20th century
Feast: July 13
She entered Carmel at eighteen, died of typhus at nineteen, and left behind a diary so joyful that Chile claimed her as their first saint.
Juanita Fernandez Solar — Teresa of Jesus of the Andes was her religious name — grew up in a prosperous Santiago family, rode horses, swam, played sports, and had a social life full of parties and friends. She was pretty, popular, and outgoing. She was also, from an early age, drawn to prayer with an intensity that surprised her family. She read Therese of Lisieux and Elizabeth of the Trinity and felt a pull toward Carmel that she couldn't explain. Her parents resisted — she was young, healthy, with every advantage — but she entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Los Andes on May 7, 1919, at eighteen. Her letters and diary from the convent are striking because they are so happy. She wasn't miserable in the cloister. She wasn't tortured by scruples. She found exactly what she was looking for — a life centered entirely on Christ — and she was grateful for it. Less than a year after entering, she contracted typhus. She declined rapidly and died on April 12, 1920, at nineteen, having been a Carmelite for less than eleven months. Her diary, published posthumously, became enormously popular across Latin America. She was canonized in 1993 — Chile's first saint.