Narcisa de Jesús

Narcisa de Jesús Martillo Morán (29 October 1832 – 8 December 1869) was an Ecuadorian virgin and Dominican tertiary in the Roman Catholic Church.

Her devotion to prayer and the mortification of the flesh was strong and it led her to the decision to live as a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic in Patrocínio (Peru), where she died on 8 December 1869.

[2] Her mother died in 1838 and she took up much of the domestic chores as a result of this while an elder sister and teacher taught her to read and write as well as to sing and use the guitar; she also learned how to sew and cook.

[2][3] The death of her father in January 1852 prompted her to relocate to Guayaquil, where she lived with prominent nobles, and it was here that she began her mission of helping the poor and the sick and caring for abandoned children.

[3] In June 1868 she relocated to Lima in Peru at the advice of her new Franciscan spiritual director Pedro Gual where she lived with the Dominicans at Patrocinio despite not being a member of the convent.

[2][3] In 1995, her remains were deemed upon exhumation to be incorrupt and were transferred from Peru back to her homeland of Ecuador until 1972, when they came to the village of Nobol (which is also called Narcissa de Jesús).

[5] A second miracle, the miraculous healing of a seven year old child from a congenital defect in 1992, after she had prayed at the shrine of Narcissa de Jesús, received the Congregation's validation on 4 October 2002.

Altar with the relics in the sanctuary of Narcisa de Jesús in Nobol