SERVANT OF GOD
MARÍA AMADA DEL NIÑO JESÚS SÁNCHEZ MUÑOZ
FOUNDER OF THE MISSIONARIES
OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS AND SAINT MARY OF GUADALUPE
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Mother Maria Amada was born on September 7th, 1985, in the city Guadalajara in the Jalisco state, in Mexico. She was the first born of five children of the couple Don Catarino Sanchez and Doña Matiana Munoz, whom despite of difficulties and poverty gave to their family a solid human and Christian formation.
When she was 17 years old, Maria entered the Order of the Incarnated Verb and Saint Sacrament, She made her religious profession in January 19th, 1919 at the Guadalajara Monastery, where she devoted herself to live jolly and faithfully her vocation; and thru the prayer she tried to discover God’s loving plan on her live.
Docile to the call of God and animated by faith, she left the Order of the Incarnated Word to found a Congregation that dedicated itself to loving ardently the Heart of Jesus and bringing his Kingdom of love to all men, under the maternal protection of Saint Mary of Guadalupe.
The Mother began this work in Guadalajara in 1926, at a very difficult time for the Mexican Church, due to the bloody persecution suffered by the government, which sought to end faith, Christian values and all manifestations of mercy on God's people.
The Servant of God also started, with her active and effective presence, the Congregation of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and of Santa María de Guadalupe, with the direct collaboration of Reverent Father Teodosio Martínez Ramos, founder and first Superior General of this religious Institute.
The life of Mother Maria Amada was characterized by:
- Tireless zeal for the salvation of men.
- A great sense of charity, especially towards the poorest.
- A special love for priests and for all consecrated persons, for whom she offered her life to the Heart of Jesus.
- A humble, simple life, full of trust in God and obedient, as permanent attitudes with which she collaborated effectively in God's saving plan.
She was called by God to the Celestial Fatherland on February 4, 1967, in the city of Arriaga, Chiapas state, because of a stroke while she was visiting the community of that place.
"How happy I would be if I could remedy the needs of my poor brothers around the world and even more so, if I remedied their spiritual miseries and won them all for You." (From her spiritual journal, January 11, 1962)
The Cause for the Canonization of Mother Maria Amada del Niño Jesús was opened in the Archdiocese of Mexico by Mr. Cardenal Norberto Rivera Carrera on October 12, 2003. The case is currently in the diocesan phase of the investigation into the life, virtues and fame of holiness of the Servant of God.
