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Saint Bonifacia Rodríguez y Castro, S.S.J., (6 June 1837 – 8 August 1905) was the co-foundress of the Religious Congregation of the Servants of St. Joseph, who developed the "Nazareth workshop" as both a new format for consecrated life and to help poor and unemployed women.〔(The Church has three new saints )〕 They were an innovative foundation of Religious Sisters in Spain in the 19th century. ==Foundation== Rodríguez was born in Salamanca, Spain, on 6 June 1837, in a small home on Las Mazas Street, near the ancient University to Juan Rodríguez and María Natalia Castro, who were devout and pious people. Her father was a tailor and the family was very poor, frequently having to move because he was unable to pay the rent. From a very young age, Bonifacia helped her father with his craft in his small shop, by sewing some of the work he was able to get, as well as caring for her younger siblings. After completing a basic schooling, Bonifacia began to work as a ropemaker. Later, in 1865, after the marriage of her sister, the only surviving sibling, she was able to set up a small workshop in the family home for making rope, lace and various other items. In this way, Rodríguez lived a quiet life with her now-widowed mother, one in which she was able to grow and deepen her faith, meditating and praying throughout the daily routine. After five years as an independent artisan, in 1870 Bonifacia met a newly arrived priest from Catalonia, Fr. Francesc Xavier Butinyà i Hospital, S.J.. Butinyà was from a family of factory owners, but he had a vision of responding to the needs of the growing working class which had arisen from the Industrial Revolution, one which was far ahead of the Church leaders of the day. He preached that work was a way for all to become more free equal in society, and also to give witness to the teachings of the Gospel. Rodríguez and her mother attended daily Masses at the nearby Jesuit Church of La Clerecía, where Butinyà preached and Bonifacia decided that this priest was the one to guide her in her spiritual searching. Bonifacia opened her workshop as a meeting place for gatherings for working women like herself, both for socializing and for times of reflection on the themes and issues of the day. They invited Father Butinyà to these gatherings, and, under his guidance, they established themselves as the Association of the Immaculate Conception and St. Joseph. Gradually Rodríguez felt herself called to religious life in a convent, and finally decided to enter a local one. Butinyà, however, saw in her the model he envisioned of a woman who could imitate the quiet life of service and prayer which Christ Himself had followed in His home in Nazareth, with Mary, His mother, and Joseph. He therefore proposed to her that she take a radically different path, one in which a community of religious women could respond to the situation of poor, working women, who had such severely limited opportunities in life, a response based on their mutual reality of earning their daily living through industrial work. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bonifacia Rodríguez y Castro」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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