Teresa of Jesus Jornet

The work of Teresa Jornet is inseparable from the congregation of the Little Sisters of the Abandoned Elderly (Hermanitas de los Ancianos Desamparados). The project was born from her meeting with the priest Saturnino López Novoa, who dreamed of an institution intended to take in the poor elderly. In 1872, Teresa went to Barbastro (province of Huesca) with a few companions; it was there that the congregation was officially founded, traditionally dated to January 27, 1873, the day Teresa received the religious habit and took the name Teresa of Jesus; according to other sources, the establishment in Barbastro dates back to October 11, 1872. The motherhouse was subsequently established in Valencia. The congregation is dedicated to welcoming the most destitute elderly people, surrounding them with a family environment while providing for their material and spiritual needs. Under Teresa's leadership, the institute experienced rapid expansion: at her death in 1897, it already counted about a hundred houses spread across Spain and America.

The holiness of Teresa de Jesús Jornet is characterized by the alliance of an intense interior life and active charity toward the forsaken. Animated by the Carmelite tradition, she drew from union with God the strength for her charitable work. Her congregation summarized its aim in the formula "cuidar los cuerpos para salvar las almas" ("to care for bodies to save souls"), expressing the idea that the material service of abandoned elderly people was inseparable from a concern for their spiritual salvation. In his canonization homily, Pope Paul VI praised a "humble religious" whose work bore "an admirable fruit without external brilliance," and presented her disciples as a mystical extension of Christ among the elderly. Renowned for her humility, her spirit of poverty, and her devotion, Teresa Jornet was surrounded, from the time of her death, by a reputation for holiness that favored the rapid opening of her cause.

The cause of Teresa de Jesús Jornet led to her beatification by Pope Pius XII on April 27, 1958, in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, following the recognition of miracles attributed to her intercession. Two new miracles, confirmed in 1973, subsequently allowed for her canonization, celebrated by Pope Paul VI on January 27, 1974—a date that coincided with the centenary of the founding of her congregation. During this canonization mass, Paul VI dedicated a homily to the value of her holiness and her vocation in the service of the elderly without support, also evoking the parallel with Saint Jeanne Jugan, founder of the Little Sisters of the Poor. The liturgical feast of Saint Teresa Jornet is set for August 26, the anniversary of her death.

The legacy of Saint Teresa of Jesus Jornet continues through the Little Sisters of the Abandoned Elderly, whose charism remains the care of the most destitute elderly people. At the time of the founder's death, the congregation had about one hundred houses in Spain and America; it has since expanded significantly, now counting more than two hundred establishments spread across some twenty countries in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In recognition of her work, Saint Teresa Jornet was proclaimed patron saint of the elderly in Spain in 1977. Her remains, transferred to Valencia, are venerated there. A figure of charity toward the elderly, she is invoked as a protector of the aged, and her memory remains attached to the care institutions that continue her founding intuition: to surround abandoned elderly people with affection and dignity.