June 12: Blessed Mercedes Molina

Blessed Mercedes Molina was born in 1828 in Baba, Ecuador. She lost both parents by the time she was fifteen years old, and she went through a deep conversion soon afterward due to a serious fall from a horse.

As a young woman, she became a nun, but then she founded her own religious order, the Institute of the Sisters of Saint Mariana of Jesus. Her sisters served girls and women, particularly through the education of orphans and poor girls and through the care of reformed prostitutes, by helping them transition to better lives. Known as Mercedes of Jesus, she died ten years later in 1883.

Saint Mercedes, show me how to serve those in need around me.

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