Ana Josefa Pérez Florido

Ana Josefa Pérez Florido was born on 6 December 1845 in Valle de Abdalajís, a town in the province of Málaga in Andalusia, southern Spain. She was raised in a devout Catholic family and from childhood showed a strong inclination to prayer and to the relief of those who suffered. She wished to enter religious life, but her father withheld his consent, and she remained at home to assist her family. During those years she nonetheless devoted herself as far as she could to the sick, the poor, and children who lacked care. Only after her father's death was she able to give a more public and organized form to her vocation, though she did not at once succeed in joining an existing religious order.

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century she began, with a small group of companions, a stable work of charity directed especially toward abandoned children and toward elderly people who had no one to care for them. She took the religious name Petra of Saint Joseph. From this initiative arose the Congregation of the Mothers of the Abandoned, also known as the Mothers of the Abandoned and Saint Joseph of the Mountain (Congregación de Madres de Desamparados y San José de la Montaña). The institute was established to provide a home and Christian formation for orphans and the abandoned, and to assist the elderly poor and the sick. Diocesan approval was obtained, and in time the congregation received recognition from the Holy See. Foundations were opened in various Spanish cities, including Málaga and Barcelona. Mother Petra fostered a strong devotion to Saint Joseph among her sisters and among the people they served.

Those who knew her described her as humble, austere, and wholly given to the will of God. She insisted that the abandoned were to be treated with the same reverence that would be shown to Christ. She directed the young congregation through its early growth, formed the first generations of sisters, and oversaw the building of houses and of a sanctuary dedicated to Saint Joseph of the Mountain in Barcelona. She died in Barcelona on 16 February 1906. Her remains are associated with that sanctuary, which became closely identified with her congregation.

Her reputation for holiness led to the introduction of a cause for beatification in the twentieth century. Pope John Paul II beatified her on 16 October 1994 during a ceremony in Saint Peter's Square in Vatican City. The Catholic Church commemorates her on 16 February, the anniversary of her death. She has not been canonized. The congregation she founded continues its apostolate of caring for abandoned children, the elderly, and the sick in Spain and in other countries.