Mariana de Jesús Paredes

17th-century mystic who became Ecuador's first saint and national heroine

Mariana de Jesús Paredes y Flores (1618-1645), known as 'The Lily of Quito', transformed religious devotion into social action during Spanish colonial rule. This ascetic mystic:

• Founded Quito's first school for Indigenous girls
• Nursed smallpox victims during epidemics
• Advocated for mestizo rights

Her dramatic life included claims of miraculous fasting, stigmata, and visionary experiences recorded in canonization documents. During a 1645 earthquake/epidemic crisis, she famously offered her life for Quito's salvation - dying days later as disasters abated.

Canonized in 1950, Mariana's legacy blends colonial piety with proto-feminist resistance. Her 18th-century portrait in New York's Metropolitan Museum shows her wearing a crown of thorns made from Ecuadorian roses. Modern feminists reinterpret her self-mortification as bodily autonomy protest against patriarchal norms.