony, Pope Francis said:

“This first saint born in the beautiful land of Colombia teaches us to be generous with God, to not live the faith alone—as if it were possible to live the faith in isolation—but to communicate it, to radiate the joy of the Gospel with the word and the testimony of life wherever we find ourselves… It teaches us to see the face of Jesus reflected in the other, to overcome indifference and individualism… it teaches us to welcome everyone without prejudice, without discrimination, without reticence, with authentic love, giving them the “Better of ourselves and, above all, sharing with them the most valuable thing we have… Christ and his Gospel.”

The remains of the Mother rest in the Sanctuary of Light, located in the city of Medellín.