St. Mary of Jesus Crucified - August 25 - Carmelite Saints

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Apostoli_Viae

Aug 24, 2026

St. Mary of Jesus Crucified - August 25

As we anticipate the feast of the Transverberation of St. Teresa of Jesus, considering the life of St. Mary of Jesus Crucified may our hearts be open to consider the possibility of allowing Him full access to our hearts. He is the Lord Who loves us! Despite many sufferings, the Lord worked in her life in many ways. Interestingly, she died on the feast of the Transverberation, and the Carmelites put her feast on the 25th. She teaches us the value of staying true to one’s inner dedication to the Lord despite reversals and circumstances that seem impossible to surmount. The fruits of prophecy, charity to the poor and supernatural wisdom shine alongside the miracles that confirm her status as a Saint.

About her life

Born Mariam Baouardy in 1846 in Galilee, to parents who had made a pilgrimage from there on foot to Jerusalem to pray for a child, she was orphaned and sent to live with an uncle in Alexandria, Egypt. At age 13, after experiencing an inner call to dedicate herself to the Lord the night before she was to be married in an arranged marriage her uncle had contracted, she then refused to be married. She suffered through his anger and another person’s attack that left her voice damaged for the rest of her life. She recovered and worked as a domestic, which was her only option as she had no schooling and could not read and write.

This work took her to Jerusalem, and she made a private vow of perpetual virginity at the Church of Holy Sepulchre. Later, intending to seek work in Acre, she was sidetracked to Beirut because of bad weather affecting her passage by sea. There, she suffered a 40-day blindness and a fall that took a month to heal.

Through the kindness of a patron, she was sent to France, where she worked as a domestic. There she entered the convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition, where she received the the stigmata in 1865. When it was time to vote on her acceptance into this cloistered community, the sisters rejected her. However, the exiting Mother Superior who was leaving the community to found a new community of Discalced Carmelite Sisters at Pau, France recommended that Mariam join her in that new community. In this way, by 1867, she was accepted as a novice, given the name Sr. Mary of Jesus Crucified, and helped to understand that the stigmata and sufferings every Friday were not a sickness as she thought, but a grace. From there, she was sent to Mangalore, India to help in a foundation. Next, she returned to Pau to make final vows in 1871. By 1875, she was sent to Bethlehem to help found a Carmel there where she stayed until she died in August 1878, at only 32 years of age, after a broken arm turned gangrenous after a fall she had while taking water to the workers at the convent.

Her canonization process began in 1919. She was declared a Blessed by Pope St. John Paul 2 in 1983. Her canonization occurred in May of 2015, by Pope Francis. She is a Greek Catholic and has the nickname “The Little Arab.”

Interior - altar of the church beside the convent in Bethlehem where she is buried.

Contributions to Carmelite Spirituality

She taught long-suffering in her life before she entered the Carmelite order alongside a deep humility as she preferred not to be honored for her hard work even before she entered the order, which was echoed in her work habits after entering the order. She was enlightened about the location of Emmaus on a trip to Nazareth to found a Carmel there, and that site was purchased for a Carmel by a beneficiary.

Although illiterate, she composed poetry and prayers in her prayer ecstasies. These remain as as a testament to the heights of the interior life of one who truly loves the Lord in such a manner that the soul seeks only to rise up to Him, offering Him praise.

She is known as a Patron of Peace, so needed in the Holy Land.

Please offer this little prayer for the Holy Land, your own interior life and leaving behind of self to pursue Our Lord, honoring Him in your life.

Holy Spirit, inspire me.

Love of God, consume me,

To the true path lead me.

Mary my Mother, look down upon me,

With Jesus, bless me,

From all evil, from all illusion,

From all danger, preserve me.

Exterior view of Church and Convent in Bethlehem.

Images courtesy of an Apostle from the 2022 Avila Pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

To get an idea of her worldwide effect, which needs to grow, consider that an Italian priest, Francesco Zampini, wrote a book about her and then an Australian lady who volunteered a year with the Carmelite convent in Haifa (Christina Leontini) has translated it. She is a much-needed bridge between Heaven and Earth as well as between the Western and Eastern Churches. May she intercede for peace in the war-torn area where her Bethlehem convent is!

Speaking of war-torn, it is to her convent that St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) wished to go to when it was decided that it was much too dangerous for her to remain in Germany. Permissions for this fell through, and the Carmel at Echt, Holland was the back-up plan. A lovely connection between these saints!

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