In 1941 she became a member of the Catholic Action movement – despite her parents’ opposition to it – and she dedicated herself to the movement and the care of the poor and the suffering, while also serving as a catechist for children. It was during her time with Catholic Action that she met and fell in love with the medical student Saua Angel and she began to wonder if God wanted her to marry, like the parents of Thérèse of Lisieux, who made vows to remain chaste in the married life. She waited for the Lord’s will to manifest itself. In May 1951 Angel told her that he felt called to the priesthood. She decided to offer whatever assistance he needed, and helped him to hide his plans from his father, who was a Muslim.

  In April 1952 she bade farewell to Angel, who departed for Madrid for further studies and to continue to discern his vocation. In November he took the decision to study for the priesthood, and this prompted Maria to discern her own call to the religious life. Her parents were strongly opposed, but she entered the Discalced Carmelite Order on 2 February 1955 and received the habit six months later. She took her initial vows on 15 August 1956 along with her new religious name. During her life as a religious she wrote around 48 letters to Angel, now Father Angel.

  On 7 January 1959 she became ill with infectious hepatitis and was forced to move into a sanatorium to recover. On 28 April 1959, as she was dying, propped on cushions and surrounded by her siblings and parents, she sat up and spoke her final words at 4:10 am: “Jesus, I love you! What a sweet encounter! O Virgin Mary!” She had asked the prioress to read a poem of Teresa of Ávila before she died.

  She was beatified on 23 June 2018.

  He founded a monastery in Rome and some others in Sicily, then became a monk himself. He was ordained deacon and sent as an envoy to Constantinople, on a mission that lasted five years.

  He was elected Pope on 3 September 590, the first monk to be elected to this office. He reformed the administration of the Church’s estates and devoted the resulting surplus to the assistance of the poor and the ransoming of prisoners. He negotiated treaties with the Lombard tribes who were ravaging northern Italy, and by cultivating good relations with these and other barbarians he was able to keep the Church’s position secure in areas where Roman rule had broken down. His works for the propagation of the faith include the sending of Augustine and his monks as missionaries to England in 596, providing them with continuing advice and support and (in 601) sending reinforcements. He wrote extensively on pastoral care, spirituality, and morals, and designated himself “servant of the servants of God.”

  In the earliest centuries all vestments were white – the white of baptismal purity and of the robes worn by the armies of the redeemed in the Apocalypse, washed white in the blood of the Lamb. As the Church grew secure enough to be able to plan her liturgy, she began to use colour so that our sense of sight could deepen our experience of the mysteries of salvation, just as incense recruits our sense of smell and music that of hearing. Over the centuries various schemes of colour for feasts and seasons were worked out, and it is only as late as the 19th century that they were harmonized into their present form.