Maria Vicenta Rosal

In 1855, Sister Maria of the Incarnation was elected prioress of the Beaterio de Belén. She then undertook a profound reform of the female branch of the Bethlehemite Order, laying the foundations for the Congregation of the Bethlehemite Sisters Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Hermanas Bethlemitas Hijas del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús). She drafted new Constitutions, approved by the bishop, which oriented the community toward an active life dedicated to the education of young girls, the promotion of the dignity of women, and service to the most destitute.

She founded a new convent and schools in her hometown of Quetzaltenango in 1851. However, her work was brutally interrupted by the rise to power of the liberal president Justo Rufino Barrios, who launched a policy of religious persecution and expelled the orders from Guatemala in 1873.

Forced into exile, the Blessed refused to abandon her mission. She first took refuge in Costa Rica (in Cartago and then in Heredia), where she founded the first formal college for women in the country. As the persecution subsequently extended to Costa Rica, she had to flee again and settled in Colombia, in Pasto, where she opened an orphanage and a home for women in distress. Finally, she traveled to Ecuador to establish new houses of education and charity, notably in Tulcán and Otavalo.

It was during one of her trips in Ecuador that she was the victim of a fall from a horse. She died from the complications of this accident on August 24, 1886, in Tulcán, after having given a final testimony of patience and submission to the divine will.

After her death, the body of Madre Encarnación was buried in Tulcán. At the beginning of the 20th century, faced with the risks of desecration linked to political and ideological conflicts in Ecuador, the Bethlemite Sisters decided to clandestinely transfer her remains to their house in Pasto, Colombia. During the exhumation, they discovered with astonishment that her body was perfectly incorrupt. This phenomenon of incorruptibility, scientifically unexplained, sparked great popular fervor, and the body was installed in the chapel of the college in Pasto, where it still rests. The diocesan process for her beatification officially opened on April 5, 1976. On April 6, 1995, Pope John Paul II signed the decree recognizing the heroic nature of her virtues, conferring upon her the title of Venerable.

On December 17, 1996, Pope John Paul II officially approved a miracle attributed to her intercession: the unexplained healing of a sick person that occurred in Colombia in 1975.

The beatification ceremony was celebrated by Pope John Paul II on May 4, 1997, in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican. On this occasion, the Sovereign Pontiff presented her as a model of charity and fidelity to Christ, emphasizing that she is the first Guatemalan woman to be raised to the honors of the altars.

By the apostolic letter Flecto genua, her liturgical feast is set for October 27.

The spirituality of Blessed Maria Vicenta Rosal is deeply Eucharistic and reparatory. It is centered on the mystery of the Incarnation and on the devotion to the "Internal Sorrows of the Sacred Heart of Jesus" (Dolores Internos del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús), a devotion she actively propagated by establishing a monthly act of reparation on the 25th of each month. Her legacy continues today through the Congregation of the Bethlehemite Sisters Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who pursue their mission of evangelization, youth education, and social assistance in many countries across Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.