She was born Elvira Moragas y Cantarero in Lillo near Toledo, on the 8th January 1881, the third of four children of Ricardo Moragas, a pharmacist, and his wife, Isabel. Like her father she became pharmacist by trade, and one of the first women in Spain to be admitted to this qualification. After her younger brother became qualified pharmacist and took over the pharmacy in 1915, she was able to answer her religious vocation and entered the Carmel of St Anne and St Joseph in Madrid and took the name of Maria Sagrario of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga. Through her spirit of prayer and her love for the Eucharist she was a perfect embodiment of the contemplative and ecclesial ideal of the Teresian Carmel. She was re-elected Prioress of her community and several days after she was martyred on August 15 1936 by Republicans. It was a grace she longed for and accepted in perfection and ardent love for Christ.
May Jesus reign in my heart. The Lord asks me to be humble, to weep over my sins, to love him much, to love my sisters much, to mortify them in nothing, not to mortify myself uselessly, to live recollected in him wanting nothing for myself, completely surrendered to his divine will.
In this vale of tears, suffering will not be lacking and we should be content to have something to offer to our most beloved Jesus who wanted so much to suffer for love of us. The most direct way to unite ourselves to God is that of the cross, so we should always desire it. May the Lord not permit that I be separated from his divine will. Blessed be he who arranges everything for our good! In possesing him, we possess everything. . Fragment of the writing of Blessed Maria Sagrario of St Aloysius Gonzaga, all text after Discalced Carmelite Proper offices.
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