María Luisa Josefa

María Luisa de la Peña Navarro, known in religion as María Luisa Josefa of the Most Blessed Sacrament and popularly as Mother Luisita, was born on 21 June 1866 in Atotonilco el Alto, Jalisco, Mexico, into a prosperous and devout Catholic family. In her mid-teens she married Dr. Pascual Rojas, a respected physician older than herself. The marriage was childless but by contemporary accounts harmonious; the couple devoted their means to the sick poor and together established the Hospital of the Sacred Heart in their hometown. After fourteen years of marriage Rojas died, leaving María Luisa a widow while still a young woman. She continued to administer the hospital and other works of mercy and turned more fully toward a religious vocation.

Drawn to Carmelite spirituality, she entered the novitiate of the Discalced Carmelite nuns in Guadalajara in the early twentieth century, but she did not remain to profession. Delicate health and the judgment of ecclesiastical advisers, who held that her calling was to an active apostolate rather than to the cloister, led her to leave. She gathered companions and in 1921 founded the Congregation of the Carmelite Sisters of the Sacred Heart (Hermanas Carmelitas del Sagrado Corazón) in Guadalajara. The institute joined Carmelite contemplative prayer with service in education, nursing, and the care of orphans and the elderly.

In the 1920s the Mexican government under Plutarco Elías Calles imposed severe anti-clerical laws, and the Church suffered open persecution. In 1927 Mother Luisita sent sisters to the United States for safety and herself went into exile, settling in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. From that foundation developed the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles. After the informal arrangements of 1929 that eased the persecution, she returned to Mexico to resume government of her original congregation.

She spent her remaining years in Guadalajara directing the sisters’ houses and works. María Luisa Josefa died there on 11 February 1937. A reputation for holiness and for fidelity during persecution attached to her memory. The Catholic Church opened a cause for her canonization and has declared her Venerable. The Carmelite congregations that trace their origin to her continue educational, medical, and social apostolates in Mexico, the United States, and elsewhere.