MARIANNA di GESÙ DE PAREDES Y FLORES, saint. - Born in Quito on 31 Oct. 1618, died there on 26 May 1645. She is the first saint of Ecuador.
Orphaned of both parents at the age of five, she was taken in by her elder sister, Doña Jeronima De Caso Miranda, and educated together with three nieces of the same age, with whom she engaged in singular exercises of penance and prayer in a spirit of expiation. Before she was ten years old, she consecrated herself to God with the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
She attempted in vain to go to the land of the Mainas, pagan Indians whom she wished to convert to the faith, as well as to retire with companions to a life of eremitism; the efforts of her relatives to place her in a convent also failed. M. chose a special kind of retired life, in three bare and unfurnished rooms of the house set aside for her, where she spent long hours in meditation and contemplation and in practices of austerity, which she interrupted only to go to the church of the Jesuits (by whom she was spiritually guided), to attend Mass and devotional exercises, or to perform works of charity.
A model of Christian charity, goodness, and innocence, rich in prophetic charisms, she soon became the spiritual helper of the citizenry, to whom she was a saint to be consulted.
Beatified by Pius IX in 1853, she was canonized by Pius XII in the Holy Year 1950. Ecuador has proclaimed her a national heroine. Her feast is celebrated on 26 May.