Ana Petra Pérez Florido

After a short and unsuccessful period with the Mercedarian Sisters of Charity in 1878, Ana Josefa consulted the Bishop of Málaga, Mgr Manuel Gómez Salazar. Encouraged by him, she founded a new religious family with three companions. On Christmas night in 1880, the bishop announced the birth of the Congregation of the Mothers of the Abandoned. On February 2, 1881, she took her vows under the name Petra de San José. The institute received diocesan approval at the end of 1881. Under her leadership, the congregation developed rapidly, opening houses in Málaga, Ronda, Gibraltar, Andújar, Barcelona, Martos, Manresa, and Valencia to welcome orphans, the elderly, and the sick. Established in Barcelona from 1886, she undertook the construction of the Royal Sanctuary of Saint Joseph of the Mountain there. The congregation obtained the decree of praise from Pope Leo XIII in 1891. Exhausted by illness and her labors, Mother Petra passed away in Barcelona on August 16, 1906.

The reputation for holiness of Mother Petra of St. Joseph spread rapidly after her death. The diocesan informative process opened in Barcelona in 1932, and Pope Paul VI declared her Venerable on June 14, 1971. The history of her relics was marked by the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War: in July 1936, the sanctuary in Barcelona was looted and her remains disappeared. It was not until 1952 that a participant in the looting revealed on his deathbed that he had buried the bones in a field near Puçol (Valencia). After searches, the body was exhumed in 1983 and officially authenticated on May 11, 1984, by Cardinal Palazzini, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

The miracle accepted for her beatification occurred on July 31, 1951, in Fuensanta de Martos (Jaén), with the sudden and unexplained healing of Pastora López Moya, who was suffering from a severe postpartum hemorrhage. After the official approval of this miracle by Pope John Paul II in 1993, the beatification ceremony was celebrated on October 16, 1994, in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican. During his homily, the Holy Father described her as a "great woman with a heart of fire."

The spirituality of Blessed Petra of Saint Joseph is based on the merciful love of God lived in imitation of the Holy Family. She wished for her religious sisters to act as true mothers to the abandoned. Her deep devotion to Saint Joseph also gave rise to the tradition of the "quema de cartas" (the burning of letters), where the faithful entrust their prayers to him. Today, the Congregation of the Mothers of the Abandoned and of Saint Joseph of the Mountain continues its charitable and educational work in Spain, Italy, and several Latin American countries.