St. Teresa of Jesus de Ibara

Teresa Jornet Ibars was born on 9 January 1843 in a small town in Lleida to the farmers Francisco José Jornet and Antonieta Ibars. One sister was María and another was Josefa who became a Vincentian religious in Havana. Her brother Juan married and had three daughters who later joined her congregation. Her great-uncle was Blessed Francisco Palau - the brother of her maternal grandmother. In her childhood she demonstrated a strong concern for the plight of the poor in her area and she often took them to the home of her maternal aunt Rosa so that proper aid could be provided to them. She later moved elsewhere in Lleida to live with another aunt of hers and began teaching soon after in Barcelona in small Argensola at age nineteen when she felt called to the monastic religious life. Ibars applied for admission into the Poor Clares near Burgos in 1868 but the anti-clerical laws at the time prevented her from embracing the religious life and so later became a member of the Secular Carmelites in 1870. The death of her father and a severe illness she contracted later confined her to her home for a prolonged period of time until her spiritual director - the Venerable Saturnino López i Novoa - encouraged her to aid the old of the region who needed proper attention. She met Novoa after Father Pedro Llacera introduced her to him. Ibrars opened the first house in 1872 in order to achieve this dream in Barbastro and her own sister María aided her in this. On 11 October 1872 she and her sister moved to Barbastro with their friend Mercedes Calzada i Senan in tow. Ibars founded her own religious congregation and assumed a new religious name in honor of Saint Teresa of Ávila while she was vested in the habit on 27 January 1873 - the official founding of the new order; she was also appointed as the order's first superior. The motherhouse opened in Valencia on 8 May 1873. She was confirmed as the superior in 1875 and went on to make her perpetual profession on 8 December 1877; in 1887 she was appointed as the superior general for the entire order. On 14 June 1876 the papal decree of praise for the order came from Pope Pius IX while Pope Leo XIII issued formal approval to the order on 24 August 1887. The general chapter for the order opened at Valencia on 23 April 1896 and she was re-elected as superior general despite begging the sisters not to elect her once more. Cholera broke out in 1897 across the nation and she tended to the victims before the exhausted Ibars retired to the order's house at Liria where she remained for the next few months. She met Novoa for the final time on 15 July 1897. Ibars died due to tuberculosis on 26 August 1897 in Liria and her remains were housed in Liria until their transferral on 1 June 1904 to Valencia; on 25 August 1913 the remains were reinterred in the same location. In 2005 there was a total of 2527 religious in a total of 210 houses in countries such as Puerto Rico and Mozambique. Her feast is kept on August 26.