Beatrice finally escaped her imprisonment with difficulty and took refuge in the DominicanSecond Order monastery of nuns in Toledo. Here she led a life of holiness for thirty-seven years, without becoming a member of that order.[3] In 1484 Beatrice, with some companions, took possession of a palace in Toledo set apart for them by Queen Isabella I of Castile for the new community under the name Monastery of the Holy Faith, which was to be dedicated to honoring the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
Beatrice died in the monastery she had founded on 16 August 1492.[5] Her remains are still venerated in the chapel of that monastery.
Legacy
In 1501 Pope Alexander VI united the nuns of the Monastery of the Holy Faith, which Beatrice had founded, with the neighboring Benedictine Monastery of San Pedro de las Duenas, and put them all under the Rule of St. Clare. Through this, the order became connected with the Franciscans. Pope Julius II gave the new order a rule of life of its own in 1511, and in 1516 special constitutions were drawn up for the new order by the Franciscan Cardinal Francisco de Quiñones, who resolved some ongoing tensions between the nuns of Santa Fe and the former Benedictine nuns who had been fused into the order, establishing the community as the Monastery of the Immaculate Conception.[6]
A second monastery was founded in 1507 at Torrigo, from which, in turn, were established seven others. The order soon spread through Portugal, Spain, and their colonies in South America—as early as 1540, as well as in Italy, and France.[a] At its height, there were some 200 monasteries of the order throughout the world.
Veneration
Beatrice de Menezes da Silva was beatified on 28 July 1926 by Pope Pius XI.[7] The cause for her sainthood was opened on 26 February 1950, and she was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1976.[7][8] Her feast day is celebrated by both by the Conceptionist nuns and the Franciscan Order and in Spain on 1 September, but in 2012 was transferred to 17 August for Portugal.[9]
^Congregatio de Cultu Divino et Disciplina Sacramentorum(in Portuguese) - Decree from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (Vatican, 12 October 2010) which states that modern research has proven her birthplace to have been Campo Maior, in Portugal.