RAFFAELLA MARIA OF THE SACRED HEART, Blessed. — Born Raffaella Pórras y Ayllon, foundress of the Servants of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, born at Pedro-Abad on 1 March 1850, died at Rome on 6 January 1925.
Having been orphaned in 1869, after a childhood marked by the deepest piety, she wished to enter the Society of the Reparative Sisters of Córdoba, whose convent was being built at the expense of herself and her sister Dolores. But, upon the departure of that community from Córdoba, Raffaella received the order to take charge of a new congregation, which the Archbishop of Toledo, after the foundation of the house in Madrid, wished to call the “Reparative Sisters of the Sacred Heart.” The name was later changed by the Holy See to “Servants of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.”
Elected Mother General unanimously in 1887, Raffaella devoted herself with extraordinary zeal to the drafting of the rules and the formation of the sisters; but a few years later she resigned her office to promote harmony and peace within the Institute. From that day forward, for 32 years, spending much of the time in Rome, she led a heroic life in complete obscurity. Indeed, she was surrounded by such oblivion that not only was no further office entrusted to her, but even the young novices did not know that she had been their foundress. It was in this state of humiliation that death overtook her.