August 17 + Saint Beatrice of Silva

Beatrice was a noblewoman of Portugal, who became the foundress of the monastic Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady in Spain. She was one of the eleven children of Rui Gomes da Silva, the first governor of Campo Maior, Portugal, after its reconquest from Arab rule, and of Isabel de Menezes, the Countess of Portalegre, an illegitimate daughter of Dom Pedro de Menezes, 1st Count of Vila Real and 2nd Count of Viana do Alentejo, in whose army her father was serving at the time of her birth. One of her brothers was the Blessed Amadeus of Portugal, O.F.M., a noted reformer of the Order of Friars Minor.

Beatrice was raised in the castle of Infante John, Lord of Reguengos de Monsaraz. In 1447 Beatrice accompanied his daughter, Princess Isabel of Portugal, to Castile as her lady-in-waiting when Isabel left to marry King John II of Castile and became Queen of Castile and León. Beatrice was her good and close friend, (and later was to receive her support when she founded the Conceptionists). Soon, however, her great beauty began to arouse the irrational jealousy of the Queen, who had her imprisoned in a tiny cell. During this incarceration, Beatrice experienced an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in which she was instructed to found a new Order in Mary's honor.

Beatrice finally escaped her imprisonment with difficulty and took refuge in the Dominican Second Order monastery of nuns in Toledo. Here she led a life of holiness for thirty-seven years, without becoming a member of that Order. In 1484 Beatrice, with some companions, took possession of a palace in Toledo set apart for them by Queen Isabel for the new community under the name Monastery of Santa Fe, which was to be dedicated to honoring the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

In 1489, by permission of Pope Innocent VIII, the nuns adopted the Cistercian Rule, bound themselves to the daily recitation of the Office of the Immaculate Conception, and were placed under obedience to the ordinary of the archdiocese. The foundress determined on the religious habit, which is white, with a white scapular and blue mantle, with a medallion of Mary under her title of the Immaculate Conception.

On her deathbed, a miraculous event occurred. A luminous light radiated from her face and filled the room, causing a star to remain on her forehead. Beatrice died in the monastery she had founded in 1492. Her remains are still venerated in the chapel of that monastery.