Mother María Félix Torres, Foundress of the Company of the Savior and the Mater Salvatoris Schools, was born on August 25, 1907, in Albelda (Huesca, Spain).
Her parents, Ramón and Florentina, took care that she received a high-quality education, undertaking high school studies as a resident of the Company of Mary Our Lady School in Lérida, Spain. There, at the age of 14, she experienced the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola for the first time. She felt God’s love and call deeply within, and as we read in her diary, her response could not be clearer or more decisive: “I’m His, totally and consciously His forever.”
Faced with her parents’ opposition to her religious vocation, María began college studies, earning a licentiate in chemistry at the University of Zaragoza in 1930. She knew that the Lord wanted her for His own but didn’t know where or how she could fulfill her vocation. Her desire was to dedicate herself to apostolic work among college students. On August 15, 1934, along with her first companion, Carmen Aige, she made a private vow to dedicate her life to saving souls through service to the Church. Her reason for existence became serving others for the Greater Glory of God and following Jesus Christ in intimate union with Him.
Little by little, more young college students joined her way of life. In Barcelona, in 1944, María and her companions received canonical permission to live as a Religious Community and, in 1952, they were welcomed by the Church as a Religious Congregation of Diocesan Right. In 1986, the Holy See approved the Company of the Savior as a Religious Institute of Pontifical Right.
For 18 years, Mother María Félix Torres served her religious daughters as Superior General of the Congregation. Our Lord assigned her, within His Church, the field of Catholic education of youth, especially college and university students. For this purpose, she opened Mater Salvatoris Schools in Spain and South America that–to this day– carry out the charism that Our Lord gave to her: faithful adhesion to the Pope, tender love for Our Blessed Mother, and a permanent evangelical testimony for young people, so as to lead society to Christ.
Until her death on January 12, 2001, at the General Curia in Madrid, Mother María Félix was, truly “soul and mother” of the Religious Congregation, even though only a few people knew that she was the Foundress because of her simple and discreet life.
Since her death, testimonies from people who remember her extraordinary life have been multiplying. They entrust themselves and their intentions to her in their prayers, and attribute favors to her intercession.
The cause of canonization of the Servant of God was introduced in Madrid in 2008, and sent to Rome to be studied at the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints in 2011.
On November 28, 2016, the process of preparation of the Positio of Mother María Félix (a formal brief in support of canonization) was fully collected, including: a detailed account of her virtues; a summary of witnesses’ statements; the most relevant documents concerning her life, her virtues and her fame of sanctity; a biography based on those same texts; and other documents related to the development of the Cause of Canonization.
On July 10, 2020, Pope Francis authorized the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints to promulgate the heroic virtues of the Servant of God Maria Félix Torres, founder of the Company of the Savior, declaring her Venerable. From this moment on, our Mother the Church confirms that it has seen in her an extraordinary exercise of all Christian virtues. With the study and approval of a miracle obtained through her intercession, Mother Maria Felix may be declared Blessed, and a second miracle will open the path for her canonization.