13 July Optional Memorial in Latin America

Juana Fernandez Solar was born on 13th July 1900 at Santiago in Chile, to Christian middle-class parents. Two days after her birth, she was baptized. The example and the teaching of her parents were the foundation of her Christian education. She was confirmed on 22th October 1909 and made her First Communion on 11th September 1910.

On 7th May 1919, to the joy of her parents, she joined the Discalced Carmelite nuns in the city of Los Andes, taking the name of Teresa of Jesus. She was clothed in the habit on the following 14th October and then began her novitiate. But on Good Friday, 2nd April 1920 she caught typhus. On 5th April, she received the last sacraments and on the 6th, she made her religious profession, in articulo mortis. She died on 12th April 1920 after having spent only 11 months in Carmel, as a postulant and a novice. She was canonized by Pope John Paul II on 21st March 1993 and proposed as an example for young people in today’s Church.