spirituality 16/02/27 27 February: Blessed Maria Caridad [Caritas] Brader - Switzerland / Ecuador / Columbia

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27 February: Blessed Maria Caridad [Caritas] Brader

Switzerland / Ecuador / Columbia

Maria Josefa Carolina Brader was born in Kaltbrunn in Switzerland in 1860. She was the outstanding student in her class at the Maria Hilf Institute in Alstätten, run by Sisters of the Third Order Regular of St Francis. On completing her schooling she decided she wanted to enter the convent. At first her mother opposed her, since she was a widow and Maria Josefa was her only child. Nonetheless, in October 1880 she entered the enclosed Franciscan convent of Maria Hilf and in March 1881 she was clothed with the Franciscan habit and given the name ‘Maria Caridad [Caritas]’.

In 1888 Sister Caritas was one of a group of six from the Convent who volunteered to work as missionaries in Ecuador. She taught there for five years before setting off to establish a new mission in Tùquerres, Colombia.
 There she founded the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary Immaculate, which quickly attracted both local and Swiss vocations and spread across several countries. They were immediately joined by local vocations, above all from Colombia, who swelled the ranks of the new Congregation and allowed it to spread to several countries.

She focused their apostolate on the education of the poor and the marginalized, and wherever need called. She wrote:

No habremos logrado nada en la educación de las niñas, mientras no les hagamos sentir su dignidad humana y su grandeza cristiana.  [We have achieved nothing in the education of young women if they do not sense their human dignity and their Christian greatness]

Her great love for Jesus in the Eucharist prompted her to ask and obtain permission for Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in the convent. She taught the sisters to ‘see God’s will in everything, and to do His will with joy, out of love of Him’.

Sister Maria Caridad was Superior General of the Congregation from 1893-1919 and from 1928-1940. She died in Pasto Colombia, on 27 February 1943. Her grave immediately became a popular pilgrimage site, and she was beatified in 2003.

Quick Bios

• Born:
• 1860
• Died:
• 1943
• Feast:
• 27 February