María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa

The work of Mama Antula is rooted in the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish territories decreed by Charles III in 1767. Deprived of her spiritual fathers, she became the guardian of the Ignatian heritage and undertook, starting in 1768, to conduct the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola herself. A laywoman traveling the viceroyalty on foot, she organized retreats in numerous localities despite ecclesiastical and material obstacles. Arriving in Buenos Aires in 1779, she obtained authorization in 1780 to give the first spiritual exercises there, with the support of the archbishop. According to hagiographic sources, she gathered tens of thousands of participants over the years. In 1795, thanks to donations, she undertook the construction of the Santa Casa de Ejercicios Espirituales (Holy House of Spiritual Exercises) of Buenos Aires, which is still in operation today. She is also the founder of the community that would become the Society of the Daughters of the Divine Savior (Hijas del Divino Salvador), tasked with continuing her work. She also contributed to spreading the devotion to Saint Cajetan of Thiene and Saint Joseph in Argentina.

The holiness of Mama Antula was manifested through a total trust in Divine Providence and an exceptional apostolic boldness for a laywoman of her time. Walking barefoot, living on alms, and enduring both contempt and fatigue, she made self-denial and perseverance the driving forces of her mission. Her spirituality, deeply Ignatian, placed the Spiritual Exercises at the center as a path of conversion and encounter with God, which she sought to make accessible to all social conditions, from notables to slaves and the poor. During her canonization, Pope Francis presented her as a model of "fervor and apostolic boldness" and hailed her as a "pilgrim of the Spirit" whose charity stood in opposition to individualism. Her reputation for holiness developed during her lifetime and endured after her death around her tomb and the Holy House of Buenos Aires, nourishing a continuous popular devotion that led, more than two centuries later, to the opening of her cause.

The cause of María Antonia de San José reached its conclusion under the pontificate of Pope Francis, himself an Argentine and a Jesuit. A first miracle was recognized: the unexplained healing, which occurred in 1904, of Rosa Vanina, a religious of the Daughters of the Divine Savior, who was suffering from acute cholecystitis with septic shock, obtained through the intercession of the blessed. On this basis, María Antonia was proclaimed blessed on August 27, 2016, in Santiago del Estero, during a celebration presided over, in the name of Pope Francis, by Cardinal Angelo Amato. A second miracle, recognized for the canonization, concerns the unexplained recovery, around 2017, of a man hospitalized in Argentina (province of Santa Fe) following a stroke deemed irreversible. On February 11, 2024, in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Pope Francis canonized her, making her the first saint born in Argentina. Her liturgical memorial is celebrated on March 7, the anniversary of her death.

The legacy of Mama Antula remains very present in Argentina. The Santa Casa de Ejercicios Espirituales, which she founded in 1795 on Independencia Avenue in Buenos Aires, constitutes a rare colonial architectural testimony and still hosts spiritual retreats; it houses the chapel of the Divine Savior and is managed by the Society of the Daughters of the Divine Savior, a community born from her work. Her relics are venerated, and her figure is associated with the spread of devotion to Saint Cajetan of Thiene, who became the patron of bread and work in Argentine popular piety. Considered by some as a pioneer of female engagement in the local Church, María Antonia de San José is honored as the patroness of the diocese of Santiago del Estero, her native region. Her canonization in 2024, the first for an Argentine saint, in the presence of pilgrims and state representatives, strengthened her role as a national spiritual figure and the memory of her itinerant apostolate in the service of the Ignatian exercises.