Mariana was born on October 31, 1618 and died when she was 27 on May 26, 1645, in the city of Quito. Mariana was the youngest of eight children and when she was born, the Church claimed that her birth was accompanied by very unusual phenomena in Heaven. Ever since Mariana was very young, she showed a strong devotion to God and the Blessed Virgin and was, on several occasions, saved from death. Her parents, Don Girolamo Flores Zenel de Paredes and Dona Mariana Cranobles de Xaramilo, were both aristocrats and orphaned her at a very young age. Mariana then went to live with her older sister and her husband. When Mariana was ten, she made vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. She really wanted to convey the light of Christ to all people, especially the less fortunate and later wanted to enter into a monastery as a Dominican nun. When neither of these desires came true, she became a hermit in her sister’s home, where she closely united herself to God. Mariana received the habit of the Third Order from the Franciscans in Quito. It was also reported that Mariana was so strict in fasting that she would only eat an ounce of bread every eight or ten days and relied only on the Holy Eucharist which she received every morning. Later in her early life, Mariana joined the Order of St.…show more content… During the 1645 earthquake and following harmful epidemics, Mariana offered herself as a victim for the city and died shortly after. It was said that on the day she died that a white lily sprang up from her blood and she was given the name The Lily of Quito. Saint Mariana is the patron saint of Ecuador, Americas, bodily ills, loss of parents, people rejected by religious orders, sick people, and sickness. Mariana’s feast day is May
