Angela of the Cross

María de los Ángeles Guerrero González, known in religion as Angela of the Cross, was born on 30 January 1846 in Seville, in Andalusia, Spain. She was the daughter of Francisco Guerrero, a cook employed at a Trinitarian convent, and Josefa González, a seamstress. Of the fourteen children born to the couple, only six survived childhood. The family lived in modest working-class circumstances. Angela received little formal schooling and from an early age worked in a shoe workshop to help support the household. She was noted for her piety, regular attendance at the sacraments, and a strong inclination to visit and assist the sick and the poor of her neighborhood.

In her youth she sought to enter religious life. She applied to the Discalced Carmelites in Seville but was not accepted because of poor health. She later spent a period with the Daughters of Charity, serving in hospitals, yet again health and other circumstances prevented her from remaining. Under the spiritual direction of the priest José Torres Padilla, who encouraged works of charity among the destitute of Seville, she discerned a vocation to found a community wholly dedicated to the poorest. In 1875, together with three companions, she established the Congregation of the Sisters of the Company of the Cross in a small house in Seville. The sisters bound themselves to evangelical poverty, to possess nothing of their own, and to nurse the sick poor in their own homes, especially those whom others would not assist.

The institute grew amid material hardship. Mother Angela required that the sisters share the conditions of those they served: they lived in extreme simplicity, slept on the floor, and went out daily into the poorest quarters of the city. During epidemics they remained to care for the dying. She formed her sisters in a spirituality of humility, hiddenness, and trust in providence, and she became popularly known in Seville as the Mother of the Poor. She served as superior of the congregation for many years. The community received diocesan approval and later pontifical recognition, and it expanded beyond Seville while remaining faithful to its original charism.

Angela of the Cross died in Seville on 2 March 1932 at the age of eighty-six. Large crowds attended her funeral, reflecting the veneration already surrounding her. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 5 November 1982 in Seville and canonized by the same pope on 4 May 2003 in Madrid. Her liturgical feast is kept on 2 March. She is buried in the motherhouse of her congregation in Seville. The Sisters of the Company of the Cross continue their work among the poor in Spain and in other countries.