Maria Luisa Giuseppa del SS. Sacramento (Navarro)

Maria Luisa de la Peña Navarro was born on June 21, 1866 in Atotonilco El Alto (Jalisco), Mexico, into a family of wealthy landowners, of good manners and very charitable.

At the age of 15, in an arranged marriage according to the customs at that time, she  married doctor Pascual Rojas, a very charitable and generous man. One of the main works carried out by Rojas, along with other families, was the construction of the Sacred Heart Hospital, the first in Atotonilco, which was inaugurated in 1892. When she was widowed in 1896, a new path opened up for Maria Luisa in life. She devoted herself much to prayer and to the service of the sick.

After a brief experience in the Discalced Carmelites of Guadalajara, on 24^th of December 1904, she founded in Atotonilco the Congregation of the Carmelites of the Sacred Heart, taking the name of María Luisa Josefa of the Blessed Sacrament. Mother Luisita, as she was affectionately called by all people, was distinguished by a prayerful and contemplative attitude that led her to discover God in everything and to announce with admiration and gratitude the wonders he had done in her and through her. Such was her detachment and poverty, trust and abandonment into God’s hands; her constant search for the Father’s will and loving obedience to his plan.

She died a holy death in Guadalajara, Mexico, on February 11, 1937.

The decree on her heroic virtues was promulgated on July 1^st, 2000.