Foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor. Born in Catalonia, Spain, she overcame many difficulties in her youth and eventually became a teacher at Lerida. She desperately wanted to enter the religious life but failed to win entry into the convent at the advice of her spiritual director. So she decided to launch her own congregation. On January 27, 1872, at Barbastro, Spain, she began the Little Sisters of the Poor, called the Little Sisters of the Abandoned Age. With considerable zeal, she had founded by the time of her death more than fifty houses for her congregation. Beatified in 1958, she was canonized in 1974 by Pope VI.