Description

Oil Dedicated to Venerable Maria Guadalupe Ortiz De Landazuri Fernández de Heredia

Venerable Maria Guadalupe Ortiz de Landázuri Fernández de Heredia. Born in Madrid on 12 December 1916. The fourth of four children (and the only daughter) to Manuel Ortiz de Landázuri. A military officer, and Eulogia Fernández-Heredia. Her three elder siblings were Manuel, Eduardo, and Francisco, who died in childhood.

On 5 March 1951 – at Escrivá’s invitation – she moved to Mexico to spread the message of Opus Dei. While there, Ortiz de Landázuri enrolled in a doctoral program in chemical sciences. She could continue what she had already started in Spain. In its capital she set up a student residence for university womencreating an environment conducive to serious study, healthy diversion, and friendship. She also helped establish the Montefalco School and other social projects aimed at improving opportunities for the local people. For example, together with a doctor friend, she created a mobile medical clinic that allowed them to go from house to house in poorer neighborhoods, providing both free medicine and medical tests.

In 1975, the doctors said it would be best for them to operate again, despite there being some risks. Ortiz de Landázuri left her Madrid home to check into the Clínica Universidad de Navarra where she  operated on 1 July. Though the surgery was successful, she developed a sudden failure in respiration which caused her death on 16 July at 6:30am; her mother died in the same clinic the next week on 23 July. Ortiz de Landázuri’s remains  buried in Pamplona where she had died but later transferred to Madrid on 5 October 2018.