Narcisa de Jesús

Narcisa de Jesús Martillo Morán (29 October 1832 – 8 December 1869) was an Ecuadorian virgin and Dominican tertiary in the Roman Catholic Church. Martillo was known for her charitable giving and strict devotion to Jesus Christ while living a virginal and austere life of prayer and penance. Her devotion to prayer and the mortification of the flesh was strong and it led her to the decision to live as a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic in Patrocínio (Peru), where she died on 8 December 1869. Narcisa de Jesús was beatified on 25 October 1992.

Life Narcisa de Jesús Martillo Morán was born on 29 October 1832 in the small village of San José in Nobol in Ecuador as the sixth of nine children born to Pedro Martillo and Josefina Morán who were landowners. The cause for her beatification commenced with the beginning of the informative process tasked with collecting documentation from 26 September 1961 until the process was closed on 10 July 1962 at which stage her writings received theological approval on 8 July 1965. The officials in charge of the cause sent the positio to the Sacred Congregation of Rites for investigation before historians approved the cause on 8 May 1974. The formal introduction to the cause came under Pope Paul VI on 27 September 1975 and the members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved the cause as well in 1987. Martillo became titled as venerable on 23 October 1987 after Pope John Paul II acknowledged that she had lived life of heroic virtue.

A miracle due to her intercession was investigated in the beatification process in a diocesan tribunal. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints validated this process on 30 June 1984 while a panel of medical experts approved the miraculous nature of this healing on 27 June 1991. John Paul II approved the miracle on 7 March 1992 and beatified Narcisa de Jesús in Saint Peter's Square on 25 October 1992.

A second miracle, the miraculous healing of a seven year old child from a congenital defect in 1992, after she had prayed at the shrine of Narcissa de Jesús, received the Congregation's validation on 4 October 2002. Pope Benedict XVI approved the miracle on 1 June 2007 and canonised Narcisa de Jesús on 12 October 2008.