Hospitaller Family! Today is a special day for us because on a day like today one of our foundresses, María Josefa Recio Martín, was born!
We want to share with you a summary of her life and thus recall our history: the beginnings of the Sisters Hospitallers. María Josefa Recio Martín was born on 19 March 1846 in Granada (Spain) into a Christian family. Her upbringing was marked by solidarity and fraternity towards the most disadvantaged members of Granada society at the time.
In 1886, she married Antonio Fernández Amador. However, fifteen years later, she was widowed at 33.
From 1871 onwards, she deepened her friendship with Mª Angustias Giménez Vera on a human and spiritual level. At the invitation of Fr. Menni in 1880, they went together to Ciempozuelos (Madrid) to found the Congregation of the Sisters Hospitallers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He said to them: “My daughters, if you want to, you can come. I have thought of everything… and believe me, your desire is the will of God”.
Moved by this great call, they founded the Congregation of the Sisters Hospitallers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on 31 May 1881. María Josefa Recio Martín was the first Superior General of the Congregation and on the day of her profession, she took the name of María Josefa del Santísimo Sacramento.
Two years later, on 30 October 1883, she died in Ciempozuelos as a result of the aggression received by a mentally ill woman. María Josefa died as a victim of her heroic charity and hospitality, always responding to her vocation.
Her life was short, but it bore much fruit: her example remains a shining light in the heavens of Hospitality, a model for us all.
Her spiritual legacy is in his writings, including her Testament, which is of great value to the entire Hospitaller Family.
The process of canonization began on 21 June 1991, and on 10 May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI declared her Venerable for having lived the Christian virtues in an honorable and remarkable way.
Our vocation is Hospitality as a life commitment. Through hospitable gestures towards the person who suffers, we wish to narrate the healing mission of Jesus as the Good Samaritan and Mary as the first Hospitaller.
In this way, on 19 March, we wish to commemorate the legacy left to us by our foundress, which continues to live on in our family. We thank her wholeheartedly for her complete dedication to the Congregation to the sick and the needy, but above all, to God.
Maria Josefa always followed the example of Our Mother Mary and Jesus, who accepted the will of the Father with docility, accepting all that this might entail.
