HEROIC PRACTICE OF VIRTUES IN GENERAL Mother Francisca del Espíritu Santo de Fuentes has a unique place in the heart of our Lord. Jesus called her to follow him. She accepted the invitation to live in conformity with His way of life in a community: “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister, and mother.” God willed that she be a living witness to His love and to the people of her time and of today, in the different states of her life: as single, as married and widowed, and as a religious. What we know of her in her childhood is based on what Fr. Francisco Gaínza, OP in his Milicia de Jesucristo wrote: “from early childhood, it had already been known what could have been expected of her on reaching maturity, for even when she was still very young, she had already displayed a precocious modesty, an edifying composure, a sort of prudence superior to young age, a tender devotion to God and a vivid desire not to offend Him Whom she loved even before she got acquainted with earthly vanities.” Fr. Domingo Collantes, OP writes of Francisca: “She spent the early years of her youth in the state of matrimony.” Fr. F. Gaínza writes: “However, as she was not meant for the world, the Lord came to her assistance in order to relieve her of the yoke of matrimony and to impose upon her the burden of the cross. Shortly after her marriage her husband died, and seeing herself without heirs, she conceived the idea of consecrating herself to God. She lived in such a way that her abode did not resemble the dwelling of seculars but the house of the most recollected religious because her seclusion and practice of spiritual exercises of vocal and mental prayers gave it rather the appearance of an oratory, than that of the residence of persons living in the world.” It was then that she dedicated herself entirely to the service of the poor and the sick, especially those in San Juan de Dios...