Blessed Mary of Jesus Crucified (1846-1878),
Feast Day: August 25th

Blessed Mary of Jesus Crucified was born of the Baouardy family, Catholics of the Greek Melchite Rite, at Abellin in Galilee on 5 January 1846. The poor Lebanese family was headed by Giries (George) Baouardy and Mariam Chahyn. Her parents died when she was very young.

When she was 3, an uncle in Alexandria, Egypt, took in the orphaned Miriam and her brother Boulos (Paul). At age 13, she refused an arranged marriage in order to consecrate her viginity to God and her entered domestic service. She had never learned to read and write.

While working for families in Alexandria, Jerusalem, Beiruit, then Marseilles, she discerned her vocation. In 1865, she entered the Sisters of Compassion but was forced to eave because of ill health. For the next 2 years (may 1865 to June 1867) she was a postulant of the Institute of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition until she was judged unsuited for the cloister because of unusual manifestations of her spiritual life, which included levitations, ecstasies, and stigmatizations (1867-76).

Together with her former novice mistress, Miriam joined the Discalced Carmelites at Pau, France (14 June 1867). In 1870, she was sent with a group of founding sisters to Mangalore, India, where she made her profession (21 November 1870). Her spiritual director, Apostolic Vicar Ephrem M. Garrelon, believed her mystical experiences were a sign of demonic obsession, obliged her to return to France in 1872.

In August 1875 she went to the Holy Land where she built a monastery in Bethlehem and began planning for another in Nazareth. Noted for her supernatural gifts, especially for humility, for her devotion to the Holy Spirit, and her great love for the Church and the Pope, she died at Bethlehem on 26 August 1878. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 13 November 1983 in Rome, and proclaimed the patroness of prisoners.