Francisca de Paula de Jesus

Although illiterate, having never received formal education due to her status as a woman and a former slave, Nhá Chica possessed deep spiritual wisdom. She did not feel the need to learn to read, but she deeply loved listening to the reading of the Holy Scriptures. Her small house quickly became a place of pilgrimage and comfort for the inhabitants of the region. For more than seventy years, she welcomed the poor and the rich there without distinction, simple people as well as imperial councilors, offering them wise advice, prayers, and attentive listening. In 1862, her half-brother, Theotonio Pereira do Amaral, who had succeeded in business and become a city councilor, passed away, naming her as his sole heir. Now possessing a significant fortune, Nhá Chica chose to keep nothing for herself. She used the entirety of this inheritance, supplemented by donations from the faithful, to intensify her charitable works and to undertake the construction of a chapel dedicated to the Immaculate Conception (Our Lady of the Conception) in Baependi. This construction project occupied her for nearly thirty years. In 1888, she wrote her will, bequeathing all her remaining assets to the local parish to be distributed to the poor.

Nhá Chica passed away peacefully on June 14, 1895, in Baependi. Her body remained exposed for four days in the town's main church to allow the many faithful to pay their final respects, showing no signs of decomposition and, according to testimonies of the time, exhaling a mysterious scent of roses. She was then buried in the chapel she had commissioned to be built. The reputation of Nhá Chica's sanctity continued to grow after her death. In 1954, the care of her chapel and the adjoining charitable works was entrusted to the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Lord, who opened a social assistance institute for underprivileged children there (the Nhá Chica Institute). The cause for beatification was officially opened on January 17, 1992, with the obtaining of the nihil obstat decree from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The diocesan inquiry took place from 1993 to 1995. On January 14, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI signed the decree recognizing the heroic nature of her virtues, thereby declaring her Venerable.

The miracle accepted for her beatification concerns the scientifically inexplicable healing, which occurred in 1995, of a Brazilian teacher suffering from a severe congenital heart defect. After praying to Nhá Chica, this person was completely and permanently healed.

The decree recognizing this miracle was signed by Pope Benedict XVI on June 28, 2012.

The beatification ceremony was celebrated on May 4, 2013, in Baependi, under the pontificate of Pope Francis. The solemn mass was presided over by Cardinal Angelo Amato, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. On this occasion, Nhá Chica was proclaimed Blessed, thus becoming the first lay Black woman in Brazil to receive this honor from the Catholic Church.

Nhá Chica's spirituality is characterized by deep humility, absolute trust in Divine Providence, and an extraordinary filial devotion to the Virgin Mary, whom she affectionately called "Minha Senhora" (My Lady) or "Minha Sinhá". She summarized her life of prayer with this famous phrase: "I pray and the Virgin listens to me, she answers me" ("Io prego e la Madonna mi ascolta, mi risponde").

Today, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Conception in Baependi, where her body rests in a granite sarcophagus, is a major pilgrimage center in Brazil. The Blessed's charitable legacy continues through the Nhá Chica Institute, which continues to welcome and support many children in need, bearing witness to the tireless charity of the one who was called the "mother of the poor".