Francisco Coll Guitart

Faithful to the Dominican charism, Francesc Coll dedicated about forty years to preaching popular missions throughout the villages and towns of Catalonia, tirelessly traveling the region to revive the faith of the people. According to the biography published by the Holy See, he took part in 1846 in the "Apostolic Fraternity," an evangelization movement linked to Saint Anthony Mary Claret. Appointed director of the Secular Dominican Third Order in 1850, he found there a fertile ground for his major work. Noting the lack of religious instruction for young girls from working-class backgrounds, he founded in 1856 in Vic the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (known as the "Anunciata"), a teaching congregation to which the diocesan authority gave its approval on August 15, 1856. The institute experienced rapid development: at the death of the founder in 1875, it already numbered about three hundred religious sisters spread across some fifty communities. This congregation, dedicated to the human and Christian formation of children and youth, constitutes the principal legacy of Saint Francesc Coll.

The holiness of Francesc Coll was rooted in a life of intense prayer and a passionate love for Christ that he strove to communicate to the crowds. In the canonization homily, Benedict XVI emphasized that Coll "touched the hearts of others because he transmitted to them what he himself lived with passion in the depths of his being: the love of Christ and the gift of self to Him." His apostolate rested on three pillars that the Pope highlighted: the sacrament of reconciliation, devotion to the Eucharist, and constant prayer. Marked by the Dominican spirituality of preaching and by a great Marian devotion, expressed even in the name of his congregation, he sought to lead everyone to discover in Christ "the faithful friend who never abandons us." Toward the end of his life, struck by illness, the loss of sight, and the weakening of his faculties, he lived these trials in faith, surrounded by the religious sisters he had founded. This humble and persevering fidelity nourished his reputation for holiness.

The cause of Francesc Coll reached its conclusion following the recognition of two miracles attributed to his intercession. The first, the 1958 healing of Justa Barrientos, a woman from the province of León, paved the way for his beatification, celebrated in Rome on April 29, 1979, by Pope John Paul II, who presented him as "a transmitter of the faith, a sower of hope, a preacher of charity." A second miracle, recognized in 2008, allowed for his canonization: Benedict XVI inscribed him in the catalogue of saints on October 11, 2009, in Saint Peter's Square, during a ceremony where Damien of Veuster, Jeanne Jugan, Rafael Arnáiz Barón, and Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński were also canonized. His liturgical memorial is celebrated on May 19, a day associated with his birth and baptism. The saint's body is venerated in the chapel of the motherhouse of the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation, in Vic.

The legacy of Saint Francesc Coll continues above all in the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation, which, from its Catalan foundation in 1856, has spread to many countries in Europe and Latin America, remaining faithful to its vocation of education and evangelization of youth, particularly young girls. Numerous educational establishments run by the religious sisters, as well as schools today bearing the name "San Francisco Coll" in Spain and Latin America, perpetuate the spirit of simplicity, joy, and service that characterized the founder. A prominent figure of the 19th-century Catalan Catholic revival, close to the missionary work of Saint Anthony Mary Claret, he is honored as one of the great preachers and educators of his time. His tomb, at the motherhouse in Vic, remains a place of veneration for his spiritual daughters and the faithful.