Ascensión Nicol was born in Tafalla, Navarre (Spain), on 14 March 1868. At baptism she was given the name of Florentina. Her early education was typical of Christian families of the time in that environment. She was the youngest of four children.

When she was 14 she entered Saint Rosa of Lima boarding school in the town of Huesca. This contact with Dominican religious life raised questions within her about her vocation. When she decided to become a religious, at the end of her studies, she preferred to return to her family for a year so as to be sure of her choice. She returned to the school in 1885 ready to begin the novitiate. A year later she made her first vows and started to work as a teacher, a job she did for 28 years. She shared with other Sisters a desire to serve the poorest, even those in the most distant places, news of whom reached them by means of the missionary magazines of the time.

The Kingdom becomes a commitment

The State took away from the community the secondary school and the teacher training college run by the Sisters: both were transferred to the local government authorities. The Sisters thereby quickly lost a large part of their work and apostolate. As they had for some time wanted to work in the missions, they quickly wrote to America and the Philippines to offer their services.

In 1913 the Servant of God Ramón Zubieta came to Huesca from the Apostolic Vicariate of Porto Maldonado in the forests of Peru; he carried with him the letter from the Sisters and he asked for their collaboration. Mother Ascensión, who wished to offer herself to God “ready for any sacrifice”, put forward her name and was accepted. The first missionary expedition took place in November 1913. The group, consisting of 5 Sisters and 3 missionaries, reached Peru on 30th December: they were accompanied by Bishop Zubieta, an expert in difficult missionary travels and expeditions. The religious women settled in the convent of the Dominican Sisters of the Patrocinio in Lima, which became their temporary home while they prepared the journey to the new Apostolic Vicariate.

To evangelise beginning from the poor

Mother Ascensión, with two other religious women on this first missionary expedition, reached the forests. News of this caused astonishment in Lima because no one had ever managed such a long and risky journey: it required crossing mountain ranges of the Andes and then navigating dangerous rivers. On this first journey of 24 days to reach her first mission in Maldonado, she experienced what would become her missionary religious life. Porto Maldonado, which they reached in 1915, was a small village situated between two large rivers, the Madre de Dios and the Tambopata, along which all communication took place.

The Sisters were received with joy and affection: they promoted the position of women and furthered the education of children, something never seen before in the forests. Mother Ascensión was proof that God was present in those immense forests, among the poor. She held of no account the great sacrifices her new life required when compared with the joy her missionary life brought her.

The poor – criterion for choices

She was happy to be on mission, her option for the little ones filled her with abundant joy. A few days after their arrival in Maldonado they opened a school for girls. Not long afterwards, they put up buildings to receive the poorest girls and those from the most remote parts of the forests. The first girls from the Baraya tribe arrived, and they stayed with the Sisters and the boarding school was filled. Now the Sisters were on the spot, they deepened their reflection on the social situation of life in the forests: the clash between the indigenous people and the rubber plantation workers. The Sisters opted for the indigenous people and decided that in their school there was a place for anyone who wanted to come, but they gave preference to the indigenous people.

After a time, those seriously ill started to come looking for help, the Sisters, without the necessary means, opened their own home to welcome them while waiting for other solutions. The Sisters themselves went to visit the sick and tried to give them some preliminary care. According to need they progressively entered new fields of apostolate.

Mother Ascensión always showed great faith and lived in strict observance of the requirements of liturgical and other forms of prayer. She felt that God was on the move. She dialogued with Him in the days spent travelling by boat or on the back of a donkey or in a canoe, all the time discovering the beauty of the mountain ranges of the Andes and encountering the striking beauty of the forests. Above all, she experienced meeting God in the girls who lived in the forests, in the sick she had to care for, and in the women who lived such different lives. The experience of God was so strong that she said: “I cannot explain what the soul feels... Never have I felt so close to God as in my sixteen months in the mountains”.

The Congregation of Dominican Missionaries of the Rosary

Neither Mother Ascensión nor Bishop Zubieta started off with the idea of founding a religious Institute – it was suggested to them by the then Master of the Order of Preachers. The 5th October 1918, the eve of the Virgin of the Rosary, was chosen to mark the beginning of the new Congregation with a ceremony celebrated in the Church of Our Lady of the Patrocinio in Lima. The newly-established Congregation had four houses, one of which was the novitiate. Mother Acensión was named Superior General and gave the rest of her life to the Congregation. She died 24 February 1940.

The solemn opening of her process of canonisation took place in Pamplona (Spain) on 24 September 1962. On 2 April 2003, in the presence of Pope John Paul II, the decree on her heroic virtues was read, and on 20 December 2004 that relating to the required miracle. She is beatified on 15 May 2005, Pentecost Sunday.