TORRES ACOSTA, MARIA SOLEDAD, Blessed. — Born Emmanuela Bibiana at Madrid on 2 December 1826, died there on 11 October 1887; foundress of the Servants of Mary, ministers of the sick.
Drawn to the religious life, after being turned away from the Dominicans she learned that the pious priest Miguel Martínez was planning a new institute dedicated to home care of the sick, a pressing need among so many poor, neglected and abandoned people. María Soledad offered her collaboration as the seventh and last of a group of seven; on 15 August 1851 they all dedicated themselves to the new work, and she was soon named superior. At first the little plant seemed doomed to perish in its infancy, for several of the group withdrew and the rest lived in dire poverty; María Soledad was deposed and relegated to a small hospital. Yet once her virtue and enlightened zeal were recognized, the bishop of Madrid restored her to office. From that moment the new congregation began to flourish: the constitutions were written and approved, recruits and houses multiplied, and the institute gave splendid proof of itself in nursing and comforting the sick. During the fratricidal revolution of 1867 it cared for the wounded on the battlefield at Valencia; shortly afterward it opened a house in Barcelona to aid those stricken by plague. At her death María Soledad left 46 houses spread across Europe and America. She was beatified on 5 February 1950.