Joaquim Roselló

The Congregation of Missionaries of the Holy Hearts (founded in Mallorca in 1890 by Venerable F. Joaquim Rosselló (1833–1909) – arrived in the city of Valencia in 1944 thanks to the effective intervention of another Serf of God, the priest D. Eladio Spain, who had met them on the island during the 1936 civil war.

Joaquim was born in Mallorca in 1833, one of the eight children of Gabriel Rosselló and María Ana Ferrá, servants of the noble Gual de Torrella family. Very pious, especially the mother, inculcating devotion and religiosity in the child; Gregorio Trigueros, a Jesuit priest, guided him and influenced him, wanted to become a priest. He studied at the seminary of Mallorca and was ordained a priest in 1858. He entered the Oratorio de San Felipe Neri (1864) and in 1890 he retired to contemplating the hermitage of Sant Honorat, from the mountain of Randa. Soon, the hermitage converted to retirement home for spiritual exercises, forming a small community of priests around Rosselló.

He wished to join some religious order, but the Bishop of Mallorca Jacinto María Cervera i Cervera led him to found a new congregation, and, from the community of Randa, on 17 August 1890 he founded the congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a devotion he had always fostered. The following year he was entrusted with the Sanctuary of Luke, where he installed the seat of the new congregation and where he resided until 1906. As a prior of the shrine, he reformed and modernised it. He then moved to the Monastery of the Real, formerly an abandoned Cistercian abbey. He also founded a house in the church of Sant Cayetano de Palma (Mallorca).

He died in 1909 and was buried in the cemetery of Palma. His body was later transferred to the Church of the Sacred Hearts of Mallorca.

He has initiated the beatification process, which began in 1934. He has been proclaimed a Serf of God.