Matilde of the Sacred Heart

Matilde of the Sacred Heart, C.F.M.M.E., (30 May 1841 - 17 December 1902) was a Spanish Roman Catholic Religious Sister and the foundress of the Daughters of Mary, Mother of the Church. She has been beatified by the Catholic Church.

Biography

She was born Matilde Téllez y Robles on 30 May 1841 in Robledillo de la Vera, in the Province of Cáceres, the second of four children of Félix Telléz y Gomez, a notary, and Basilea Robles y Ruiz. The family moved to Béjar, Salamanca, in 1851, where her parents enrolled her in a private academy. While still a very young woman, she felt called to commit her entire life to the worship of service of God, to which she encountered the strong opposition of her father.

Téllez found the support she needed in the sodality of the Daughters of Mary. She spent her days in prayer at home when she was not occupied with caring for the sick and the poor of the city. She felt called to found a religious community dedicated to Eucharistic adoration and the caring for the needy. In this she found the support of both her father and her spiritual director. She acquired a house in the city to house herself and eight members of the sodality who had committed themselves to joining her in this endeavor.

When 19 March 1875, the chosen day for occupying the house and beginning the work of the community, arrived, only one member of the sodality showed up, María Briz. She would spend the rest of her life as the primary companion of Téllez, who determined to proceed with the foundation. The pair worked with orphaned children, the poor, the sick and shut-ins, and also opened a school for children. At home, their hours were spent in silence and prayer, especially in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Slowly other women sought to join them in their life.

When the small community had grown to six members, the need was felt for larger quarters. Seeking a new home, they were soon offered a house in the town of Don Benito, in the Province of Badajoz, to which they moved and where Téllez opened a school and a novitiate for new candidates to their community.^[1]

On 19 March 1884, Pedro Casas y Souto, Bishop of Plasencia, raised the community to a Congregation of diocesan right. On the following 29 June, Téllez made her profession of religious vows, together with some of the other Sisters. Tragedy struck the small community the next year, when the Sisters volunteered to nurse the victims of an outbreak of cholera the town. Briz, the first to join the foundress, contracted the disease, of which she died at the age of thirty-three.

In 1889 a new foundations was opened in Cáceres. Other foundations were later opened in Trujillo, Almendralejo, Los Santos de Maimona, Villaverde de Burguillos and the Sisters returned to Béjar.

Téllez died at the motherhouse of the congregation in Don Benito on 17 December 1902, after suffering from a stroke two days earlier.

Veneration

Téllez was beatified on 21 March 2004 by Pope John Paul II.^[2]

References

1. ↑ "Fundadora". Hijas de María Madre de la Iglesia (in Spanish). 
2. ↑ "Matilde del Sagrado Corazón Téllez Robles". Vatican News Service.