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Saint Miguel Febres Cordero |
 Francisco
Febres Cordero was born into a family that has always been prominent in
Ecuadorian politics. Crippled from birth, he had to overcome family
opposition to realize his vocation to be a lay religious, the first native
of Ecuador to be received into the Institute. Brother Miguel was a gifted
teacher from the start and a diligent student. When he was not quite
twenty years old, he published the first of his many books, a Spanish
grammar that soon became a standard text. In time his research and
publications in the field of literature and linguistics put him in touch
with scholars all over the world and he was granted membership in the
National Academies of Ecuador, Spain, and France. Despite high academic
honors, teaching remained his first priority, especially his classes in
religion and for the young men he prepared for first communion. His
students admired his simplicity, his directness, his concern for them, and
the intensity of his devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Virgin Mary. In
1907 he passed through New York on his way to Belgium where he had been
called to translate texts into Spanish for the use of the Brothers
recently exiled from France. His health, always delicate, did not easily
adjust to the rigors of the European climate. Transferred to the junior
novitiate at Premia del Mar in Spain, during a revolutionary outbreak in
1909 he supervised a dramatic evacuation of his young charges to the
safety of Barcelona across the bay. Shortly after they were able to
return, he contracted pneumonia and he died at Premia, leaving behind a
remarkable reputation as scholar, teacher, and saint.Born at Cuenca, Ecuador 7 November 1854 Entered the novitiate 24 March 1868 Died 9 February 1910 Beatified 30 October 1977 Canonized 21 October 1984 |