Page 1 of 8

St. Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad

Feast Day : June 4

II.

Patronage : Bridgettine Sisters, Nurses, Converts

III.

Biography
Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad was born on 4 June 1870 as the fifth of thirteen children born
to August Robert Hesselblad and Cajsa Petersdotter Dag Lutheran parents from
Fglavik in Vstra Gtaland County; she had a brother: Thur. She was baptized the
following month and received into the Lutheran Church of Sweden in her parish of
Hundene.
By 1886, she had to work to help them make ends meet. At first she looked for work in
Sweden, but eventually emigrated to the United States of America in 1888, where she
studied nursing at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. While there, she did home
nursing, which brought her into contact with the Roman Catholic faith of many of the
poor for whom she cared. She developed an interest in that faith while deep prayer and
personal study led her down the path of conversion, and on 15 August 1902 the Feast of
the Assumption she received conditional baptism from a Jesuit priest, Giovanni Giorgio
Hagen, in the chapel of the Georgetown Visitation Monastery in Washington, D.C.Hagen
also became her spiritual director. As she reflected on that moment, she wrote: "In an
instant the love of God was poured over me. I understood that I could respond to that
love only through sacrifice and a love prepared to suffer for His glory and for the
Church. Without hesitation I offered Him my life, and my will to follow Him on the Way of
the Cross". Two days later, she received her First Communion and would depart for
Europe.
Elizabeth Hesselblad approached Hagen and asked that she be received into the Church at
once to which Hagen said: "My dear daughter, how could I do that? I have just met you".
She said: "My father, forgive me, but I have fought in darkness for twenty years; for many
years I have studied the Catholic faith and have prayed for a strong faith ... I now
possess this faith, and I am ready to submit to an examination on all the points of
doctrine". Hagen questioned this, and after great consideration told her: "I see no reason

Page 2 of 8

not to receive you unto the Church. Today is August 12, and the 15th will be the Feast of
the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. That day, I will receive you into the Catholic
Church; the following Sunday, the 17th, you will be able to receive Holy Communion.
Spend these few days in retreat and come to see me twice a day for lessons". It was in that
same year that her brother, Thur, converted to Roman Catholicism.
Elizabeth Hesselblad then made a pilgrimage to Rome, where she received the sacrament
of Confirmation. She also visited the House of Saint Bridget of Sweden there, where the
medieval saint had spent the last half of her life, which made a deep impression upon her.
At that point she felt called to dedicate her life to the work of Christian unity. She
returned to New York City briefly, only to go back to Rome, where, on 25 March 1904,
she was welcomed as a guest by the nuns of the Carmelite monastery housed there;
Mother Hedwig the prioress welcomed her after hesitating to accept her due to her
weak heath. However, she allowed her on the condition of a period of probation. Yet it
was at this point she fell gravely ill and even had to receive the Extreme Unction. She
slowly recovered and held out against her family's pleas to return to Sweden.
She petitioned the Holy See to be able to make religious vows under the Rule of the
Order which Brigid had founded, and had been a prominent presence in the Church in
Sweden before the Protestant Reformation had taken hold there. She received special
permission for this from Pope Pius X in 1906, at which time she assumed the Bridgettine
religious habit, including its distinctive element of a silver crown. She professed into the
hands of Hagen on 22 June 1906, the Feast of the Sacred Heart.
Elizabeth Hesselblad attempted to revive interest in the order and its founder in both
Sweden and Rome. Her proposal to establish a monastery of the order on the site where
Bridget had lived received no volunteers from the few monasteries of the order still in
existence. Giving up on the intention of following the established way of life in the order,
she proposed one which included the care of the sick. To this end she was joined by three
young women from England, whom she received on 9 November 1911, with which the
new congregation was established. Their particular mission was to pray and work,
especially for the unity of Scandinavian Christians with the Roman Catholic Church.

Page 3 of 8

Elizabeth Hesselblad returned to her homeland of Sweden in 1923, where she was able to
establish a community in Djursholm, while she worked nursing the sick poor. The new
congregation was established in England in 1931 after receiving the approval of the Holy
See. That same year, Hesselblad obtained the House of Saint Bridget in Rome for her
new congregation. A foundation was made in India in 1937 which drew many new
members. Her order received canonical approval on 7 July 1940.
Elizabeth Hesselblad also worked at efforts at inter-religious dialogue and against racism,
and became known as "the second Bridget". During World War II and after she
performed many charitable works on the behalf of the poor and those that suffered due to
racial laws and also promoted a movement for peace that involved Christians and nonChristians, and she became part of their journey to faith and to the Church.The war also
saw her save the lives of Jewish people who would have otherwise have perished in the
Holocaust had it not been for her direct intervention.
Her apostolic zeal contributed to the conversion of the Baptist Minister Piero Chuminelli
author of a biographical account of Saint Bridget of Sweden and she also had close
ties to the former Chief Rabbi of Rome Israel Zolli (Eugenio) who converted to the faith
in 1946.
Her health declined around the time when officials prepared the canonical visit of her
order. On 23 April 1957 she gave her blessing to the sisters and held her raised hands in a
solemn gesture in which she murmured: "Go to Heaven with hands full of love and
virtues". She received the sacraments thereafter. She died in Rome on 24 April 1957

IV.

Sainthood
Sister Elizabeth Hasselblad was known for rescuing several Jews in Rome during WWII
and organizing a makeshift synagogue. Elizabeth Hasselblad's sainthood can be linked to,
among other things, aiding Jews in WWII and at least two miracles.

Page 4 of 8

The late Pope John Paul II paved the way for Hesselblad's canonization in 2000, by
beatifying her and declaring an unexplained healing of a woman to be Hesselblad's work.
On December 14 2015, Pope Francis approved the second miracle needed to achieve full
sainthood. The Church believes that Hesselblad healed a young boy in Cuba of his brain
tumor, according to the Catholic World Report.

Page 5 of 8

St. Martin de Porres

Feast day : November 3

II.

Patronage : mixed race, and of innkeepers, barbers, public health workers

III.

Biography
Juan Martin de Porres Velzquez was born in the city of Lima, in the Viceroyalty of
Peru, on December 9, 1579. He was the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman, Don
Juan de Porres, and Ana Velzquez, a freed slave from Panama, of African or possibly
part Native American descent. He had a sister named Juana, born two years later in
1581. After the birth of his sister, the father abandoned the family.Ana Velzquez
supported her children by taking in laundry.He grew up in poverty and, when his
mother could not support him, Martin was confided to a primary school for two years,
and then placed with a barber/surgeon to learn the medical arts. He spent hours of the
night in prayer, a practice which increased as he grew older.
By law in Peru, descendants of Africans and Indians were barred from becoming full
members of religious orders. The only route open to Martin was to ask the
Dominicans of Holy Rosary Priory in Lima to accept him as a donado, a volunteer
who performed menial tasks in the monastery in return for the privilege of wearing
the habit and living with the religious community.At the age of 15 he asked for
admission to the Dominican Convent of the Rosary in Lima and was received first as
a servant boy, and as his duties grew he was promoted to almoner.
Martin continued to practice his old trades of barbering and healing and was said to
have performed many miraculous cures. He also took on kitchen work, laundry, and
cleaning. After eight years at Holy Rosary, the prior Juan de Lorenzana, decided to
turn a blind eye to the law and permit Martin to take his vows as a member of the
Third Order of Saint Dominic. Holy Rosary was home to 300 men, not all of whom
accepted the decision of De Lorenzana: one of the novices called Martin a mulatto
dog, while one of the priests mocked him for being illegitimate and descended from
slaves.

Page 6 of 8

When Martin was 24, he was allowed to profess religious vows as a Dominican lay
brother in 1603. He is said to have several times refused this elevation in status,
which may have come about due to his father's intervention, and he never became a
priest.It is said that when his convent was in debt, he implored them: "I am only a
poor mulatto, sell me." Martin was deeply attached to the Blessed Sacrament, and he
was praying in front of it one night when the step of the altar he was kneeling on
caught fire. Throughout all the confusion and chaos that followed, he remained where
he was, unaware of what was happening around him.
When Martin was 34, after he had been given the religious habit of a lay brother, he
was assigned to the infirmary, where he was placed in charge and would remain in
service until his death at the age of 59. He was known for his care of the sick. His
superiors saw in him the virtues necessary to exercise unfailing patience in this
difficult role. It was not long before miracles were attributed to him. Martin also
cared for the sick outside his convent, often bringing them healing with only a simple
glass of water. He ministered without distinction to Spanish nobles and to slaves
recently brought from Africa.One day an aged beggar, covered with ulcers and almost
naked, stretched out his hand, and Martin took him to his own bed. One of his
brethren reproved him. Martin replied: Compassion, my dear Brother, is preferable
to cleanliness."
When an epidemic struck Lima, there were in this single Convent of the Rosary 60
friars who were sick, many of them novices in a distant and locked section of the
convent, separated from the professed. Martin is said to have passed through the
locked doors to care for them, a phenomenon which was reported in the residence
more than once. The professed, too, saw him suddenly beside them without the doors
having been opened. Martin continued to transport the sick to the convent until the
provincial superior, alarmed by the contagion threatening the friars, forbade him to
continue to do so. His sister, who lived in the country, offered her house to lodge
those whom the residence of the religious could not hold. One day he found on the
street a poor Indian, bleeding to death from a dagger wound, and took him to his own
room until he could transport him to his sisters hospice. The prior, when he heard of

Page 7 of 8

this, reprimanded him for disobedience. He was extremely edified, however, by his
reply: "Forgive my error, and please instruct me, for I did not know that the precept
of obedience took precedence over that of charity." The prior gave him liberty
thereafter to follow his inspirations in the exercise of mercy.
Martin did not eat meat. He begged for alms to procure necessities the convent could
not provide. In normal times, Martin succeeded with his alms to feed 160 poor
persons every day, and distributed a remarkable sum of money every week to the
indigent. Side by side with his daily work in the kitchen, laundry and infirmary,
Martins life is said to have reflected extraordinary gifts: ecstasies that lifted him into
the air, light filling the room where he prayed, bilocation, miraculous knowledge,
instantaneous cures and a remarkable rapport with animals. He founded a residence
for orphans and abandoned children in the city of Lima.
Martin De Porres died on November 3, 1639.
IV.

Sainthood
He spent his life at the Dominican Friary providing a variety of services including as
a barber, an almoner and a farm laborer. Because he was such a wonderful man who
was able to cure so many of the sick, the racial limitations ceased to exist. He finally
was made a full Dominican lay brother. He continued to help serve people through his
Dominican community.
Throughout his life, he was extremely compassionate toward the human and animal
sick and the suffering. One particularly striking case is when he stumbled upon a
sickly beggar covered in ulcers. He allowed him to stay in his bed, instead of casting
him out like a disease. He was approached by another brother and told not to do this,
to which he replied,
"Compassion, my dear Brother, is preferable to cleanliness. Reflect that with a little
soap I can easily clean my bed covers, but even with a torrent of tears I would never
wash from my soul the stain that my harshness toward the unfortunate would create."

Page 8 of 8

Furthermore, he would constantly collect money for the poor people of the
community, and he was successful. He would go out on to the streets and ask for
money, but also pray that God would help his cause.
He wanted to go on a foreign mission for the church which would position him as a
martyr. However, the church would not allow it. Instead, he made a martyr of himself
by punishing himself on a daily basis. He would whip himself three times every time.
He did this for repentance of his sins and for those pagans and sinners who had not
converted. He hoped that by doing this to himself, he could help to save their souls.
He was emulating Jesus Christ. Martin De Porres chose this form of punishment as a
way of expressing how deeply he felt about his faith.
After he died, the miracles and graces received when he was invoked multiplied in
such profusion that his body was exhumed after 25 years and said to be found intact,
and exhaling a fine fragrance. Letters to Rome pleaded for his beatification; the
decree affirming the heroism of his virtues was issued in 1763 by Pope Clement XIII.
Pope Gregory XVI beatified Martin de Porres on October 29, 1837, and nearly 125
years later, Pope John XXIII canonized him in Rome on May 6, 1962.