María Isabel Aranda Sánchez, known in religion as Madre Isabel de San Rafael, was the abbess of the Poor Clares monastery in Martos (Jaén) when she was martyred on the night of January 12 to 13, 1937. She was 48 years old and had been living as a cloistered nun since her adolescence, dedicated to prayer and hidden service. The revolutionary violence of 1936-1937 burst even into the silence of the convents: Sister Isabel was torn from her monastery and became the only nun among the 124 martyrs of Jaén whose beatification has just been approved.
Isabel Aranda had been born in 1889 in Hinojosa del Duque (Córdoba) and, feeling the divine call, entered the Santa Clara monastery in Martos at just 14 years old. There she professed as a Cloistered Nun (O.S.C.), consecrating her life to contemplative prayer. In 1936 she was already the abbess of the community, guiding her sisters amid growing external hostilities. With the outbreak of the Civil War, the nuns were violently expelled from their convent when anticlerical mobs assaulted churches and religious houses in Jaén. Mother Isabel found temporary refuge, but her status as a religious was known. Soon she appeared on the “black lists” of religious elements to be eliminated.
On January 12, 1937, armed militiamen located and captured the abbess. They led her, along with some detained priests, toward the Las Casillas cemetery in Martos. In that solitary place, they prepared her execution. Beforehand, they tried to violate her: according to the documentation, they wanted to commit sexual violence against her, taking advantage of her defenselessness. But Mother Isabel, despite the fear of the moment, opposed them with all her energy, resisting such an outrage with the firm dignity of a bride of Christ. Her brave reaction enraged the aggressors, who beat her savagely with the butt of a rifle, leaving her badly injured. Immediately afterward, they shot her at point-blank range, ending her life in that dark place.
Thus died Sister Isabel de San Rafael, defending her purity and her faith until her last breath. Her remains were recovered after the war and today rest in the Chapel of the Martyrs of the Sanctuary of Santa María de la Villa, in Martos. Her martyrdom is a chilling reminder of how far the anti-Catholic hatred went: not even a contemplative nun, removed from the world, was safe. The beatification of Mother Isabel represents a tribute to all the religious women who suffered persecution, and shows how grace sustained this abbess in the supreme trial. Her figure offers the current world a testimony of chastity, strength, and forgiveness. Indeed, the chronicles relate that, before being shot down, Sister Isabel exclaimed that she offered her life for the conversion of her executioners. The Church now celebrates her memory as that of an authentic virgin and martyr, faithful unto death to her heavenly Spouse.